Cherry Coke and Old Oak

When I was too small to do many chores on the farm I got to travel around with mom when she went to town. I mostly enjoyed going to town because there was lots to see. Mom knew everyone in town and in all of the shops. Mom really liked to go into the drugstore where she had worked before she was married. She would get a cherry coke that they made from coke syrup, cherry syrup, and soda water. She would buy a chocolate milk for me. If we were in town over lunch we would sit at one of the booths instead of at the fountain and get grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate milk.

The druggist’s office was in the back of the store and you talked to him through a little window. The place was something like you would expect to see in a little Irish village. The druggist was a little old gnome with wire rim glasses on the bridge of his nose. He wore a white shirt and a vest and looked to me like he was ancient. He was probably 45 or 50.

Sometimes we would visit mom's cousin who worked in the lawyers office. It was a kind of Dickens establishment. There was a lot of oak paneling and railing. The lawyers desk was up on a platform at the rear of the office and he had a big safe up there beside the desk. Helen, mom’s cousin, was the typist and receptionist. Her desk was behind a railing that had a gate near the desk. On the wall behind her desk was a big clock in an oak case with a pendulum. Since the office was mostly quite the ticking of the clock seemed to echo off of the walls. It seemed to make the office a kind of scary place especially when the old lawyer was sitting at his desk peering over his glasses at you.

Helen’s typewriter was a big old mechanical one that made a lot of noise when she typed. She was really good to me she always had a few pennies that she would give to me so I could get some candy at the drugstore.