My dad and the Divco

Way back in the stoneage

when I was a wee lass the milk man not only brought milk to the house but also margarine. It came in large creamy white bricks and the colouring pack came sperate in a small package so you could mix it in or not, personal perference. Mom wanted it mixed in so quite we had to do it, what a mess it was...maybe that's why I'm not the fussy about margarine?


Also because times were tough we also mixed our milk with powder milk...it was bad, really bad.

First we mixed it with water then we mixed half and half with milk. If it was cold really really cold it wasn't so bad.




I used to have milk delivered to my house when the kids were young Martin my milk fairy. I used to call him that cause I'd put the money out the night before and get up the next morning and I'd have milk. He wasn't crazy about the name. Sometimes if I had to go out before he came I'd leave a note and he'd put the milk in the fridge and take the money off the top of the fridge...the good old days really weren't that lond ago.


Fun read KK must have memoriable for you remembering your dad like that. I don't have many memories of my dad...he just didn't seem to be around much.

 

Me too Fannie. Never really knew my dad even though he really was there most of the time doing the housework and cooking. Just didn't seem to have time for my younger brother and I. No wonder I'm so confused now.

 

That is cool Krash, I must have missed this thread earlier in the week!

 

@Fannie --
I remember seeing those little packets. Don't think I ever had to deal with that, though. Having 'connections' with a dairy, we were fortunate enough to be able to get the 'real' stuff - butter. Liked the flavor of butter better banana, but appreciated the consistency of the margarine when it didn't tear your toast to shreads trying to spread it. Mom kept the butter in the fridge.

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Somebody here or in another related thread mentioned something about milkmen becoming rolling convenience stores. My dad was pretty upset (nice term, not his) about this. Got an earful when he came home one day and mentioned he was now supposed to sell pantyhose.......... Fortunately, I don't think that experiment lasted too long. He was OK with semi-related things like orange juice, etc.

 

As far as I know our milkmen only sold milk and related products. There was an old guy down the street with a 1950 Chevy panel truck who had his own cookie route. Us kids got his broken cookies often.
The coal man delivered coal up and down the alleys, first with a horse and wagon, then an old truck. Dad always got our Christmas presents from him!

 

Your confused now...well I never noticed.

 

I can relate to that back in the early 50tees . you couldn't beet a chunk of ice and if only we had a bike it would have been so much easier

 

Kids reading this today are scratching their heads and wondering what us old geezers are talkin about. Oh wait.They can't do that with a cell phone in one hand and an I_Pod in the other while playing video games and drinking Soda.

I want to hear some more milk man stories.................. Only the clean ones!

 

That's the only kind I've got!

Dad had a few small businesses mixed in with his residential deliveries on some of his routes. One of them was a restaurant called Woody's Smoorgas burger, at it's first location in Culver City. The restaurant had a front entrance protected from the elements by a structure spanning the driveway to the rear parking lot. Large delivery trucks were supposed to go around to the back of the building from the other side where there wasn't this covered area. Dear Old Dad forgot about this one morning and slammed his DIVCO into the structure. The restaurant had to take the structure down and it was never rebuilt.

On a side note, I guess they didn't hold a grudge, because my dad had the restaurant as a customer years later at another location, and he got me a job there.....worked there 4 years through college.

 

And for 4 years I bet you heard..... "Did we ever tell you about the time, your Dad........."

 

Great stuff KK. There's one in our area I believe, I'll have to keep a closer eye out.

 

Elsie was the cow's name. A neighbor we had when I was a child was a milkman and drove a Divco. He always had to back it into the driveway to plug in the cooler for overnight.

 

We lived in Pekin, near Peoria. Maybe we got our milk from the same cows.