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Remembrances > Our Milkman
Our Milkman
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Ared60
40 posts
Aug 25, 2013
3:30 PM
On the History Books Online, Dayton Memories Blog I read about Royal Crest Dairy and the connection with Hopalong Cassidy. This made me think of my childhood and our milkman. Mr. Berman was his name and he worked for Meadow Gold Dairy. He delivered milk, to our house on Genessee Ave. in Greenwich Village. I don't remember the years involved, of course it was in the early 50's, but I still remember him driving the Divco, Meadow Gold truck. He always seemed to be in a good mood, which is sometimes a difficult task when around a bunch of little kids, but he always had a hello for us when he got to our house.
Back in those days the milk bottles were kept in metal, wire crates and they were kept cool by being surrounded by crushed ice. Mr. Berman would take our milk and butter order, put it in a metal carrier and walk it up to our door placing it into our galvanized milk box that had the words Meadow Gold painted on the front. This story is the same thing that happened to almost every family, in almost every house, in almost every city throughout the 50's into the earliest 60's.
What makes it most memorable, for me, is not the company or the home delivery but the man himself; Mr. Berman. He always seemed so genuinely happy to see us little kids that it made us look for him every day when we knew he would be driving down our street. I remember walking up to Arlene Ave. to be there before he turned the corner because, just before he made the turn onto Genessee Ave., he would let us get into the back of the truck and drive us to our house. He would also suggest to us that we might want to take some of the ice and eat it since it was pretty warm out.
This whole story has no importance or meaning but it is one of my fondest memories from childhood. Thanks for listening.
Keugene48
252 posts
Aug 25, 2013
5:59 PM
Your story has a lot of meaning and importance, especially to this site. We all love to read memories posted here or we would not be here. Thank you for sharing your memories.
cilla46
178 posts
Aug 26, 2013
6:16 AM
Your story made me remember our milkman "Cid" from Borden's Dairy.The story is much the same as your memory.Thank you for sharing!
Tbone
14 posts
Aug 26, 2013
11:15 AM
I love your story. A child cannot jump onto a truck like that anymore and the driver would certainly lose his job. This world has become so disconnected that its not even funny. I grew up in the 70's as a kid and I sure do miss them days. By then the milkman was gone but we still had Bill's Market and pennies went a long way for candy and the 3 probe water sprinkler and a cold watermelon did the trick on a warm summer day. Thanks for sharing your story.
Syxpack
124 posts
Aug 26, 2013
1:09 PM
Ared, I loved reading about your milkman, Mr. Berman who evidently loved his job and the children he met. Maybe he was also just happy to have a job. I grew up during the 'Great Depression' and only remember my mom being able to afford a milkman a short time, probably right after the WWI vets marched on Washington, DC and finally received their promised bonus around 1936 or '37 (almost 20 years after the war ended) I think my dad received around $300.00. I know us kids all got a new outfit. I got a little red Shirley Temple coat with a muff. I didn't care about the coat as much as I cared about the muff! I thought I was the cutest little girl around, whenever I wore it. My brothers would always complain to mom about me when I wore that coat outfit. Anyway, to get back to the milk, I remember my mom letting me lick the cardboard cap on top of the milkbottle that always had a thick coating of cream on it. (No homoginized milk or worry about germs back then. LOL)
Ared60
42 posts
Aug 26, 2013
1:24 PM
Ah yes, penny candy. We always got an allowance of 25 cents every Saturday which he had to take, immediately, up to Brunner's on Gettysburg Ave. to score a stash of candy. Now the problems arose after my brothers and I got there because it was an extremely difficult decision whether or not to buy the box of Boston Baked Beans which was a nickel, or to spread that 5 cents out for jaw breakers or the black licorice. Everything was dependent on your mood at the time, that and which one made you drool more. One item that was always good for the 5 cent price was a Payday bar. I always was, and still am, a sucker for those. Granted, I try to stay away from the candy aisle at the local convenience store as the Payday no longer fits into my low-carb diet.
Our family was large and we didn't have a lot but we, the kids, could always count on that 25 cents on Saturday morning. And we could always count on having that money spent and eaten by lunch time.
Ared60
43 posts
Aug 26, 2013
1:41 PM
Syxpack, another shameful time in our, almost, recent history was the veterans march on Washington. The, so called, Bonus Army marched on Washington, DC to demand the bonuses that they had been promised.They lived in the first "Hooverville" and numbered up to 15,000 strong before the camps were broken up by Army troops led by Douglas McArthur
I still have some of the old glass milk bottles, some of them with the cream separator tops. Today they are filled with styrofoam pellets, to give the appearance of milk, and they are in a metal carrier that the milkman, Mr. Berman in my case, would carry to the house. This metal carrier holds 10 quarts of milk. Now I tried to add it all up and 1 gallon of milk weighs about 8 lbs, plus the weight of 4 glass bottles. That brings a gallon of milk up to about 9 or 10 lbs. Now this rack holds 2 1/2 gallons of milk so I'm guessing that, all together, the weight would be something on the order of 22 1/2 to 25 lbs PLUS the weight of the carrier which is another pound or two.
I'm guessing that no-one gave the milkman too much grief back in the day, ha had to be pretty fit.
Tbone
15 posts
Aug 27, 2013
8:52 AM
Ared60, did each of you get 25 cents or did ya's have to split it?
Interesting!! I love this website.
Ared60
46 posts
Aug 27, 2013
11:22 AM
Tbone, 25 cents! I wish! No, the milk bottles were property of the dairy and were returned with each new delivery. Pop bottles had a refund but it was only 2 cents. Thinking back on it it's kind of surprising that we were able to find as many discarded bottles as we did knowing that there was a refund available. We only went actively hunting on occasion as we normally returned them pretty quickly after finishing the drink. But there were times that we needed extra cash such as the new Superman comic hitting the rack. In that case we would scrounge for 5 bottles which covered the purchase price of 10 cents. Sometimes we even had a little left over.
It was nice to had some extra change jingling in your pocket but man did that stuff burn!
Ared60
47 posts
Aug 27, 2013
8:38 PM
Tbone, I'm sorry I misread what you had written and didn't attribute it correctly.
Yes, each of us received 25 cents. It wasn't too much to dole out as there were only three of us old enough to spend an allowance at the time.
By the way that money was earned not given. We all had chores to do commensurate with our ages and abilities.
I remember that there were also times when money was so tight that we weren't able to get our allowance and that might stretch for a couple of weeks. It was difficult to understand at the time but very easy to understand now.
donm
8 posts
Oct 31, 2013
2:02 PM
We lived on Donald Avenue in Belmont and when i was real little Moler's Dairy still brought the milk in a buggy with a horse. That was awesome. In the winter we would fight over who got to go to the milkbox (remember those?) to get the milk. If it had been cold enough, the cream, which floated to the top, would freeze and it was almost like ice cream. It would be gone by the time we came inside and we would have "skim" milk until the next delivery. Putting out the milk note was another big deal, but maybe for another post...........
luv my dayton
438 posts
Nov 01, 2013
7:57 PM
My mother had a galvanized milk box on her front porch for many years and when milk deliveries ceased she then used it for the paper carrier to place the daily paper in. As for penny candy us kids would go to the donut hut up the street from us in kettering and when at grandmothers we'd go to Winnies around the corner on fifth st. That was back in the days when kids were safe to be out on the street.
Ared60
71 posts
Nov 02, 2013
10:56 AM
It's still possible to find those galvanized milk boxes but you have to look in the antique malls these days.
Some, if not all, had the dairy name painted or embossed on the front.
The ones I remember had some rudimentary insulation in the sides, similar to the early beverage coolers. But the insulating layer was only about 1/4 inch thick. Good enough though as the milk wasn't meant to sit in the box for very long.
I could probably start another thread about this but it's related to our milk delivery. We had another regular delivery to our neighborhood during the summer months every year and that was an older man, I'm sorry I can't remember his name, who drove a pick-up truck around the neighborhood selling vegetables.
His truck had shelves and bins, homemade, on each side that were stacked full of carrots, potatoes, celery, lettuce, and so on.
He would slowly cruise down the street, one of us running in to tell my Mom that the vegetable man was coming. More often than not she would tell us to make sure that he stopped.
We would always hang around waiting to help my Mom carry in whatever she bought but we weren't too concerned about getting any free samples. They were vegetables after all.
joey m
146 posts
Nov 04, 2013
10:10 AM
I remember the milkman. Both of my brother in laws drove for Neals Dairy and I would go on their route with them when I was a teen. But does any remember the bread man. My friends dad drove for Sunbeam and he would let us ride along sometimes.
wr
3 posts
Jul 21, 2014
9:56 AM
My Grandparents lived on Abbey across the street from Inland which is where Grandpa would walk across the street to work, and walk home for lunch how nice. Years later Inland (GM) would buy their house and turn it into a parking lot. But we lived on Rosedale and my Grandparents milkman came by our house one year as Santa Clause in full costume. I remember him driving up in the milk truck, ( and came in the house gave us gifts) I must get the name and post it. How cool is that! It really is the little things simple and did not cost much but their value is infinite. Years later I thought about this story as a friend of mine and I, when we lived in the country west of Nashville he and I traded places playing Santa for our kids and it sure was fun. Glad the outfit fit both of us. Funny part was driving with a Santa outfit on if you have never done it is not easy.


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