On The High Way

 To say that the Walgreens is gone would not be completely accurate. The building is still very much there. The bright red faux script letters that used to identify it have been wrenched from the façade, leaving a ghostly dirt-encrusted shadow where they once were. The sign out front that had been advertising for pharmacy techs for as long as I can remember has been stripped of that employment opportunity, leaving just a white space below where the plastic identifying marker has been removed. There is no further need for pharmacy techs at this location. 

Walgreens on High Street in Oakland has moved on to the next phase of its existence: the "remember when" phase.

Honestly, I don't have a great heaping ton of memories about this particular location. It has served as a landmark for me lo these many years. It stands on the corner of an intersection by which I pass on a regular basis. On those occasions that my wife drives me to work, I could see it at the bottom of the off-ramp where we make our big turn onto the street that will lead me to my school. It is also a point of interest in an odd mix of retail and residential. I have run past it most weekends for many years now, and it was on one of these fits of exercise that I looked up and noticed the change. One week they were open for business. The next week the signs were gone and there was a chain link fence erected around the parking lot. The corporate office had this to say about their High Street location: “increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures are weighing on our ability to cover the costs associated with rent, staffing, and supply needs.” That point on the Walgreens map wasn't making enough money. Never mind the effect closing it will have on the community it has served. Competition with online businesses and big box discount stores made it obsolete. 

Again, I did not spend a lot of time shopping there. I live down the street from a CVS, that used to be a Longs that provides me with those impulse-type buys, like the stuffings for holiday stockings or the occasional impulse bag of chips. But the memory I have of the inside of that Walgreens comes from a couple teacher strikes ago, when a bunch of us gathered there to walk up to the overpass to wave signs and shout at passing traffic. It was the High Street Walgreens that provided me with the Doritos and Gatorade I needed to get me through that work action. 

The scariest part of this lack of Walgreens is what might or might not happen in its place. There are so many empty buildings in Oakland, waiting for someone to come and do business inside. Until the weight of "reimbursement pressures" comes along and drags it down too.