Tina Sitz & David Cassidy

This is a rewritten excerpt from a old post called "The Special Folks" about my time working with developmentally disabled adults at the Monroe County ARC at a group home for eight such people.

Tina was a four-foot-nine inch fireball with Downs Syndrome. The first thing that Tina will tell you when you meet her is that it’s “tie-nah, not tee-nah”. A pronunciation I beleive she herself invented at some point to correspond to her size.

Tina was in her thirties or close to it when I worked with her. She had a heart condition. Her lips and finger tips were often bluish. She was a diabetic who pricked her own finger and gave herself her own injections three times a day. I found it hard to watch because between the scar tissue from previous injections and IVs and the swollen hard flesh from her heart condition, the needle actually bent a little before it piercing her skin.

Amid all her physical frailties she had a spirit that, if seen in physical form would have been somewhere between a flowing heavenly angel and a pro wrestler. She always had a joke or was as ready to laugh at one. I sort of thought of her as a Huck Finn the way she sauntered, her boyish red haired looks and the way her swollen tongue made her speech sound as if she were about to spit tobacco juice out of the side of her mouth.

Tina (remember, it’s “tie-nah”) was obsessed with the Partridge Family the way a eleven-year-old girl might be. More to the point, she was obsessed with David Cassidy.

Tina had stopped developing mentally and emotionally at around eleven and as a girl that age in the early seventies she, and all her peer,s were nearly wetting themselves over David Cassidy. Tina simply never grew out of it.

There is a Partridge Family album, in fact the first record I ever owned, where the birthday of everyone in the family is printed on the album cover next to their picture. David Cassidy’s birthday, April 12^th was the same as Tina’s. This proved to Tina that her destiny with David was set in the stars.

Susan Dey who played Laurie Partridge on the TV show and played keyboards in the band was at the time, playing a role on the series “LA Law.” This only further convinced Tina that her place was by David’s side as there was clearly an opening in the band.

Tina was not about to passively wish for these things, she was going to be ready. She rehearsed every night after dinner in the dining room, where the stereo was located. She strapped on her guitar put on her headphones and belted out the most gawd awful caterwauling you can imagine, singing along with her many PF albums. Her practices were limited to a half an hour; a compromise with her housemates who retreated to the far end of the house and wanted her to stop altogether.

Tina’s guitar playing was nearly as bad as her singing. Not knowing at all how to play she simply strummed the open strings with the vigor of Pete Townsend. I tuned her guitar to a nice open E chord so at least the dissonance would be limited to her voice.

She believed her fantasy with such conviction she was able pull one over on her own doctor. She once came home from an appointment with a prescription for ear drops. When asked what this was for she gave a suspiciously brief and cryptic answer and went off to watch TV. We called her doctor ourselves to get the story.

“The ear drops are for her trip,” the doctor said, “so her ears don’t bother her on the flight.”

“Flight?”

“To Los Angeles… She’s moving there… right?”

We were instructed to intervene in Tina’s fantasy, to interject reality and help her understand the difference between what’s real and what’s not.

I essentially ignored this care plan. I never had the heart. I couldn’t see the harm. She was at the end of her life expectancy for a person with Down’s syndrome. It made her consistently and profoundly happy. Who was I to tell her she would never meet David Cassidy.

I only lasted a year at ARC. Six months full time and six months part time. They say it takes a special person to work with special people. That’s true, and it ain’t me.

I became another staffer in their live’s who came and went. The most consistent thing for them was each other and even that changed from time to time.

A few months after my last shift at St. Paul I happened to be at my brother’s apartment. His roommate had a news paper lying around. I happened to glance down at a small sidebar article.

It was a picture of Tina, standing next to David Cassidy. She was smiling so wide she must have been sore for a week.

David had recorded a new album and was touring  to support his comeback. One of the managers at St. Paul was also a jock at the local pop station and a photo-op was born.

Tina died of heart failure only a few months after her meeting with David Cassidy. He life's ambition accomplished her heart was ready for a rest. I’m glad I had the chance to know her and to learn that 'reality' doesn’t stand a chance against a dream.

As I repost this story, David Cassidy himself has passed on (It seems I may have jumped the gun on full confirmation of this but I'll update either way accordingly). An impossibility it seems for some reason, but perhaps Tina, a veteran in the hereafter can look out for her newby teen idol. I'd like to think they'll jam.

The full original post including the other members of the house is here: http://joeltjohnson.blogspot.com/2010/06/special-folks.html