BLOG POST HOME DELIVERY

When I was a kid—you know in the dark ages, last century--home delivery was a given, but of certain things that seem far-fetched today. Every morning-- or certain mornings I am not sure which-- the milk man came.

He drove his truck to my Granny Janie’s house and supplied her with milk in a bottle—glass with a cardboard “stopper” from his refrigerated truck.  He had butter, cream, and  I am not sure what else.

Sometimes I think he had, or she bought orange juice, but most of the time she freshly squeezed my juice from an orange that she had cut in half right in front of me. You might think I would have loved that juice, but I did not: it was too tart, and it had pulp in it! But she had strained out the seeds.

The brand of milk was Foremost, and they later changed their name to Farmbest. It was an orange carton, I believe. Milk also came in cartons from the grocery store. We ate Ziegler’s brand bacon and sausage; Colonial Bread;  Jim Dandy grits, and we ate Golden Flake potato chips:  these were all in-state local brands.

Ice came delivered to your home too. Probably, when I was around 5, 1959, some folks still had ice boxes. Those were literally what they sounded like.   A “refrigerator” that did not require electricity but instead held a block of ice, and of course, over time, it melted. That is why the ice man had to come every afternoon. 

My granny had a refrigerator that my mother bought for her. She also had a wringer washer--a washing machine that had two rollers on top to squeeze the water out of your clothes.

Before that I remember that two round tin wash tubs sat on a wooden bench in the back yard under the kitchen window.  One tub held hot soapy water;  the other held the rinse water. 

When the sheets, for example, had been washed and rinsed, they were hung on the line by wooden clothes pins, to dry in the sun and the wind.

Oh, those sheets smelled so good! This was long before fabric softener or deodorizer were dreamed of!

My granddaddy Bill delivered bundles of kindling and firewood to the two rows of apartments making an L-shape near Granny & Bill’s cream-colored little stucco house with the green shingle roof.

The white apartments intersected King Street across a gravel parking lot from Granny’s house. The green apartments made the L-shape and were parallel to King Street. Granny lived at 914 King Street.  As of this writing, the house is still there. You can see an orange line that makes a ring completely around the house. It is the residual of the high-water mark for the floods of 1960 and 1961.

The water came up that high, with red clay dirt to leave the orange line. The water came into Granny’s house and caused the wooden floors to buckle and the linoleum to pucker and raise up.

There were snake skins left when the water receded. That was more than a little scary. It had been an amazing sight for me to see. The Creek was across the street, down the road, behind another row of houses that had been built really RIGHT ON the creek bank.

When the water rose, it came up the hill, crossed the street and swept into Granny’s house. I guess there was at least a foot of creek water in the house. I know they took planks of wood and made little bridges so they could walk into the house to retrieve Granny and her valuables. She came home with us until the creek went back to its bed, across the street down the road, down the hill, behind the houses built right on the creek bank.

I didn’t know those neighbors who lived on the creek. I don’t know what happened to their homes. The area across the street, that road that was heavily lined by trees and bushes was a scary forbidden place. I had my run of the actual street, the houses on both sides for the whole block from Granny’s house all the way to Jeff Davis Avenue. That was my domain. I could go anywhere in that area, but beyond it: no.

Of course, too, one of the reasons that the creek was forbidden, besides snakes, was that I didn’t know how to swim. The trees provided so much shade and the bushes and grass and weeds were right up to the sides of the unpaved gravel road leading to the creek, it was too unappealing. I never ventured anywhere near there.

Bill would push this homemade wheelbarrow with me riding along with him, legs dangling without a care in the world. He would stop at one apartment then the next and they would buy from him the bundle of kindling with which to start the fires in the potbellied stoves on which dinner would be cooked. Or to start the fire in the fireplace to warm the family as they lived… I do not think they would have kept the fire going while they slept: that would have been too dangerous.

Once when I was at Granny’s the adults were in the living room playing cards and drinking too I suppose though they were careful not to let children see such things. I was in Granny’s four poster bed high up off the floor.

A huge coal jumped out of the fireplace and caught the linoleum floor covering on fire! I screamed to alert them. They came running and put the fire out and they called me brave and said I had saved the house from burning down. I was probably five.