Milkmen, and Other Artifacts of a Lost Era

Oh, completely dead and ready for the oven.

When I was very young we had a milkman a pastry/bread man in the summer a fresh vegetable man (which my parents did not use, we had a garden) an egge man, some one who came once a year to grind my mother's knives, a Fuller Brush man, Jehovah Witnesses (who my father escorted off the property) and the telephone was a party line. What sticks in my memory is that they would all stop to talk for a moment, they were not simple service people but friends, neighbors and members of the community.

Parents, in order to avoid subjecting their kids to the possibility of polio, would send their kids to summer camp, "out of the city".

One car to a family was the norm, and the car was almost always American made.

There was no McDonald's, Burger King, KFC or the like. White Castle was the only burger joint around, and had been since the 1920s.

Saturday afternoons were spent either at the movies, or the roller rink, if you were a kid. They had a "children's section", for under 12 year olds, usually in the front side section of the movie, which was controlled by a "matron". She was typically a white haired harridan, who meted out punishment by shining a flashlight in the faces of mischief makers.

Our milkman used to leave the milk, cream, eggs and butter on the doorstep. The milk was in glass bottles and I have never tasted milk so delicious. I loved drinking a glass of ice-cold milk. Now, I only use (fake) milk to color my coffee!

Our bread man used to leave a sliced pan and an unsliced loaf on our window sill. It was so fresh it was still warm and we would stuff handfulls into our mouth if we got to it before our mother.

Our insurance man used to come and collect the life insurance money once a week and stop for a cup of tea.

We knew all of our neighbors in a four-block radius and they knew us kids and watched us like hawks. I'd get home and my mom knew where I had been and with whom (and this was before we had a telephone installed).

When I started work, the bus driver and bus conductor on my regular route knew my name and if I missed the bus and they saw me they would drive around the circle again to pick me up. Their jokes and teasing put me in a good mood for the entire day.

My mom used to drop spare change in a container and the charitable organization would come to collect it once a month - replacing the container with an empty one each time. Now I don't know what to do with all my spare change. It's in drawers, on tables, in bowls....

Until a few years ago, my parents never owned a credit card. They only dealt in cash. If you didn't have enough cash for something, then you didn't buy it, you saved for it.

All these people I remember. We knew their names and about their families. They knew us and how old we were, what school, teams, grades we got. It was so much more personal back then. I realize that today I could drop dead and no-one would find me or even think to look for days. Sure I have friends but I do not feel as attached to a community as I did back then. I think something important has been lost.

Roberta, i still have a vague memory of sitting out on the stoop in the Bronx when i was very, very little . . . lots of sights, lots and lots of sounds, various smells . . . thanks for the memories . . .

Ask a kid this? How many feet of penny candy can you get for a nickel at Tomlinson's corner store?

Answer: Six feet if Mrs. Tomlinson is cutting it off the roll.
Four feet, eight and one/half inches, if it's her husband, Rob.

Question: How many loaves of bread and packs of cigarettes can you buy for fifty cents?

Answer: One of each. Wonder Bread (Red, Yellow and Blue Balloons) 22 cents
Chesterfields 21 cents

If kid gets back to the house without crushing either the bread or the butts and still has the change with him, he gets the two cents.

Question: How many trips to the store (successful) does it take to save enough for an ice cream cone at Farr's Soda Shop away up there on Trotter Street?

Answer: Two. Four cents get you a single scoop of chocolate on a sugar cone. Got a nickel? Get shots on it.

Joe

PS I once (just once) lost the two quarters on the way to the store. Fifty years later, my mom, nearly on her deathbed, reminded me that from then on she had to fold the money in a piece of paper so I wouldn't lose it.

I have not heard that word in eons. Except that my stoop was in Brooklyn!

I remember being sent to the corner store with 50 cents to buy a pack of L&M cigarettes for my dad. I got to spend the change on candy!

I remember the corner candy store. They sold Dolly Madison Ice Cream. One time, the company gave them a revolving display that had mirrors, and scoops of all flavors of ice cream. I thought that it was the most gorgeous thing that I had ever seen!

Funny... I wonder if my kids would know how?

We still have a milkman. He delivers all sorts of dairy products and eggs and Starbucks coffee! He puts it in our outside refrigerator so it all stays fresh. The milk is way better than what you can get in the store.

I frequently drive by the building that houses the candy store I knew as a small child -- I vividly remember skipping down the street to that store when I was six. SKIPPING!!!

"Your permanent record" were the scariest words you could ever hear at school.

Remember fizzies? The root beer were my favorite.

We had a large freezer in the basement, and my mother had tupperware (or whatever the brand was) popsicle molds. She would mix up a batch of cool-aid, and make popsicles for us as a special treat.

We are getting them more and more - traffic planners think this is the best way to keep the traffic rolling, etc.


Milkmen are still very common the UK, and they start here again.

When I read that, Boomerang, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. You're right. Horrible thought.

Remember 45 records and wondering if the flip-side was any good? (I wonder if my kids would know what the "flip-side" means?)

<Remembering that I once a a record by the Monkees, and the flip site song later became a No. 1 hit (and they changed the sites later, of course)>

I like roundabouts. They're always good for a laugh in rush-hour on a bicycle. Germany should feel blessed, Walter! :wink:

They are more common in middle/upper class areas, as junkies, burglars and other miscreants would just steal milk left on a doorstep in a poorer neighbourhood.

These were getting rare, but when I was very young they still had an ice house in the town I grew up in. They no longer delivered but you could get these huge (it seemed to me) blocks of ice there. If you were going to make home made ice cream you needed one of those to pack the mixer. It was my job to break the ice up with an ice pick (and freeze my fingers)

Skipping to the store: that's how I lost the money.....

Wow! I just got a case of cramps. In those days, to have something put on your PERMANENT RECORD was tantamount to wearing a Scarlet D (for dummy) on your chest. The ignominy would follow you around for the rest of your natural life!

Coal deliveries. They'd back the truck up onto the sidewalk, open the basement window, slide the chute into place and open up the hatch. A coal landslide!