When I was a child, the milkman delivered milk to us. It wasn’t until there were three boys in our family that my parents would include milk in their weekly grocery shopping at the COOP. Three times a week, fresh milk, cream and orange juice appeared on the “insulated” metal box on our front steps. (Great for frogs and snakes!)

The system of retail route delivery became an integral thread in the social and economic fabric in cities and villages across New England. Most — but not all — milk delivery people were men and boys who made a lifetime career of it. Women and girls on small family farms helped with delivery. In the large milk companies, however, route delivery belonged to men. It was said that some people set their clocks by their milkman’s regular comings and goings. Without a doubt they depended on the milkman for delivery of fresh milk and cream and, often, for news of the day. Many milkmen had keys to their customers’ houses and placed milk right in the kitchen refrigerators; they pulled the old bottles (There were deposits long before this “recycling” kick.) to the front and put the new in the back. The milkman had to sell himself in order to sell his milk. A neat-looking milkman in uniform gave the impression of uniformity and cleanliness in his products, too.

How about the milk itself? Amazing! It came in glass bottles with bright colored enamel lettering, foil wrap tops and cardboard disc (POGs) pressed in the center of the aluminum.) The bottles might be pints, quarts or half gallons. Because milk straight from the cow separates naturally, with the high-fat cream rising to the top and the denser milk settling beneath, creating a division called the cream line customers liked glass bottles so that they could see the cream line and judge the quantity of cream. Ingenious gadgets were invented to solve the problem of how to skim pure cream off the top of milk and how to whip cream quickly without strain or mess.
Before pouring non-homogenized milk from the bottle, people had to hold the cap and shake the bottle to mix in the cream evenly. Milk would separate again, if mom and dad had not pulled off all the cream for the morning coffee.

I only remember one of our milkmen. His name was Tony V. A short, clean cut Italian man, he would show up with a smile on his face. Each week the envelope with the week’s receipt would be paid with cash and a tip.

Curious? Did you have a milkman.