Reflection on Oxley Drug

When I recently went to the nearby Rite-Aid, I was waited on by a clerk of high-school age. This clerk had also waited on me on some of my previous trips to the store, and, for some reason, it reminded my of my service as a clerk (+) at Oxley Drug in Southington, Connecticut, during my junior and senior years of high school.

Actually I start right after my birthday, so I worked three summers plus the two intervening school years. I don’t remember my summertime hours, but it was close to a 40-hour week. During the school year, I worked evenings after school, Monday-Friday, with Thursday as my day off. I also opened up on Saturday (and stayed all day) and Sunday (until the early afternoon).

I don’t know what my job title was (if any), but I waited on customers, stocked the shelves, checked in incoming merchandise, put the Sundays newspapers together (Southington is at a crossroads between metro areas, so we got the Hartford Courant, New Haven Register, and Waterbury American, as well as the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and New York Times; it usually took over an hour to put the newspapers together and then put aside the ones that needed to be saved for regular customers.), wrapped gift items, took inventory, dusted the shelves, swept and washed the floors, cleaned the restroom, and occasionally ran errands (there may have been other duties I don’t remember).

My first day of work was the last day the store operated its own lunch counter, so I was also trained as a soda jerk. However, I only did this service for one day and, after that, the lunch counter was run by the former Sealtest Dairy.

The pharmacy was in downtown Southington, at the corner of Center and Main Streets, right next to the Town Green, and the lunch counter was a gathering place for many of the local politicians, business owners, and a variety of other people from different walks of life. Consequently I got to know many of these people, and, each, in his own way, contributed to my education about life in the world.

While many of the memories are a bit on the hazy side, I do remember having an audience on some summer nights as I was washing the floor prior to the 10 PM closing. Several of the guys who would hang around the green would be watching me through the front plate windows. I seem to remember one of the customers commenting about my being the local entertainment.

I was also working when the big Northeast Blackout of 1965 hit. Even though we did not have electricity, we stayed open. The front cash register did not use electricity – we would just calculate the price and ring it up.

(For more information about the blackout, here is Wikipedia’s article on this event:  Wikipedia: Northeast Blackout of 1965)

It was while working at Oxley’s that I first got into photography. With my new earnings, I bought a Kodak Instamatic camera. Initially I took shots of the store and some of the regulars. Then I started taking other pictures at home and elsewhere.

I also got my first opportunity to do some fire photography:  One Thursday (my day off), I “happened to” drop by the store. There was some trash that needed to be taken out, so I did it. When I reached the rear of the building, there was an outside fire by the trash containers (which also were next to a big unit used for air conditioning). I ran inside to alert Ray (Derynioski), the on-duty pharmacist who was in charge of the store at the time, and we both rushed back to check it out. I then ran to the street corner at the front of the store to pull the fire alarm box, and Ray went in to telephone Mr. (Bill) Zilly, the store owner.

The downtown foot patrolman saw me pulling the box, and came over to see what was up. As I was explaining, there was a small explosion at the back of the building – it was the air conditioning unit, and the fire now spread up the side of the building. At the patrolman’s direction, I went back inside the building to evacuate the people, which Ray and I did.

The fire was contained relatively quickly; however, there was water coming through the ceiling due to hose that had been laid to the second floor (which contained offices) to fight that side of the fire. The firefighters put salvage covers to protect the merchandise where the water was coming down, and I ended up working – assisting with the water cleanup – until well into the evening.

In the meantime, I “happened to” have my Instamatic with me, and I ended up taking a few rolls of film during the firefighting operations. I even popped inside the store during the fire to pick up a few extra rolls (I should say cartridges) of film. (I had no idea at the time that I would be doing serious fire photography in my future life.)

I really enjoyed working at Oxley Drug, and I worked with and met a number of good people. I am very grateful to the Lord for providing this experience. I’m also appreciative that Mr. Zilly allowed me time in the middle of my Sunday morning shift to go to Mass. My breakfast on Sunday mornings, by the way, was usually Boston cream pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

A few of my siblings followed me in working at Oxley’s, but I understand that none of them or the other high school kids who followed worked the same amount of hours I did. (It seems to me we used to joke about how it took two or three others to fill my shoes.)

Oxley’s, which had been open for decades, closed in 1993, and the original building was torn in 2001. A new building was built, and the store location is now occupied by a branch of the Farmington Savings Bank as well as other offices. I haven’t seen it, but I understand there is a mural on the side of The Pepper Pot (a breakfast and lunch restaurant on Center Street) that depicts scenes from Center Street, including Oxley Drug, over the decades.