By George N. Martin, Guest Contributor
Our house was within a block of what became known as Ortega Village – a small group of stores that included Banner Grocery, a barber shop, a small mercantile store owned by a neighbor, Mrs. Varnadoe, and the sundries store Doc Ingram’s.
Many childhood memories come to mind about Doc’s, including the annual promotion visits by the Filipino yo-yo salesmen. They’d spend a couple of days conducting demonstrations and contests in the dirt parking lot and selling a lot of yo-yos. And if you bought a new one, they would carve something on it. They’d use a pocketknife and deftly carve a sailfish or palm tree scene with your initials. I wish I’d kept one for posterity.
There was also the legendary pinball machine. With the flashing lights, bells and flippers – for a nickel a game – it was an exciting and great treat to play. I remember when a crowd of kids gathered, the protocol was to get your nickel in line on the glass top. When yours came to the bottom, your turn was next. Play also required the proper “body English”, and nobody was better than my lifelong friend, Judi Wiggins Howell. I remember several boys would sometimes gently lift the machine so Judi could get the front legs on the toes of her PF Flyers…bringing the playing surface to near-level. With that advantage, Judi could win enough games for every kid in the neighborhood to play.
Doc Ingram retired sometime in the mid-‘50s and sold the store to a couple of young pharmacists, and it remained the primary gathering place for kids in the neighborhood. As my group of friends grew into our early teens, it was also a period of spiritual awakening. For a time, there was an older, high school girl employed at the lunch counter in the afternoons and weekends. For a bunch of post-pubescent, 13-year-old boys, her feminine charms were spectacular. I remember thorough research being done to determine the flavor of ice cream that required her longest reach. And to this day, I still have a certain affinity for cherry-vanilla.
Doc’s later became Carter’s Ortega Pharmacy. The co-owner, Bill Carter, became a great friend and an important factor in my parents’ later years. Perhaps my favorite story about him occurred on a gawd-awful summer day, long before the indoor world was air-conditioned. Homes and places of business relied on open windows and powerful fans to make the humid Florida summer days bearable until evening brought a little relief.
On one such day, a friend foolishly stuck an ice cream sandwich in his short pants pocket and started for the door. Mr. Carter saw him do it and intercepted him before he could abscond. Rather than a confrontation, Mr. Carter engaged him in a lengthy discussion about family, plans for the next school year, the fortunes of the Jacksonville minor league baseball team, and on, and on. All the while, the ice cream sandwich sat in the unrelenting August heat, cruelly melting in his pocket. By the time Mr. Carter let him go, his pants were a sticky mess, ice cream was beginning to run down his leg and he was scared to death. Nothing was ever said to his parents, but he lost his taste for ice cream sandwiches that day and I don’t know that he ever ate one again.
Bill Carter was the kind of guy who had some kind of foolishness for everyone and, for many of us neighborhood kids, a not-so-flattering nickname. Mine was “Norton”, a co-star in Jackie Gleason’s “Honeymooners” situation comedy skits. Ed Norton was a sewer worker, portrayed by Art Carney, a loosey-goosey character actor. Much of Norton’s humor was associated with his work below ground. For several summers during high school, my dad arranged a job with the City of Jacksonville Sewer Department. I was paid $1.00 an hour for some of the hardest work I’ve ever done, but for a 16-year-old in 1958, $40 a week bought a lot of gasoline and tickets to the Normandy Drive-in Theater. When I took my paychecks to Carter’s Pharmacy on Friday evenings, “City of Jacksonville Sewer Department” was printed across the top and I became “Norton”.
Among my best Jax memories is the night before departing for college and the rest of my life. My high-school sweetie and I splurged at The Green Derby Restaurant on Riverside Avenue for a farewell dinner. It was everything a special occasion should be: wonderful food, elegant atmosphere and a keen sense of the moment. From across the hazy dining room, I thought I recognized Bill Carter. I didn’t give it much thought until being handed a note saying our tab had been taken care of by someone as they left. Of course, Bill had done it, but I left for my new life early the next morning and didn’t think to thank him until many years later. He sheepishly admitted remembering the occasion and said it was not a big deal. It was, indeed, a big deal and he was an important factor in my life. That would’ve been in August 1960, and I still remember him with great fondness, especially for his kindness in later years to my aging parents and his ribald humor.
I was there during my Lee [High School] 50th class anniversary reunion in 2010. As I approached the pharmacy counter, Bill didn’t even look up to greet me, once again with his acerbic, “Hey, Norton…”
Sometime after that, I was returning from a fishing trip in Palatka. I came back through Jacksonville early that morning for a ride through the old neighborhood and stopped in to see if Bill was in. He was, and what good fortune for me. We sat at the lunch counter and regaled each other with good stories. I had the opportunity to tell him how grateful I remain for all the years of his kindness and horse-crap foolishness. And yes, it was a long overdue chance to tell him that I genuinely loved him.
Several years later, Bill died. He was somewhere in his 90s and had continued his pharmacy practice until shortly before his death. I felt honor-bound to make the trip from South Carolina back to Jacksonville for his memorial service. As I sat there in the Ortega Methodist Church listening to the tearful tributes by grandchildren, I was overwhelmed with good memories…and wondered if my old friend ever tried another ice cream sandwich.
