Pagnotti's

Every day us kids would go to Pagnotti's drugstore.

The corner of Green Ridge and Clay.

We’d arrive for our 16 oz returnable Pepsi bottles and bags of Jax, the cheese doodley snack that turned your fingers the color of Donald Trump. Also penny candies that we rarely cheated on because the owner's wife would count out every single one, like a pharmacist filling a pill bottle. Swedish fish mostly, which were as addictive as smack and a brutal enemy of braces, which they clung to like fire retardant. She also refused to budge when you asked her for something behind the counter unless you said "please", which is something I do to this day because of her. So thank you Mrs. P. The Pharmacist was Mr. P, a lovable old curmudgeon who, when he wife wasn't there, frequently had to stop filling prescriptions for half of Dunmore to deal with us and our pennies. We'd dump 50 fish on the counter and give him a quarter, knowing he didn't give a fiddler's fart how many there were....he just wanted to get rid of you so he could get back to work. But he always scowled with a smile. We were only sorta afraid of him…and he only sorta found us irritating.