The medicine store

A bottle of Dr. Good.
My grandmother lived in Wilson, Oklahoma. Next door to the towns pharmacist and his family. If my memory serves me their name was Pfeffer. Pfeffer’s Drug store on Main Street in Wilson. A modest store with soda fountain, drugs, sundries, and paperback books and magazines.
When I was in college in Oklahoma City and visiting Wilson before heading to school, I ran into Mr. Pfeffer’s daughter. A recent graduate of the Pharmacy school at Oklahoma University. She knew I was new in town since town was just a bit under 2000 population and seemed most helpful. Really, I don’t think she was interest in me. A dopy sophomore at OCC and looking for a few paperback books in their store. I remember I bought the paperback, Dr. Strangelove. .
But anyway, the reason I bring this up it was back in 1950 when our family was in Wilson on one of our regular trips from the west coast to visit our grandmother. A most quiet woman who we grandies call Granny. I was about six-years-old. A first grader.
It was during that 1950 visit we were in town one Friday evening and walked to the end of town to an empty lot and saw a real live Medicine Show. A colorful horse drawn wagon with a fold down performance stage in back. There three individuals performed and sold bottles of Elixir. Elixir that would promise to cure almost everything. Cure everything from gout to baldness. A nice-looking man and woman sang and sold bottles of this miracle stuff right off the back of the wagon. A third person was a comedian of sorts and drew some laughs
For only fifty-cents you could buy a pint bottle of this magical elixir.
There were about twenty or thirty people standing and watching this somewhat entertaining pre-television infomercial. In retrospect many years later I would guess this Medicine Show sold their wares and quickly left town.
But anyway going back to Pfeffer’s Drug store in WilsonOk, it was discovered that Mr. Pfeffer really didn’t have a college degree in pharmacy and was told by the state’s health board to stop filling drug prescriptions. Never mind Mr. Pfeffer filled thousands of prescriptions over the decades. So his daughter took over the business. Mr. Pfeffer obtained his knowledge by shadowing another pharmacist. A pharmacist Who, himself did the same. It was the way things were done back in the early twentieth century. Many doctors also did the same thing without a MD degree. Oh, how things have changed.
Look up the song by Cher titled ‘Gypsies tramps and thieves.’ In the song Cher sings of her father selling “bottles of Dr. Good.” An elixir claiming to cure most anything.