Ninety-one-year-old William F. Greene was the oldest member of Doc's Retired Men's Coffee Club. He'd been going to Jarrettsville Pharmacy for his morning cup of coffee since 1987.
Paul Lutz is the junior member – he'd only been coming for the last three years.
"I had to work," he said.
But both of them, as well as the dozen or so other members of the coffee club, have to find a new place for their morning joe. The soda fountain at Jarrettsville Pharmacy closed Friday, after 49 years of serving customers.
"I hate to see it close," longtime member Don Wiley said Friday.
Coffee club members said they're not sure where they'll go – maybe Poe's on Jarrettsville Road, they suggested.
The soda fountain was one of the last, if not the last in Harford County, and was one of only a few left in Maryland, Jarrettsville Pharmacy owner Mark Lapouraille said Friday morning as he stood around with coffee club members, pharmacy employees and others who stopped in one last time to see a little bit of history.
The only soda fountains left that Lapouraille knows of are in Towson, Pasadena and Western Maryland.
Over the years, business has fallen off at the soda fountain, Lapouraille said.
"It got to the point it wasn't as busy as it should have been, as it could have been," he said.
The rest of the business was subsidizing the soda fountain.
When the soda fountain and pharmacy opened nearly 50 years ago, it was the only place in Jarrettsville to eat.
"It was the only game in town," Arnold Neuburger, the former owner of Jarrettsville Pharmacy, said. "We knew everyone who came in here."
People were waiting to sit down, it was that busy, Lapouraille said.
But today there are more choices, more food – Subway, Jarrettsville Creamery, The Pit among them, he said.
"It was tough to decide, it's bittersweet," he added. "It's been part of the community for 49 years."
Lapouraille and his wife, Cheryl, bought the pharmacy in April 1998 from Neuburger, who started the store in the old Southern States building, just off the crossroads of Routes 165 and 23 in "downtown" Jarrettsville. Neuburger moved the pharmacy to its current location at 3714 Norrisville Road in August 1967.
"You gotta move on," Neuburger said. "But I feel terrible. I don't have any place to go anymore. There's no place to go. Nobody would put up with us, but Mark."
Lapouraille has worked at the pharmacy since July 1984, right after he graduated from pharmacy school.
His father and grandfather were pharmacists – "it's in my blood," he said. "I always thought it would be neat, or a challenge, to own a pharmacy."
As for the lunch counter, demolition of it was set to start Tuesday. Lapouraille is going to reconfigure the rest of the pharmacy, which sells, besides prescription medications, over-the-counter medicines and other medical supplies, a number of gift items.
Lapouraille's plan is to open up the windows and create a "new shopping experience" in the store. He doesn't expect it to be finished until the end of July.
Some of the regular customers bought some of the soda fountain pieces as mementos.
Don Wiley bought two of the spinning bar stools, and Elaine Williams bought the one her late husband, Neal, sat on for years and years.
"It's a little bit of Harford County heritage, Jarrettsville history," Lapouraille said.
On the fountain's last day, the coffee club members sat around talking, like they always do. But there was a little more reminiscing Friday than usual.
Lutz said the coffee is what has kept Green, the oldest member, alive.
Green's uncle had been getting coffee at the pharmacy long before Green, 15 to 20 years.
"I just like coming here and all the fellas," Green said.
Wiley joked that if his friend Bob Kirkwood's name was mentioned, it had to have "Grumpy" in parentheses.
"Nah, he's the agitator," Kirkwood said, pointing to Wiley.
Wiley spent the winter working on a spreadsheet detailing the coffee club's drinks, dating to 1991. Since then, 142,702 cups were served to the club members.
His charts are color-coded – blue are deceased members, orange are members who haven't been around in a while.
"I spent all winter doing this. I like to play around with computers," Wiley said, adding somberly, "I hate to see it close."
Wiley has highlighted certain stats, like who's paid for the most cups: Neuburger, at 4,792, the record. That's to be expected, since he's been around the longest and kept coming even after he sold the store to Lapouraille.
For many regular customers, the soda fountain is part of their family history.
"I predate this counter by four months," 49-year-old Mike Dorn said. "My father has been bringing me here since I was a baby. I can remember four generations of Dorns sitting at the counter."