Seeing a Century Over the Drugstore Counter

"He formed a home for us. He was always there," Heflin said of his great-uncle. "I immediately knew I wanted to be a pharmacist."

While he was still enrolled at Remington Elementary, Heflin said, he realized that the family didn't have money to send him to college. He found out that the Middleburg Community Center offered two $500 college scholarships each year, one to a Fauquier student and one to a Loudoun student. He needed that scholarship, so for four years he hitchhiked the 13 miles to Warrenton High School. Its academic reputation was a cut above that of Remington High.

After he won the scholarship, Heflin and his Loudoun counterpart were honored at an estate garden party in Virginia's hunt country. "It was like I had gone to the city for the first time," Heflin said. "The house had a pool. I couldn't get over it."

He wanted to see another part of the country, so he chose to enroll at the University of Wyoming. "I can remember the expressions on the people's faces," he said of those who had awarded him the scholarship. "They were thinking, 'Is there really a school there, or are we wasting our money and he's just traveling?' "

Heflin received his degree in pharmacy in 1961, but his practical summer training was at Rhodes Drug Store in Warrenton. The pharmacist there, Russell Herring, "gave me most of my instruction," Heflin said. He also worked in drugstores near Washington State University, where he continued his studies.

Then, he came home. His great-uncle had crippling arthritis, and on Jan. 1, 1972, Heflin became owner and pharmacist of the drugstore where he had first worked as a 5-year-old washing dishes in 1945.

Heflin's business still maintains the features of an old-time drugstore.

"Most of our customers we know on a first-name basis. They are part of our business family. I still like phone contacts," he told me. "There are situations that merit helping out -- someone who can't afford a drug. Sometimes it bites you, but I remember a gal who came back after four years and paid her account -- not a great deal, but she never forgot it."

When I asked him what has changed most in the pharmacy business since he took over Remington Drug 36 years ago, Heflin mentioned pain-management drugs. "Few were used then, and a prevailing attitude was: 'Pain? Oh, you should be able to handle that,' or 'Give him a painkiller and you'll make an addict out of him.' Now, it's acceptable to give medication on a constant basis to control pain -- more emphasis on making a patient comfortable."

He also noted that to get quality treatment, a person used to need a prescription. "Now you can get that drug over the counter."

"We are also using more . . . avenues of preventive treatment," he said. "If you come in with an elevated level of blood glucose, even though it might not be in the danger range, we treat it early and maybe prevent it from being full-blown diabetes.

"To no longer be a liability to a more productive America -- that's the utopia we're working toward."

For further reading, see Faye Musselman's article "Some Things Never Change at Remington Drug Co." in the fall 1994 issue of Fauquier magazine.

Eugene Scheel is a historian and mapmaker who lives in Waterford.