It was like having cows in our front yard.

The dairy came to us.
The chilled paper carton I picked up from the dairy case read 2% MILK. Homogenized Fortified with vitamin-D. All printed on a half-gallon paper carton with a plastic screw off pouring spout.
As I held it in my left hand, I couldn’t help but remember Johnny the milkman. A neatly trimmed mustachioed handsome gentleman wearing an all-white delivery uniform with white cap. Johnny was a route salesman for Arden Milk and dairy in L. A.
Remembering back when I was in grade school, he delivered to our home our milk and other dairy products right to our front porch at about 5:30 or 6:00 some mornings. This would have been from the early 1950s to about 1960 one or two mornings a week. From my bedroom, I could hear him drive up in his milk delivery truck stopping in front of our little house on our street in East Los Angeles. Noticing him opening the rear door of his delivery truck, hoist out two half gallons of whole milk while always spilling out chunks of ice on the pavement, carry the full glass bottles and place them in a wooden milk crate sitting on our front porch. Then removing the empty bottles my mom washed and placed back in the wooden crate for Johnny to retrieve and return to be filled once again. Most of our neighbors did the same. Home milk delivery. So, what happened to that most convenient service? And as they say, “those were the days.”