The day after Labor Day I interviewed Sam Ching, owner and Pharmacist from Rexall Drugs. The city had begun its early morning bustle. The N Judah opened her doors for laborers, physicians, students, professionals with briefcases and iPods and mothers with infants and collapsible strollers.

Sam agreed to meet me thirty minutes before the pharmacy opened. We sat in the dark on two chairs at the back of the pharmacy. He turned on Hawaiian music from his native Honolulu. Israel Kamakawiwo’ole has a booming voice with the power of Pavarotti. Aloha Ku’u Pua he belted in his native tongue. Sounded like a love song to me.

Sam is a fifth generation Hawaiian. "I can honestly say I was born in Paradise." His grandfather was a rice farmer and exported rice to the United States the Chinese immigrants working on the railroads all over America.

Sam’s father was a businessman in the potato chip business. I asked Sam how he chose a career as a pharmacist.

“My father told me to be a pharmacist. In those days you did what your parents expected.”

He attended University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and received his degree in Pharmacy.

In 1955, Sam was in the Navy and stationed in San Francisco. After his tour of duty, he then worked for Walgreen’s before opening one of many of his Pharmacies.

“When I started out there were 250 independent pharmacies in San Francisco, today there are 20. Half of those are in Chinatown and the others are scattered.”

Over the next forty years Sam Ching owned Rexall pharmacies in the Mission, O’Farrell Street, and Keck’s Brommel on Post Street. It was here that Sam customized medications for his clients using alternative methods for healing and pain management and became a knowledgeable and distinguished Compounding Pharmacist. If one of his clients needs a unique formulation of a medication, or a dosage that is not commercially available, Sam “custom makes” a medication. For twenty years he has been compounding and his most successful has been hormone replacement therapy (HRT) He can make tablets or creams using natural hormones to alleviate menopausal symptoms.

Another one of Sam’s clients was in a great deal of back pain and was continually taking 800 mg of Motrin.

“It’s bad for the liver and the stomach. I made him a gel with 100 mg, that he can place directly on his pain several times a day and the body will absorb. It is topical rather than oral.”

Sam carries a variety homeopathic remedies which he recommends particularly for colds. He showed me the shelf with cold remedies and explained that they all have the same ingredient: Benadryl.

“70% of people in Europe rely on homeopathic remedies.”

Sam has been an early proponent of alternative medicine.

“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but you have to try it.”

We talked a little about the health care in our country.

“It’s terrible. As incompetent as the Federal Government can be, I’d rather they ran the health care system than the insurance companies. Do you know that last year, the United Health Care Chairman made $400 million dollars? Nobody’s worth that.”

We talked a little about the upcoming election.

“I don’t care what the side effects. We can’t have another Republican administration. We spend 10 million a day in Iraq. It’s stupid. That’s why our dollar is worth nothing.”

In 2003, Sam bought Reliable Drugs, another Rexall Pharmacy.

“It’s different than all my other stores. All the other stores did not have the personal relationships. Here it’s nothing but personal relationships.”

Israel sings another Hawaiian song, Kaleohano. It sounds like a spiritual. I learn Kaleohano means, “the voice of respect.”

Aloha.

NEXT WEEK: MEET REV. JOEY TALLEY, TAROT CARD READER, GRATITUDE CAFE