George

     George was a rotund man of average height, was in his 60's and wore glasses. He also wore a pharmacists smock. He owned a small pharmacy named Cytron's, that was near my grade school. But to all of us kids in the neighborhood, he was far more than just a pharmacist.

     When I was a kid, I spent my after-school hours – back at school. All of us neighborhood kids would go home, ditch our stuff, and head back to the playground to play kickball or highlights, but not before going to Cytron's to get an afternoon snack. Ours was a small city neighborhood that looked like it had been frozen in the 1940's. Cytron's was no exception. The pharmacy was dimly lit and had old, creaky wood floors. George stood in his raised room to the left of the cash register, filling prescriptions and keeping an eye on all the kids who came in to buy candy. He always looked up when a kid came to the counter to pay, and always said hello and called us by name.

      After getting our daily candy fix, we would usually go back to the playground to start our games. Most days we did go back to the playground, but some days, when it was too hot or rainy, we would hang out a Cytron's. If we were lucky, George would find something for us to do. Sometimes we would take the trash out, or sweep the floor. Other times we would sort out the returned soda bottles and stack them up in the back room. To reward our efforts, George would pay us! At 10 years old, getting paid was probably the coolest thing ever! He would give us a dollar, which we would immediately spend on more candy.

      On nice days we would go to the playground or the seminary and play games. Our usual M.O. was to organize our teams, start our game, and play until the seminary bells told us it was 5:30, at which point we would all head home for dinner. But this was not the way all our days went. Occasionally, someone would get hurt. Skinned knees and getting the wind knocked out of us were pretty common occurrences. Our homes were anywhere from 2 to 8 blocks away, but Cytron's was a ½ block from school, and across the street from the seminary. So we would go to George. When one of us would walk in with an injury, George would take us into his inner sanctum, the raised room. He would tell us to sit on the stool in the corner of his room, would look at our injury, ask us what happened, clean our wounds, bandage us, and send us on our way, feeling healed and complete. When we would get home that night and our mothers, noticing the bandaged knee, asked what happened, we would reply with “It's okay, George fixed it.” Sometimes one of us would come to George with a more serious injury. One kid got a concussion, another broke an arm, and I cut the cornea of my left eye. When these sorts of injuries occurred, George still followed the same routine of taking us into the inner sanctum and assessing our wounds, but instead of bandaging us up and sending us on our way, he would call our parents.

      I went back to visit my old neighborhood many years ago. The area has been re-gentrified – and Cytron's is gone. In its place is an antique store. The grade school is still a ½ block away, with its expansive black-topped playground, and the seminary is still there with its bell tower tolling the dinner hour. But the kids are at home. They don't gather at the playground anymore; they eat their snacks at home and they've never had the chance to earn a dollar from George. They cannot leave home without their cell phones and their helicopters know their every move.

      When I was a kid, I took George for granted. It never occurred to me how lucky I was to have this man, who voluntarily watched over us, as a staple of my childhood. Now, through older eyes, I realize what a significant role this man played in the life of our neighborhood. George was a constant of my childhood. He was the go-to guy. There is a theory floating around out there these days that it takes a village to raise a child: George was our village.