Tom Thumb or was it the little Dutch Boy…

Remember the story of the little guy who stuck his thumb in a hole in the levee to save Oslo? Or was it Copenhagen? Anyway he saved his portion of mankind. The kid had principles and high ideals.

The rest of the story goes like this… it was a cold night, he was out late after the saloon had closed. By the time the EMT’s got to him, his thumb had turned blue then purple and black. That’s right, the doctors had to take it off, the thumb that is. The poor kid was looked on as a town hero without a thumb.

In our town we a guy whose story is simalar… he’s our medicine man. Joe is our friendly drugist who for years was concerned about all his customers and their health almost more so the their own doctors. Years back a chain store showed up with a pharmacy and took away some of his business.

Later our local medical clinic, owned and operated by doctors, added their own pharmacy. In years past Joe had a run their clinic pharmacy and had done a great job. Due to the doctors mismanagement of their clinic, it went out of business and was sold to an out of town concern. However, Medicine Man Joe plowed ahead keeping his chin up with a local corner drug store.

Then a large food store added a drug counter and Joe lost more business; however, he kept his chin up for he had many loyal customers. Then last year Walgreen’s started building a store down the block… but he still held his chin high.

All through this Joe said he could compete and offer service the other couldn’t. Why was he fighting the tide? Joe had been the rock in our community, a person who cared for its people, the feeling was mutual.

But along came the knife….. The new Medicare drug program, the intention was to delivery low cost drugs, it’s outcome was to drive out of business every independent pharmacist… another well throughout out plan by our government.

Now our thumbless friendly pharmacist is behind the counter at our new Walgreens, smiling because he doesn't have the daily headaches of fighting the Medicare kind folks. It's a little sad, but knowing Joe, he's got a little green salted away for a rainy week.