I grew up on a Texas farm and my dad was the milkman…. literally.  Sometimes, when I was quite small, I would sit on a little stool in the barn and watch him milk .  Just for the heck of it, he’d  say” Here it comes" and squirt toward my open mouth .  He wasn’t a very good aim and my mom didn’t especially like fresh milk in my hair and on my face and clothes.  But it sure was fun.

About once a month my mom would pack up us kids and we would go to town.  She shopped at a small grocers for dry goods.  The grocer would hand tally everything in a small tablet.  My mom would sign, and when the crops came in or we sent cattle to market, Dad would come in and pay.  There was never a collection call and no bill ever came in the mail.

We got mail about once a month.. I think.  It was a big deal when the mail truck crossed over the cattle guard in front of our farm.  When Mom looked through that Sears catalog over and over, she was in heaven.

I remember our milkman from Steffen’s Dairy who came (it seemed daily) delivery milk, cottage cheese, and occasionally ice cream.  He was very friendly and called me and my sisters *pumpkin* so we started calling him that too!  I don’t remember ice boxes but to this day I commonly refer to the refrigerator as an ice box because that is what my parent’s called it.  The Fuller Brush man…I remember him too but always worried about him…even then I wondered how he could possible earn a living selling combs and brushes and hoped we would buy something from him. 

My grocery store now sells milk in glass bottles ($3.00 extra charge per half gallon as deposit on bottle) and I occasionally buy it.  It really DOES taste better.  But, I’m not so diligent about remembering to return bottles so don’t buy it very often.   Having a milkman come, deliver milk in glass bottles and then pick up the empties would be heavenly! 

I remember the milkman, but alas, he never came to our house.  My parents both grew up in poor families - as a result, they learned to be quite thrifty.  Dad also had a fairly meagher income and though Mom  also worked part-time, money was tight.  Every decision (and I mean every single decision) about money was scrutinized. 

Our neighbors all had their milk delivered and I thought it was just about the most luxurious thing there ever was - I was sure that we just had to have it (it ranked right up there with the three-speed bike, the Chrissie Doll - NOT the "little sister" Velvet Doll that I "settled for", and the dog that we begged to have and then couldn’t manage to keep in the fence).   

Of course, my Mom wasn’t about to pay the extra money for milk delivery so we "struggled along" (in my young eyes) without and actually picked up our milk ourselves.  Oh my, what hardships we endured… 

Yes, with hindsight I do understand that the phrase should be more along the lines of: Oh my, what a hardship was I for my mother to endure all those years ago!  Mothers are saints, are they not? Good thing they love us! :)

As a little girl we lived on Coldwater Canyon in an apartment.  The building is still there with the white rod iron railings.  The milk was delivered but I remember one time in particular when my older sister and I were bored and we decided to take all the empty bottles and drop them off the second floor balcony.  Boy oh boy did we get it.  I can still remember that spanking.

Does anyone remember the Helms Bakery Truck.  They were "Woodies" the trucks the surfers later used for going to the beach.  Anyway, they had all these beautiful hand made wooden drawers on slides that glided out and were full of donuts.  That truck smelled so delicious.  The donuts were made that morning and the "Helms Bakery Man" would blow his truck whistle and we all ran to get donuts,  and they were so good!  I liked twister donuts or jellies.  

The cleaner also picked up an delivered.  I found out my local cleaners is doing that again which is cool.

The last milk deliveries were at the ranch in the 60’s to the early 70’s and it was the Alta Dena Dairy.  They had those big old trucks - almost like UPS.  He didn’t leave it on the door step, he knocked and came in and put them in the fridge.  We also had a cellar built out of a hillside and there was another fridge in there and he would put the extras in there.  With about 10 kids living at the ranch we needed a lot of milk. WE used Alta Dena because they had raw milk with no hormones.

Well Girls,

I, too, remember the milkman. We lived just to the East of Buffalo, out Route 5. I remember my Mom telling me that, when she was younger, milk was 7-cents a quart, delivered. I, also, remember her telling me, that before they were married, she earned $7.00 per week; that was a six-day week.

When the milkmen went on strike, the local grocery stores, (A&P;Nu-way; Loblaws) had refrigerators built in their stores … for milk. Grocery stores sold groceries. Meat markets sold meat, fish markets sold fish, fruit and vegetable stores sold produce. It was also Mom’s, "news center." All the people she’d meet and talked with. I loved being with my Mom with these Friday sojourns; her Mom was with us, too.

We had a milk-box that was built into the wall of the house. The post office, shared that same box. Yes, standard milk with the top cream.

Our dairy, was Jones Dairy. That was bought by the, Rich Dairies. They became Jones-Rich Milk. The Rich family is the same one that has that Football Stadium; used by the Buffalo Bills football team.

Decades later, when I was married, we were living in Brooklyn; later, New Jersey. We had milk delivered. We also had children by then. Our place, in Jersey, was a third floor walk-up. With another baby inside, I needed all the non-stair trips I could get.

In Buffalo, Kart’s Dairy was another Dairy that delievered where we lived.

Then, my first after-school job was …. was, where else? Wendt’s Cream Top Dairy. The were out of Niagara Falls, (NY). Our store also sold Ice cream.

I still have my Mom’s 78 r.p.m’s One of those records was, "Any Ice Today, Lady?" It was by the, Seven Little Polar Bears. Cameo Records. Obviously, it was, "novelty," record. My favorite was a Mario Lanza recording of, "Guardian Angels," written by Harpo Marx.

Ooops, I’m off topic. Sorry. Memories do that to me.

I never got to see the Milkman until a lot of deliveries stopped because the grocery store now had milk. The milkmen that still had routes, had longer routes and I got to see the nice, friendly man. He was handsome. Short, salt n’ pepper hair. Clean shaven. He always had a kind word for me.

As Bob Hope sang, "thanks for the memories." In this case, thanks for the trip down memory lane.

"Missy," Susan Pauline Bauer