Milk from the Dairy

Dear Mom,

I’m sure you remember Dad going to the dairy to pick up milk for you. Ruthie and I always wanted to go along in the hopes of conning Dad into buying us an ice cream cone or a package of Chicklets or some other kind of candy. We’d go for the ice cream cone first. We’d be excited riding in the old green Ford thinking about what we might get. When he’d pull into the dairy and tell us to stay in the car, our hearts would sink because we knew then we wouldn’t be getting anything. That didn’t happen often. Sometimes he’d surprise us anyway and throw us a pack of Chicklets when he’d slide back into the drivers seat.

We’d get home and you’d have your Carnation powdered milk out, with additional empty glass milk bottles. Some of the bottles would already have a mixture of Carnation and water in them. You’d add the milk from the dairy—making your own what they now call 2 percent. Not sure whether they had that back then. Seemed like you saved wherever you could.

When Norm tells me I’m being cheap, I think I need to remind him of how it could be, and that I’ve clearly inherited that trait from you.