HOME DELIVERY

I would get up in the early morning and hurriedly pull on a pair of denim pants, patterned shirt and a pair of beat-up sneakers to scoot out the backdoor and up the six or so blocks past the Junior High, cutting through the parking lot of the laundromat on Market Street and into the alleyway leading to the squat cinder-block building with a large garage-like door on the left and a small office to the right.  Although still dark, there was a bustle of activity on the street and in the building as the three refrigerated trucks waited their turn to back halfway through the open bay to load plastic cases holding quart, half-gallon and gallon containers of pasteurized milk, along with pints and half-pints of chocolate milk, heavy cream and half-and-half.  As a helper on the morning retail run covering second and third and fourth wards, I would begin the day’s shift stacking the crates of milk along the walls of the back of the truck, arranging them for easy access according to those products in greater demand – usually the waxed cardboard half-gallon containers with the fold back, pop open spout – the red and white Dietrich’s Milk logo on the sides and top.  I was only 14 years old at the time, and couldn’t lift more than one, at maximum two crates at a time, so I probably wasn’t that much help. 

A slightly built and competent woman with a pixie haircut named, I think, Mary kept the inventory.  That could have been her name or not – it was a long time ago.  At least it fits.  I have a niggling thought that she might have been a member of the Dietrich family – a daughter or niece or cousin, but she could very well have been just a woman hired to do the bookkeeping and administration.    I have a hazy image of her standing under a metal encased light bulb by the door leading into the small office, clipboard in hand, checking off a list as each truck was loaded while keeping up a steady banter with the drivers.

I find that I forget the names of most of the workers at the dairy – it was a small operation so there weren’t a lot – five or six at most.   I remember the way the guy I did the early morning retail run with looked: average height, stocky but trim with a light brown crew-cut, most days wearing a pair of button up the front coveralls and worn leather work boots.  But I can’t pull his name out of my fading memory.  When I once posted a photograph of the truck, it came out that it might have been Nelson DeWald.  A family member told me he worked as a driver around that time.

I mostly only remember just one name from that time at the dairy; Laverne Apple - not just for the uniqueness of the first and the fruit-specific nature of his last name, but for his character and personality.  Laverne Apple was a seemingly content man; round, jolly, a robust singer of church hymns as he went about his work.  On weekends, I would sometimes pick up some extra work riding along with Laverne on the rural, wholesale route – out into the Pennsylvania countryside to deposit cases of Dietrich’s milk at the small country stores scattered along the main streets of small towns and villages or at crossroads in the middle of rolling farmland.

But my main job at the dairy – the one I did for the longest time- was the early morning weekday retail run, during summer break or, in the fall, before heading for school.  This was still the day of door-to-door home delivery, with customers having either a standing order for a quart or gallon of milk every other day, perhaps every day depending on the size of their family, or those who the night before would leave a note in the insulated aluminum covered milk boxes with the Dietrich’s logo painted on the front.  These boxes would be positioned just alongside the front door of the houses, sometimes on cement steps leading up to the door, most times to the left on a front porch.  

The driver (I will go with the probability that it was Nelson to make up for my faulty memory). Anyway, Nelson and I would take our respective places in the bulky square delivery truck, he behind the wheel, me in the one passenger seat to the right, a latching door leading to the refrigerated back of the truck between us and the large sliding doors on either side left open for easy exit and entrance as we headed out onto the darkened streets to begin our delivery.  Nelson had a system to get us done and back to the dairy in the shortest time possible; As we wove our way through the neighborhoods, he would send me into the back of the truck to prepare the next street’s upcoming order, arranging the different sized cartons into an empty crate that I would then pull up through the door to be easily reachable to the two of us.  When we pulled into a street having two or more customers, Nelson would throw the truck into neutral, letting it glide as he grabbed the order for the next house up ahead and leaped out onto the street, pulling the brake as he jumped.  I would be ready on the other side, running the short distances across the sidewalk, into the front lawn, onto the porch – flipping open the lid to the milk box and depositing the day’s order inside, flipping the lid closed and running back to the truck.  If Nelson was faster in his delivery that day, the truck would already be moving down the street and I would have to do a running jump, grabbing onto the handle of the door to swing my body inside.  It often turned into a competition to see who could be back first to the truck.  The desire to be first often produced some irate notes taped to the door or left in the milk box:  “Please DO NOT let the screen door SLAM shut!”  “It’s 5:30 AM for Crissake!”  Don’t make SO MUCH NOISE!”  “YESTERDAY YOU LET THE DOOR SLAM AGAIN!”   Angry customers aside (sometimes the complaints did get back to the office) Nelson and I were just about always the first ones back to the dairy to unload our empty crates.

I have a lot of good memories about my time working at the dairy.  They are not always clear, or in chronological order, but there are moments that stand out.  Like the time on the rural route when Laverne left me at an isolated country store and drove off to the next town several miles away before realizing that I was not with him.  On hot summer days, I would sometimes ride in the back of the refrigerated portion of the truck.  When he came out of the store and didn’t see me, he thought that I had already headed to the back of the truck, so he pulled out.  He told me later that he even swerved to the right and left on the country road, trying to give me the roughest ride ever.  Imagine his surprise when he got to the next stop and I was nowhere to be found.

I fondly remember ‘leakers’ as well – especially the pint containers of chocolate milk,  You couldn’t sell them if they were leaking so there was no loss in drinking them.  Sometimes, a pint or two of perfectly fine milk would miraculously become ‘leakers’ in our hands.

I also remember the fear I felt when I had to leave a quart of milk at the ‘cat lady’s’ house up on Sidler Hill (I believe).  She lived in a once elegant three story house with wood-shuttered windows, high gables and intricate lattice work lining the roof and porch – now falling apart and overgrown with the remains of what had assuredly been a beautiful garden.  I never saw the woman – she left her payment wrapped in a piece of note paper stuck under the lid of the milk box, but dozens of cats roamed the weeds and broken down porch, obviously waiting for her to open the door and pour the milk into the dirty saucer that lay next to the box.  I never waited around to try to catch a glimpse of her.

As I write this, I am trying to figure out if I ever actually met Mr. Dietrich.  I believe he was around and he surely must have come into the small distribution station at one point or another.  But I don’t have an image of him.  I drove past where the dairy was on a trip home a while back, finding the faded name on the brick front of the building and one of the old trucks parked across the street.   I have a photograph of the truck somewhere that I will pull out for this blog. I have briefly written about and shared this life memory before and was fortunate to elicit brief comments and memories from others who either knew or worked at the dairy, including a short exchange with the son of Laverne Apple.  Overall, it is a nice thing when a faraway memory can bring about a connection with others and their own life and times.