You could hear him coming a block away – the engine chugging on the old, white truck and hundreds of glass bottles clinking inside. He was the milkman. Believe it or not, there was a time when you didn’t go to the store to buy milk. Rather, the milk came to you in the milkman’s truck.
In the 1950’s and 60’s, most families engaged the services of the local milkman. With a note left in a tin container called a milk box, a family could order milk, juice, butter, or cream – and have it delivered to the front door.
In the wee hours of the morning, the milkman made all his scheduled stops, filling the orders and leaving products in insulated milk boxes to make sure each family’s refrigerator was well stocked with “nature’s most perfect food.” Some homes, in fact, had a milk box built into an outside wall, a small cabinet with a door on the outside for the milkman to place the milk bottles, and a door on the inside for a resident to retrieve the bottles. Thus, the milkman could deliver the milk without entering the home, and the resident could retrieve the milk without going outside. But for most families of that era, milk was delivered inside an ordinary tin box on the porch.
The first chore of the morning for many a Boomer youngster was to go out on the front porch and get the milk. Anyone had access to the boxes on the porch, but no one ever stole milk. It just didn’t happen.
Milk came in quart bottles with a small paper cap, which was always the dickens to get off without tearing. Before taking off the cap, it was imperative to thoroughly shake the pasteurized milk bottle so that the heavy cream on top was blended with the white milk below. Otherwise, your first glass from the bottle tasted more like whipping cream than actual milk. Parents in those days relished pouring a little of the rich cream in their morning coffee.
Homogenized milk began to gradually take over the milk market from the pasteurized version in the late 50s. Pasteurized milk went through a process of heating and then a rapid cooling. This slowed the microbial growth process and helped milk to stay fresh a little longer. But the cream was always on top and the white milk below. Homogenization really added nothing to the shelf-like or purity of milk, but permanently blended the cream with the milk so that no shaking was necessary. Later, a product called 2% milk hit the market. To Boomers, it was “gray milk”, quite a step down from the richness of whole milk.
Boomers likely recall the days of two-cent milk in school cafeterias. This was a by-product of the National School Lunch Act signed by President Truman in 1946. The intent was to make milk and other healthy foods readily available to children. One half-pint carton of milk generally came with a 25c lunch, but for an additional two pennies, you could order an extra milk. The two-cent milk was also available at recesses.
Young Boomers rarely had to be asked twice to drink their milk. Usually, the parental complaint was that they drank too much milk – and sometimes directly from the bottles. That was a no-no, but everyone did it. Milk seemed to taste even better when swigged from those old glass bottles.
Beginning in the late 50’s and into the 60’s, the quart jars were gradually replaced with rectangular cardboard boxes, including a new half-gallon size. These boxes allowed more milk to be carried and displayed in a given space than did the old glass bottles.
The new cartons also reduced the cost of milk for consumers since disposable paper cartons were cheaper than the returnable glass bottles, there was little breakage, and the freight was less. But milk never tasted as good as in the old days when it came cool and fresh, in quart bottles delivered by the milkman.
