Page 28 - The Woven Tale Press VOl. IV #4

“Wake up, Paula. Wake up now!”
some sort of strange cacophony, the noise seemed to fill the morning.
Pulling my covers over my head, I burrowed down into the warmth of my twin bed. Across the room, I could hear my sister, Denise, stirring.
By now, completely awake, Denise and I sat up, grinned, and headed out the side door.
“Come on, girl. Wake up,” Mom insisted, adding a few pokes for good measure. “Your father’s running late, and he needs your help.”
Smiling at Dad, we hopped into the truck, each claim- ing our side. We knew to grab onto something tightly, and we swayed and rocked as Dad backed out of the driveway, and headed up our hill.
Yanking my covers completely down to the bottom of my bed, she turned toward my sister to repeat the process.
Through the open doors of the milk truck, we watched the world wake up. Bird song, faint at first, began to swell. Stars blinked their good mornings, and soft whispers of pink and orange crept into the sky. A few house lights blinked on here and there, while neigh- borhood dogs patrolling their territory warned us not to intrude. We soaked in the magic, each of us silent, listening to Dad as he spoke:
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!
Swinging my legs, I sat up, trying to blink myself awake. An ungodly bright and harsh light filled my room, but the sun had yet to make an appearance outside. Denise and I made eye contact, shrugged our shoulders at each other. Like it or not, it was time to get up.
Early morning, watching the world wake up, is a gift. Almost everyone is asleep now, and we have it all to our- selves. Isn’t it beautiful? Learn to enjoy the silence; you don’t need to fill it.
Blindly pulling on our clothes, not much caring if they matched or not, we grabbed our sweaters for that ex- tra bit of warmth needed during those predawn hours.
Behind us seemed to be a million glass milk bottles of all sizes packed into wire or wooden crates, the odor of milk filling the air. Some bottles wore orange caps, others wore green. We tried to remember which de- noted homogenized and which pasteurized. Packages of Land’o’Lakes butter and some sour cream and Half and Half completed the stock. I loved the Indian wom- an on the Land’o’Lakes Butter; she seemed so beauti- ful and mysterious to me. I wanted to be her when I grew up.
Stumbling downstairs for a few extra moments of sleep on the sofa, we listened for the rumbling that signaled Dad’s milk truck climbing Cabbage Hill. Too tired to chat, anticipation and pleasure built up in each of us. We got to help Dad!
It didn’t take long; a low steady hum of an engine be- gan to make itself known. Steadily growing, sounds of truck doors and milk bottles rattling and mixing in
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A brain in my head...looking back, I realize my dad thought differently than most men of his time. In the early 1960s, most expected girls to grow up to be homemakers and didn’t much focus on higher learn- ing, other than a means to grab a husband.
Lessons from the Milkman
PAulA BoGdAn