Milkman for a day…
My Uncle was a Milkman for many years. It wasn’t that uncommon 30 years ago – and is a tradition that I believe continues to this day in some parts of rural Nova Scotia. I was able to join him for a day of his deliveries about 15 years ago and found it to be an amazing experience.
Delivering milk may sound like an extravagant deal. It probably makes more sense in the context of homes which are 15 minutes (or more) from a local corner store, which was the case for some of my family. I remember seeing the milk truck amble up the large hill to my Aunt and Uncle’s house to my utter fascination. My cousins would trade tokens (I remember them to be something like a poker chip) in exchange for gallons of milk.
There was a time in the city that we had such service as well. When my parents moved into their present home in Markham in the late-70s, there was still a milk slot (since removed) that allowed the local delivery to occur with no one home.
My Uncle would pick up milk in his delivery truck a few times a week. He had a route that took him around his small island several times over the course of a week. The few local stores were serviced daily while each household was visited twice weekly. It was his responsibility to find his own customers and there was a strong rivalry between the two large milk producers that serviced the area.
Visits would start well before light and continue through early afternoon. It was tough, physical work that was done at a splinter’s pace. Uncle Greg simply knew what a house was likely to want, fill his arms with their order and run to the door. If he didn’t guess right it meant a trip back to the truck, back to the door and back again – lost time, energy and effort. He would typically risk carrying too much to save these extra trips. Nova Scotia is rocky and bumpy and these trips were more than a simple walk across a sidewalk.
The most surprising factor, to me, was his access to homes. Some were left unlocked while others had hidden a key for him to use. The majority of his visits saw him entering a house, loading the fridge, grabbing the right number of tokens (on honour) before dashing out the door. This happened before a house woke up at 5AM and continued as families sat in their housecoats around the breakfast table. Their was no knocking, ringing or waiting – a quick dash into the kitchen, a friendly exchange of banter and back out the door. Enough to provide great service – not enough to slow down the long day of deliveries ahead.
Bad weather offered extreme challenges. It would make difficult driving even more difficult but the real challenge became getting from door to fridge without leaving a trail of dirt and without impacting your length of delivery (which could be well over 100 stops in a day).
The end of the day saw a long drive to meet with a large transport which serviced several trucks like ours. The transport would take all of the empty milk vessels we had collected and we refreshed our load from it.
My Uncle did the entire thing by memory. Greg is still an amazing guy for figuring things like this out (he’s amazing at organizing things and coming up with systems) – how he kept which houses to visit on which day and remembered who drank what and how much still confounds me. It was this ability plus the absolute physicality of the job that were most surprising to me.
I don’t think I could do the job. It’s a tradition that I find romantically endearing and find myself wishing was more prevalent – even though I can’t explain why I feel that way.