I’m old enough to remember milk delivery, which for us in Portland (OR) lasted until mid to late 50s. Delivered very early AM, glass quart bottles with a card stopper (I think, or maybe a crinkled paper cover). Our delivery was 3 times a week, I think. My earliest memory was that it was not homogenized, and we would shake up the bottle before pouring? Later it was homogenized. I don’t remember the name of the dairy, but they sold “pure Ayrshire milk” which I assume is a breed of cow. The milk box could hold 4 quarts, but I think we got 2 at a time.
I assume milk delivery stopped being offered at some point, or else buying it at the store was enough cheaper to appeal to my mother, who was the one who had to lug the cartons back home.
Very apt typo.
Among the song’s lyrics are the words “Just two up two down”. I remember seeing a thread somewhere explaining in great detail what these words meant. Wikipedia’s explanation: Two-up two-down - Wikipedia
In the 1960s, we had a very large family, and milk came in heavy glass bottles, so it was almost a necessity to have the milk delivered. Once we started drinking less milk as we got older, and milk came out in plastic gallon bottles, my mother switched to buying it at the store - much less expensive. IIRC, the milkman came twice a week. The metal insulated milk box was kept outside the back door. The milkman would try to dump and run as quickly as he could lest my mother start bending his ear off with complaints of being a stay-at-home mother of so many ungrateful kids and husband.
In the 1950s we were still being given milk (a third of a pint) at primary school at our morning break. They used to leave the crates outside: so in the winter, we might have to negotiate a plug of ice in the top of the bottle, and in summer the milk might have started to turn (but I suppose it didn’t do us much harm).
I went to school in the 70’s and 80’s. We didn’t have the milk at Primary school, but it got reintroduced when I was in Junior school. Primary school kids and the lower 2 years of Junior school got it. It was probably a local protest against the Milk Snatcher becoming PM.
In the third grade (late 50s), I was the “milk monitor” at our school in California. Students brought “milk money” (5 cents) on a voluntary basis and the milk cartons were brought to the individual classrooms based on a count each teacher took mid-morning. I would leave my classroom about 30 minutes before lunch and get the required quantity from the small walk-in cooler at the school office. They had a small hand-truck and the milk cartons were in wire crates. I would go to each classroom and drop off the cartons. The teachers collected the money from the students, but that was handled separately.
The cartons themselves were not peaked like modern cartons. They were square at the top with a round tab at one corner of the top.
Of course I was extremely pleased to be the “milk monitor” because it suggested I was a good student and could skip 30 minutes of class time every day. Similarly, I was later made a “crossing monitor” and got to leave class early in the afternoon to get my crossing sign and belt. (Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but they let a sixth-grade student be a crossing guard.)
I got to be ink monitor - yes, they trusted primary school pupils with steel pen nibs, inkwells in the desk and a 9-year old with a large bottle of ink to keep them topped up.
But that’s far enough off topic.
In my country, this is standard practice. Outside every elementary school, on the crosswalk closest to the school, for 15 minutes before and after school. Several 10 year olds , wearing florescent safety vests and holding a stop sign on a stick, help the younger kids cross the street
It’s cute.
Oh ..this thread is about milk:
In England, 1965-ish, milk was delivered by a man driving a vehicle called a “float”. It was a motorized cart, open-sided, with three wheels.
Like this:
I did that as well. Our school, in an outer urban neighborhood, was (probably still is) K-8, so I did crossing guard duty for three years. The best part was when we got to hold up our flags to stop a city bus, though that was pretty rare.
When i was a kid we had milk delivered to the milk box right outside the back door. It was coated with some metal (probably steel) and slightly insulated. It neatly held four half gallon glass bottles, with crinkled paper covers. My mom would mark a piece of paper to order, and get a blank order form with the full bottles. (Of course, the empties went back in the box.)
We also had sixth grade crossing guards. I think we called them “safeties”.
Today, my town has adults working as crossing guards (they mostly look like retired women) but some houses still get milk delivery. It’s expensive, and i buy milk at the grocery store.
Yes, that’s right, we called it “Safety Patrol”.
Our “lollipop ladies” (or men) are almost universally of “a certain age” and often become substitute or additional honorary aunties/uncles grandparents. Most of us would think it too much responsibility for a child (am I right in imagining your crossing points would also have traffic lights?)
Nope. They did not have lights…not even flashing lights. There would be one student on one side of the road and one on the other so each could stop one lane of traffic. The signs themselves were pretty big and on longish poles so you could rest them against the side of your foot. The signs themselves were at an angle, so placing the pole perpendicular to the roadway made the STOP canted at about a 25 degree angle.
Nope. But i don’t think it was too much responsibility for a child. These were fairly quiet residential roads near an elementary school. The purpose of the safety was mostly so the younger kids wouldn’t run into the street until the cars had stopped. The sixth graders did exactly the same thing the old ladies do now.
At my (kindergarten through sixth grade) elementary school, a small group of sixth-grade boys were given the responsibility of raising the American flag out front each morning.
My school had the city police department’s oldest officer on crossing guard duty. I thought it was the least qualification you would need to entrust a child’s safety. Reading that other school crossing guards were unpaid 10-year-olds makes me wonder if Officer Eagan was on just somebody’s shit list.
“Milk box?” Did I grow up in the only neighborhood (in Detroit) where they were called “milk chutes?”
Another guy and I did that in seventh grade (because that was the top grade in our K-7 system). I thought it was great fun. The biggest drawback was that I had to leave the house extra early because I lived a half mile away and he literally lived across the street from the school. We were both safeties as well so we had to be there before they started.
Now that I think about it, that wasn’t really much of an honor. The school conned us.
Was it a box, or a pass-thru to a house?
Well, I considered it a box, with an outside door the “milkman” could open and an inside door we could open to retrieve what he left. But I guess that sounds like a pass thru