Got photos?

That (above) is a gas line during the energy crisis of 1979. Remember?

Since starting this project of reconnecting with all of you Apex 1979 classmates, I have been searching for pictures that document our days in Apex.  Cameras are prolific today, and everyone has an enormous number of pictures, documenting everything from profound events to everyday moments.  Pictures today don't carry the same value as they did when we were in high school.

Constant picture taking was not the norm back in 1979.  There was no such thing as digital photography.  Pictures took effort and consumed resources.  As a result, much of our daily life was not documented in photographs.

While in school, I worked as the soda jerk at Bennett's Pharmacy in downtown Apex. Anyone who remembers Mr. Bennett's store probably remembers that Mr Bennett ran a classy, friendly, home town place that was fun to visit.

I loved working there.  I got to make lemon-aids and orange-aids the old fashioned way, with real fruits.  I'd slice them and squeeze them in a manual press to extract the juice, then mix that juice with the simple syrup I had made from hot water and lots and lots of sugar.  Nothing is better.

I remember making vanilla Cokes for customers.   I even remember a day that an elderly local came in and asked for an ammonia Coke.  I had no idea what that meant.

Mr Bennett told me to go and get a bottle of ammonia form the shelf, and to put a tablespoon of it in a fountain Coke.

It calmed the nerves, as I remember.  Who knew?

I remember talking with Mr. Bennett about the gas crisis that raged in 1979.  I told him I wanted to store gallons of gasoline under my parents' house, in empty milk jugs.  He quietly advised me that such a plan would possibly end in a big explosion that destroyed the house.  I abandoned the idea.

Remembering all of the wonderful memories I had working at Bennett's Pharmacy led me to search in vain online for pictures of the street (Salem street?), or the pharmacy.  I turned up nothing.

The point of this story is just this: I need your photos to make the blog come alive. We all had our afternoon jobs and our familiar routines.  Memories of those routines most likely feel as precious to you now as my memories of Bennett's Pharmacy do for me.

Please contact me if you have photos.  I'll arrange to scan them and get them back to you, or if you are able to scan, even better.   Send your scanned photos, or messages about photos that need to be scanned, to thomketring@apex1979.com.

Extra credit for you if you have pictures of Bennett's Pharmacy!