I was the Milkman's Daughter, Really, I was!

Everyone knows the joke about the child in the family that looked really different and would be asked with a laugh, "Do you belong to the milkman?" Well, my siblings and I really were the milkman's kids. Our Dad drove a milk truck back in the day when most everyone had a gray, insulated box on their porch for milk deliveries. We had a generator at the house that the milk truck was plugged into each evening. The next morning Dad would head out around 4:00 a.m. so he could start getting milk to his customers before breakfast. The sound of him and mom up before dawn getting him ready for work and then the sound of his truck starting and pulling out of the driveway was very comforting as I snuggled in my bed. All was well with the world. Dad didn't get home until dinner time each day. It was long days with lots of physical work. You've heard the mantra of the mailman, "through rain, snow, sleet or hail . .  . "  Well, that was certainly the mantra of the milkman too. My Dad was up and out on the big snow days way before anyone else. He put the chains on his tires, and he was off. It was him and the state road workers on many mornings. Dad found himself making the tracks on the roads for those that came after him. He also found himself pulling people out of snow banks many times. I don't ever remember him being too tired to go back out and help someone, and I don't ever remember Mom being irratated when he was headed back out the door after dinner to pull yet someone else out of a ditch. It's what you did. I didn't know it then, but those attitudes about helping others were making a lifelong impression on me and my siblings.

Dad knew everyone in the county by virtue of the work he did. He delivered milk to just about everyone. When I got to dating age, I suffered through a lot of comments from my dad to my dates about how he had known them from the time they were just "knee high to a grasshopper". I "suffered" through it but was secretly pleased that my Dad was the ever loved milkman known by all!

One of the advantages of having your Dad being the milk man was that on those hot summer days, you could open up the milk truck and get a pint of chocolate milk or a freeze pop. It was GREAT! And in the era of very few air conditioners, you could hop up into the truck and get yourself cooled off. What a treat!
Sometimes when he still had "runs" to make when we got home from school, he would stop by the house and pick me up and/or one or more of my siblings, and we'd finish his route with him. What I remember from those runs was sitting beside my Dad in that big truck feeling so proud. Everybody knew Jack and his milk truck.

As times changed, the milkman was lost to ever increasing costs and the local convenient stores popping up every where. However, I'll never forget those days, and I will always be proud to say I AM the milkman's daughter!

Let's Get Back to Porch Sittin'

I've often been heard to say that I come from a long line of porch sitters. My parents can often be found on their back porch whiling away the hours listening to Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Credence, Patsy and Loretta; cleaning beans; reading; drinking coffee; or a million other things. Oftentimes when I am faced with an issue that is bothersome to me, I find myself wishing I was on the back porch. Many problems were solved on the Waltons porch and the porch at Andy Taylor's house in Mayberry. You know it is true!

I read an article once that, tongue-in-cheek, suggested that air conditioning was the downfall of our society as it took us all inside in the hot summer evenings after dinner rather than out onto the porches where we would actually interact with our family and also with the neighbors. It was an exaggerated piece, but the bottom line was really quite true. We knew our neighbors much better and we were friendlier in our neighborhoods when we all sat on our porches of an evening. It kept us in touch with one another and slowed the pace of our lives down enough that we got to know one another better than many of us tend to today.  In a country song by Tracy Lawrence, the chorus says:

"If the world had a front porch like we did back then, we'd still have our problems but we'd all be friends.
Treating your neighbor like he's your next of kin, wouldn't be gone with the wind.
If the world had a front porch, like we did back then!"
This just feels true to me.

I was fortunate that my family valued time together when I was growing up. Porch sittin' was common. I can't count the times I sat with my grandma Anna on her front porch watching the evening go by in Collier, sitting on the glider, chatting about "stuff", eating ice cream from Reitters, sometimes watching the people coming and going from the Methodist Church across the street, waving as the kids rode by on their bikes. As a child I may have felt bored, but as an adult I looked forward to those times. We made a lot of great memories together on her porch. She's been gone almost 20 years and even today when the wind hits my face a certain way in the spring it takes me back for just the slightest second to her and I sitting on her porch. What a blessing that memory is to me! It never fails to bring a smile to my face. Even though the world has changed so much since those days, I really hope my kids are making those kinds of memories. When I visit my parents, nothing makes me happier than when I get up and come downstairs for my coffee and find my mom with my boys sitting on the back porch in the quiet morning with the birds chirping, snapping beans from the garden. Now that's a memory.

Doing the Right Thing Never Goes Out of Style

Sometimes it feels like doing the right thing is not what gets you ahead in life. It is hard to watch others around you who are self-serving or not honest in their dealings get rewarded for their behavior.  I know we have all been told "What comes around goes around", "Karma's a bitch", "He'll get his", and on and on. However, at the time you might be dealing with a difficult person or situation, these kinds of statements just don't help much. The people that say them mean well, but it just isn't what you want to hear when what you really need is someone telling you how or where to bury a body. Am I right!!! Of course I am.
Once we are over the pain, disguist, anger, sadness, or whatever emotion we are feeling when life is getting the best of us, we have to remember to keep calm and carry on. It is even okay to take a moment or two to feel sorry for yourself. Everyone does that sometimes. Don't stay in that place though. It doesn't serve you and only seems to suggest that you may have given up and given in to the negative around you.
Once you've taken the time you need to mourn whatever you feel you've lost, you must pick up and move forward always doing the right thing. Living with integrity, being fair and honest, and doing the right thing never go out of style. I can't say I always stay calm and carry on. Sometimes it just feels like life gets the best of me and it is all just TOO unfair. It is during those times, I try to remind myself that no one said life was fair and if they did, they were lying. It isn't always fair and that hurts. Sometimes it hurts more than other times and for longer times than others. However, regardless, we have to fight the good fight. Think about what your mother and father, grandparents, or others you respect and have gone before you might want you to do, and then Fight On! It is always good to remember what Friedrich Nietzsche said, "He who fights monsters must take care lest he become a monster himself."
I learned a lot about doing the right thing on the back porch at my mom & dad's house, but thats another blog. Just remember, keep calm and carry on.