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Whatever Happened To The Milkman? Some cold school mornings, cereal box in hand,I'd open the fridge to find no milk. So I'd turn down the hallway, open the front door and there on the doorstep, as if by opaque osmosis, there would stand milk. I don't remember seeing the milkman although I remember hearing his truck. I remember the tales of other men; the ice man, the dunny man, the man who fixed saucepans, sharpened blades. But these never came; only shadows of their visits heard in distance of childhood from history. I wonder the day the milkman didn't come isn't a milestone in my mind; wasn't a day of sadness and despair, of dry breakfasts and strong black tea; continuing into weeks, shadowed by hopeless rationing without end. I wonder that my father didn't call the council, make some civic complaint; that the milkman himself didn't appear, come to say goodbye perhaps; that he would deliver no more here, so we could thank him for his early risings, give him one last Christmas beer. I remember the tales of those other men, so fancied and strange, and never thought that my very own milkman would go to join them as they lay down their reins in pastures green and far from wheel ruts, where sleeping late is a common pastime and cows lie peaceful undisturbed by hungry schoolgirls. |
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