The Milkman Cometh

That was ideal living, wasn't it? I think we could order eggs, butter and bread, too, couldn't we?

I liked this story very much. Yep we had dinners together and always at 5 pm sharp too. My how much changed over a short period of time. You were 5 in 1953 and I was born in 1957 We didn't have a milkman then. You brought some more memories for me to bring up in my story that I just started. I have lots of good memories to share as well as not so good. Thanks for the memories! LOL

I enjoyed your share on this post. I remember the milkman, the bakery and the eggman coming to our home. I think the food tasted much better back then because it was fresh from the farm or store. The hours of outdoor play kept most of us energized and healthy. It is sad that our children today see little of the sunshine and more of the "blue light" of technology.

MMmmm! It has me licking my chops now. You know what usually works in a time like this Bill: sneak into the kitchen without anyone seeing. Pull out that bottle of chocolate syrup and take another look that no one is watching you. (take it from someone who has been busted!) Now pop the cap and fill your mouth and throat with it. Now the same thing with the gallon of milk. Go for it Bill!! Do it man!

(Hey everyone: Don't you hope Bill gets caught?) LOL

Ah billy, the milkman. I used to always say "Hi Dad"! (LOL) Sorry Mom, I just couldn't resist.

Great memories! The milk tasted so much better coming from those bottles; the chocolate milk was superb.

Thank you for the reminder.

I love your titles, Bill; they always pull me in. Your articles keep me there, constantly interested and wanting to read more. I enjoyed this “stumble” down memory lane very much. The milkman was a bit before my time, but I remember my country chores as a tyke, and going with Dad into town to buy a comic book or a piece of licorice with my treasured allowance of nickels and/or dimes. Meal times were always at the table with family…no exceptions. Well, until the teen years arrived; then, it became a bit more sporadic. :-) I loved this true wealth of memories…thank you for sharing.

Loved reading about your childhood Billy, especially about the milk bottle. Your story is very uncannily similar to mine and my sister and I also got paid for our chores we had to do every Saturday. I was brought up in Holland but some family values must be universal.

Beautifully written, dear Bill. Thank you for taking us for a walk down Memory Lane. I do remember at a very young age for just a bit the milkman delivering milk and then ... no longer. There is a sweetness in memories, even though there were tough times, and even so, I cherish those precious childhood memories of a different time.

My mom and dad did not have much money, and so I wound up paying for my own little, sweet wedding by working at the A & P Grocery store as a cashier and I saved up a whopping $600.00 which paid for the entire wedding! Believe it or not. If I could go back in time and had all the money in the world, I would not change a thing : ) Maybe I should write a hub on how to have a sweet and beautiful, yet frugal wedding. lol

Blessings always

As a child living in Los Angeles I fondly remember the milkman. I love how you go from the milkman to stories about what life and what childhood was like at that time. You are right, memories like these should be documented, because our children don't know them and their lives today are so very, very different. Memory is precious, and it is history.

Thanks for sharing with us these awesome memories, Bill!

These are lovely memories, Bill. Some of them are my memories too, including the story of the milkman. It's natural for customs to change as the years pass, but I think our present societies have lost some habits that had great value.

A beautiful trip down memory lane with warm loving memories relived. Took me back to memories of my childhood. Enjoyed reading and voted up.

Such a warm and beautiful journey down Memory Lane Billy ; brilliant !!!!

I can just picture you now that five year old little boy helping Dad with his chores and then being given an allowance. How right your parents were to encourage you to use money well even back at that tender age. This was a truly wonderful read and as always Billy told in your own natural style. Loved it and voting up for sure. Lots of love to you from my little corner of Wales.

Eddy.

your trip down memory lane is like living a life of fiction, enjoyed the refrences and enjoyed the details voted up and wonderful :)

Sir,

We were in dairy business for generations and used to distribute milk to people or home delivery. People used to wait at 5 to 6 a.m. for milk because it was fresh product to make tea , Indians are still prefer morning tea at early morning.Down memory lane , it is right, now in India we buy milk pouches in polythene bags of 1 liter. I was born in joint family and had relations with cousins for long. We migrated to large cities and now in isolation i recollect my past days of childhood.

Nice articles sir.

pramodgokhale

Bill, are you sure we weren't neighbors? We had a double door thing where the milkman put the milk. He used the outside door and my mother would open the inside door to get the milk. In the winter, the milk would partially freeze and the paper cap would be sitting on the frozen milk about 3 inches higher than the bottle. My dad worked heavy construction and was gone most of the time. My grandfather lived with us and carried the to-do list in his head. There was always something on this mental list that needed doing no matter what the weather was outside. This was his way of teaching responsibility and a work ethic.

My grandmother baked bread everyday in a wood fired oven. To this day I can remember that wonderful smell of baking bread.

My how the world has changed.

Beautiful read, Bill! I like the extraordinary in ordinariness--something Andy Rooney used to create. You do one heck of a job, yourself. Enjoyable!

And that was Life as it should be. Absolutely wonderful memories Bill. Thank you for sharing them with us. My prayers to you and Bev and your extended family. May God Bless...

A beautiful tale of childhood past Bill. I remember the milkman coming too. Those were wonderful days. Wonderfully written.

This is such a great hub, Bill...as I remember those days, also...not as clearly as you, but still, I remember. What is funny is that we had a little window on the side of the house where, on freezing cold days, the milkman would leave the milk for us...and there were many times when I would forget my house key as a child and use that window to get into the house and then be able to let my brother enter through the front door. Yes, I remember the milkman, and the bread man, and the fruit and vegetable huckster Frank who drove his horse and wagon along our street. How lucky I was to grow up during those days, and how very much I miss them. Thanks for the stroll down memory lane.

I like how you interspersed the now and then. Thanks for an enjoyable read, Bill. My dad used to be the bread man.

Bill - The climate of central and southern Mississippi provides us with the combination of scorching hot and miserably humid summers, and I can still remember living with only fans until I was about ten years old. The only relief was going to the double feature movie on Saturday afternoon since even movie theaters had A/C and part of their advertising was 'Enjoy our delightfully cool theater while you watch your favorite stars.'

Even with an attic fan blowing all night, the air it pulled inside my bedroom window (left unlocked and open over a screen to keep out the mosquitoes--something most people wouldn't feel safe doing these days) felt damp and warm. The dampness caused me to have congestion every morning, and the too-warm feeling was so uncomfortable it was difficult to fall asleep. Those are not memories of the old days for which I'm nostalgic. Ha!

After my family finally got A/C (window units in those days), I never wanted to go outside other than during our brief winters! My mom tried to bribe me to spend some time in the sunshine, but I hid under the long sides of the dining tablecloth and read books instead. As far as I'm concerned, the invention of air conditioning ranks right up there in importance alongside those of the telephone and the personal computer!

Stop laughing!

Jaye

Bill, you have just taken me back to days much like these in my own childhood, with poor but loving parents and a great family and community. It brought a tear to my eye, a smile to my face and a warm glow to my heart.

Things were simple then, people had more time for each other, treats were rare but treasured and we had just ONE present each Christmas and then one for each birthday.

For me, the 50s, 60s & part of the 70s were wonderful, then things started to go downhill. They picked up again at the end of the 80s but that's a terrible gap in between!

Thanks for the trip down memory lane and the underlying messages within. I enjoyed your shared memories and values.

Today until Sunday I'm with my girls and my grandchildren; that's when family time and important, treasured values come back as I realise that some of it really did get passed down to them and I am content!

All the best to you and Bev in what I believe is a great family, from what I've read!

Ann

A lovely account of what life was like back then. My folks also had similar values to teach me, especially that piggybank one as credit was still an iffy subject in my youth too. I used to get paid to collect the snails by the bucketload from our fences and peel them out of their shells to feed to the chickens. To this day, I don't use a dryer because clothes last longer and smell fresher when they've been on a line. Voted useful! and loved it x

What sweet memories you have. I just wish I had appreciated my childhood more when I was a child instead of wishing myself grown. I remember the milkman well because one of our neighbors was a milkman for the local dairy. We had our own farm milk and our excess was sold to that same dairy. Years later in Lubbock, Texas, after my oldest son was born, we had milk delivered for our little milk sot, and to our delight we could get it in 2½ gal. boxes, kind of like a Bota Box.

I used to help Mama with the laundry in the old wringer washer and it was hung on the line summer and winter. I remember bringing in clothes frozen stiff as a board and having to rehang them when they thawed. Last week we were at a flea market, and there sat the exact model of Mama’s old wringer washer, and even the motor was intact. I was surprised because it was made of some silver metal, zinc perhaps, and was square. All the other mamas had newer round ones of white enamel, and I was jealous. Thanks for the memories, and I do not think five is too young to start a child on chores. I think we coddle our kids too much today.

That was something else Billy. I could see that it really had its good moments (memories) for you. I gave it a thumbs up.

Kevin

And when he comes, so do wonderful memories.

Blessings,

Kim

We didn't have coyotes in our small town, but everything else you describe sounds like my childhood. We had a little silver metal box where the milkman put the milk because he came early and the box would keep it cold until Mom brought it in at around 6am. One thing you didn't mention that I remember was the coal truck coming. The guy would open the little coal chute door into our basement and then shovel the coal from the truck down a chute to the little door. In the cooler months, Dad had to shovel the coal into the furnace to keep the house warm.

This does make one think back to an easier time. Maybe because we lived in the country, we didn't have a milkman. Some of our milk was purchased from the neighbors. We did have a bread man though.

On lucky weeks, Mom would buy cinnamon rolls. That was a treat for all of us. Our mailman gave us Tootsie Rolls and you can bet that the mail was always picked up immediately. We had 7 kids in the family, so the first one to get there got them. The mailman seemed to get a kick out of this. He was a nice guy.

Thanks for bringing back the memories.

Lovely memories... Reminded me of my very simple childhood. Those days were truly precious.

I enjoyed this hub. Thanks for sharing your memories with us billybuc. Times have certainly changed since the days of the milkman.

Enjoyable read with a message that should be shared. Jamie

Your experiences echoed perfectly my memories as well except that I was helping my mother around the house and my brothers helped my dad for the most part. We always had chores and also family time at the table for meals which was in the kitchen. The dining room table was only used for very special occasions.

Can you believe that the glass milk bottles only had those paper inserts? No need back then for sealed packaging due to the threat of being poisoned by total strangers!

My mother's wringer washer and stationery tubs were in the basement. Hauling up those baskets of clothes to hang on the lines outside was good exercise. She had lines in the basement for those rainy days. I also loved the smell of the line dried clothes bleached naturally by the sun.

Loved reading this! Tweeting, G+ and sharing with my HP followers.

Funny thing, living in the Eternal Now. Yet we also find them to reminisce and fill our hearts with joy. A great art which I sometimes love to indulge, and it seems you do too, my Friend. A cute story and a great video. Peace.

I was not ready for this to end. I love it when you go back in time. You are such a beautiful writer. I remember the milkman. I also remember the ice man, we had an ice refrigerator and we kept an ice pick in the block of ice, so we would just pick the ice when needed. We also had a coal pile and it was my job to bring in the bucket of coal for our old potbelly stove. If i would be telling my son this, he would say, " You're kidding, right? Hee..I don't think i ever went to sleep at night before saying the prayer, now i lay me down to sleep. Aha the memories you bring forth. Thank you.

This hub made me nostalgic, Bill, for a simpler way of life. So many things about our lives were different, and not in a negative way, but a positive one.

I not only recall the milkman, but the ice man who brought our family a huge chunk of solid ice held by sharp tongs. The ice was chopped into a couple of pieces so it would fit in its tray in our old-fashioned '40s-era forerunner of the electric refrigerator. Mom also had a wood stove until 1952. There may have been a lot of 'mod-cons' missing from that pictures, but there were also numerous annoyances that modern 'progress' and high-tech inventions brought with them.

Of course, I wouldn't go back and give up modern healthcare or air conditioning, so I must accept the bad with the good!

Voted Up+++

Jaye

What a lovely publish. Gosh, darn, I feel like I have just watched a show

of "Leave It To Beaver". Simplicity at its best, is quite extraordinary to

others who cannot relate to a single phrase of this article. We are

embarrassed to step forward and say that our lives had none of these

wholesome events. Yours is an entirely different world than what some of us experienced.

Thank you for sharing this little slice of extraordinarily wonderful ordinary life. You were a very fortunate little boy to end up with a loving family.

DJ.

I remember the milkman's deliveries well. Sometimes we got real cream added to delivery when the cash flow was good. Thanks for the trip down memory lane :)

Wonderful hub, Bill. It sounds very much like my childhood. I remember our entire block had kids playing in the street of the cul-de-sac and any of us kids can go into any house without knocking. It's just the way it was. Nowadays, it's sad, because it's so different, and if a kid walks into your house and scrapes his knee, everyone is sue- happy! Back then, we had cuts and bruises from playing all day, but we put a bandaid on and went back out. I loved my childhood and wouldn't trade it for anything. Thanks for the flashback!

Hi Billy Buc. I am at Barnes & Noble

Just read this terrific hub, loved it Very nostalgic. We also had a milkman I remember very clearly. I sure miss those simple days. Thanks for taking us back in time. I could picture everything that you wrote. Blessings, Sparklea. Sending this from my iPhone. I will be emailing you within the next couple days. I brought two of your printed hubs here with me today.

So few things were different for me they are not worth mentioning. Except no milkman for us, my dad inspected his dairy and decided against his milk, hihihihi.

How beautiful!

I can relate to those times. People were happy and content even with small means. You took me back to those happier times.

Thanks for sharing your wonderful memories!

Interesting and is great to down that path again.

It's so good to reminisce about the past. I can still hear the rattling of milk bottles at 6 am in the morning reminding me that in a couple of hours I'll have to get out of bed and get ready for school.

How on earth did our parents managed to live within their means, I remember thinking that credit cards would never catch on, how wrong I was, and back then, they knew that it took a village to raise a child. I remember misbehaving on the way from school, my parents knew all the details long before I got home, some achievement, considering this was way before mobile phones. Bill, a great write on looking back. Hope you're having a wonderful day, my best always.

Lovely to read these memories. I am from the U.S.A now living in the UK, so I am often reminded of way things used to be, and many people want those days to return.

What a wonderful stroll it was! I was recently reminiscing about the typical Saturday lunch we had. Saturday morning v was grocery shopping which meant fresh deli sandwiches, cole slaw, potato chips and if we were really good, all 3 girls would get to share a can of "pop"

Thank you for this. Up and awesome!

I thoroughly enjoyed walking down memory lane with you. No wonder you turned out so well! Voted up, interesting, useful, beautiful and awesome.

Bill I loved this and also Leo Buscaglia. We were taught the value of money and saving meant we could buy something...or continue saving. I remember wanting more clothes..saved and bought a sewing machine. Fabric was very cheap then.

I saved money to go away to college because me parents couldn't afford it. TO this day I still think about spending and making sure it is affordable. Though I didn't have daily chores--we did the dishes and kept our rooms clean. I worked after school through most of highschool. Amazing how different it is today.. Kids want and they get.

What a beautiful walk down memory lane and you described it so perfectly that I could truly close my eyes and picture it. This were the days my friend and wish we could get a bit of it back, but I guess it is just what memories are indeed made of. Happy Thursday!