Milk Hauling Days - Part 4 (Conclusion)

Across the Fence #360

Another job milk haulers had, was to report to the milk inspector any violations that you noticed on farms. Then the inspector would go to that farm and check it out. I had one farmer that let the manure pile up in the gutters and the cows were absolutely filthy. I had to report him several times. His farm was at the end of a long road in the hills up above the Kickapoo Valley. His buildings were old and in disrepair.

The toughest times for milk hauling were the winter months. I think that winter of ‘1963-’64, convinced me that I didn’t want to haul milk the rest of my life.

It didn’t matter how cold it was or how much snow there was, the milk needed to be picked up. There was a block heater attached to the truck that I plugged in each day so it would start in the mornings. It was tough crawling into that cold cab when it was still dark out and taking off when the temperature was way below zero. When I pulled the cans out of the coolers, the cold water would drip on my apron and boots, and before long it would be frozen hard as a rock, with icicles hanging from it. My heavy leather gloves would get wet and frozen and my fingers would feel numb.

Sometimes a farmer couldn’t get his pickup or tractor started, and ask if I could jump it to get it going, or sometimes we hooked a chain from the truck to the vehicle and pulled it until it started. Not only was that a cold, miserable job, lying in the snow under the truck, attaching the chain, but it also put me behind on my route. Then I had to go faster to make up lost time.

After a snowstorm it was hard to make it through the snow to some of the farms. Then I’d crawl under the truck and put the chains on the dual rear wheels before I started out in the morning; a cold, miserable job. I remember getting stuck in driveways several times and had to shovel until I could get going again. If a driveway was completely blocked and I couldn’t get to the farm, the farmer would haul the cans out to the road on a sled.

The sideroads of Vernon County are not the best places to drive, even on a good winter day. There are many hills and winding roads. I’d wind the truck up as tight as I could on the downhills to get a run at the uphills. By the time I reached the top of the hill with my heavy load, I was in my lowest gear and barely moving.

I never slid in the ditch or tipped the truck, but came close one day while returning to the creamery with a full load on Highway 27. The roads were snow-packed and slippery. As I rounded one of the many curves, the back end of the truck took off on me and I found myself sliding sideways down the center of the road. Luckily, no cars were coming and I managed to bring the back end around, over corrected, and started going the other way. I finally brought it to a stop sitting along the edge of a ditch that would certainly have rolled the truck. I was lucky. All the doors stayed shut through the ordeal and not a drop of milk was spilled.

I wasn’t that lucky one day, when in my hurry, I neglected to secure the latch on one of the doors. It worked loose, and as I rounded a curve on a county road, I saw the door fly open, in my rearview mirror, and watched as cans started rolling out of the truck and bouncing into the ditch. By the time I brought the truck to a halt, I’d lost over a dozen cans. The covers came off some of them and there was a nice trail of spilled milk along the road and ditch.

As I mentioned earlier, that cold winter convinced me to seek school and other employment. I continued hauling milk through the next summer. At the end of summer, I retired from milk hauling and returned to Madison, where I entered the commercial art program at MATC.

I was a milk hauler for fourteen months and never missed a day, hauling seven days a week. It was quite an experience, but convinced me there must be an easier way to make a living. And all that double clutching and shifting that I thought was so great when I started, that got old real fast!

I must admit, I really got in shape lifting all those cans every day. By the time I quit, I could take a full can in each hand and, doing a curl like a weightlifter, set them up in the truck. It helped to be young too.

Now those days are gone and milk is picked up in bulk tank trucks and the hauler doesn’t have to lift all those heavy cans anymore. But, milk haulers today still have to deal with all the other problems and adventures we went through back in the days of hauling canned milk.

All in all, my time hauling milk was certainly an adventure, and quite a learning experience.

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