Would you let your 3 year old kid get on his truck?

[Natch]

Going through the process of digitizing a lot of old family photos and came across this one. Back in the early '50s, like many urban areas, we had daily milk delivery. Golden Gurnsey was a major dairy in the Milwaukee area and my parents would let me walk to the end of the block and I'd "help" him deliver to the houses to the other end of our block. Also, check out the Braves poster on the side of the truck. We ain't talking Atlanta here!

 

[ftrplt]

We kids would chase the milkman until he finally gave us some of that wonderful crystal-clear ice!!! Yummy!!!!! FTRPLT

 

[Natch]

Several times over those early years I would find myself locked out of the house and would crawl through the milk shoot. Today, I'd need the fire department with the jaws of life to get me out!

 

[Timbo]

Now that takes me back, I remember the milk shoot at my great aunt's place and had climbed into the house through there one day when I was a kid and visited them when no one was home. They got home shortly after and were horrified to find me in the house helping myself to a vegemite sandwhich. It got bricked up soon after as the milkman had stopped delivering the previous year.

 

[ftrplt]

We just had an insulated metal box the Milkman put the products in, followed by a big scoop of fresh ice pellets!!!

 

[Zeno Marx]

We had a Schwanns ice cream truck drive by the other day. I used to see it relatively often, but this was the first time in maybe five years? How much is a 1/2 gallon of that ice cream? $25?

I'm not old enough to remember milk men, but I do remember every house having one of those insulated metal boxes near the front door. And plastic milk crates in every garage, on the side of every grocery store, and seemingly everywhere in sight.

 

[Timbo]

I also remmeber milk crates everywhere, to the point where uni students made furniture out of them. Far less ubiquitous these days but they're still around.

 

[Blackhorse]

We kids would chase the milkman until he finally gave us some of that wonderful crystal-clear ice!!! Yummy!!!!! FTRPLT

EXACTLY! But as I recall that ice wasn’t quite absolutely crystal clear. It was more about the getting than the having.

 

[Fr_Tom]

We just had an insulated metal box the Milkman put the products in, followed by a big scoop of fresh ice pellets!!!

We had the insulated box too. The milk came in the glass bottles...

 

[Ranger107]

When I was a kid we lived about 3/4 miles from the dairy where we got our milk. Remember Dad taking us out on the weekend to pick up milk in glass bottles while us kids got to pet and play with the cows, mostly Holsteins. Lots of fun and good memories.

 

[D.L.Ruth]

When I lived in New York we would go to the farm to get our milk. This was only a couple years ago. I only really use milk in my cappuccinos and tea, but getting fresh raw farm milk has spoiled me and now regular store milk is just kind of blah.

 

[Zeno Marx]

I've considered the idea of making my own yogurt. Keep a mother starter in the fridge ala Indian culture. I half-heartedly looked around for unpasteurized milk, but it isn't conveniently available. I'm sure I could drive out into the country to find some, but...I don't want to do it badly enough for that. Oh well. It'll soon pass.

 

[Brewdude]

Remember as a kid prolly 8-10 yrs old we had an insulated container on our side entrance. The milkman would deliver twice/wk and sometimes knock on the door while we were at b'fast and ask if we wanted some cottage cheese this week.

The milk back then was all in returnable glass bottles. Full fat, no skim in those days. Had the little cardboard flap on the wide mouth top and the cream would separate. I always was the one to drink off the cream!


Cheers,

RR

 

[Timbo]

I've considered the idea of making my own yogurt. Keep a mother starter in the fridge ala Indian culture. I half-heartedly looked around for unpasteurized milk, but it isn't conveniently available. I'm sure I could drive out into the country to find some, but...I don't want to do it badly enough for that. Oh well. It'll soon pass.

My brother makes his own keffir from unhomogenised milk and is happy with it. To me it smells like baaaaad toe jam or something died, but he likes it. I agree with Sir Terry Pratchett, yoghurt is cheese that isn't trying hard enough...

Though I do love some Greek yoghurt along with mustard and cheese to bake chicken breasts in.

 

[Natch]

Continuing the morph, I had two great uncles that were dairy farmers in northern Wisconsin. We visited them when I was young and it was always a treat to go to the farm. They had 120 acres and around 100 head of cattle. Later, I learned what a hard, physical life that was. You have all the work and worry of growing, harvesting, and storing crops that most agriculture has, but then you had cows that needed to be milked twice a day, every day. Christmas eve when your kid is singing in the church Christmas program, or 4:30 New Year's morning when it's well below zero and you're hungover from the previous night, you have to milk them. I was told that most "small" dairy farmers didn't trust anyone to take care of their herd, as just one dies and a month's income is gone. What really impressed me about them was that both of them could put a pin on a map where they were born, and they never in their life traveled more than 100 miles from that spot. Yet, they got the Sunday NY Times mailed to their house, it arrived the following week, and they both read it front to back over the week. They were always up on world news and were politically active independents (back in the 1950s, Wisconsin had a very active American Socialist Party and strong labor unions). In today's world, a rural, colloquial farmer would probably be rather far-right in their perspectives, but they voted both ways depending on the candidate.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Yet, they got the Sunday NY Times mailed to their house, it arrived the following week, and they both read it front to back over the week. They were always up on world news and were politically active independents (back in the 1950s, Wisconsin had a very active American Socialist Party and strong labor unions). In today's world, a rural, colloquial farmer would probably be rather far-right in their perspectives, but they voted both ways depending on the candidate.

1st and 2nd generation Swedish, Norwegians, and Danes. Scandinavians. They tend to lean that way, or at least they did. The later generations bought into the Jesse Ventura etc nonsense, and the rest is history.

When I baled hay for dairy farmers, I was told a "rich" dairy farmer was one that could take a vacation. They had the money, but they didn't have the time. I can remember one of the farmers who employed me went on an ocean cruise one winter, and the rest of the town was talking smack about them. "If they're so rich..." It was really sort of an amazing thing. They just took a well-earned vacation, but the town acted as if they were getting their noses scrubbed in it. Good ol' jealousy and pure spite. Priorities.