Eating in the Fifties

[p_toad]

We only ever had milk delivered by the local service; not the ice cream or bread or anything else; we couldn't afford it off the truck.   The milk delivery guy used to just walk in the carport door and leave the milk at the step-up between the utility room and the kitchen.  Still have a scar on my one hand where i was carrying a half-gallon glass jug into the dining room to pour milk and slipped and fell.   Glass and milk all over and me with a cut on the side of one finger.   Cokes were only the small bottle and we didn't dare to just help ourselves to it.   My dad used to send me up to the pony keg with a quarter to get a pack of smokes for him.   Now they call that "child abuse".    Never had a desire to smoke and never tried it. 

 

Coffee cans had the key, as did canned meat products and sardines.   I always kept a few spare keys around (yeah, packrat even back then). 

[Cal]

Never had home delivered groceries out where we lived.  With Amazon and Publix now doing home delivery, I guess what is old is new again.

Fresh milk?  That was "home delivered" every day from the barn.  You want it warm or cold?  We did have home delivery of vet supplies and such from a truck that used to come around.

[Grandpadave52]

Milk was delivered first by Meadow Gold, then by Bordens...I think we eventually got OJ too. Milk was in glass bottles (usually quarts or 1/2 gal), cream in 1/2 pints or pints; all eventually was replaced by cardboard cartons. It was a special treat when we got ice cream delivered. We eventually got a little galvanized, insulated box where they placed the dairy products. The last milk delivery (which was out in the country) we had was probably around 35 years ago. Our daughter was around 3 or 4.

 

When I was young, I remember the "Omar Man" delivering bread and such; "Stanley Man" delivered household cleaning products, medicinal items like "salves", Merthiolate, aspirin, and the like. Like @p_toad my parents used to give us the quarters and send us down the street to the "open air" market for smokes.

 

We used to pull our wagon around the area finding discarded pop bottles then returning them to the stores for the deposit money...with the loot divided up we would buy candy bars and a pop or two which we shared.

[HARO50]

6 hours ago, Gene Howe said:

Pepsi NEVER tasted good.

Funny, I could never stomach it either. Coke, yes, but Pepsi.....

John

[HARO50]

6 hours ago, Gene Howe said:

Pepsi NEVER tasted good.

Funny, I could never stomach it either. Coke, yes, but Pepsi.....

 

6 hours ago, Gene Howe said:

well, there was that one time....

The only time you REMEMBER, right!?

John

[HARO50]

4 hours ago, p_toad said:

Still have a scar on my one hand where i was carrying a half-gallon glass jug into the dining room to pour milk and slipped and fell.   Glass and milk all over and me with a cut on the side of one finger.  

Sure you weren't trying Stick's trick?

once the bottles were empty you could use them to drive nails...

John

[Al B]

I'm going back a bit further than some of you remember. I remember my parents would leave a card in the front window so the ice man would know how big a block of ice to leave in the ice box . He would cut the block from the large pieces in his ice truck.

Cushman's bakery delivered bread. While he was there you could buy cakes, pies, donuts, turnovers or whatever else sweets tickled you desires.

[p_toad]

We didn't use cream or butter.   Dad used evaporated milk in his coffee and we had margarine (you know, with the coloring to be added).

 

We only put a card in the window for Salvation Army to pick up clothes we had all outgrown (or if you were lucky, you got bigger that the donor and didn't ever have to wear them).   Used to be three daily papers back then, mail delivery 6 days a week, and party line phone (wheee, that was fun - not).