I was mistaken in saying the nameless computer store was my first job in Virginia. That honor actually goes to Dart Drug Corp. Dart Drug was a chain of D.C.-area drug stores similar to CVS only dirtier and much less professional. Dart was the creation of Herbert Haft and his big-haired, feuding family. But well before the Haft family turned on each other the company was going through troubled times. The management of the chain had just bought the company and the business always seemed to be on the brink of collapse.

I had been talked into working there by my friend Evan MacKenzie. It was a job, and even at a pay rate of $3.66 per hour it was better than nothing (or McDonald’s, I figured at the time). I never considered it a long-term employer but it suited my needs for a time. If there’s one good thing about a skimpy paycheck it’s that it’s less likely to bounce. So in September of 1986 I applied for a job and soon pinned on my name badge at the Dart Drug store in the Sugarland Plaza shopping center, 247 Harry Flood Byrd Highway in Sterling, VA.
Continue reading →