Archive for November, 2010

Ann Murray has the good fortune that her birthday often falls on or very near Thanksgiving. Which means that most of her life, she has been able to spend her birthday with all of her family (now wait, is that good or bad fortune?). Just joking–Ann has a wonderful family who she loves to share her special day with.

When Ann isn’t tooling around Lake Erie with Richard, you can usually find this “red headed Texan,” (as Richard calls her) in the pharmacy.

Ann has worked at Plain City Druggist almost from the very beginning and has been with us for over 10 years. Ann started out running register and waiting on customers and has done just about everything in the store. She is currently our “greeting card committee,” sending out cards to customers who need to know someone is thinking of them. She also checks in the drug order and shows up for all of our events, in costume when needed, to help out.

Happy Birthday, Ann. We hope you will have a wonderful day complete with a giant Thanksgiving dinner and a birthday cake!

While Joe and I were at lunch one day during the NCPA (National Community Pharmacists Association) convention in Philadelphia, we happened to talk to a pharmacist who told us about a trip he had taken to the Finger Lakes region of New York. While scanning a local newspaper, he saw an ad for Water Street Pharmacy in Dundee, New York. The drugstore’s advertisement encouraged people to stop by and see Jack the cat.

This pharmacist, who was a cat lover, was intrigued by the idea of a pharmacy cat, so he did indeed stop by and meet the infamous Jack. Jack, he said, was very, very friendly and came out to greet him, rubbing up against his legs. He said the pharmacist and owner of Water Street Pharmacy, Tracey Knapp, told him that many of her older customers would not leave without seeing Jack when they picked up their prescriptions.

While I have heard of other businesses having both dog or cat mascots, I have never come across a pharmacy with one. Joe and I had discussed having a cat in Plain City Druggist, but we feared a wily feline might try to escape or customers would complain of allergies or cat fur in the aisles.

Happily, those are not concerns for Water Street Pharmacy and Jack. In fact, Jack has even received a “service recognition award” for providing the pharmacy customers with impeccable service. You can see a photo of Jack, Pharmacist Tracey Knapp, and read about Jack’s award HERE.

We may have to rethink our hesitations about a pharmacy feline.

While the cat in the photo with the stethoscope is not Jack at Water Street Pharmacy, Jack does appear, in the photo about his award, to be a large tabby cat, too. You can order copies of the cat and stethoscope get well card through Zazzle.

The master pancake flipper, aka “Beefcake,” flipped his way to entertaining the crowds in Plain City Sunday morning at St. Joseph’s Parish Activity Center (the PAC).  Between his infectious humor and the quick flick of his wrist, he delighted all those in attendance.

Beefcake and Chris Cakes of Ohio have been to Plain City before, flipping at Jonathan Alder High School and the elementary school. Beefcake said that Plain City residents catch “quite” well in comparison to other towns he has visited.  The longest flip Sunday was around fourteen feet.  His longest flip ever was in Hilliard–a flip that covered a distance of forty-five feet and landed on the plate of a teen with a broken arm.

Chris Cakes is a local franchise. The original company is based out of Missouri. The local franchise owner is part owner in the entire company as well as their own local franchise.  Each franchise covers one state, and currently twenty states are served by Chris Cakes.  They are available for:  school and church events, corporate functions, and private parties.

Ron, aka “Beefcake,” said the key to a good flip is that “it’s all in the wrist.”  He has been flipping for about six years and started by practicing using a hot pad at home.  He was having such a good time on Sunday, interacting with the crowd, that it did not seem like work to him.

The experience not only filled your belly with delicious “air dropped” pancakes, but it put a new spin on interactive breakfast entertainment in Plain City.

Fun Facts:

Chris Cakes has made more than 30,000,000 pancakes, which if put end to end, would reach almost all the way around the world.

Has served pancakes to four presidents:  Obama, Clinton, Bush Jr.& Sr.

Local website: http://chriscakesohio.com/index.html

Joe is so proud of this.

Last year, an envelope came in the mail that lacked postage and had been run through the postal system in Columbus. The letter was from Harold Ott and was addressed simply to “Plain City Drug, Joe Craft.” (You can see the actual envelope beside this column).

Plain City Drug. Joe Craft. That’s it. Nothing else. No address. No zip code. 

And yet, the letter still found it’s way to the drugstore and into Joe’s hands. Joe thought that was cool. He and the drugstore were so famous, the post office knew where to send mail even with limited information.

Sort of like sending a letter to Santa Claus at The North Pole.

My favorite pharmacy professor, Dr. Ralf Rahwan, taught a class on teratogenesis, carcinogenesis, and mutagenesis, which basically meant that we studied embryonic or birth defects, cancer, and gene mutations.

Dr. Rahwan told us that most of the people, who were featured in the circus sideshow acts from many years ago, were basically suffering from abnormalities that occurred in the womb. These people lacked the hormones that allowed them to grow. Alternately, they produced too much hormone and grew too large. Embryos did not split correctly, forming “Siamese twins.”

While Joe and I were in Philadelphia for the NCPA pharmacy convention, we visited a place that Dr. Rahwan would have loved to explore, the Mutter Museum, which is run by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Inside the Mutter Museum, we saw the tallest human skeleton (at well over 7 feet) on display, a plaster cast of Siamese twins, books made from human skins, and skulls showing damage from Civil War battles. It was a place of many gruesome “treasures” preserved forever in test tubes and formaldehyde.

While there is a great deal of the shocking among the display cases, the museum seriously and studiously traces the history of medicine and physicians’ trials to learn how the human body works. The museum specimens also show the ravages taken on the body due to warfare and cancer. Additionally, the museum celebrates our triumphs over many diseases, such as smallpox and leprosy, which no longer kill or deform generations of people.

While the museum is of great interest from a medical standpoint (I can only wonder how we will look back on “modern medicine” in a few decades), it is not for the weak stomached. Joe, who never liked looking at cadavers in anatomy class, kindly excused himself after a short walk inside the rows of skulls and bones and long preserved body parts.

Sadly, many of the abnormalities featured in this museum of atrocities could be prevented or altered today in our hospitals and pharmacies with pre-natal vitamins, antibiotics, or through a visit to a good plastic surgeon. I can imagine Dr. Rahwan marching along the aisles lecturing us on things he showed us only in slides, his voice rising in excitement at the marvels he was teaching us.

Visit The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Facebook Page HERE.

And visit their YouTube site for original online series, including Grey Matter and No Bones About It: YouTube