Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The milkman's son

(The milkman, a sight that most Americans have never seen.)

My father was a milkman. He drove a panel truck for Meadow Gold Dairy in northwestern Ohio to deliver dairy products to his customers, a job he held from the time he left the Navy after WWII until his death in 1961. You don’t see this kind of thing much anymore, but until the second half of the 20th century, delivery men were a common sight in America. There were men who delivered bread, tea and coffee, and ice before refrigerators were common. In addition, we had a guy who showed up regularly to pick up junk, like old metal, and another man who often stopped by to pick up old rags. There were others who sold crayons, brushes, vacuum cleaners, and encyclopedias. My dad delivered milk.

My father’s truck did not just contain one product. It was a veritable mobile dairy store. There was whole milk with the cream that settled at the top of the glass bottle in that “bubble” at the top of the container, skim milk, chocolate milk, cream, orange and grape drink, cottage cheese, butter, and even eggs. And during the summer months, he also sold ice cream, ice cream bars, fudgesicles, and drumsticks (now called nutty buddy). A couple of times a year, Meadow Gold cleaned out their freezers at the plant and my father would bring home dozens of these ice cream products. The weeks following a big score like that were full of happy days (usually after dinner) visiting our old chest freezer to see what sugary gem my brothers and I could find.

My father had a predetermined route that was his. He visited his customers several times per week, delivering whatever they ordered or needed. He knew each customer personally, by name, and he knew their families. Most of the time, he simply put what they had ordered in an insulated box on their front porch or inside their front door. At other times, the customer was home, and my father would spend several minutes talking to them about the affairs of the day, or how their children were doing in school, or about the weather. In those cases, he usually brought the product into their house and inserted it right into their refrigerator.

Our house was in town but, of course, we also had a Meadow Gold delivery man who brought our milk. His name was Elmer. Until the late 1950s, the in-town men used a horse-drawn wagon to carry the milk. The kids in my neighborhood loved to visit Elmer’s horse when we heard it clomping up our street. The horse knew exactly where each customer’s house was, and so it stopped in front of each, just as it had done thousands of times before. Elmer stepped out of the wagon with his metal cases of glass bottles while the wagon was still coming to a stop. The clacking of glass against metal and of horses’ hooves on the pavement are synchronous sounds I can still hear when I close my eyes. But even in those days, this system of horse-drawn milk delivery was considered an anachronism. Other dairy companies had long since phased this out. On occasion, our father would take us to the Meadow Gold horse barns downtown to see the entire collection of neighing relics that had no idea their working days would soon be up. I always loved that trip.

In those days, my grandmother, who was a severe diabetic and totally blind, lived with us. During the day, she was the only one at home. On milk delivery day, Elmer brought the milk up to the house, opened the front door, which was never locked, and put the milk in the kitchen fridge. But the verbal exchange usually went something like this: “Hi Mom”, says Elmer. “Hi Elmer, how are you?”, my grandmother would repeat, while sitting in her rocking chair in front of the radio, where she listened to Paul Harvey about this time every day. They would talk for a few minutes. “It seems cold today. Be careful out there Elmer”, she would say. “I will Mom”, and off he went. It was taken for granted by us then, but my mother relied on Elmer to be an additional check on her invalid mother during the day when my mother had to work. It takes a village to raise our seniors or, at least, it used to.

The best part of my father’s job for me was the day he would let me go with him on his appointed rounds. This did not happen very often, and in later years the company forbade this practice. But on certain summer mornings when I was 7 or 8, my father returned to our house in his truck after having loaded it at 4am while I slept. It was exciting to check out the inventory in the back of the truck before we embarked. Then, my mother sent me off, and for the rest of the day I was Bob Gavin’s boy, the milkman’s son.

I remember speeding from house to house down country roads traveling 50 mph. I stood in the passenger-side doorway, which was completely open, and my father either stood or sat in a swivel chair as he drove. Seat belts did not exist then. Sounds crazy dangerous, but I remember how exciting it was to watch the ground fly by as I stood in that open door, holding on for dear life. When we got to a house, I went with my father and helped carry a quart or two, unless he warned me to stay in the truck because of an unfriendly dog. He had a variety of techniques for fending off the meanies. On occasion, we raced each other back to the truck. How can it be that these races always ended in a tie?

In general, I felt useful, and I got to see first-hand how much people genuinely liked my father. I believe this is an extremely important attribute of parenting. When a child sees that other adults like and respect their parents, the child is even more likely to believe that the parental instructions they receive daily are sound.

And then we had lunch. My mother packed her artery-clogging bologna sandwich (we now know); I always had mayo but my father only used mustard. I got to pick any drink I wanted from the back of the truck. Orange or grape drink or chocolate milk. What kind of a mood am I in? My father and I drank straight from the same bottle. We were working men, and real men don’t need cups. But the very best of all, and that which I remember to this day, was the way the cottage cheese tasted. It came in cardboard cartons with a pull-top cardboard lid. I never seemed to have a spoon, so my father showed me how to fold the lid into a scoop and to dip out the goodness with that homemade implement. Once again, I don’t know if this is a romantic memory, or a fading memory, or actual fact, but cottage cheese has never tasted as good to me to this day.

By mid-afternoon, we had finished the route and my father dropped me off at home. He returned to the plant to empty the truck and turn it in, then to do paperwork. My father worked about 14 hours a day, six days a week. I have never been able to comprehend how he was able to do that, week after week. I do remember how common it was to watch him napping on the living room couch in the evening.

Years later when my wife and I were living in Tucson, Arizona, I came home from the university to what my wife thought would be a pleasant surprise. She had flagged down the local milkman and signed us up for home delivery. I got a huge smile on my face until she showed me the bill. It was much more expensive than what we could buy dairy products for from the store, so I made her cancel the arrangement. All across America, people were making this same decision, which led to the extinction of delivery men of nearly every stripe. I was being practical, and I felt sick about it.

I was always proud of my father and the work that he did. I didn’t learn until I was a teenager that he held a job that most would consider to be low-status. When I was young, it seemed important and it was a job the value of which anyone could understand. My father promptly delivered a commodity that you needed, to your house, with a smile and with good humor. And what could be more genuine than that? At any rate, for me, the memory of it all will always remain as pure as the sight of cold, white milk in a clear, glass bottle.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

I hate irises

(Just look at this cheap, gaudy flower.  Disgusting.)

I am an avid gardener.  The action of putting a seed in the ground and watching what it becomes is truly amazing, and you don't have to pay for college when it grows up.  In fact, if it is a vegetable, you rip it out of the soil when it matures and you eat it.  Pretty cool.  If it is a non-edible flowering plant, you watch it grow until the day it begins to flower, and you admire it, or smell it, or brag about it.  But there are some flowering plants that are common in human gardens that I don't like at all.  I hate irises, for example, and peonies and gladiolas.

I have long known which flowering plants were on my hate-list; this list is many years old.  But what the heck is this aversion to certain plant varieties or species all about?  After all, I find all living organisms truly interesting and biologically beautiful, including the tick that causes Lyme disease and the mosquito that carries malaria.  So what is it about an iris that would prevent me from ever planting one on my property or buying them in a flower arrangement?

I think these plant dislikes must be an aversion based on childhood experiences or associations with these plants.  My mother had irises in her garden around the edge of our yard as a kid.  I always remember them not doing all that well.  They were often buried in weeds, falling over, and they just looked cheap to me--like inexpensive costume jewelry.  I think I hate glads because they remind me of irises.  And peonies, let me count the ways.  I grew up near Van Wert, Ohio, which at one time was known as The Peony Capital of the World, because of all the commercial peony farms in the area.  They used to have an annual Peony Festival with a huge parade; when I was in high school, the marching band that I was in used to march in this thing every year.  I remember it being hot and humid and exhausting on that day--all in the name of peonies.  My mother also had this plant in our yard and all I ever remember about this plant is the sticky flower buds and all the ants climbing up and down the stems all day.  Heat, humidity, ants, stickiness, and an uncomfortable marching band uniform.  I guess that would do it.

But the flower I choose not to grow or even consider growing is the rose, and this one is complicated.  During the last 20 years of his life, my grandfather became a rose grower par excellence; he had been an auto mechanic all his adult life.  He had a rose garden with over 300 varieties in it, all neatly arranged in raised beds, all labeled with their proper name on a tag that stuck in the soil in front of each plant, and complete with a large water fountain in the middle of the garden.  It was absolutely beautiful, and the Gavin Rose Garden was locally famous.  He gave talks at the local rose society, was written up in the local newspaper nearly every year, tested new varieties of roses sent to him by the big rose companies, and supposedly had a new rose variety named after him (although I have never been able to confirm this).  To this day, my two younger brothers, who are also avid horticulturalists, will not grow roses and have no desire to do so whatsoever, even though we have great memories of playing in that garden as young boys and admiring it as we got older.  (Actually, my youngest brother just told me that he has gotten into growing heritage rose varieties.  Traitor!)

I am interested enough in this question about plant aversions that I wonder if others have experienced the same.  Let me know.  Will an unpleasant interaction with some plant as a child cause you to dislike that plant for the rest of your life?  Do you outgrow such a thing?  Is an interaction even necessary to dislike the species? 

You know, one approach in gardening is to create thematic gardens: a herb garden, a garden containing only blue-flowering plants, a rock garden, etc.  Maybe I should have a garden that contains only plants I hate--call it the God-awful Garden.  I would plant irises, gladiolas, peonies, and a few rose bushes together in one bed and then I would treat it as badly as I could.  I would never weed it, or water it, or fertilize it.  I would walk on it regularly, let the dog urinate on it, and encourage deer to browse there.  Maybe, if the poor plants survived all of that, my aversion would change to admiration, and I would want to grow these varieties all over the property.  Ummmmmmm....nah!

Monday, October 19, 2009

The color-blind naturalist

(If you see a number in this circle, then you are not one of us.)

I am willing to come out of the closet and tell the world that I don't see things the same way most people do.  Along with 7% of American males and 0.4% of American females, I am color-blind.  The genetic basis of this condition and the myriad of details surrounding the types of color-blindness are too esoteric for this post, and their description would bore most of you to drink (even more than you currently do).

Color-blind people are apparently interesting and curious to normal-sighted people.  Holding up some item at hand, the perennial question is always: "What does this look like to you?"  Come on.  Think hard about that question for a minute.  You are asking someone who does not see objects as you do what the world looks like.  The color-blind person could only describe the world as he sees it, not the way you see it, so no matter what the answer is, it will be of no value to you at all.  It is a ridiculous question, but non-color blind people ALWAYS ask it.  Do you do it just so you can laugh behind our backs?  To make yourself feel superior? I'm really sick of the ignorance of the colored-sighted persons.  It is high time that color-blindees stand up and complain about the bigotry and ignorance that exists in the U.S. toward those of us who happen to have been born with a weird density or arrangement of cones in the retina of our eyes.  This "defect" is not our fault, and being grilled relentlessly by our children, and now grandchildren, who try to teach us the colors by holding up those stupid Crayola crayons is not helping.  What the hell is mauve, anyway?

And besides, how do we know that an object that you say is "red" is really that color?  That is just the way YOU see it.  I see it differently.  Maybe I am correct, and the majority of people are incorrect.  Is it correct to call it red because more than 50% of humans say that is what it is?  Or, to get even more complicated.  Because I have been told all my life that the color of the shirt you are holding up is called "red", I may have learned to call it that, even though I see something very different from what you see.

To publicize the plight of color-blind persons, I propose we initiate a Special Olympics of sorts.  The main event, which would actually constitute an extreme sport for color-blindees, involves a railroad crossing in an actual rural setting. The exciting spectator part of this is that the umpires wait until a train is coming at full speed.  The umps hold up a green flag when it is safe to cross and a red flag when it is not safe.  If the contestant gets it wrong, they lose, big time. 

Actually, this railroad crossing event simulates what real life is like for us all the time.  Years ago, my brothers (who are both also color-blind) and I went grouse hunting in southern Ohio.  As we crossed an intersection in a small town, cars screeched to a halt from two directions and started blasting their horns.  We pulled the car over to see what the heck was wrong.  After studying the situation for a few minutes, we realized that the traffic light had the green light on top and the red light on the bottom.  Go figure.  It was Ohio.  Our M.O. had always been to drive through any intersection when the bottom light was on and stop when the top light was lit.  This had worked for years.  The color never mattered to us.  Whoops!  It matters in southern Ohio.  Was this some kind of trick to kill off color-blind innocents like us?  (By the way, in Romania and Turkey, color-blind people are not given a driver's license.)

I went through life bearing this burden from primary school until I was 40 thinking I simply saw objects slightly differently from other people.  Then, when we were on sabbatic in Costa Rica in the mid-80s, I was taking a hike with my son Matt along a trail in the Monteverde cloud forest.  At one point in the walk he said: "Dad, look at those red flowers on that plant."  I said: "What red flowers?"  And he patiently pointed out to me that there were dozens of red flowers all over a patch of some herbaceous plants about two feet tall immediately next to the trail.  I realized then that not only did I see colors differently from normal people, but that I was not seeing some objects at all.  Only two weeks ago, my wife was exclaiming about the red apples all over our tree about 50 feet from where we were standing.  I could not see a single apple unless I stood right next to the damn thing.  I have been quasi-depressed about this startling revelation ever since that day in Monteverde.

In 1968, I thought I might turn this handicap to my advantage.  I had received my draft notice to report to Uncle Sam.  You know, that uncle who has 300 million nieces and nephews.  The Vietnam War was at its peak, and the military took every body they could find.  I heard a rumor that they even picked up a road-kill deer at one point, because the body was still warm.  They probably figured the deer could at least serve as a company clerk.  So I thought I might fail my physical if I was color-blind and, thereby, not have to go into this dangerous situation.  I took my physical in Columbus, Ohio and, immediately after the eye exam, I asked the technician if I was color-blind.  His response: "Yep. Next."  I spent the next three years in the U.S. Army.

So I am a nature lover, and I have been all of my life.  But think how much more beautiful it would seem to me and to color-blind people everywhere if we actually saw the world in all its incredible, colorful reality.  Brilliant flowers and ripe fruits and autumn leaves on trees that we hear everyone exclaiming about.  And rainbows.  And blushing girls.  And birds.  And Christmas lights.  And even traffic lights.  Damn those deficient cones!