Milk bottles

In those days, life seemed so much simpler. Most women were back in the home after working through the war years. Kids just six years old went to the market for Mama on errands, several blocks away, unsupervised! Everyone knew the cop on the beat was around to keep his eyes on the situation. No one bothered to lock their doors, even at night. It was 1953.

Schedules weren't crazy like they are now. At least not the top speed stress mill people live in today. There were no “soccer Moms”, no cell phones, no fast food. There weren't even malls.

There was plenty of hard work, but looking back, this was an enviable time in America. Television had only recently become a middle class home luxury. Radio filled the days with music.

Perhaps it's just a silly woman's memory, but one memory stands out from this moment in time. The milkman and his milk bottles.

In those days, you didn't need to go to the store for milk. The milkman delivered all your dairy products right to your doorstep. Every day but Sunday, you could hear him coming down the street in his big white truck, just as the sun came up. The streets were mostly deserted at that time of day. The city was barely waking. Most kids weren't even up yet. If you were, you could hear the milk bottles jingling against their crates inside his truck. He had the empties picked up from his earlier deliveries, and they made a different sound from the full milk bottles. Together they made little pleasant musical sounds, so subdued even in the quiet of the morning.

Your mother would put her list outside on the step with the empty milk bottles at night. If she wanted two bottles of milk, a pound of butter and a pint of cottage cheese, the milkman filled the order on the spot, right from his truckload of dairy products. He was never out of anything. So there, like magic, was Mama's order. It was like a little Santa Claus event every morning.

In those days, milk was not pasteurized, so the cream rose to the top. Mama would skim off the milk for use in coffee or some dessert. Somehow, summer cream was better, more richly colored than in winter. Maybe it had to do with what the cows had to eat.

At some point, the dairy upgraded their order process. Instead of slipping a note rolled up in the milk bottle, we now had a round paper disk, colorfully illustrated with Elsie the Borden Cow on one side and lists of their products on the other. There was some system of marking your choices involving pointing arrows or something.

It was always an exciting day for the kids when we saw the milkman had left some chocolate milk. It's funny how these moments of nostalgia crop up, from the jingle-jangle of the milkman and his milk bottles, the music coming all down these many years.