I noticed that as well. Nitpick, though, it was Mr. Gower’s son who died of the flu. In addition to no masks, the HR department of the drug store also didn’t care about employing 12 year olds and slapping the piss out of them for failing to perform job duties. Also, compounding drugs and drinking alcohol on the job at the same time was acceptable. Along with keeping poison (clearly marked as poison) in the area where you compound drugs was good as well. And why in the hell would a pharmacist need a bottle of poison in the first place?
I believe old time pharmacists used to mix up other chemical compounds for their customers. So they’d keep poison around in case somebody wanted something for pest control.
Yeah, those were issues. Some I thought was a generational thing (ala the poison explanation above), but there’s another unmentioned item… George came home with his ear caked in blood, and his parents said nothing?
Interesting. You learn something new here every day. Thanks.
However, you think even a one man operation like Mr. Gower would have a strict policy about this to keep what happened from ever happening. Rule #1. When not compounding poisonous pest control items, the poison is to be under lock and key and not kept in the medicine compounding area. Rule 1a: Never compound medicine and pest control at the same time. We do the whole run of pest control first, and then lock up then poison and do a full tear down of everything. Then we compound medicine.
Also Rule #2. If I hear that a close family member died, the store is closed for the day. Yes, some people may need medicine, but they would probably rather go without than have me stumbling around shit faced drunk and slapping my 12 year old employees. Also they wouldn’t want me to give them poison.
We have threads on this board where people talk about the “good old days” when people didn’t worry about silly safety regulations. Well, this is an example of why those safety regulations aren’t really that silly.
It’s definitely generational. Even if my lifetime, I remember when any adult in the community could give you corporal punishment. If I went home to my dad who saw my bleeding ear, and told him that Mr. Gower slapped me because I didn’t deliver the medicine in a timely fashion, then the question would have been only: Did I fail to deliver the medicine in a timely fashion? If I didn’t then most people would believe that Mr. Gower should have slapped me. That seems horrific in 2020, but not in 1985, as an example.
If it played out like it did in the movie, then my Dad would have probably told me I did the right thing and had a conversation with Mr. Gower and tell him that Ultravires was a good hardworking boy and maybe he should listen to me first before slapping me.
I’ll admit that this sort of idea was quickly falling out of fashion in the 1980s, but it was still fairly prevalent. The question wasn’t why did that guy smack you, but what did you do to deserve it?
Lot’s of drugs and drug ingredients were marked “poison”. I’ve just been throwing stuff out from 1970’s marked that way. And topical preparations. Plus the supplies for doing stains/slides, some of which were poisons which were not drugs. Plus the stuff he still had around, which were poisons not used as internal drugs anymore, but which he still had on his shelf: I just had a look to see when they stopped dosing people with mercury, and found that webmd carefully just says “Consult your pharmacist”.
And I’m probably one of the posters complaining about silly safety regulations. This one doesn’t seem that silly.
I grew up in the sixties and I’m sure my parents would have been shocked if I came home bleeding because some adult had hit me.
Back in the 90s, my son came home from school and said he and his friends were talking about getting a spanking. “And…?”
“What’s a spanking?”
My wife and I stared at each other. We were strict parents (with a clear system of punishments/rewards… and a very rebellious son). Finally I blurted “How have we not spanked you?”
I grew up in the 60/70s and mine wouldn’t just have been shocked - my father would have found Mr. Gower to give him a taste of his own medicine. Not that my father was necessarily opposed to corporal punishment - but nobody else was going to hit his kid. If his kid needed to be hit, he was going to do it.
Well, we clearly grew up in different cultures. It is why teachers were allowed to paddle you in school. If you were under their supervision, they could inflict corporal punishment on you much like how George was under Mr. Gower’s care and he could inflict corporal punishment on him. Your dad wouldn’t have went after the teacher for paddling you in the 1960s, would he?
After more thought, yeah I think the bleeding part was excessive and my dad probably would have had a talk with Mr. Gower about how that was excessive and to talk with him the next time I screwed up. Plus Mr. Gower broke down and apologized to George immediately after he found out his mistake. I don’t think in 1985 it would have gotten above that. In 2005, Mr. Gower would have been charged with battery.
Sounds good to me.
I’ll drop the hijack after this, but I am not saying is it good or bad. Like most things, we as a society go from one extreme to the other. I was just responding to the idea that, no, in 1919, that would likely be something a parent was not outraged about. I think in 2020 that you almost certainly should not slap your 12 year old employee (if you are allowed to have that at all) for your dislike of his job performance. But in 1919, and in 1946, obviously people didn’t think it to be so bad.
Electifying comment. I have nothing Negative to say, all Positive, I am Shocked we are in perfect agreement. Would they put him in Cell perhaps? Would the young boy get a Jolt out of seeing that? But that is in Current times, of course.
He would have - he might have hit me himself if the teacher complained about my behavior , but again, nobody was hitting his kids except him. But you’re right about different cultures - I never knew or even heard about anyone who was paddled by a teacher when I went to school and although it may have been banned in public schools before I started school * , I spent 8 years in Catholic school where paddling would have been legal, if it had been acceptable to the tuition -paying parents.
- not sure when it was banned in NYC public schools, but it was prior to the Ny State ban in 1985
I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve seen Casablanca, and I always understood the meaning of the first part of the lines presented below. But the second only came to me as I was watching it tonight on TCM:
RICK: If it’s December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York? … I’d bet they’re asleep in New York. I’d bet they’re asleep all over America.
Of course America was asleep. It was by and large oblivious to the Axis threat until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The first part emphasizes the imminence of that threat, which presumably materialized shortly after the events in the movie.
Goody goody George would probably have washed his ear before he went home, and said nothing to his parents. He wouldn’t have wanted to let on how broken up Mr Gower was, and why.
Michael Jackson’s worst songs, musically and in songwriting craftsmanship, are his duets with other stars:
‘Say, Say, Say’ - the best of the lot.
‘The Girl is Mine’ - what the fuck?
‘State of Shock’ - the worst duet by two major stars ever
‘We Are The World’ - lazy songwriting, singing (except for Bruce), everything
‘Just Good Friends’ - Nine (9!) singles were released from the album ‘Bad’ and this Stevie Wonder duet didn’t even pass that bar 
Songs where he backed others (‘Somebody’s Watching Me’) don’t really, imho, count as a ‘duet’. And, I guess, same with WATW, but that song just suuuuucks.