Originally,poor refrigeration meant that milk was delivered daily with the aid of horses that knew the routes by heart, stopping at each house while their bosses carried the crates of glass bottles right to the doorstep. In days past, the milkman was perhaps the ultimate illustration of customer service. But it’s hard to fault the underpaid and often under-respected workers at the big national chain stores if they start to view you as just one of hundreds of transactions in an eight-hour shift. Sure, maybe a trip to family-operated establishments like J J & F’s Market or Bell’s Books will get you a big how-do-you-do and some personal service. Not that you can really blame the person behind the counter. And when you do interact with a salesperson or clerk, it is often a cold, machine-like transaction. You can pump self-service gas, shop at the grocery store (an increasing number have self-checkouts), bank at the ATM (avoiding the teller fees) and even end up at an automated post office machine - all without ever speaking to a live person.
DELIVERY FROM THE PAST DRIVER
And what about the milkman? The memory of the driver stepping out of the Divco truck in his crisp white suit to drop off those glass bottles - well, is there anything that seems both so outdated and yet so sadly lost?Īfter all, these days it is possible to run your daily errands with an almost total lack of social interaction. Still, when they faded away, it seemed that some part of the American community left with them. Bike-riding paperboys, doctors who make house calls and gas station attendants who check your oil and tires no longer make much business sense. And other defunct phenomena such as DDT, fur coats and the smell of burning leaves probably say something positive about the growth of environmental awareness in our society.īut then there are those cherished slices of Americana that still hold a place in the nation’s collective memory. Some of the items are interesting to remember but certainly have few supporters rallying for their return - rotary phones, girdles and leisure suits come to mind. The authors answer that question and nearly eighty others in a collection of articles describing “Vanishing Americana”- artifacts and habits we think of as quintessentially American, but which are no longer with us. “Where did the milkman go?” ask Susan Jonas and Marilyn Nissenson in their wonderful 1994 book, Going, Going, Gone.
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