Those Oldies But Goodies . . . .

by Eva Pasco, author of "Underlying Notes"

Peering down Memory Lane of the Sixties, I see "those oldies but goodies" delivered right to our door in the neighborhood sticks.  Remember the grocery bus crawling along the road so your mom could board if she ran out of olives?  Then there was the milkman who delivered our dairy goods twice a week -- usually quarts of unhomogenized milk in real glass bottles left inside our aluminum milk box advertising Monroe Dairy.  My dad had the habit of skimming some of the cream off the top for his morning tea.  

The ice cream truck wended its way along Angell Road during the summer supper hour.  My sister and I had our change on the kitchen counter, ready to snatch, so we could bolt out the door and join the other kids lined up outside the driver's window to shout our order for a drumstick or creamsicle. Most times we put our frozen delights inside the freezer for safekeeping until we finished our dinner.

My dad's hard earned money was never squandered on laundry services. Mom had her own wringer washer. Resembling a stout no nonsense nanny, its rollers reduced our garments to flattened stiffs which my mother pried into shape before she hung them out to dry on a pulley clothesline extending from the back of the garage to a mighty oak in the woods. 

Life was grand up to and including Monday evenings when my father routinely stopped at the bakery in Fairlawn after work for a dozen assorted boxed pastries headed for the sticks.  I looked forward to my flaky crust cream cornet coated with powdered sugar.  We had a racket going until the week my dad came home and realized he'd been shortchanged from a twenty.  Despite driving back to the bakery for justice to be served, the "dough" wasn't forthcoming. Curses!

Justice would be served eventually, however...my dad convinced a baker who pedaled his wares to include Angell Road in his route.  Twice a week he'd pull into our driveway.  My mother would buy fresh hard rolls, a loaf of Italian bread, and Table Talk pies or Danish to satisfy our sweet tooth depravity.

 My house was the first built in the plat, and before long other pioneers from the outlying cities matriculated to the neighborhood.  During the early sixties my sister and I looked forward to deliveries on wheels to our godforsaken outpost.  I'll tell ya this much-- no Avon lady's beauty products could have ever competed with those coveted goodies.