Delivering Milk for Delmar

 

In Memorium Alan Austin

 

I learned just the other day of the death of my brother-in-law Alan Austin. He was married to my sister Ruthanne, and they had three children before they divorced, my nieces and nephews.

He was at least three years older than I.  We went to the same high school and worked together at Western Electric in Lee’s Summit, Missouri before Uncle Sam interrupted my promising industrial career with a stint in the US Army.

Long before then, in an effort to provide an income for My sister’s family, The Old Man (Delmar O. Kauffman) decided that Alan should learn the milk delivery business.  The OM provided the truck and the contacts at Meyer’s Dairy and also provided me to show Alan the ropes.  Even at the tender age of 15 I was an experienced milkman.  The year was 1961 and Alan must have graduated in 1960.  

Now, working for the OM did have certain distinct advantages, but they were, in truth, few and far between.  You could stop at various coffee shops on the route and get coffee and a sweet roll and the OM would pay.  Stop, but only once, I may add.  They were greatly outranked by the disadvantages.  Firstly, my labor was not seen as a negotiable quality.  The pay was poor.  The working conditions were second-class. The early start was at a soul-destroying 0:500.  Finish time was when you finished, say about 14:00.   My task was to turn Alan into a cracker-jack milkman on a shoestring budget and in record time.  

Nevertheless, I attacked the job with my usual gusto.  At my young age, I did feel a certain pride in being selected for this responsible position.  After all, I loved my sister and I thought that Alan was an all-right guy.  I vowed to do my best.  

I was hampered by macro-economic factors of which  I was just too young and too disinterested to take any notice of.

“Recession of 1960-1961 (April 1960 to February 1961)

The 10-month recession saw the GDP drop by nearly 2% and unemployment peaked at 6.9%, while President John F. Kennedy spurred a rebound in 1961 with stimulus spending that included tax cuts and expanded unemployment and Social Security benefits.”

Perhaps this was not the most auspicious moment to start a new career (new, at least for Alan).

On the plus side, folks needed basic commodities like milk and in those days (I know this is hard to believe, you'll just have to take my word for it) most folks had their milk delivered by conscientious and hard-working men like me, the OM and Alan.

I believe home milk deliveries are now almost non-existent.

What Happened to The Milkman?

So why did home milk delivery start to decline?

There were also a few other factors: mainly, refrigeration and grocery stores.

By the 1930s and 1940s, almost every home had a refrigerator. Fridges replaced iceboxes- the first step in the decline of milk delivery.

The invention of refrigeration meant that people didn’t need milk delivered to their homes as often because they could keep it cold on their own.

It’s easy to see how home milk delivery went into decline. So why is it making a comeback now?

In a world where many things are processed and imported by big corporations, more people are becoming sceptical about where their food comes from. People have begun to focus more on buying local food.

One of the benefits of having milk delivered to your door is the comfort of knowing exactly where your milk is coming from.

You’re supporting your local dairy farmer, a valued community member just like you. When you spend money on local businesses, that money gets put back into your local economy instead of going to an out-of-state or out-of-country conglomerate.

Your milk hasn’t been sitting on a grocery store shelf for who knows how long. When you have milk delivered, it can go from the cow to your doorstep in as little as 24 hours!

 

What is for sure, there are now no milk deliveries in Kansas City or surrounding suburbs.

Damn, good old google has proved me wrong:

Shatto Home Delivery

Whether it is the simple fact that you have fresh products on your porch weekly, or it is the excitement that is gained when the kids wake in the morning and rush to get the fresh milk from the porch box, we are certain you will enjoy bringing the Milkman to your home.

 I regret that I don't know anyone who has milk delivered.

I seriously digress!

Let’s get back to 1961 and my efforts to see my brother-in-law prosper in the home milk delivery business.

A word about the home-milk delivery process. First you take your milk truck to Meyer’s Dairy (on South Dodgion in Independence - the building is still there and you can clearly see the loading area) You calculate the quantity and variety of milk or dairy products you require for the day’s round.  You fill out the paper-work and load the truck. Then you go to the local Ice-house. Ice was imperative in any weather but the dead of winter.  The Ice house was just off Noland Road.  I can see it in my dreams, but I suspect it’s not there any more.  The milk had to be kept fresh or it would spoil on the customer's doorstep.  

A word about the milk truck.  The OM was not in conscience going to splash out on a brand-new fancy truck for Alan and I to deliver milk in.  No way.  He did get us a truck from somewhere, who knows where?  It was just about serviceable, but did have one glaring defect.  The power steering did not work.  Now if you have ever successfully driven a large-ish heavily laden vehicle with no power steering then I say you are either Superman or a bodybuilder.  It took a lot of effort just to negotiate straight roads.  Turning was problematic.  A whole new method had to be employed if any progress was to be made.

I say this in my defence for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Now, also in my defence, I contended that then as I do now,  the best way to learn the milk business is to deliver milk to customers. That’s how I learned and if if it was good enough for me, well it would have to be good enough for Alan.  

We came to an arrangement.  I would drive the truck and he would deliver the milk, meeting the customers and learning the important parts of the job whilst on the job.  Simples!

Well, there were a few drawbacks.  Firstly, I was only 15 and had no driver’s licence.  At that time in Missouri this was not an insurmountable obstacle.  I had been driving cars for about two years and whilst helping the OM deliver milk he used to sit me on his lap (I was a skinny kid) and let me steer whilst he did the gears and pedals.  I learned to use a column shift by sitting in the driver’s seat on the odd occasion when the OK was actually outside talking to customers (usually because they owed him money) and practising my shifting.  I was good at it.  I was supremely confident in my ability to train Alan to deliver the milk whilst I the truck.

So befell it on that day . . . I paraphrase the Canterbury Tales . . . when it all went wrong, we were somewhere in the suburbs making our way from one stop to another whilst I was trying to man-handle that beast with no power steering around a tight right-hand corner when I made a fatal error.  Well, I say fatal, but actually no-one died or was even hurt!  

I got as far to the right as I thought I safely could.  I misjudged. I can see it again in my mind’s eye.  There was a car parked on the road and some lady was in her front yard watering her plants.  I was too far over and sideswiped the car in the road. I wrenched the beast around the turn, slammed it into third and shot off up the hill.  

Alan stopped me from compounding an already crappy situation and making it  into a tragic one.  We shuttered to a halt and rolled backwards down the hill, coming to rest by the parked car.  It was a fairly new 4 door Chevy as I recall.

The lady turned off the watering hose and told us to come inside whilst she rang Meyer’s dairy to confirm that the truck was insured and to report the damage.

Her phone was, fortunately as it turned out, up a small flight of stairs, perhaps in a bedroom, so she eventually called down to us, “What’s the driver’s name?”

I said a silent prayer and looked at Alan.

He said nothing, nor did his expression change.  “He just said,  Alan Austin”.  Since the injured party could not see us, and I suspect did not notice who was driving the milk truck any way, she returned downstairs satisfied that the company’s insurance would pay.  

There was little apparent damage to the milk wagon, but the car was going to need substantial repairs to the bodywork.

I, needless to say, never told the OM or Meyer’s Dairy who was really driving.  Neither did Alan, to my knowledge. OK, tell a lie, I did tell the OM  very many years after, when no harm could befall.

I was sad to hear of his passing.  I never remember having a cross word with him.  I saw him last at another nephew’s wedding and exchanged pleasantries.

I was glad I knew him and he was part of our family.

70 Hi Drive-In Restaurant

Work
Chapter One

Wherein I am persuaded that work is a good thing, I avoid being eaten by the dogs and learn how to fry burgers

Some time ago, I threatened to write a piece about various jobs I have had in my illustrious and varied career.

Time to get started before age and infirmity catch me up.

I did once deliver the Independence Examiner for one of my cousins who was on vacation, but I don't think that really counts. I was about 11 at the time.

Actually, the first paying job I ever had was working for the old man. - on the milk wagon, at 5 in the morning, in all weathers, for 50 cents a day (if you were lucky) and a sweet-roll at the coffee shop. I was about 13. The OM had a knack of teaching you things without really knowing what he was doing. He was way ahead of Apollo Creed's “be a thinker, not a stinker!”

From this early age, he impressed upon me that manual labour was for the birds. It didn't take long to sink in. It was hard work. And, more importantly it impinged dreadfully on my social life. It was Saturday's during school time and Monday to Saturday (inclusive) in the school vacation. It was - go to Myers Dairy on Dodgion (the loading ramp is still there, thought the building is used for something else), wrestle crates of milk and other sundries on the truck, go to the ice house up the road (in warm weather), chop up the ice to keep the milk from going sour, drive about 150 miles from down-town KC to the suburbs, hang out the door of the truck aiming kicks at any dogs who were chasing us, drag milk bottles up to doors, knock on doors and try to get money from customers who were dirt poor, avoid being bitten by loose dogs, shout back at the old man in the truck, how much did you say? and do this for a minimum of seven hours. Get home about two or three in the afternoon – if you were lucky.

I did learn some other useful lessons.

I would sit for hours in the truck practising shifting the gears. Occasionally the old man would let me sit on his lap in the driver's seat and steer as we were going along. Consequently, I was already able to drive at the age of 13. This, you may think, was a good thing, but this was not entirely so.

I also managed to wreck a perfectly good car and remodel the side of the truck. The OM decided that he would set up my brother-in-law, Alan, with a milk round and I was tasked with showing him the route to riches in the milk business. I decided that he needed to deliver the milk and meet the customers. So, I drove the truck whilst he carried the milk. A good result from my perspective.

Unfortunately, the truck the OM had us using had defective power steering – defective as in it didn't really work. You could turn a corner but it was really difficult, especially for a weak young lad. I was driving and swung out wide to make sure I had a good chance of making the left turn. There was a car parked on the road. I side-swiped it. I was about to slam it into second and put my foot down when Alan advised that the lady who owned the car was shouting at us. I stopped.

We went in her house whilst she phoned Myers Dairy to report the accident. She was upstairs on the phone when she shouted down, “What was the name of the driver?” I looked at Alan. He looked at me. He shouted, “Alan Austin!” Good old boy. I eventually told the OM the truth, but not until 40 years had passed.

Not much else eventful happened on the milk round.

I also managed to work one summer at the Kansas City Booth Manufacturing Co up in North KC.  My buddy Bobby Lawless worked there and he got me in.  I swept up.  It was mostly Hispanic Americans who did the skilled work making beautiful booths for high-class restaurants.  I wandered around all day sweeping up and learning how to swear in Spanish - a very useful skill!

By the time I was turning 16 it was time for a real job. We were living on East 39^th Terrace not far from Noland Road. On the South-east corner of Noland and 39th was a drive-in restaurant called the70 Hi Drive-In. It was ahead of its time in that respect, for Interstate 70 would not be built for a few years yet, but the owner was clearly thinking ahead. They must have had a Help Wanted sign in the window. I can't think how else I would have found out about this employment opportunity. I asked for the job and I got it. This was a big thing for me. I was very shy as a 16 year old. Among friends I was lively and out-going, but with strangers I was shy and reserved. Somehow I overcame this and it was a good thing too. Reason? The school holidays had about a month to run and my Mother calmly informed me that we had no money for school trousers. A full blown crisis at that time. (I remember that dummy Stoner deciding one bright day that he would wear red trousers to school. Gutsy. He was send home. You had to wear dark trousers. Full stop.)

70 Hi was owned and operated by Sam Lerner. Almost everything I know about the world of work I originally learned from Sam and many, many other things as well. He was a great man.

I was employed at the princely wage of 75 cents an hour. When I was completely trained as a fry cook I would get a raise to 90 cents an hour. To take account of the need to go to school we worked a complicated shift system. One week you worked Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and the next it would be Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. We did day shifts when school was out and evening shifts from four o'clock during school time. Sam did the day-time cooking when we kids were at school and we covered the rest. My first week I made 18 dollars. I bought school trousers and had money left over. Happy days.

Over the years I got jobs at 70 Hi for a multitude of friends. Most of my oldest friends worked there at one time or another. That was Sam all over. You only needed a vacancy and my recommendation and you were hired.

The Drive-In had a hierarchy of sorts. At the top were the fry cooks. Each shift also had a bun boy. One or two ladies were at the windows taking orders. Unlike McDonald’s everything was cooked to order. The ladies took the order, wrote it on a slip, shouted out the order, pinned the slip to wire at the hatch, and rang the bell, the bun boy warmed up the buns on one side of the grill (and looked after the deep-fat fryers where the french fries, pork tenderloins and onion rings were cooked) the fry cook cooked the burgers and added the various condiments (mustard, ketchup, diced onion, lettuce, tomato, cheese as required, the buns and burgers were reunited, a toothpick was stuck through the grease-proof paper used to wrap the burger, and the ladies bagged it and served it. On a good day, time from order to serve for something simple, say a cheeseburger, was about 3 minutes. Sounds simple doesn't it?

Not quite.

During busy periods (as Sam always said the problem with the food business is that people only eat three times a day) the ladies would be shouting out the orders at the hatch and the cook had to remember the order whilst cooking them and adding more burgers as required. Also, we catered for every taste and requirement. You might have some burgers on the grill with no onions, some with extra onions, no ketchup, no mustard, the possible permutations were much larger than a simple McDonald’s menu that's for sure! All of this had to be kept in your head. Simple when orders came in at regular intervals. Difficult when six or seven, or more came in at once. Pressurised is the word. One famous lunch-time session I remember cooking over 200 burgers in about two hours. That's more than one a minute. Not bad going!

It was not all cooking. At the start of the evening shift, before the real rush at tea-time began, there were some unpleasant tasks to perform. Chopping onions was the worst. First you took a bag of onions and empty them into a large sink. Using a sharp knife you remove the outer peel. The results were taken to the slicing machine where they were prepared for chopping. Then the fun began. Placing the onions on the chopping table and using two meat cleavers the onions were chopped into small pieces, bagged and put in the cold store for use as required.

There were some finesse precautions you could use not to be completely overcome by lachrymal overload. Firstly, the skins were removed under water thereby trapping the juices. Likewise when chopping you took a wet towel and used it as a bandanna. Fine for keeping from crying but useless for seeing what you were doing. Result? You chopped blind.

These jobs were accomplished in the back room – behind the grills. Also, there was a back door where you could sit outside on warm, quiet evenings and down a cherry coke, or even better, a Dr Pepper. When working, all drinks and food were free and some interesting concoctions were invented by the staff. My favourite was a triple cheeseburger – but I have seen deep-fried burgers (a long time before deep-fried Mars bars) and overloaded pork tenderloins with onion rings inserted strategically.

Sam, bless him, used to cook fried eggs on the grill for his breakfast. These were not on the real menu.

At one stage, my opposite number was a kid call Ronnie Ford. He had the shifts when I was off. Sometimes I used to wander down in the evenings to see what was going on. We only lived about a block away on East 39^th Terrace. One evening, say about 8, we were outside shooting the breeze when two beautiful Aberdeen Angus bulls came wandering down 39^th street. Needless to say we decided to try and corral them – thinking that they must be worth a reward - or perhaps a good wad of dough from a slaughter house.

Of course, Ronnie was supposed to be working, but he just lost the plot. We chased them behind the drive in and they set off down the valley between 39^th and Wild Woody's Bargain Basement. Observant readers will note that this area is currently occupied by Interstate 70. I 70 was not completed until the late 60's, so there was nothing between the 70 Hi and Wild Woody’s' but grass, scrub and a small creek. We chased the bulls all the way to Woody's where we cornered them in the parking lot. Some guys arrived and persuaded us (we were just dumb kids at the time) to let them take charge of them and we would meet up in the morning to see what was what. Needless to say we never saw the bulls or the guys again.

All this time Betty Rollo was left all on her own at 70 HI. We must have been gone a good hour and a half. I wish I had a photo of the look on her face when we got back. It could curdle milk at 100 yards. She had tried to take the orders, cook the orders ( I don' think she had ever done any cooking before) serve the orders, etc. all on her own. She was, quite rightly, fuming. For some reason, I don't believe she ever told Sam.

If Sam has a weakness it was gambling – particularly horse racing. In that distant, halcyon past to see a horse race you had to go to Omaha, Nebraska. Very occasionally Sam would go to the races and leave me or one of the other kids in charge for the whole weekend. It never occurred to us to take advantage of his trust and faith. It would have been unthinkable.

I have to leave out some of the more unsavoury moments – like the time my bun-boy Stoner, whilst sweeping up, found a ladies (and I use the term loosely) sanitary item in the car park. It remains one of his favourite stories.

Various friends could easily be identified by the order being shouted out at the hatch. Bobby Lawless and his Cheryl were regulars identified by their order – but I can't remember what it was! Robert Taylor was also known by his food order.

Eventually, after some years I had worked my way up to $1.10 an hour. My sister Ruthanne was working in an Italian restaurant up on 71 By-pass. I was going to CMSU during the day. She said could get $1.25 to wash dishes at the Italian, so I had to jump ship. I became a member of the honourable company of pearl divers.

Through some convoluted reasoning and no little soul searching on my part I did eventually go back when Sam offered to match the money I was getting for scraping the encrusted spaghetti sauce from pots and pans. I jumped at it. I was there until the money ran out and I had get a job that paid some kind of a full time wage.

Next chapter, I work for the Southland Corporation.