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| Rufus "Doc" Thames, Jr., MD |
Growing up in Milton, living “way out in the
Country” with two younger brothers provided me with ample opportunities to
injure myself. Most times we just “rubbed some dirt on it” and “walked it off”,
but there were other times we had to seek ‘professional’ medical attention.
From the time I could remember until moving away from Milton after graduating
from PJC, I saw three doctors: Dr. E. V. Sutton, Dr. H. M. (Max) Meredith, and
Dr. Rufus Thames, Jr. I was a patient of only the first two. It was a chance
meeting that Dr. Thames treated me. More on that later.
Shortly after
graduating with my fellow Class of ’79 MHS Panthers in MAY, I started working
for Boo Weekley’s daddy, Tom. Tom purchased the Milton location of Fortune’s Rexall
Drugs from Ed Fortune. For many years the store was located in Gateway Plaza (beside
Waffle House) before moving to the Berryhill Road location in the 1980s. I was
originally hired to work the cash register, stock shelves, sweep, etc. That was
not enough for me. I soon was checking in orders for sundries and OTC
medications. Better, but not where I wanted to be. I wanted to work alongside
Tom. He allowed me to do so and I soon learned to read prescriptions, pull the
meds, type the labels (yes on a typewriter), and basically do everything
required to work alongside a pharmacist. It was a wonderful experience and
learned a lot while working there. But before all this happened, I had a lot of
learning to do.
One of the first
things every employee in the store learned was to answer the telephone:
“Fortune’s Drugs, how may I HELP you?” If it was a doctor’s office, we
immediately “hollered” to Tom so he knew to pick up the phone. Normally, nurses
call in prescriptions or inquire about a patient’s prescription history. That
is, all but Dr. Rufus “Doc” Thames, Jr. He preferred to do this himself.
Sometime within the first week or so, I answered the phone, “Fortune’s Drugs,
how may I help YOU?”—I was a fast learner—I heard what can only be described as
a loud vocalization of a man that could not utter any words in any known language.
It sounded like Uh-huhhhh. Say this aloud to yourself, as if you are agreeing
with something someone told you in conversation, but hold on to that “h”. Go
ahead. We will wait. Got the sound in your head? That is all I heard so I once
again replied, in a somewhat more professional voice attempting to express
authority, “This is Fortune’s Drugs, HOW.MAY.I.HELP.YOU?” The reply was the
same single grunt I heard earlier, but a bit more emphatic. I am now lost. I
was not taught this in training. What if this was a mental patient—what are the
protocols for talking someone down? What if it was a patient suffering an
“adverse drug reaction” and I hung up on them, could the store be held liable? I
then continued trying to explain this was a business and attempted to develop
some common communication skills. Perhaps monosyllabic words were necessary. It
was then I heard Tom start hollering, “That’s Doc Thames! That’s Doc Thames!”
as he dropped what he was doing to pick up the phone. You might have noticed we
did a lot of hollering. Hollering pronounced hollerin’ (drop the ‘g’) was
acceptable when trying to communicate from front to rear of the store. It is
different from “yelling”, pronounced yellin’. Yelling is when you increase your
volume and are shouting at someone while engaged in an angry conversation. For
example, “Mom holler’d for us kids to come in. When we showed up late, she
yell’d at us for not coming when she holler’d”.
Tom attempted to
explain that I was new, still learning and that it would never happen again.
This he said while looking down at me from his perch in the pharmacy at the store level. Most of us are old enough to remember when “drug stores” had a
compartmentalized pharmacy area that was elevated two or three feet from floor
level. This was to instill trust (fear?) in what the pharmacist told you. They
were authoritative and were in a position superior to you. They were “above”
you and you must reach “up” to take the medicine they were handing “down” to
you. Kind of like when Moses had to reach “up” to take the stone tablets of the
Ten Commandments God was handing “down to man.
After the call, Tom
explained Doc Thames always calls in his own prescriptions and he only says,
“Uh-huhhhh”. I learned to understand his signature single-word greeting rather
quickly. Again, I am a fast learner. I also soon learned to read prescriptions
(scripts) and was taking calls from doctors’ offices. One day the phone rang, and after my now professional yet congenial greeting of “Fortune’s Drugs, how may I
ASSIST YOU?” I received the unmistakable greeting from Doc Thames. I quickly
explained I could take the script. Without any pause, he asked: “Son, do you
hunt?” –Yes sir.—“Do you take a shot if you cannot make sure the area beyond
the deer is clear?”—No sir.—“If you do not have a clear shot but still think
you can kill the deer, do you take the shot?”—No sir.—“Do you understand why I
am asking you these questions?”—Yes sir. “Why?”—You want to make sure I understand the importance of taking a prescription correctly and not try to do so just to prove I can. I must be 100% confident my actions will not endanger anyone. In other words, Doc Thames was making sure I had no doubt in my mind about taking this script. I am not sure a teenager in a drug store could take the Hippocratic Oath, but I certainly understood the “
Primum non nocere” portion and he wanted to make sure he fulfilled the “
First, do no harm” clause of the oath. Satisfied I
could handle it, he then rattled off the script. I am not sure if I jumped for
joy, but there was a smile on Tom’s face when I turned to face him. He took the
scripts from my hand and then compared them to his. He was listening in on the
conversation. I guess he too wanted to “P
rimum non nocere”.
Sometime later, Tom
had me take something to Doc Thames at his office. I was walking with a
pronounced limp because I had twisted my ankle. It was swollen and all shades
of colors in the G BIV portion of ROY’s name. At the time my normal doc was Max
Meredith and could have seen him, all I had to do was walk in the back door and
Sharon (his RN) would have put me in a room. Dr. Thames told me to “sit down in
this chair and I’ll fix you right up”. He untied my shoe, pulled off my sock
then examined my ankle and foot. He wrapped it in an elastic bandage and told
me to take it easy. If it was not any better in 10 days, come back. He had a
room full of patients, but he took the time to tend to my ankle. On the way
back to the drug store I remembered meeting Doc Thames on New Year’s Eve 1978.
His son Ricky hosted a party on their property and we would gather around a
huge bonfire. We listened to music, told lies to each other, and tried to find
a girl to kiss at midnight. While counting down the minutes, Doc Thames walked
up and asked how we were all doing. He was just coming home. He hung out with
us for a bit and told us all to be careful.
A year or so later,
Fortune’s Drugs won the contract for providing prescription and OTC medications to the
inmates at Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office (SRCSO) jail. I met Doc Thames on SAT mornings at the jail. I sat
beside him as he examined the patient; he recorded his own notes and rattled
off the scripts. I wrote the scripts on Fortune’s Drugs prescription pads then took
them back to the pharmacy and once filled, delivered the prescriptions back to SRCSO
jail later that day. Between patients, we would have a few moments to talk. He
always encouraged me to stay in school. No matter what I do, enjoy it. Asked if
I had a girlfriend and whether I was treating her right. Asked how my tennis
playing was going and how many times I had beaten Dr. Matthews. He always talked
about making my time count. One of his many pearls of wisdom, one I will never
forget, “it’s just as easy to ask a pretty girl out as it is an ugly girl”. So
true.
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Rufus Thames, MD
19 NOV 26 - 20 APR 90 |
Working in the drug
store afforded me many opportunities. I was able to learn a lot about medicine,
being responsible for opening/closing a business, and generally matured a lot. It
also afforded me the opportunity to meet a lot of wonderful people, some of
them the pillars of the community from judges to school board members, and some
on the opposite end of the social spectrum. I learned to look past their
circumstances and see them as people. I also heard countless stories about Doc
Thames. Regardless of the social stratum, tax bracket, or even which side of
the river you lived, everyone had a kind word to say about Doc Thames. He was
always just a phone call away. Whether they saw him at his office in the middle
of the night or at the ER, he did what was necessary to treat them. For payment, he
took either a few bills of crumpled, sweat-laden cash, a post-dated check, a
pot o’ collards, a basket o’ chicken, or even a bushel of fresh corn. He was not
a physician for the money or social standing. He did it because he cared about
the people, regardless of their situation. When he looked at my ankle, I was a
bit uncomfortable. Here was a grown man kneeling before me, taking off my sock
and shoe. I was nobody; a teenage boy. The whole event sort of had a “foot
washing” vibe to it. The entire point of washing another’s feet is servitude.
Doc Thames was a servant. He took care of his fellow man. He was a man larger
than life. He was a just man. He was a good man. Many around Milton only have
to look at family portraits to see their “memories”. He delivered many babies
and in so doing, gave those families many loving memories. Most of my memories were
made sitting beside him, watching him in his element, even if the exam room was
a small room at the county jail. Each of us with our own spit cup, passing the
time while seeing one patient after the other. He treated them no differently
than any other. Like all other patients, he “fixed ‘em right up”.
