icy cold milk

This is how milk use to come: a quart at a time in a glass bottle with a cardboard disc as a stopper. Milk was home delivered. Most everyone had the milkman deliver their milk. Some people even had butter delivered by the milkman. I think that it was a status symbol to have your milk delivered daily to your home. After all, my dad was a manager of a grocery store

so why would he have home delivery on the milk unless it was a status symbol. I even continued the tradition for a few years after I first got married. I did it out of nostalgia, telling myself that the home delivery milk was fresher. But the best part was the winter time. The bottles of milk were placed early in the morning into a specially made small wooden box covered with thein sheet metal. This box was outside of the house next to the front door. The purpose of the milk box was to keep the milk from freezing for a while. Sometimes the milk would freeze and there would be a solid column of white frozen milk sticking up out of the bottle for a height of a couple of inches with the little cardboard bottle cap disc sitting on top of this column of frozen milk. But most of the time there were just ice crystals in the milk. I liked drinking the milk with some ice crystals floating around in it because it was ice cold which was good. I think that I developed my taste for ice cold milk because in grade school a tray of half-pint containers of cold milk were brought into the classroom. However, the teacher would say that the milk was too cold and needed to warm up some. She would wait for at least a half hour and by then the small containers of milk were room temperature and warm. Yuk! So in the winter, I really enjoyed that ice cold milk from the milk box with the ice crystals in it. To this day I still like ice cold milk with some ice crystals in it, even on my cereal in the morning. I even put ice cubes into my glass of milk. Of course, ice cold milk also goes really good with chocolate chip cookies.

It is Christmas eve and Mary and I are going to brave the crowds and go to WalMart. I excpect the crowds to be horrible. I am sure that everyone will be doing some last minute shopping which is what Mary and I will be doing. It won't be long til' Christmas morning is here and we will be opening our presents from under the tree. Everyone have an absolutely wonderful Christmas and if you happen to leave milk and cookies for Santa, try to have a few ice crystals in the milk. Lew