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Faded Memories

Fifty years from now, people will not have the pleasure of going though old photographs at a flea market, garage sale or antique mall. There will be basically no hard copy photographs. All our photographs are now digitized and stored on hard drive or discs. You will not be able to rummage through a shoe box or album of photos. You will not experience the discovery of a unique image of a child and its pet or favorite toy. Vernacular photography will have become obsolete.

Existing photographs of generations before will have increased dramatically in price and be available to the few who can afford such an antique collection of 200-300 year old images. Hard copy images have become a thing of the past and rather than a personal collection, you will view them on specialty sites or order discs with enhanced images from the past. Today, family photos of relatives, vacations, fun time with the kids, are all in file on the iphones and pads. No more the bulky family albums we used to pull out of the bookcase and spread on the table to look at grandparents and childhood pictures. No longer the fuzzy, out of focus images with heads cut off and faded colors.

We lost something along the way to better technology. We lost the intimate social aspect of life. This is true in general as we see folks getting together for an event but spending more time on their phones texting and sharing. We share our happy times at the restaurant or bar but it is momentary as far as the images go for they will be erased to make room for the next event.

For years I have collected vintage images by going to estate and garage sales when families discard the portraits of family and relatives they no longer know or care about. I have on occasion gone back at the end of a sale to make an offer on the box of photos and albums no one wanted. I had been rewarded with most interesting images whose participants have no name or history other than they once existed and the black and white photo represents that moment in time when an experience was shared. I view these photographs not as someone I do not know, but rather a distant relative in the family of humankind whose name has been lost to me. A few images I have do have names so I can share that moment of time with Sarah, Thuy, Asako or “Uncle” Fred. and acknowledge their existence. We are all one family.

It is sad, at least to me, future generations will not have this privilege. Peace.

Selling Dead People’s Things

As a slight diversion from youthful experiences, I would like to share with you an interesting and unusual new book I just read written by a friend of mine and available on Amazon. Thank you.

Selling Dead People’s Things by Duane Scott Cerny

I have known Duane for ten years, although probably saw him on numerous occasions prior to my joining the BAM family of Antique and Collectible dealers in 2009. At least I thought I had known him until I read his new book: “Selling Dead People’s Things.”

Being a dealer in collectible ephemera and photography for 60 years (yes, 60), I no doubt ran into him unknowingly at flea markets, yard and estate sales, over the years, never realizing that one day I would be welcomed to the Broadway Antique Market as a dealer. But this missive is not about me, it’s about Duane’s book. I read it. I loved it. I recommend it.

Like Duane, I started out selling things my father brought home from work. As I read the chapters I saw myself, to a degree, with the early-on enthusiasm of a trade discovered but with more faith than business sense; more curiosity than knowledge, but wisdom and knowledge come later and you gotta start somewhere so why not the back yard trash pile.

Duane takes us on a journey, one that doesn’t attempt to define, price and relegate scarcity of items to the reader, no, that’s for other book writers and their guides and manuals. Duane’s purpose is to take us on a trip which defines the normal, as well as occasional para-normal, experiences one may encounter in search of the desirable, resalable items of ages past.

From basements to attics and all the floors (sometimes 12) in between, we walk with the author, careful not to trip over the boxes and trash (and poop) that block our path, to discover, hopefully, that hidden treasure. Many times we are not disappointed but regardless, we always wind up with an interesting story that goes with each quest.

Selling Dead People’s Things is unlike any other book I have read on the buying and selling of antiques and collectibles. It is a poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes a bit eerie, travelogue into someone’s past, a past that is explained in part by the objects that remain behind – pieces of a puzzle for just about all ages to complete. It is a book where the individual’s story is more important than his or her possessions. Duane delivers that intimate relationship between people and their things and, in the process, we are mesmerized by his own personal unfolding story.

It is a book you will enjoy reading whether a collector or not. Take it from a guy who has been selling dead people’s photographs (we call them “vernacular” in the trade) for 60 years. Peace.

Burning Leaves

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Autumn ain’t what it used to be. The sound of the clickity clack manual lawnmower has been replaced by a super charged gas powered grass eater. And the sound of people raking leaves has been replaced by the jet engine leaf blower that makes more noise than planes leaving O’Hare airport.

Kids in my neighborhood looked forward to Autumn for one reason, and it wasn’t returning to school. It was leaf burning. Not that we kids liked to do household chores, mind you, but there were certain rewards for leaf raking in the 1950s.

On a Saturday afternoon, the neighborhood kids (and a few adults without kids) would rake the leaves from the back of the yard to the front where you could gather them along the curb in front of your house and set them aflame.

Before we would do that, there was the ritual of jumping into the leaf pile first and tossing them up in the air, which required a subsequent re-raking into the curb. It was then that the magic began as we pulled out our book of matches, striking them and tossing them into the mound and watching as the fire slowly spread across from leaf to leaf.

The leaves burned slowly as most were not real dry and brittle (unless you put off raking for a week or so). There was an aroma which permeated the neighborhood as the burning continued. Parking your car was a problem since you didn’t want to be too close to the burning piles. All in all, it took only an hour or so to reduce the leaves into a smoldering heap which then required a good hosing down. You had to be careful with water pressure as not to hose the leaves all over and across the street onto your neighbor’s lawn.

I think the city banned leaf burning around 1960. I cant seem to find the original ordinance about it but I do remember people were told to put leaves in bags and set them in the alley. Thus ended a ritual which now made leaf raking a chore rather than a prelude to minor pyrotechnics in the front yard.

It was a right of passage where the old man (for the sake of not doing it himself) would allow us to have matches, after we raked and piled the leaves, in order to set them ablaze and pretend it was a campfire or burning fort. One time, I remember we tried to send smoke signals by using an old blanket. We were caught before any damage ensued.

Sometimes the wind got a little too strong and spun burning embers into the sky, sort of like when you toss another log on the fire. I suppose this is why somebody (whose roof probably caught fire) got wise and they banned it. Like they did fireworks.

Except folks still set off fireworks. And jump in leaf piles.

Riverview Park

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They tore it all down while I was in Viet Nam. It was the place I spent a lot of money and time enjoying myself as a pre-teen and teenager. It was one of the last places I went to before going into the army and one of the first places I wanted to go back to when I was discharged. They tore down Riverview Park in 1968.

Riverview Park had been around since the turn of the century when some Germans decided they wanted to make a picnic grounds and rifle range out of an old North side dumping ground located along the Chicago river. It’s where my great-grandfather sold his beer. The park continually expanded with rides and attractions and became a famous super-carnival located at Western and Belmont Avenues on the North side of Chicago.

You knew it was summer when Two Ton Baker (another story) came on the radio or television inviting you to laugh your troubles away (for a few dollars). I first went there with my parents when I was nine or ten years old. I went on the kiddie rides like the Caterpillar and miniature train for the most part but longed for the day I could attempt the bigger and scarier rides, especially the roller coasters. There were a variety of coasters. All wooden frame that clattered and rattled as the cars full of visitors rode over the wooden trestles. There was the Silver Streak, Blue Streak, the Bobs and Flying Turns and a few others. The Flying Turns was originally named the Bobs and was transported from the Worlds Fair. The tracks would suddenly disappear as you entered and careened around a semi-tubular structure just like a bobsled run. How the cars got back on track is a mystery to me.

Every summer, as I recall, there was a front page article of someone falling off one of the roller coasters. There would be a black and white photo with a dotted line to show the path down of the unfortunate individual who did not keep his hands on the bar, or who moronically stood up during the coaster’s descent.

Before the days of mega theme parks such as Great America, for us Chicago kids there was Riverview Park and you could get there easily by a ten cent bus ride. We waited impatiently as the summer drew near to be able to once again go to the park with the nickles and dimes we saved all winter. We could be assured that our favorite rides and attractions would still be there along with one or two new additions. And, as a teenager, it was a place to meet girls.

There were even special discount, five and ten cent ride days, days where you could go to a local business and pick up a coupon good for four discounted rides and free admission. By the 1960’s, Riverview was losing money. Free admission and discount coupons were used by kids who came to assemble at the park and spend the day but, after using the coupons, simply hung around, spending little more cash.

The park had a myriad of attractions. There was Aladdin’s castle, a centerpiece in the park and was sort of a haunted/fun house with twists and turns that you walked through, including a device in the front of the castle where, when young ladies walked across, would blow their skirts up in the air for all to see. There was also a smaller building called Hades located near the river but most of us stayed away from that since river rats kinda called it home.

There was a large selection of carnival booths, shooting galleries, penny arcades and ring toss games. You could toss a ping pong ball and if it landed in one of the bowls, go home with a goldfish. You could win stuffed animals, cupie dolls and chalk figurines (which now are worth some money on Ebay!). Or, you could, for a penny, watch a hula dance where cards flipped over to give the illusion of action, or, for another penny, receive a funny certificate or a photo card of cowboy heroes or beach bunnies.

There were concessions where you could purchase cotton candy, hot dogs , ice cream and soda and then go on the Tilt-a-Whirl and throw up. I especially liked one ride which was simply a large bucket suspended on cables, with a front rudder you could manipulate and steer the contraption high or low. I think it was called the Flying Wing. It was my favorite ride which I spent numerous “let’s ride again for five cents” times. Soaring above the tree line and buzzing over the heads of passers-by, I pretended I was a flying ace.

One attraction I vividly remember as a child was the Dunk-em stalls. This was a area consisting of two or three large cages where you threw baseballs at a target hoping to connect and dunk the person sitting in the cage on a platform, into the water below. The cages had a wire front and the individuals behind it were clearly visible. And Black.

I didn’t fully understand the implications back then, but middle age black men ( you didn’t see many Black folks at the park in the late 1950’s) would be sitting in the cages hurling insults at passers-by who would then pay ten cents (3 for a quarter) for a baseball to hurl at the target in hopes of dunking the smart-mouth. So just imagine a group of White people, young and old throwing baseballs at a target to dunk a Black man into the water while they also hurled epithets at one another. Sometimes it did get a little heated where, in frustration, the pitcher threw the ball directly at the person in the cage rather than the target! and although I didn’t participate (since my aim and throwing arm were bad), I did hang around and watch. I can now imagine the Black employee going home after a day of insults and dunking saying to his family, “I sure pissed off a few White folks today!”

As you walked down the Midway, there was an attraction which had real monkeys chained to miniature racing cars. You would put your dime on a color and watch the race as the monkeys sat in the cars in a stupor, riding around in a large circle. I recall another attraction that employed baby chicks, but dont remember what it was about. And there was the Side-Show with bearded ladies, overly obese people and, what were called then, freaks. I never went into that area, preferring the roller coasters and flying wing!

When I returned from Viet Nam in 1969, I vowed to make one last journey to the park. After being discharged and trying to assimilate back into society, I took a trip down to the area which was leveled but not yet developed. I strolled around the area remembering the midway, the location of the rides I enjoyed and then became an amateur archeologist, digging in the rubble for remnants of a childhood past. I spent many afternoons in 1970 with pick and shovel as I, and a few others, dug around the area, occasionally coming up with a bottle or small figurine or dish.

You might say, I was happy down in the dumps.

X-Rays Afoot

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The early to mid 1950s were influenced tremendously by the atomic bomb. No so much in the sense of destruction and desolation, although we did practice hiding under desks at school, but rather in the marketing sense. As we kids drew pictures of war and battles, the landscape now included mushroom clouds and advertising went the same way along with drawings of the atom with neutrons spinning around to sell a modern marvel of the age.

There were atomic sandwiches, atomic milkshakes, atomic bubble gum and comic books, followed by movies with giant ants and grasshoppers mutated by atomic radiation. And, out of the atomic age came the prolific use of another marketing ploy, the X-ray. If atomic bombs didn’t get you, the use of X-rays would.

Even as a kid I wondered when I went to get my teeth checked, why the assistant, after placing a heavy lead vest on my chest, would leave the room while they zapped my skull in order to see my teeth. I guess they were saving my chest for the doctor when I got my lungs zapped on another trip.

If that wasn’t enough, when you went to get a pair of shoes, they stuck your feet in this machine so that your parents could see your foot bones and how the shoe fit. I suppose this was okay if you bought shoes maybe once a year or so but I bet the innovators of that machine never thought about the fact that kids would see it as a fun contraption to play with.

The machine was a large, tall wooden box and you stood on a platform while sticking your feet inside this rectangle opening. The salesman then flipped a toggle switch, you looked into the viewer and there were your bones! My friends and I would take a Saturday walk to the shopping district called six-corners by most folks, and go to Sears where they sold Red Goose and Buster Brown Shoes. We would wait until the salesman was busy with a customer and then go up to the machine, stick our feet in and throw the switch. Also, one of us would stick their hands in there while the others took turns looking. We would do it a few times until we got shagged out of the store.

As a pre-teen, with all the different forms of X-ray equipment used on us at the time, it is no wonder we did not glow in the dark or become mutated like those giant ants and grasshoppers. But I sort of figured out, perhaps, where my foot problems came from.

Good Humor

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One of the sounds of summer I remember as a little tyke, besides the clickity-clack of the manual lawnmowers, was the gentle wafting rings of the bells on the Good Humor truck as it headed down my street. There were a series of (I think) four bells strung across the front windshield of the truck, attached to a cord that the driver would be constantly pulling on with one hand while steering with the other.

Unlike the scratchy recorded chicken dance music that bellows from a cheap speaker on the faux-ice cream truck of today, pasted with stickers of a variety of vegetable fat concoctions, the Good Humor truck slowly wound its way along the side streets of the neighborhood and we could gauge, by the approaching bells, how much time we had to run into the house and ask our parents for money and get back on the street as the truck rolled closer to our location. On occasion, one of us was designated to stop the truck and delay the driver by pretending to make up his mind what he wanted, while we ran in and out of our houses with the cash.

During the summer months, the Good Humor Man, dressed in white shirt and pants and a cap, Would ride down the street in the afternoon but many of us were out playing in the parks, or swimming and missed his rounds. It was in the evening, just after suppertime, around 7:00pm when the bells were heard and the possibility of father popping for the after dinner treat were at high expectations.

Good Humor ice cream bars cost a nickel more than the store bought kind, but there were reasons (besides home delivery) such as the variety of bars available. My favorite was the chocolate malt bar and the only way to get it was off that truck…and to get the fifteen cents off my old man, which was not always easy (unless he was in the mood for one himself) because of my two sisters who would also be included which meant a purchase of five items (six, if Grandma was downstairs at the time) totaling seventy-five cents. I do not recall there being sales tax charged at that time.

All playing stopped for fifteen minutes as we sat on the front stoop of someone’s house and ate our bars as the melting ice cream leaked out the bottom cracks of the chocolate coating onto our hands.

With the changing times, growing safety concerns (for drivers as well as kids) and cost increases, Good Humor eventually went into the freezer compartments of the food and grocery stores and the trucks and carts slowly fazed out. I feel we lost something there along the way of progress.

The offerings off of the trucks today, in my opinion, cannot compare to the taste and delight of having an ice cream bar from the Good Humor Man of the 1950s. And, of course, as Poe so aptly put it: “the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.”

Duck and Cover

If the Russians ever wanted to surprise attack us during the 1950’s, it would be at 10:30am on a Tuesday morning. That’s when the air raid sirens went off.

I grew up in an era of fear of nuclear annihilation. Those sirens went off like clockwork every week and they were loud and lasted several minutes. Folks knew if they heard them any other time, it would not be a practice test. One evening, in 1959, the sirens went off and had all of Chicago saying their prayers.

It was a different world in 1959, a distrusting world, a world of Joe McCarthy and communists living next door or under your bed. It was a time when the air raid sirens went off every Tuesday morning at 10:30. Short blasts meant you had time to take cover and prepare. A long steady blast meant hit the dirt. In school we would practice the duck-and-cover routines, hiding under a desk or crouched along a corridor wall covering our eyes with our hands. People built bomb shelters underground or in their basement, food and water were stored away as each day could be your last.

Even as kids, we kinda realized that hiding under a desk or in a hallway would not help too much, but that is what they told us to do on television, even on the kiddie shows. Duck and Cover was a popular song at the time and they even had a cartoon. And every Tuesday morning we were reminded of the cataclysmic possibilities.

Some will say it was the over enthusiastic fire commissioner, Robert Quinn, who ordered the sirens to howl, but many thought that “Da Boss,” Richard J Daley, had to have been at least aware, if not approving the order himself.

It was Tuesday night, September 22nd, as my family was getting ready for bed. Dad was not much of a sports fan when it came to the Chicago White Sox, so he would wait until tomorrow to find out who won the pennant. Instead, we watched Red Skelton and Garry Moore shows. Suddenly, without any warning, the night air was filled with the horrific long blasts of the air raid sirens screeching imminent doom.

As they wailed their message of attack, mom and my sisters began to throw mattresses down the basement stairs, grandma came down from the attic apartment with a few things wrapped in her arms while I followed my dad out the front door into the street (to watch the big blast, I guess).

I don’t remember anyone turning to the emergency station on the radio. Some neighbors were outside their homes and in the street looking southward toward the Loop trying to get a glimpse of the missiles that would blow us all to Kingdom-come. A few people were shouting and wailing along with the sirens. One neighbor lady was kneeling and praying, some were just silent. Suddenly Mr. M ran out of his house with beer in hand shouting, “Sox won! Sox won!”

Everyone looked at each other with collective realization.

It was all over in a matter of minutes, the sirens died down; people drifted back into their homes as prayers changed to curses. Dad was upset, calling for someone in City Hall to get fired but mom calmly said we should all be thankful that it wasn’t real and say a prayer before we go to sleep (and after we pull the mattresses from out of the basement!). Grandma went back upstairs vowing the next time, “I ain’t coming down!”

The population of Chicago would be talking about that evening for weeks to follow. In school we would relate our story of what happened in each house when the sirens blared. Eventually, as the stories were related, and the fear of the evening was long gone, it became somewhat humorous the night we all thought we were dead meat.

The sound of the sirens still send a tinge of fear through my body in an auto-response of the days of duck-and-cover. It’s a siren you hope you never hear and should never, ever, be used for celebration.

It is the sound of death and destruction, not a victory celebration in any sense of the word.

MAD Memories

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I learned about satire and parody from MAD magazine; I learned fear and pain from my father. The two sometimes went hand in hand.

At age ten, I started reading MAD magazine, a comic book my friend Rich discovered. We thought it was neat because it had characters like Superdooperman, the Lone Stranger and Little Annie Fannie…ooops, wait a minute, Annie was in Playboy. Sorry.

The government got involved with the content of MAD, as well as other comics like Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, as not being appropriate for small fertile minds. They instituted the Comics Code Authority which regulated and approved comic content for kids with impressionable minds. Thus, MAD went from a comic book format to magazine in 1956, escaping the regulators, and we kids continued to purchase it along with Donald Duck and Superman, explaining the magazine was “for my older brother.”

MAD was a magazine of wit, satire, parody and “humor in a jugular vein.” Its creative contributors, Ernie Kovaks, Andy Griffith, Bob and Ray, Sid Caesar and a host of others, along with the regulars like Harvey Kurtzman, filled the pages with a world of cutting edge writing and drawing and played a key role in my wanting to be a writer, honing my developing sense of humor.

My father did not understand MAD. I dont think he ever took the time to really read it, just as he automatically condemned my taste in music (Perez Prado, the Weavers, Dave Brubeck). He never strayed from the regimented path he created for himself; if it wasn’t on Hit Parade ( a weekly top ten TV show), it wasn’t music worth listening to. That fell apart when the show, not by choice, by 1956, had to play the top ten which included Elvis Presley. He watched as the popularity of songs flipped between Patti Page and Mario Lanza to the Rock and Roll genre almost overnight. Within a short time, because of this change, the show went off the air.

The world was changing and my father could not adapt. Things he liked were becoming passe, things he believed in were being challenged and things he hoped for, like a son who would mature into his image of what a son should be, were being attacked. The world was changing and, unlike a reed in the wind, he could not bend. MAD exposed this world of change, poking fun at it, ridiculing it and explaining it in a humorous way. It became my magazine of choice, hidden from my father, throughout the late 1950’s.

If my father caught me reading a MAD magazine after banning it from the house, he would rip it to shreds and then punish me for my disobedience. This was even after a visiting priest to our house was confronted by my father asking for comment of the content within its pages. He fully expected the priest to agree with him as to the magazine being subversive.

The priest was there because I had made inquiry as to attending the seminary after graduation from grade school. The middle aged priest surprised my father and mother (and me too!) when he responded by explaining that even though the magazine touched on sensitive topics at times, it did so with restraint and intelligence and reflected a changing society and was not considered contraband in the seminary where it was read by some to gain insight into American culture. Dad was speechless.

My parents were hoping I would become a priest, and that day in 1959 dashed their concepts of a Bing Crosby, Father O’Malley type character and instead gave them a vision of Father Groucho, the unorthodox vestment wearing smart-mouth, holding a crucifix in one hand and a seltzer bottle in the other.

I was growing up, becoming my own person, and my father didn’t understand. The changing world, for me, did not alter fundamental family values I had been taught, but questioned society and government roles in managing and defining them. My world was expanding. Dad’s world was no longer flat. The Times they were a-changing.

For Three Cents, Chocolate

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Back in the 1950’s when I attended parochial school we had a morning milk break. Every day, around eight am, the guy from Twin Oaks Dairy delivered a cargo of half-pint bottles of milk to the school. And, every day, those little bottles of milk rested in their cases until around ten am, before the nun would allow us to drink them. This was not a good idea in the winter when the cases stood alongside the radiator near the back of the room.

It never was a good idea for those kids who stayed at school for lunch because they had to wait until noon before they could drink the milk and it was always warm no matter what month it was, although during the winter you could claim hot chocolate as a benefit.

The cost was two cents for plain white milk and three cents for chocolate per day. Money was collected every Friday and if you forgot the money, you went without the next week. No one would spot you the cash, ten or fifteen cents, so you went thirsty.

The bottles had a foil type lid and I would puncture the top with a sharp pencil to make a small opening and then use the pencil to make a small hole in the straw, keeping it above the milk line, thus mixing the milk with air so it would last longer as I sipped it. Unfortunately, this action would shortly produce a follow-up series of burps which amuse my fellow classmates and netted me an occasional rap on the knuckles by Sister Mary Yardstick.

Since I lived a short distance, I went home for lunch every day and mom would have a sandwich ready according to her menu of the week which consisted basically of either baloney and cheese or peanut butter and jelly on Wonder bread. Except for Friday when it was grilled cheese. In the winter months the sandwich was accompanied by a bowl of Campbell’s Chicken noodle or chicken rice soup. And there was always the tall glass of chocolate milk made with Bosco syrup. By eighth grade I was a choco-junkie.

We got an hour for lunch so I ran home, which took less than five minutes, so I could hurriedly eat and then go into the living room to watch the lunchtime frolics on TV. Mom would not allow eating in front of the set worried about crumbs on the carpet or, perhaps, that I might laugh at the cartoon and choke. There may have been a stronger chance of that happening as I wolfed down my pre-show food.

There were four channels available in those days and three of them had lunchtime kids shows. I would watch Lunchtime Little Theater, Two Ton Baker the Music Maker or Uncle Johnny Coons. So, after a morning of science, religion and arithmetic, I spent the noon hour watching Uncle Bucky, Uncle Ned (Ned Locke of Bozo’s Circus fame) and Aunt Dodie (later replaced by Aunt Jeannie) in their striped outfits and straw hats as they sung ditties on the piano and showed dancing bug cartoons.

Uncle Johnny Coons also would eat a sandwich with us kids, tell us not to sit to close to the TV and, dressed in his pith helmet and explorer garb, relate stories and, ultimately, show outdated film shorts and, occasionally, a dancing bug cartoon.

Two Ton Baker, a large man dressed in pirate clothes, sat at the piano playing ditties about life such as “I Like Stinky Cheese,” “Poor Little Petunia,” Fuzzy Wuzzie was a Bear,” and other educational songs. He was supported by a talking parrot and Bubbles, the porpoise and he had a side-kick pirate pal who brought out Two Ton’s lunch for him and ,while he ate, we watched more dancing bug cartoons.

Since I could only watch one show at a time, there was no remote control back then, I sat close to the TV so I could manually switch channels when the bug cartoons came on (which I had seen numerous times before) catching portions of each show’s live action performances.

When the show was just about over, I kissed my mom goodbye and raced back to school to continue the day’s studies in history, more religion and geography. This was a bit difficult at times to concentrate as images of a 300 pound pirate, dancing bugs or corny vaudevillian type acts were still fresh in my mind and conflicted with learning about the origins of the universe (which, of course, was created).

I dont know if any kids still come home for lunch any more and watch TV. With all the channels now open and with the computer and internet, things are certainly different. Some days, when I make myself lunch and sit down at the TV set, all I get are commercials and swear I finish eating before any show comes back on.

I miss the fat pirate and the folks in strange garb, playing a honky-tonk piano and showing dancing bug cartoons. I do, however, still eat baloney and cheese sandwiches but with a beer instead of chocolate milk, which is no longer available for three cents.

The Milkman Cometh

When I was 13 years old, in 1958, I worked the summer with my Uncle George on his home delivery truck for Bowman Dairy. This was back in the days when you could have home delivery for many things, until safety became a real issue.

Uncle George would pick me up around 5 in the morning and we would ride over to the dairy distribution point where he would load the crates of milk while I chopped ice to place on top of the bottles.

Milk (including chocolate), cream and orange juice were checked off my uncle’s list as he placed them in the truck, followed by me chipping the ice off larger blocks to fit in the crates. We also placed a few larger blocks of ice on the side ledge in the truck to chip off more as the smaller chips melted. The interior of the truck was insulated and it was cool inside while we drove around in the summer heat. This was before air-conditioning was perfected and available for cars and trucks.

By 6am we were on the street and deliveries began. I dont remember in what neighborhoods we delivered because most of the stops were in the alleyways up the rear porches of the apartment buildings. We would get the person’s order off a list my uncle had, load a wire basket and haul the order up the stairs. I placed the items either to the side of the door or between the screen door area. Sometimes there would be a note requesting an extra quart of something for next time. I would ring the bell or knock on the door and then scamper down the stairs.

Deliveries were made 3 times a week so folks usually ordered quarts of milk unless they had a lot of kids, then it was half gallon bottles. If Uncle George saw someone sitting on the porch or out in the yard while he was delivering, he would go over and talk to them about the benefits of home delivery, explaining it was only a few cents more for the convenience. This was before all the Quickie and gas station marts.

There were a few local neighborhood mom and pop stores that were on the list and we would deliver six or eight ½ gallons, and ½ pints of chocolate milk. We usually got our donuts while in the store. George had a thermos of coffee and he let me have a ½ pint of chocolate milk.

The following year, my cousin, who was a year younger than I, replaced me on his father’s route. It was only fair, but I missed the early morning rise and grown up feeling I experienced riding with my uncle and the talks we shared during my summer vacation in his ice-cooled truck.

I wanted to help Uncle George increase his business, so I came up with the idea of colored milk. After all, cows eat grass so why not green milk? Chocolate milk was brown so why not red or yellow too? So one afternoon I got some food dye and created green milk. I thought it was cool until I showed it to mom.

She became a bit upset and when my dad came home he informed me I would be drinking the entire half gallon before anything else. When my uncle heard of it, he laughed and stated that maybe they should make colored banana or strawberry milk. He should have acted on that thought! A few years later, uncle George switched jobs and began delivering ice cream. I liked the idea of him stopping by the house weekly and dropping off ice cream bars.

One evening, Uncle George revealed why he chose milk and ice cream delivery. He had been taking courses in refrigeration maintenance and repair and now, after several years, he was going into business for himself servicing the equipment he had become familiar with.

I admired my uncle George and had the opportunity to tell him so before he died. He was a people person. A bit rough on the edges but always with a joke or story to tell. He treated people, including us kids, with respect and never talked down to us. I told him that riding in the truck with him that one summer and getting to know him better, was one of the best experience I had as a kid.

Although Uncle George always worked in the cold, it was his personal warmth that brought him success and made him my favorite uncle.