Here are two stories that tell you a lot about Oak Park at its most generous and open-hearted. Take them as an antidote to the mire of the moment in this nation.
There has been a small and independent pharmacy on Roosevelt Road at Lombard for some 60 years. Segreti’s. There was, we suppose, a Mr. Segreti, but for most of the years on that corner there has been Kenneth Bertini. He started to work there when he was 15 years old, worked through high school and college, got his pharmacist license and continued to work there. Finally in 1985, Bertini bought the corner pharmacy and has operated it since.
Along the way, he says, he had to transform the business side of his operation multiple times. One very interesting reinvention was beginning to compound meds for pets. He works with many local vets and pet owners. That gradually grew into 40 percent of his business.
Now 77 and with the building on Roosevelt reportedly sold, Bertini chose to close shop but wanted to find a place for his employees and his pet med business. He connected with Jalal Mataria, now a co-owner of the quite wonderful Sears Pharmacy on Madison Street. They’ve known each other for years. The two worked out a plan that has Segreti’s staff joining Sears and Bertini training Sears pharmacists on how to mix meds for dogs and cats.
Creative solutions that look out for people – employees and customers and, yes, their pets – are hard to find. Here’s to Bertini and Mataria for forging an alliance out of a friendship that keeps independent local pharmacy alive in Oak Park.
And a hat tip to the Sun-Times which told this story first.
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Ten days ago, we were among the hundreds who turned out at Ascension Church for a Celebration of Life service for Gina Orlando. A good sentiment to celebrate a life rather than simply mourn a death. But the twist here was noted on the cover of the extensive program celebrating Gina.
“I’m still alive!”
And alive she is, not planning her funeral but rather a gathering of her friends from her many spheres of a well-lived life. Ms. Orlando, a Journal columnist on wellness many years ago, had things she wanted to say about having Stage IV cancer for three years, but mainly she wanted to talk about her coming death and how she plans to get to that death with vitality.
Her motto, suggested by a doctor, is “Happy, healthy, dead.”
We are people who are all going to die. Even Oak Parkers. And we don’t talk about it and clearly we don’t like to think about it. Gina Orlando has thought about it and now she has talked about it.
“Find ways to not be afraid of dying. Craft your life in a way that is meaningful and joyful and even creative for you and your family,” she told our Gregg Voss.
Words to live and die by.
