My father operated a milk route when I attended Edgewood Grade School. He got up early every morning and drove out into the country around Acton to pick up 8- and 10-gallon steel containers of milk from dairy farmers. He then delivered that milk for processing to the Polk Sanitary Milk Co. on East 15th St. in Indianapolis. My dad’s truck had an insulated body but was not mechanically cooled. This wasn’t a problem during the winters. But the hot summers were a different story. The farmers would milk their cows much earlier, and dad would start his route earlier. He employed young men from families on his route to assist during those hot days. Many of the farms had fenced-in barnyards. His helper opened and closed the gates and also loaded the full cans and unloaded the empty ones. Sometimes as a third- or fourth-grader, I went on the route during the summer. On days when older help was needed, I sat in the middle of the cab and watched my father and his helper work as a well-tuned team. I climbed out of the truck at each stop to help carry empty cans. I remember my dad complementing a couple of his helpers on their speed and strength, which seemed to always bring a smile to their faces. It also seemed to have an effect on their speed as they seemed to move much faster. I learned a lot from my father. Before we left the house each morning, mom fixed us a sack lunch, which I recall was always the same. Dad would stop and get something cold for himself and I to drink with our lunch, which was usually consumed on the way to the milk plant. The trucks formed a line to unload their milk cans. The unwritten rule was that you assisted the driver in front of you. When our last bunch of empty cans was loaded onto the truck around 2 or 3 p.m., it was time to call it a day. Getting home early was a good thing because it allowed Dad to make any repairs needed on his truck before the next morning. I remember those milk cans being heavy when they were full. Dad struggled with a lot of back pain in his later years. We moved on to operating the Sunoco station on Madison Avenue before I was able to lift those 10-gallon cans up into the truck. Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. |
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Fred ShonkShonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. Archives
December 2023
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