A GOOD MAN

Several weeks ago I reconnected with a man I had not seen in many years.  He told me that he had worked at the dairy sometime after I was out of the nest and gone from Breckenridge.

He remembered being my Dad’s helper on one of the milk routes.  Dad had every customer’s order committed to memory and moved quickly.  It was difficult for the teenager to grasp who got how much milk on what days of the week.  In addition to that he had to log what he left into the route ledger.  He found it rather difficult to keep up as they moved the truck from block to block.  We had a laugh remembering those days.

At that time Breckenridge was segregated.  The African American population was located in the southeast quadrant of the town.  He noticed that Dad did not write anything in the route book for the deliveries they made there.   He found this rather odd and finally asked my Dad why it was not logged.  He wanted to know how Dad made out the bill. .  He said he has never forgotten what he was told.  My Dad told him that the families needed the milk but did not usually have the money to pay.   He left whatever they needed and did not want to embarrass them by leaving a bill.   At that young age, he said he thought to himself, “That is a good man.”

I told him that was true of my Dad in all parts of the town.  He left the milk wherever he saw a need regardless of the ability to pay.  I remember a sick widow who had young children, a man who lost his job and other instances.  Sometimes there were discussions about his allowing long- running bills.  It has been said among the family that if all of the unpaid bills in those books could have been collected when the dairy closed, he and my brother might have been wealthy.