The Southside Drug Store had a soda fountain with rotating stools on the right side when you went in and newspaper and magazine stands with comic books on the left side. Close to the magazines was a pinball machine that took nickels. I didn’t play it much, but I watched older boys play to see how many free games they could win before they tilted it and lost everything. Toward the back of the store were the other items common to drugstores, like stationery, bathroom things, perfumes, and cosmetics, none of which had any interest to a boy.
Comic books were the main attraction for me, and they cost a dime. However, I really didn’t need a dime, because I could stand and read the comic books there without buying them, if I didn’t stay too long or didn’t get too loud laughing at them. Mr. Stewart had a son my age, Jimmy, so he knew all about boys. Sometimes I bought gum and candy bars, putting my nickel down at the end of the soda counter, where there was always a soda jerk standing to take it.
The Southside Drug Store had another attraction for all the neighborhood kids. Mr. Ferdie Artz, who was missing his left arm, worked in the back, where prescriptions were filled at a counter and where the store’s cash register was. One day years ago, as Southside parents repeatedly told their kids, Mr. Artz had his left arm hanging out a car window. Another car came by in the opposite direction and ripped his arm clean off, which I had absolutely no trouble at all visualizing in gory detail—a detached arm lying in the middle of the street with blood pouring out of it and Mr. Artz’s bloody stub still on his shoulder in the car window. So, when they were riding in cars, all Southside kids were warned by their parents, “Don’t hang your arm out the car window! See what happened to Ferdie Artz!” The lesson was very strong and real. No Southside kid ever hung his arm out a car window.
Mr. Artz didn’t let his misfortune get in the way of his work. He retrieved items from high shelves by knocking them off with his good right hand and catching them between his left stub and chest, placed them on the counter, and wrapped them in paper, leaning over and using the stub end of his left arm to hold the string in place while he deftly flipped the package over and tied a knot with the other, again holding the knot firmly with the stub end. We kids watched and watched and marveled at Mr. Artz, the one-armed wonder of the Southside.
Copyright 2011 by Walter A. Schroeder.
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5 comments:
I believe my great aunt and great uncle, Laura and Victor Miller were the last to operate the South Side Drug Store. "Uncle Tic" was the pharmacist. They left Jefferson City and moved to Kansas City in the early fifties. I remember at least one summer when I was let off there to drink chocolate milk from the soda fountain and wait for the opening time for vacation bible school at Central Church. (This was before I was trusted to walk from my Mother's office at Employment Security)
Hi, Michael! I'm glad you found our blog! Thanks for commenting. I suspect there are several folks with Central Church/Southside Drugstore memories--my uncle, for instance, apparently played hooky there from Sunday School sometimes! Fortunately for him, the druggist was cool about it when the whole family stopped by the drugstore after church!
Julie
I grew up on Holly Drive (known as Panorama Hills at one time) very near the Southside. My mother grew up on Lafayette Street. I always wondered why our family had a seemingly inflated fear on hanging our arms out of a car window. This is the least of what I have learned on your website and I love your writing style.
THANK YOU.
I've heard so many stories like yours about warning not to hang your arm out the window, but they are all from boys. Why? Ferdie Artz did have an artificial arm, but only put in on when he was "going out on the town." WAS
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