The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 67

hi SCOUTS New center set for Beargrass Christian site Page 2 YOUR VIEW Mothers going to college deserve respect Page 3 SOFTBALL Family team's roster has only one name: Steele Page 5 CITY News and features about your area of Jefferson County WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1992 WEEKLY SECTION OF THE COURIER-JOURNAL, A GANNETT NEWSPAPER -n -ri (cw nrn i cj a THE EBB AND FLOW OF POOL ATTENDANCE 5 "3 TZ if rSA I JTT" ilms ''tissue Zegart Drugs employee Julia Carter, left, wiped the store's lunch counter as she chatted with another worker, the Rev. William T. Curry, and customer Ginny Heath last week. Carter has worked at the store 26 years and Curry has been there more than six years. Heath said she has been a regular customer there for more than two years.

'J 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 CITY SITES Algonquin 8,173 3,805 8,098 5,420 6,707 Breslin 8,903 8,252 7,726 6,971 6,307 Central 2,399 2,265 2,713 1,751 1,028 Hazelwood 5,155 2,695 2,837 1,862 2,883 LaPorte 6,118 5,902 4,799 6,687 8,376 Norton 14,574 10,073 10,293 12,064 11,289 Shawnee 4,478 4,104 3,713 3,700 3,671 Shelby 4,565 4,375 4,231 4,016 4,627 Wyandotte 17,885 13,171 11,536 15,114 12,937 COUNTY SITES Fairdale 8,269 6,702 6,274 7,880 8,041 Sun Valley 12,441 9,186 8,663 7,400 7,924 Valley 6,827 5,922 8,208 8,882 8,423 Watterson 6,061 7,088 6,922 5,900 4,152 Western 10,432 7,433 8,253 7,481 6,621 TOTALS: 116,280 90,973 94,266 95,128 92,986 SOURCE; METRO PARKS STAFF CHART BY ANDREW DAVIS Arnold J. Zegart, below, worked In the pharmacy last week at the store his father, Harry, opened In 1935 at Seventh and Oak streets. Zegart plans to close the store Oct. 13 and will operate a pharmacy nearby at Fourth and Oak for Winn-Dixie. Zegart Drugs to close, ending era Tm 1 1 Despite cool summer, attendance at pools took only slight dive For 57 years, Limerick store a second home to customers i IW5 I I- 1 By CYNTHIA WILSON Staff Writer Clytia Dowell says Zegart Drugs is more than a place to fill prescriptions or buy cough syrup.

The store at Seventh and Oak streets in Limerick has been her hangout "longer than you've been born," she told a reporter recently-Even after Dowell moved near Poplar Level Road more than a year ago, she returns twice a week to sit with friends over dessert, soup or coffee. She said it won't be the same when the store closes Oct. 13. "It's just like breaking up my home," Dowell said. "There's no place to go and drink a cup of coffee." Owner Arnold Zegart is going to miss seeing Dowell and all the other customers who make up his photographic "wall of shame" by the lunch counter.

But he said it's time to close the store his father, Harry, opened in 1935. The 56-year-old Prospect resident is selling his prescription records to Winn Dixie, which will open a pharmacy at its Fourth and Oak store Oct. 15, he said. Zegart will run the pharmacy. He said he is negotiating to take all four of his employees with him.

Zegart said if the health industry wasn't changing so rapidly he might have held onto the family business. But he said insurance companies' attempts to control drug costs by contracting with chain stores will force most independent pharmacists out of business. He said the practice has already meant fewer customers and a cap on the amount of money they are reimbursed. Closing the pharmacy is "going to be a sad day, but in some ways I'm ready," said Zegart, who began doing odd jobs around the store when he was 4. "It'll be a big change in my life.

I'll have a regular job, regular hours and regular pay." Zegart said his customers will benefit as well. They can expect lower prices, and most will still be able to enjoy the pharmacist-cus- See ZEGART Page 2, col. 1 By CYNTHIA WILSON Staff Writer Cool and wet. That description of Louisville's summer hardly matches the type of weather that invites people to splash about in a swimming pool. In fact, overall use of pools operated by the Metropolitan Park and Recreation Department fell 2 percent, from 95,128 the previous year to 92,986.

"We attribute that to the unusual weather," said Gil Clark, who oversees pool operations for Metro Parks. "It was one of the coolest summers we've had in a long time." Indeed. The National Weather Service reported the average temperature in Louisville for June, July and August as 74.6 degrees the coolest in 10 years. "There's no incentive to go swimming," Clark said. "And we had so much rain and lightning." Still, Clark said, the turnout at the department's 14 pools wasn't bad.

Attendance was down at eight pools and improved at six sites: Algonquin, Hazelwood, LaPorte, Shelby, Fairdale and Sun Valley. The first three each showed increases of more than 1,000 swimmers. Clark said attendance is still far from the 1988 total of 116,280 a number unmatched since. Attendance dropped by more than 15,000 the following year, before increasing again in 1990 and 1991. Clark said a decrease in vandal ism, which he couldn't explain, kept attendance from dropping even more.

In the past, he noted, the department had to close pools or delay opening them so maintenance teams could remove garbage and broken glass. As usual, this year's turnout wasn't enough for the pools to break even financially. Clark said pool revenue is just one-third of their operational cost, but the system is committed to keeping them open. Metro Parks took several steps to improve attendance this summer. Pools opened two weeks earlier this year and offered several new programs to attract more adults and seniors.

The department also entered a program with the Jefferson County Board of Health and the YMCA to train lifeguards. Clark attributes the increase at Algonquin, at Cypress Street and Burwell Avenue, to the Summer Outdoor Adventure Recreation program begun a year ago. The program features seven-day-a-week educational, recreational and cultural programs, including swimming instructions. Carolyn Belmar, Metro Parks recreation programs manager, said more than 50 youngsters participated in an evening swim session the program sponsored. The SOAR office, meanwhile, re-See ATTENDANCE Page 2, col.

1 3' Jt' v. 3 ttw. 1 6 4, it ft i 1 Happy Days again Annual dance recreates atmosphere of Catholic teen clubs in the 1950s r. jo ''g Witten's method of keeping some people out of the club was much like the '50s themselves: Unique, old-fashioned and innocent. And Witten and some of her friends from those days hope 4n Carolyn Witten to rekindle that spirit at 9 p.m.

Oct. By BILL PIKE Staff Writer When Carolyn Sherrell Witten was a teen-ager in the 1950s, she thought up a good way to keep rough-looking characters out of St. Cecilia's teen club in Portland. "When I was working the door and somebody who looked raunchy or who looked like they'd been drinking beer wanted to come in, I would tell them that the club was only for Catholics. I would tell them that they had to say a Hail Mary before they could come in." That was enough to stop all but the most bull-headed gate-crashers, Witten said.

"Sometimes they'd go out in the parking lot and learn to say a Hail Mary and come back and say it and want to get in," Witten said. "Then I'd change the prayer. I'd tell them they had to say an Act of Contrition." The second prayer was too long for a quick lesson. "That stopped them good," Witten laughed. "They hated me." Although she didn't use it often, CjZ- lrtm, I 3 at the American Legion Iroquois Post, 800 W.

Woodlawn Ave. That's when they will put on their annual dance with '50s music for "older teen-agers," as Witten put it. "The dance started as just for people who had gone to teen-age clubs in the '50s in the West End," Witten said. "But it has grown into something for everybody who was a teen-ager in the '50s. Everybody's welcome." Teen clubs featuring music, dancing, socializing and other ac- See ANNUAL Page 2, col.

1 iMiaiiif-mr'- STAFF PHOTOS BY AFtZA BARNETT Clytia Dowell, a regular customer at Zegart Drugs for more than 30 years, talked with Carter as they relaxed and worked on beans last week at the lunch counter. Dowell said she will miss having a place to go for coffee, food and conversation..