Retiring Holyoke pharmacist leaves the industry with mixed feelings, gratitude and pride

Retirement was not a decision James Dunn Jr. made because of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Rather, it’s because the career pharmacist from Holyoke didn’t want to go out like “Sudden Sam” McDowell.

Longtime baseball fans, of which Dunn is one, might remember McDowell as pitching star in the 1960s. The Cleveland Indians left-hander with a blazing fastball was later the archetype for actor Ted Danson’s character of Sam Malone in the hit TV series, “Cheers.”

“I saw ‘Sudden Sam’ McDowell’s first game at Fenway Park. He threw about 98 miles per hour,’’ says the 73-year-old Dunn, whose last day of a nearly 50-year career is today at the Stop & Shop pharmacy on Route 9 in Hadley. “I was at (McDowell’s) last game with Yankees, toward the end of his career. He was throwing junk at about 80 (mph). I didn’t want to end my own career like that.”

If anyone can be called “relentlessly humble,’’ it’s Dunn, who insists his life is “neither fascinating nor interesting.” Perhaps in this American moment of re-examining what quality of life is all about and rediscovering that heroes are more readily found in so-called ordinary, everyday life than with celebrities, there’s no better time to reassess that.

Dunn leaves a field that saw him follow in the large footsteps of his father, James Dunn. A baseball standout who was set to attend the College of the Holy Cross on scholarship, the elder Dunn needed to pay just $100. He could only raise $60, so instead, he wound up at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, where he pursued a degree in pharmacy. He later ran a dispensary for the U.S. Navy at the Panama Canal.

During World War II, many pro athletes served in the military, and James Dunn the elder crossed paths with several baseball major leaguers. His son says Navy colleagues told him his father was as good a ballplayer as they were.

James Dunn later married and had seven children. James Jr. was the only one who followed him into the pharmaceutical field and worked at his father’s side at the family-owned drug store in Holyoke.

“I wasn’t a good listener, but I listened to him then,” Dunn says. “One of my regrets is that I never told him how grateful I was for that advice.”

As he heads into retirement, Jim Dunn describes pharmaceutical work as Da Vinci might have discussed science or art. That explains why, as much as he’s convinced it’s time to retire, he does so with mixed feelings.

“I’m sad, I’m apprehensive, but I’m also excited. This is the first time in my life I haven’t had a plan, but I’m anxious to see what plan God has in store for me,’’ he says.

In addition, he asks rhetorically, “What person retires in the middle of a pandemic while he watches his 401K plan go down 30 percent?” No hint of trepidation exists in Dunn’s voice. His mixed feelings have nothing to with fear of the future, and everything to do with appreciation for his past.

“It’s such a beautiful business,” Dunn says of being a pharmacist. He points to a Georgetown University study that listed it first among the best college investments.

“It’s in such good hands today, too. The kids coming out of it today are so smart, and so focused,’’’ he says.

Dunn grew up in Holyoke’s Elmwood neighborhood, where, he says, “People left their doors open. Everyone watched out for each other, and you could always find a baseball game.”

In 1971, he graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. “It was hard to get into pharmacy school then. It’s harder today,’’ Dunn says.

He then worked for six years with his father, and, by 1977, he owned his own store.

“There were 41 pharmacies in Holyoke. It’s tough to be a small, independent business owner, but I loved owning my own business,’’ Dunn says. He loved it so much that in 1988, when given a chance to sell, he hesitated.

“Someone made me an offer for the building, and, about a week later, CVS called with an offer for the business,’’ recalls Dunn, who describes the sequence as perhaps a sign of fate.

“I asked my dad, and he said ‘I would do it,’” Dunn says. Yet, regardless of what CVS was offering – free insurance, a 401K plan and good money in a non-ownership position, he thought that by selling the business, he was letting people down.

That was hardly true, and Dunn eventually worked as a CVS manager for 19 years. In 2007, he was successfully recruited by Stop & Shop, the last stop on his career journey.

Dunn has worked with interns who, he says, taught him more than he taught them. Similarly, he served as adjunct professor at what is now Western New England University – a labor of love and not money – and savored every minute of it.

As Dunn moves forward, he is allowing himself to look back. He sees his father, who worked seven days a week, taught him the value of hard work and would tip his hat as he passed a woman on the sidewalk in that very different era.

He sees his mother, who helped raise a large and successful family. One of Dunn’s brothers, Frankie, graduated from Holy Cross, the school where his father had been denied entry for the want of $40.

“My dad said the best feeling he had was when he was able to write the check for that,’’ Dunn says.

What now? Dunn may not have a plan, but he has choices.

“I have six kids and 10 grandchildren. I love being a dad, but I really love being a granddad,’’ he says. “I’ve been able to watch two of my grandchildren play college baseball. I can be more available for my grandkid, and to my wife. The fence around the pool needs painting, too, so I’ll work on that.”

That may sound like a very ordinary task for a man who considers his own life less than fascinating. He’s wrong about that, of course, just as everyone is wrong by understating the value of a full and well-lived life

“We were given a gift by our parents. It’s been a great life for me,’’ Dunn says.

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