A Short Story: The Drug Store
In the spring of my junior year, I took a part-time job at a family-run drug store in my little town. The drug store had been at the center of our town forever. I fondly remember the many times when my Mom and I would walk over and have lunch. We would sit at the lunch counter and could get a hotdog, French fries, and a fountain drink for a quarter. I loved the cherry coke from the fountain. The cherry syrup was put in the glass first and then it was filled with coke. It was pure heaven. It also was the place where I bought all my Superman comic books. Mr. Ramsey, the owner, always sponsored youth athletic teams and supported educational events at the local schools. He knew everyone in the community and everyone knew him. Mr. Ramsey would say that is the way it is supposed to be.
Mr. Ramsey pulled my Dad aside one day in early April and suggested to him that it would be good for me to work there even if it was just for a few hours a week for a few weeks. He knew that I was busy with academics and athletics but he convinced my Dad that I should have this experience before I go to college in a year or so. The job was to deliver prescriptions to the elderly and shut-ins who could not get to the drug store. All I had to do was to drive the drug store delivery car and drop off prescriptions. I figured this would be easy and it was only a couple of days a week for a few hours each day. I could earn some extra spending money to pay for gas in my old, beat-up Plymouth Barracuda that I called Herbie and that Dad had just bought for me for about fifty dollars. My Dad really didn’t have to convince me to take the job.
The first evening that I worked I got in the delivery car with five prescriptions. I turned on the radio to my favorite station. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” was playing. I didn’t get back to the store until after 9:00pm. It had taken me three hours to make five deliveries and the store was closed. As I pulled the car into the lot in the rear of the store, I knew I was in trouble. I turned the car off, just as “Momma Told Me Not to Come” by Three Dog Night came on the radio. Mr. Ramsey met me at the back door and asked where I had been.
I immediately pleaded my case, “Mr. Ramsey, I can’t say no to these women. They’re just like my grandmothers. They ask me to come in. The next thing I know I’m eating cookies and drinking lemonade, sweet tea, or a soft drink. And all they want to do is talk. And they all have dogs or cats, so I have to hold them, pet them, and feed them part of my cookies as well. I just can’t get away from them. I am so sorry it took me so long.”
Mr. Ramsey stared at me, but then broke into a smile and laughed out loud.
“It’s OK that you’re late. The real service you are providing is actually taking time to be with these people. Yes, they need their prescriptions but they need to talk to someone, to have someone listen to them, to feel a part of the community once again, and to feel like they are needed. You will understand this later on in life, but it is important. So eat all the cookies you want to and pet all the dogs you want to.”
“Well, OK, I guess that I can do that Mr. Ramsey. But, are you sure?”
“Yes, I am very sure.”
I immediately began to realize that work is sometimes more than just “work.” The next time I came into work, I had to put a TV up on the shelf so the customers could watch while they were waiting for their prescriptions. It took me awhile to get the rabbit ears in place, so the signal could be picked up. I wasn’t sure that customers would like this. As I turned it on, the news was covering the huge anti-war marches in Washington DC and San Francisco.
“Mr. Ramsey, don’t you think this may upset some of the customers?”
Mr. Ramsey thought a minute and then replied, “It may, but it is important for people to know what is going on whether they agree or not. You need to stay informed. Learn all sides of any issue and remember that nothing is black and white in this world. Nothing.”
“But, is this the job of a drug store?”
Mr. Ramsey thought again for a minute and replied, “This is much more than a drug store. It serves the community in many different ways. I educate people on how to take their medicines and their possible side effects. I educate them about across the counter medications and anything else they buy here. I give them safety tips for their home. I support the National Honor Society at the high school and other education activities at the school. So, why shouldn’t this be a place where people can at least be exposed to important issues facing our community and the nation?”
I certainly couldn’t argue against that. On my way home that evening, I thought about what Mr. Ramsey had said. I could only think of one teacher in the high school that even talked about the Vietnam War. It was a topic that no one really addressed in public, not even my friends. It was as if it wasn’t happening, despite the fact that the evening news was bringing it into our homes each night, that one young man from the community had already been killed and buried, and that in February three years ago Walter Cronkite had said on his news show that the US couldn’t win the war. I had tried to learn as much as possible about Vietnam because of my Uncle Tom, but my Dad was the only person that ever really talked to me about the war.
The next evening that I worked it was raining heavily. After making three deliveries, I hit a wet spot on the road going up Tackett Hill and slid over the side into a ditch. I walked about 30 feet to the nearest house and Mrs. Watts, who lived there and had seen the delivery car slide into the ditch, had already called a tow truck for me and had let Mr. Ramsey know what was going on. I had chocolate chip cookies and sweet tea with Mrs. Watts. I petted her beagle named Snoopy and gave him a small piece of one of my cookies. Her grandson, one of my friends, stopped by and then drove me back to the drug store. When I got back, I apologized for sliding over the hillside into the ditch. Mr. Ramsey was relieved that I was OK. I then noted that the tow truck was probably expensive. I asked Mr. Ramsey why he didn’t charge a delivery fee to cover the cost of tow trucks, car maintenance, and gasoline for the deliveries. Mr. Ramsey looked right at me in the way an older person always does when he wants a young person to pay strict attention. I knew that I was going to get a sermon.
“My grandfather started this drug store at the turn of the century. My father then ran it and now I am. It has survived a major flood, two world wars, and a great depression with the help of this community. We have always, always been supported by the people here. The least I can do is provide a free service to the older people who spent their lives making this town a great place to live. It’s important to give back to your community. You remember that when you go off to college. You hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
Mr. Ramsey sent me on home and he told me that he would drop off the remaining prescriptions. As I turned Herbie’s radio on it was playing “Wild World” by Cat Stevens. I only worked 4 weeks and actually just a handful of hours at the drug store that April and May but the lessons that I learned stayed with me long after I was gone.
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