Correll is retiring after tending to the area’s sick for a half century.

He celebrated his 76th birthday earlier this month, and he has won a battle with cancer. He decided it’s time to retire.

Filling that prescription may be the hardest thing the doctor has ever done.

Correll is approaching retirement with all the zeal of a kid forced to take his first vaccination.

“I’ve been looking forward to this retirement on one hand, but on the other hand, I’m getting a little anxious about it, maybe a little depressed about it, even,” said Correll earlier this week.

Seated behind a huge desk in an office filled with family pictures, plaques and framed certificates, he talked about the difficulty of calling it quits. He confessed that if he looks across Centergrove Road from his home and sees folks in his clinic parking lot, he may just get up and go back to work.

His legendary practice is reflected in the tens of thousands of patient files in his office. They span generations.

Recently, a longtime patient asked the staff to check her file, to see when she first came to Correll. The year was 1952.

Back then the fee ranged from $2 to $5. The $5 fee was the office visit and a shot of penicillin, maybe a test or two included.

Those years in the 1950s were tough for a young doctor straight out of medical school. He graduated from the two-year medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and went on to get his degree at the University of Tennessee, which had a full four-year program.

Folks convinced him Kannapolis needed another doctor, and he opened an office over the bank downtown and waited for all those patients.

He waited and looked and wondered aloud where they were. He made house calls and kept looking for those patients.

“I thought I was going to starve to death the first several months, ” he said with a chuckle.

Eventually, the patients came and kept coming.

There were some creative pay arrangements. He recalled getting a lot of produce, hams and other things.

Under the carport of his office sits a 1928 Model A. A patient knew his interest in cars and offered the Model A to settle a bill for delivering three babies.

Correll began his practice in the era of polio epidemics. He saw the threat diminish with the Salk vaccine.

He had many tough moments in years to come. The toughest were dealing with patients who had terminal illnesses, particularly cancer. It never got an easier.

He remembers lighter moments, including the prescription he wrote for a woman with stomach problems. As he recalled, it was perfectly good medicine.

But the pharmacist called up to tell him the woman flat out refused to take it and cussed him out.

“She told him that she knew damn well that something that costs 65 cents wasn’t going to help her,” said Correll. “We don’t ever have that complaint this day and time.”

Old-fashioned colds and various strains of the flu have filled Correll’s office to overflowing for years.

The best medicine for a cold hasn’t changed a bit in 50 years. “Juice, Tylenol or aspirin. It’s going to run its course in spite of everything.”

He has seen improvement in the treatment of flu. “There’s a couple of new medicines that are quite good.”

While medicines changed, so did medical practices.

Hospitals now compete with group practices to recruit doctors fresh out of medical school. Younger doctors have an office and guaranteed salary starting out.

Years ago the idea of having a two-man practice appealed to Correll. He built his office on Centergrove with two of everything and started interviewing other doctors.

“They were more interested in time off and the financial end than they were in working,” said Correll.

A few years ago, when he was having bouts with prostate and bladder cancer, he kept answering the same questions. Folks wanted to know why he didn’t take in another doctor.

His stock answer: “Well, I worked by myself so long and got so peculiar, I don’t know if I could work with anybody else.”

And there was the plan to shorten office hours. He reasoned if he could start at 6 a.m., he might be done by 3 p.m.

Instead, he started at 6 a.m. and was still in the office at 6 p.m.

This week, patients still filled the waiting room. Amidst coughs and comparing complaints, they speculated about what they’ll do next week.

Grace Hofmeister and her husband, Olin, talked about years ago when they would get in line by flashlight.

“I’d come before daylight and put my name on a piece of paper and write No. 1 by it and put it in the door. As others came, they’d use my flashlight and sign their names.”

When the office opened, folks were seen by the list.

Another thing that hasn’t changed is Correll’s fondness for his home town and his love of cars.

Correll tells folks he’s a native of Kannapolis but explains he missed it by a bit. His folks were Kannapolis residents , but in the Depression — the great one — they moved to Fieldale, Va., and found work in a Fieldcrest plant.

Correll was born there, but his folks moved back to Kannapolis three years later.

In 50 years, Correll declares he has sold some of his cars, although his wife, Mary Frances, tells everybody he’s not parted with a single one.

At the current count, he has 34 of various types and models stashed in garages around the area.

His favorite is a black 1955 T-bird, the first one sold in Cabarrus County. He bought it from Buddy Hilbish and still drives it frequently.

For years, he’s been planning to start fixing up the cars.

With retirement coming next week, the cars are looking like a good retirement plan.

His children — sons, Gene and Kelly, and daughters, Cindy Leggett and Tara Hughes — share his love for cars.

His daughters came closest to following in their father’s professional footsteps. Both pharmacists, they work at the Winn-Dixie pharmacy in China Grove.