Before we were able to drive to the store and pick up a carton of milk, we used to have to have it delivered. The way it was delivered was by a milkman. A milkman had a job similar to that of a newspaper boy. They went aroud to specific houses delivering milk along with other dairy products.
When becoming a milkman, he would recieve a route to make his deliveries on. Beginners always ended up with the worst routes since routes shifted. When a milkman retired, his route could be bid for if others wanted to, but the milkmen with most senority (who had been there the longest) would usually get it. This meant that routes moved up to whoever was next, leaving the unwanted ones for newcomers.
A milkman would start his day around three a.m. and work until anywhere from noon to four p.m. depending on how many customers he had and where they lived. They were paid an hourly wage; time and a half for overtime and twice as much for holidays. In the morning, the milkman would arrive at his plant and pick up his supplies for the day. Each man had a certain place in line, so if one arrived late, he would have to go to the end which made him start delivering late. When it was your turn, you gave your order ahead of time into the plant and it then was loaded into your truck off of a conveyer belt that came from inside.
The truck that a milkman used looked sort of like the kind of truck that mailmen drive today. Some had swing seats that could be pushed to the side to make it easier to get out of the truck. Each time a milkman stoped to deliver milk, he had to go through the proccess of stoping and turning off the truck. Since opening and closing the doors took up extra time, he would usually just leave them open for the whole route.
There were many different delivery companies, a few of which were: Adohr, Foremost, Challenge, Carnation, Royal Farms, and Rockview. Each company used a different style of truck and had their employees wear their own company uniform. The products sold by milkmen were mostly dairy products, but cakes and cookies were sold around the holidays. Some of these dairy products were: nonfat milk, skim milk, regular milk, extra rich milk, cottage cheese, butter, half and half, chocolate drink, orange drink, grape drink, fruit punch, eggs, sour cream, and bread. Of course, now, all of this can be easily bought at the local supermarket.
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