Thoughts After 9-11

October 10, 2001

It has been such a long time since a journal entry I thought it best to make a couple of notes instead of a day to day or week to week entry. Important life changing events should be noted. The day was September 11, 2001. At about 8 A.M. Pat and I were contemplating getting the day started, awake, but still in bed. A phone call came from Gene Knowles saying that there was news on the TV about planes crashing into the World Trade Center buildings in New York.

That Tuesday has changed the American way of life, and not for the better. Terrorists from mid-eastern countries had hijacked 4 commercial jet passenger planes and crashed two into the World Trade Center buildings -one in each tower, another into the Pentagon and another attempt into the Capital or White House. Apparently passengers took charge and the last plane went into a field. All on the airplanes were killed, 500 at the Pentagon, and 5000 in the buildings including 200 firemen and policemen who were trying to get people out safely. As many as 10,000 people may have been in the buildings. We may never know how many were killed as the buildings fell with such force many bodies were never found.

As a result of this insult to the people of this country, things changed quickly. Airports were shut down, travel was suspended. Many people were out of work, and this is a time of threatened recession. A show of unity among the people was similar to that shown by the action of Pearl Harbor. Flags were in short supply. Cars, houses, bicycles, hikers, everything carried an American flag. The People were united as was the Military on the issue of getting revenge. An immediate problem developed. Who were they to get? All foreigners were suspect, Muslims were most distrusted, but that was wrong because it was an evil group promoting war that was to blame. Omer Bin Laden was the leader of the terrorists and he was using his heritage to bring on the evil. It will take some time, but justice will happen.

We are at war. Troops have been called up, and planes and ships have been bombing the headquarters of cells of the terrorists. Many nations are combined with this purpose to stamp them out. England, France, and several small Muslim countries along with NATO have combined to end the possibility of more terror.

It appears that our lifestyle will be changed. People are afraid. Security is a necessity. Before you can get on a plane or train or bus you must be searched. Sporting events are carefully screened many cancelled. America is still free but much more restricted.

Pharmacy--Start to Finish

I guess I was to be a pharmacist from the very first, though I thought seriously of Law during middle school years. It seemed as though all the male grandchildren of J.W. either were pharmacists or lawyers--even though Grandfather wanted us to be Doctors. Jerry came the closest He was a pharmacist, then went on to be a dentist when he didn't like pharmacy. John- Hal and Ross chose law. I considered pharmacy a good option because I had 3 very successful uncles who had organized a small chain of stores " City Drug Stores" and I figured if I ever wanted to leave California I could get a job in Utah . R.J., Bry, Jimmie, and myself all stayed with pharmacy--only one dissenter, Robert elected to be a petroleum engineer.

I thought I could get a jump on pharmacy in the service and that would help me later on so when I was asked what assignment I would like in the Navy - we could ask because we had signed up in our senior year of high school so we could get a job we wanted. When I said pharmacy the recruiter said, "Great! With your size and strength you will be transferred to the Marines and be a litter bearer." I said maybe I'd rather take my second choice which was radio, and that is what I got.

Southern California (USC) was trying to teach us the pharmacy we would need on graduation, but it was changing very fast and the professors were tied to the old ways. We learned how to make rose water by percolation and cough syrups and tinctures. We could make tables and powders and many kinds of lotions and creams etc. Never made any of this after graduation. We learned to identify flowers and plants by leaves and stems--never much use after graduation. We persevered and passed the exam both in California and Utah.

While I was going to school I worked in a small pharmacy (Garvanza Pharmacy owned by Al Oliver on 64^th and York). It didn't fill a lot of prescriptions, but I learned a lot that served me very well when I got my first job at Medical Arts North Hollywood--Jack Fond & Red Josephs, owners. This was a busy store in a large Medical Building It seemed large at the time, and for its day 100-150 prescriptions was a lot of RX's.

We worked different then. No computers. We stamped the RX number on a log and on the RX, filled the order and priced it as best we could. We had a chart to go by, but Jack would say, "Let's go up a quarter today." We had many for $2.00 some for $1.25. Big sellers were Empirin Cod gr 1/2-- Seconal- Nembutal- Tuinal- Phenobarbital- Thyroid, Donnatal, Penicillin tablets, Sulfa. Hardly sell any of these today. The Doctor would often write in Latin or code so the patient would not know what he was taking-- of course today that would be illegal. We made lotions and ointments and special combinations of pills, made capsules and cough and cold syrups. One we called purple passion was liquid orthoxine and syrup chlor trimeton. For cold and wheeze-- worked well too. Before cortisone was so popular, Dr Stout used Lotion 33--a mixture of Milk of Magnesia- Olive Oil and zinc oxide. It cured because it did no harm. Many doctors had their own special mixtures and formulas. There was a difference between pharmacies because some would compound and make formulas and some would not. (It was time consuming.) I always thought it made us a little better than them. We made suppositories that others wouldn't touch. Today no one does this. It is only count and pour put it in the bottle and the tech does the rest. Now the need for the pharmacist is to give council as to what the medicine does -side effects and interactions with other meds. You need a computer to keep all this current.

Early Times

(Note from Dee: I found this entry that has much of the same information as already posted, but it may also express some of it a bit differently, so I thought I'd include it as well. and besides, these are the things he likes to remember and retell!)

Early Times

Like Nephi of old I was born of goodly parents, grandparents, and great grandparent. They were all middle class, hard working families whose greatest asset was the family. I think this is an important part of my heritage for that is really what is most important to me. My wife and children and their children—and life goes on and on, family to family, each with their challenges and problems, but the names remain and the old members go to another place. The family continues. I won’t go into the family history, most of it is documented in genealogy records. Suffice it to say, mother and dad were always my good friends. They were as good as any parents could be, and I’m very glad they were mine.

I was born in Monrovia, California, July 8, 1926 at home. Dad worked for Safeway Market as a meat cutter. Mother, to my knowledge, after marriage never worked anywhere but at home. Sometime later she taught piano to children for the LA Conservatory of Music. She liked the little ones best. Mother tried to teach me, but to my regret later in life I never learned more than the scale and a few simple melodies. Dad worked long hours, and we seldom ate together. I remember mother often saying, "We will keep his dinner warm and put it in the oven until he comes home."

During my early years we moved a lot. Dad would open a new Safeway market and work there until they got a good start, and then move on. I remember Delano was very hot with lots of flies. And Green River, Wyoming, very, very cold and had to be bundled up with heavy coat, hat, mufflers, etc. to go outside. At Pomona, California I was in the first grade and the town was very smoky with smudge. Sometimes we didn’t even go to school, it was so smoky. In Palms, California, I got my first bike, a two wheeler. It was great. In the summer we seemed to go to Fairview, Utah to be with grandmother. There was a time when mom and dad lived on the Indianola Farm and raised turkeys. I don’t remember much about it. I’m not sure how come we spent so much time in Fairview. Perhaps it was when Kathy was sick.

Kathy had arthritis as a very young child. Maybe two or three years old. It was a very trying time for all of us, but particularly for mother. She was determined to do all she could, and she tended Kathy tenderly for years. I, too, was a worry for when I was eight or nine, while living in Palms, California, I contracted scarlet fever. This was before we had anything to treat it with. I developed mastoiditis and pilo nephritis. I was a very sick young man for quite a while. I was sent to LA County Hospital for several weeks,. I recall a time mom and dad came to visit. Usually I was up in bed, but this day I was tired and laying down as mother walked in. She thought I had a relapse, and she fainted and fell on the floor. It scared me--I never wanted to do that to mother again.

We moved to Avenue 43 and Figueroa when I was in the fifth grade. I think it was Latona Street School. I recall that it was an experimental school, and I was sent to the Opportunity Room, a special room for achievers. We didn’t do a lot of study. We made puppets, put on plays, did individual study assignments on the books we read. I always felt it was a wasted year, as I never was one of the Achievers again The house we lived in was in a court of six or eight houses. There were some kids there to play with. There was a girl there who was a good friend. She died suddenly. It was my first experience with death, something I didn’t understand.

To get to school we had to cross the Arroyo Seco. There was a bridge, but it was more fun to cross the stream. This was long before the Arroyo had cement walls and there was just a stream with pollywogs and even fish. Now and then, a great place to play. We damned it up and made a pool, three to four feet deep to swim in. Along the bank huge rocks were piled to protect the railroad tracks--between the cracks we made our clubhouse with candles and pictures. It was great fun. We never thought of it being destructive. We were just having fun. Up to that time we had never owned a home, now we were going to get one.

Dad took a job at Boys Market in Highland Park. Grandfather Christensen got the money to buy a place at 6015 Monte Vista. The house no longer stands as it was taken over by the Catholic church next door. This was mother’s dream home. It seemed large at the time, but by today’s standards it wasn’t. It had a large lot, though I thought planting with the folks we might have an archery range, a croquet ground, fruit trees, and roses. It already had a fish pond in the back yard. It had two bedrooms, one bath, a front room, dining room which served as either mine or Kathy’s bedroom with a daybed. It had a kitchen with a breakfast nook. We were finally home!

Kathy was still somewhat crippled, and we carried her everywhere. When she got old enough to attend a school, she attended a school for the handicapped.

I spent the rest of my single years in this new home for us. It was a happy time. I enrolled in Monte Vista Grammar School in the 6^th grade and there met some lifetime friends, and, of course, my faithful wife, Pat.