Oops, There Goes Another...
Thu., December 28, 02:23 PM
Just call it another sign of aging. The senior population gets smacked again.
I bought groceries Tuesday, but I really needed to get out and move some more, not to mention that I hadn't been to Costco since last month. It was only marginally cold Wednesday -- the forties in December is something to be thankful for -- and clear enough that I should have an easy drive. I have a feeling that I won't make this drive more than a dozen times again.
Driving out there was all right, and the parking lot was not overly crowded. It turns out this is a good time to shop, when they have removed all the Christmas stuff and have not yet replaced it with the next promotion. I found most of what I wanted, and I stocked up against the possibility of bad weather in the coming month. Time was not a factor, and I decided to stop off at the pharmacy on my way home.
I like this pharmacy. Right in the middle of town, across from the Green, it is an anchor of the business section of our city. The current manager is the third generation of owners; his grandfather was the founder. In addition to the prescriptions and the other standard business of a drugstore, this place has also been the local surgical center. If you need special equipment, you don't have to travel into New Haven; they will advise you and help you buy or rent what you need.
Even though it is now a large business, it still has the familiarity of a local place. The clerks know you; so do the pharmacists. Problem with insurance? The manager will walk you through it -- or around it when necessary. Need your records for tax purposes? They'll get 'em to you, and they won't wait until April to do it. If you want something they don't stock, they cheerfully order it for you. The point is, they're there, they're helpful, and I trust them.
Well, the clerk recognizes me and goes immediately to where our stuff is filed. There are two prescriptions there, one for me and one for Husband. Neither is generic, so the price is rather steep. And I say to the clerk, "Next week..." "Next week, Stop and Shop," she says. No, I meant that next week the Medicare D will kick in again. "At Stop and Shop," she repeats. "Saturday is our last day here, and Sunday we will be at Stop and Shop." "Will it still be the same store?" asks another customer. No, it will be Stop and Shop.
The clerk doesn't know why. "The business world does what the business world does," I say. I finally found the announcement in the New Haven paper; there was no mention in my paper. The business has been sold to Stop and Shop, but they do not say why. I can make some conjectures, none of them happy.
Property taxes have increased in the past year. If the tax on the Cheesebox nearly doubled, I can't imagine what the tax would be on a prime piece of commercial property. Another business I know, one that rented its shop, had its rent increased so steeply that it was forced to move to another town. How can you blame a landlord for passing his new costs on to his customer? But in five years or so, there will be no commercial section left -- just a post office and a couple of banks.
It's getting emotional at this point. Some of the employees have been there for years, forty or more. They don't want to talk about it. The manager talks about making the chains into the same kind of pharmacy that they've built for the last eighty-seven years, but that sounds like a pipe dream. All I can hope is that it doesn't turn into one of the other chains, which have a terrible reputation when it comes to customer service.
I would like to add a few words about Gerald Ford, a man I came to respect in spite of our political differences. The current resident of the White House called him a "great man." No, Mr. Dubya, you missed the point again. Gerald Ford was an ordinary man, who was called upon by circumstances to do extraordinary things. A decent and honest man who loved his country, he stepped up and did what he had to do. He was not the first president who had to "step up" when the circumstances required it and -- foolish me -- I thought that would always happen. Instead, I am forced to repeat the immortal words of Chester T. Riley: "What a revoltin' development this is!"
