Flash Non-Fiction
IMAGES OF YOUNG LIFEGUARDS more than a half century ago at Main Beach in Crystal Lake, spinning their whistles, noses covered in white zinc oxide, spun around in my head when I asked the pharmacist at Walgreens to point me toward the zinc oxide ointment. Other pictures crept in of soothing diaper rashes for my four children and their children. Heck, I even still use the stuff. It probably cures the yips! Then the young pharmacist pointed toward the rack of vitamins. I said, no, zinc oxide ointment, in a tube. He did not know what I was talking about. I said for baby rashes. Oh, baby things are on aisle three, he said. I would hate to be his kid.
-30-