Long, Long, Time Ago

Long, long time ago; quite a long time ago; Many, many years ago; So long ago that most folks forgit; but seriously this is a long, long time ago; Some time past; Not much, Not a little; What am I a CLOCK?

To begin at the beginning, once upon a time, thousands and thousands of years ago, about 27 centuries ago actually, but who's keeping track? It's a story.

It was suggested that I tell about how I became a pharmacist. So here's my version. ( one of my early childhood memories I can remember very well or I think I do.)

When I was 10 years old, my mother, God rest her soul, decided I needed a job and so she took me downtown to the corner drugstore and told Dr. Davis, " This boy needs a job." I remember I was small for my age, had a crew cut (as I did most of my early years and on through college), wore short pants, and was barefoot. Well, for whatever reason Dr. Davis gave me a job. This drugstore was on a corner where the bus stopped and had quite a bustling SODA FOUNTAIN business, selling sandwiches, ice-cream, sundaes, fountain drinks, shakes and lots of good stuff. There were about 8-10 tables which were well used not just for fountain services but for other uses such as people waiting for the bus, mothers nursing their babies or just hanging out.

The store's main business was not the Soda Fountain. It was a full fledged drugstore complete with a compounding pharmacy and selling all kinds of OTC medicines from aspirin, MOM(milk of magnesia),castor oil, IQ&S( (Iron,Quinine and Strychnine), Paregoric, APC capsules (aspirin, phenacetin and caffiene), Dasin cold capsules, CRC Capsules and hundred of other items. At that timethe druggist was seen most often as DOC. Many would get their ailments treated by him. You had to be really sick to go to a real doctor. All of the prescription work was done in the back room completely out of view. The bulky products (toilet paper )and personal items were kept upstairs and could only be accessed by the rope elevator. The elevator was propelled by a big rope that was connected to a large wheel and pulley system in the ceiling of the second story. It was slow and quiet. The restroom (employee's only) was also located on the second floor. Remember also there was no air conditioning and only a few ceiling fans scattered around. The main fan was at the front entrance and its main function was keeping the flies out during the times the door was open which was most of the time, except a few winter months. This was South Carolina.

My job description was multi-functional. I was trip boy, which meant I delivered packages, went to the drug wholesale, neighboring pharmacies (to borrow a drug or something) and other trips like to post office. One of the main jobs was table-hop. I would take orders from the table and hollar them back to the fountain; example being "Shoot 2, choc. shake and toast a ham". This was 2 fountain cokes, chocolate milk-shake and a ham salad sandwich toasted. Of course I would go to the side of the fountain and be handed the order because I was too small to see over the counter. One very important job I had was to clean out the wet-box every Saturday. The wet-box was the drink box that kept all the bottled drinks cold. It was filled with water and the refrigerator unit kept the water cold which in turn kept the drinks cold. If the water was not drained often it would get a little slimy. Of course it goes without saying that I took out the trash, swept the floor and cleaned up the spills.

As years went by and I grew older and taller I got to be a sweet-water chemist, which sounded better than a soda-JERK. It was really fun and I enjoyed making cherry cokes, vanilla cokes and ammonia cokes for headache sufferers. I could even help myself to the fountain goodies and I think my favorite was the shake I made ME using just the cream on top of the milk bottle. You see milk was not yet homogenized and ordinarily you had to shake it up first. One of the clean-up items evey night was to wash all the glasses with lava soap. During the day when they were used you just had to press them down on a water-sprayer and put them back in line for another customer. It was a number of years before the health department decided to make a law to have a 3 solution process after each use. There were 3 sinks: one with a cleaner, one with a disinfectant and lastly a rinse. Each of the 3 sinks had tall brushes in them that was used to scrub the inside and outside of the glasses. Never had any complaints.

On Saturday Shorty would come in to get his change exchanged for bills. He was a little old man who sold pencils outside of the bank next door. He was really quite short and probably 40-50 years old and lived with a big red head named Ruth. He was really a beggar but just try to take one of his pencils and he would say "How the hell do you expect me to make a living?" He always wore an overcoat and hat. I remember one time Shorty came in looking pretty banged up and I ask him what happened. He said Ruth beat him up. I said for what. Shorty said " I hit her with my cane". You see Ringling Brother don't hav'um all under the bigtop.

I worked after school and weekends at the drugstore and when I was in high school I worked for the Clemson College Experimental Station for a few summers. I first worked in cotton dusting with a front loaded chest pack, hand cranked pump, wearing a gas mask at 4-5 AM while the dew was still on the cotton plants. The purpose was to apply these toxic chemicals in hope to prevent bowl weevil infestation. When the cotton plants were mature and had squares (precusors to the bowl), we would go into the fields, open the squares and count the number of bowl weevils we found. The second summer I did this I was in a head-on collision on a one lane country road and it was bad. an employee/friend and I had been lying on a seat board propped up on the tailgate of the truck. We were having a cotton bowl war with the truck behind us. Our truck made a sudden stop and we were catapulted into the back of the cab of our truck. Our driver was severely cut by the windshield glass. We and the other truck passengers were screaming and crying(including children) and all were taken to an emergency room to be checked and treated.

One summer I tried to work in the corn. We would go into corn fields and put tassel bags ( paper bags over the tassels) on each stalk of corn. These corn fields had corn 10-15 feet high and as close together as blades of grass. We would pull the stalks over, slip the bag over the tassel and paperclip the folded down sides of the bag. We would also put shoot bags over the ears of corn. Later when the tassels had matured we would shake the pollen into the bags and it would be used to cross pollinate other corn removing their shoot bag and applying the pollen. After a few summers of this I went back to the drugstore. Between the sun and my allergies I had enough.

The drugstore I went back to was in the suburbs. They needed someone to do it all so I applied for the job. I even made the ham salad, chicken salad, piminto cheese etc. AND believe it or not I would take home film to develop in my darkroom and bring it back the next day.
Some of the funniest and most positive men I ever knew were the pharmacist or as they used to be called the druggist. Among my favorites were Doc Harris, Craig, Klinkscale, Crider and Ferrell. Each were different but they all had the same spark that ignited them, PHARMACY.

I never considered anything much during high school but to go to the Univeristy of South Carolina to Pharmacy School..For a while when I was younger I thought I might be a Baptist Minister and I could probably have gotten a music scholarship. My mom wanted me to go to Clemson, an all male military school but they didn't have a pharmacy school. Well after 6 years of USC I had to go to work to support a family. I graduated in May and Margaret gave birth to Sharyn in July.