Was that what it was called, milk monitor? I think so, and that's the title in my mind.
Once upon a time, when young AC was in elementary school, a family could opt to have their children be supplied with a pint of milk per day, about halfway through the morning. It was delivered to the school [fittingly] in pint-sized, glass bottles and then put into portable wooden crate: one per class. Each week it would be some lucky student's turn to collect the milk box and transport it back to the classroom. I seem to remember getting my fair share of such opportunities.
While I can't recall for absolute certain if I carried the box differently at first, I do remember feeling quite the adept young fellow by carrying it slung against my hip with only one hand on the box. Yes, I was quite proud of myself, and, fortunately, pride did not go before a fall.
I'm not sure in what year I began to perform this chore or when it stopped. May it possibly have continued from about grade three to seven (which was when elementary school finished in Montreal in those days)? In my mind, however, I am in grade five and in Miss McDonald's class, the lovable Miss McDonald.
I remember getting my tiny bottle of milk at school! I seem to remember the Education Department supplied it for all children for a few years, then it stopped. We did not enjoy the milk ritual so much, it was like taking medicine. Maybe if it had been nicely chilled... but it was a scary lukewarm temperature, very ugh-making!
ReplyDeleteI remember being a milk monitor once or twice a year during grade school, too. We all took turns carrying the plastic milk tray with the little cartons in it. Most kids just got the 2% regular milk but the snobby ones (always girls) got skim milk and most boys and the "chubby" girls who didn't care anymore got chocolate milk!
ReplyDeleteWe only got our milk in the cafeteria, in the little plastic cartons. It was never cold enough.
ReplyDelete"They" need to bring this custom back--students today lack calcium in their diets, what with soft drinks replacing milk.
ReplyDeleteBring back the milk monitor!
I remember flouride, not milk in crates, nor milk monitors. I remember STORIES of the same, and yours is great! To you it was Miss McDonald - to me, Miss Neil. She was a gem.
ReplyDeleteI remember getting milk at the morning break in primaey school. It was in glass bottles, then they canged the bottles to cartons. It tasted better from the bottles :)
ReplyDeleteI can't remember getting milk in schoool but I can remember when it came in bottles, and in the winter, the cream would freeze, expand and push the cardboard cap off the top of the bottle.
ReplyDeleteThe dinosaurs loved it.
Milk in the old glass bottles. I love these memories. Just a shade before my time.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I took my milk money to the corner store and bought taco chips and caramel cakes. I ate them in a bite or two and went off to school stained. My teachers probably thought I was neglected, soiled and without the fortification of milk. Had they only known. Bad kid! Bad, bad, bad! Good chips and cakes though.