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!