once gave a dose of neighborliness
By STEPHANIE EARLS
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
Bill Barton isn't the first retired pharmacist to shake his headand accuse the world of changing too much, too fast. He certainlywon't be the last. Over the rim of his mocha, he sights a flock ofskateboarders at the edge of the grassy quad in front of Starbuckson Summitview.
"I wonder who his beautician is?" Barton mutters with a quietchuckle, tipping his head toward a teen with a fuchsia buzz cut.It's a comment that would have spurred Barton's Wednesday lunchbuddies, gents whose coifs have changed only in density and huesince they were young men in white smocks standing behind drugstorecounters, to nod and tsk-tsk.
Fuchsia hair, tattoos, $2 coffee and corporate-owned chainpharmacies - all the same, grumbles the 73-year-old Barton. Allsigns that the times have changed, sweeping away the cornerdrugstore era, with its warm, Norman Rockwellian sentiments and mom-and-pop establishments, leaving nostalgia, odd-shaped flasks andclunky iron-armed machines that no one remembers how to operate.
His lunch pals, who huddle in Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital'scafeteria each Wednesday to swap stories, gather gossip and dispenseadvice, would agree.
"I think the public has lost something that will never comeback," continues Barton, who in 1990 sold his stores, Barton'sCenter Pharmacy and Fortieth Avenue Pharmacy, to two longtimeemployees. In his time, he's seen more than a dozen independentlyowned drugstores in Yakima fold up and leave the table. Sad, hesays.
Sitting outside the coffee shop in his windbreaker and pleasantpastels, Barton looks like he might have just stepped off the golfcourse - casual and genial and soft at the edges. But this former-druggist's opinions are sharp enough to split a golf ball.
"It's an era gone by," says Barton, pointing out thatprescriptions are now available by mail and over the Internet."There are no happy pharmacists today - ask them. If you're filling300 prescriptions a day, with no bathroom break, you're not toointerested in Mrs. Smith's child who is flunking out of college. "That's just the way it is." "Corner drugstore" - the phraseconjures up Mayberry-flavored images of soda jerks and Erlenmeyerflasks, of a grainy-filmed, apple-pie Americana where neighbors knowwho you voted for and why you weren't at church last Sunday.
When he opened up Woolf's Drug Inc. in 1963, Lyle Woolf couldcount upwards of 25 independent drugstores in town. Today, there arefewer than 10, says Woolf, whose large store on Summitview offerssundries as well as drugs. "And if it wasn't for loyalty, we wouldhave no business," he admits.
Rising medication costs, and managed care and other third-partyreimbursements, have lit financial fires under even the big pharmacychains, who have leaned heavily on sales of non-drug merchandise tokeep them in the black. Often, this pressure has proved too much forsweet, small, drugs-only apothecaries - in Yakima and across thenation.
"(Corner drugstores) were a part of many neighborhoods in thepast, now that's not the case," says 55-year-old Bruce Wherry, whobought Barton's Center Pharmacy at 11th and Spruce nine years agofrom his boss, Bill Barton, after working there for nearly a decade."The few that are left have been the same for the past 30 years. I'mserving second-generation families." Little seems to have changedlately at Wherry's shop.
The shelves aren't a run-on sentence of products stretching fromaisle to aisle; there's a deliberateness, a human touch, in thearrangement of the stock - packages one and two deep on shelves,with breathing space between. You might find an orange tabby namedO.J. (after the juice, insists Wherry) napping in a slice ofsunlight at the front of the small store. The condoms are discreetlykept behind the counter.
In a word, corner drugstores are "homey," says semi-retiredYakima pharmacist Bill Sable, who owned the now-closed HillcrestPharmacy during the mid-1950s. "Now it's just "Here's your pills,goodbye.'" Like many of his fellow independent pharmacists, BobTekel displays a show globe on a prominent shelf in his FortiethAvenue Pharmacy. The ornate, hour-glass-shaped beakers, filled withcolored liquid, were in bygone days the symbol for an apothecary,much as a rotating candy-cane-striped pole marked the barbershop,Tekel says.
Other than having moved the globes to nostalgia displays, cornerpharmacies - the attitudes, at least - have changed little sincethose times, Tekel says.
"The one major change is that they've closed," says the 53-year-old pharmacist. The ones that have survived have had to adapt,joining buying groups to lower costs and, in some cases, eliminatingsome of their signature services, like free delivery, handshakecharge accounts and round-the-clock emergency service, he says.Tekel hasn't had to cut services yet. "Sure, sometimes you gettaken advantage of, but that's life," he says. "I'd rather betrusted and take care of people than be judged as a curmudgeon,(saying) "Give me your money or your life's in jeopardy.'" JanicePicatti of Yakima has been a loyal customer of the 40th Avenue storefor years. She recalls when Barton still ran things. "When ourdaughters were growing up and were small, there were a few occasionswhen we needed medicine on Sundays and no one was open at thattime," says Picatti. "(Barton) went down and got it for us." Forthe 10th consecutive year, the nation's pharmacists were at the topof a Gallup poll rating 26 professionals' honesty and integrity.Which means all pharmacists - corporate or independent - must bedoing something right.
While big chains like Rite Aid espouse neighborhood drugstore-style customer service, the regional Longs Drugs strives to retainpersonnel so customers are greeted by "familiar faces" and sincerehellos, says Clay Selland, vice president and treasurer of theWalnut Creek, Calif.-based chain. "So it's not exactly Joe andBetty running the corner pharmacy," admits Selland. "But it's asclose as you can get and run a successful business." Used to be,you became a pharmacist, dreamt of someday owning your own store andthen, of passing it down to your son. "Now," Barton says, "the dreamis to go to work for a chain, with a 401(k)." Neither of BobTeckel's children entered the pharmacy business ("Why would they?"he asks). When he's ready to retire, he figures his only option willbe to sell off his inventory, then his files, then his merchandise... "and just get out," he says, adding, "unless there are some realdrastic changes." Lyle Woolf occasionally checks the horizon for anheir-apparent, but right now he isn't grooming anyone. Graduatingpharmacists, he's found, are attracted to larger establishmentsbecause of the kinder work-weeks and the generous salaries theyoffer.
"That's the thing - you have to work too hard," Woolf says. "Iworked about 80 hours a week the first three years." Pharmacist LeeNeal's prognosis for the future of corner drugstores isn't as dismalas many of his fellows.
"Pharmacy has changed, so you have to be willing to change. It'spainful sometimes, but you've got to do it to survive," says Neal,who owns the Medicine Mart at 39th and Summitview avenues. He sighs:"The one thing that's constant is change." Neal sees compounding -the individual tailoring of drugs and natural hormones (somethinglarger pharmacies shun because of mess and liability issues, hesays) - as the niche small operations should target. "We do all thethings everyone else won't do." And yes, change may be inevitable;it's a pharmacist's mantra. But Neal says he'll take his in measureddoses, thank you. He thinks his store, and independent pharmacies ingeneral, will survive. Who will Neal pass the baton to, though?Perhaps a fuchsia-haired pharmacist? You'll just have to wait andsee.
Bob Haffey has just joined Barton and his eight-man Wednesdayround-table of former pharmacists in Memorial's cafeteria - where,incidentally, a cup of coffee is still 20 cents. Haffey is chattyand spunky and rosy-cheeked, a cheerleader in tweed.
"Tell her about the bag balm," Haffey urges, tilting his headtoward a visiting reporter.
Bill Sable barks a short, perfect ha. "You're full of it,Haffey," he says. A few in the gathering nod in agreement.
Haffey, a mobile-home salesman who for 20 years dealtpharmaceutical supplies in the Valley, explains excitedly how bagbalm, a heavy cream ointment once used on the udders of milkingcows, is a true panacea.
"It's indicative of what these guys did for people. Folks wouldcome into the old corner drug with ailments from A to Z," saysHaffey, the pitch man. They'd spend a few cents and come out cured,he says. Chet Meyer, who used to own Dunbar Jewelers, shakes hishead and offers a sad "that's our Haff" smile.
"It's just petroleum and turpentine," mutters Barton. But this isan old game, and easy enough to shake. "You ask (Haffey) what timeit is and he tells you how to build a watch," says Barton, andHaffey agrees.
After a moment, another story blooms: "In Mel's day, even thecrooks wore neckties," he says, recounting a tale of how Mel Careyonce caught a well-dressed thief in the back of his pharmacy. Talkmoves on to stolen safes, computers and then to pretty women.
Haffey clears his throat. "The one thing that's constant ischange, George told me that," he says, touching George Baken's armso that the retired pharmacist, who uses a hearing aid, will know heis being referenced. "It's like that Frank Sinatra song ... "When Iwas 17...'" And Haffey starts to sing.
