Menu
It’s Monsieur Hood!
It’s Monsieur Hood!
By Louise Peloquin
Summer memories of a Lowell Highlands childhood pop up like fireworks as the dog days jolt this forever-young baby-boomer. Halloween adventures and Christmas celebrations remain vivid. A couple of them have been posted here. (1) Outside of these landmarks, routine occurrences, like the Hood milk deliveries, are the foundation of childhood recollections.
Eight cousins living in a two-family house brought non-stop, summer vacation hustle and bustle to the Moms – or rather, to the Franco Mamans. No talk about “play dates” in the ’60’s. We just played, inventing sagas while climbing trees, riding bikes, playing hide and seek, catching grasshoppers and daddy long-legs spiders as well as the occasional toad. Speaking of the latter, the squishing sound caused by cousin Denyse positioning her behind on the bike seat where her brother Pierre had hidden a toad carcass did not sit well. Not only did our best playmate cousin experience the Mamans’ wrath but so did the whole gang of us for having encouraged such an evil deed and for having succumbed to an ensuing laughing fit.
Nope, we didn’t need an iPhone app to list our activities into time slots. We just lived as mischievously happy kids. Denyse, by the way, did not retaliate and eventually forgave us. Nevertheless, from then on, before mounting her Schwinn, she always removed the bike seat to check for inappropriate “padding.” It didn’t take us very long to conclude that practical jokes on older cousins, especially adolescent young ladies, need not be of the totally gross category.
If our piggy bank allowed, during those very hot summer days we’d splurge on a popsicle or, better yet, a creamsicle or a fudgesicle. The nearby Windsor Shoppe (which still exists!) was a bike ride away – a right out of our Harvard Street driveway, another right into Princeton Boulevard and the second left into Windsor Street. Our favorite penny candy purveyor on the corner of Windsor and Westford Streets always welcomed us regulars. The manager knew that a substantial percentage of our allowances went straight into his coffers. This shrewd businessperson knew how to maintain our loyalty by slipping an extra Atomic FireBall or Bazooka Bubble Gum into our candy bags.
1960s era Hood Milk truck
What does the Hood delivery truck have to do with us kids living the best summers of our entire lives? Everything! Hood would deliver milk, cream, butter, sliced bread and OJ three times a week. We would always be on the lookout for Monsieur Hood. Not only was he as artful a service provider as was the Windsor Shoppe manager, but he always looked cool, literally and figuratively, in his blue pin-stripe jacket, overalls and matching cap. (2)
Our Mamans would place their order slips in the crates used for glass bottles. A quick glimpse would suffice for Monsieur Hood to know the day’s order – quarts of whole or skim milk, pints of heavy cream, and everything the Mamans needed to turn everyday fare into exquisite feasts.
Monsieur Hood’s name – Joe – was embroidered above the right pocket of his jacket. Just above the left pocket, just above his heart, was the “Hood” patch. When he pulled into our driveway, we suspected that his big heart would beat a little faster, knowing how much this bunch of kids looked forward to his visits. The excitement he brought was as simple as heat on a summer day.
A head taller than 10-year-old beanpole Pierre, Joe towered over us. He was stocky and lean at the same time. Neatly slicked back under the Hood cap, his dark brown hair never grew long enough to allow a strand to tickle his earlobes. We wondered how often he went to the barber shop and whether or not he used Brylcream to make his hair shine like a chestnut in the Fall.
Joe had sinewy, muscular arms. We figured that out from the way he effortlessly manoeuvred the crates piled inside his truck.
“Monsieur Joe, you’re a really a strong guy. You can lift really fast, even the heavy stuff like all those gallons of milk” commented cousin Jacques one day.
“Oh yes, my boy. I’ve handled many heavy things in my life, especially when I served our country years ago in foreign lands.”
A cloud darkened Joe’s Forget-me-not blue eyes as he folded one of his sleeves up to reveal an American flag and a cross tattooed on his right forearm. We started bombarding him with questions about the “foreign lands” and what kind of “service” did he do and did the tattoos hurt and where can we get one just like his and…. But Joe pulled his sleeve down and solemnly declared that we would learn all about that at school in history class and that he was now serving his country by delivering milk to families like ours.
“Make sure you kids drink plenty of milk. It’ll make you strong and give you good teeth and….”
“I thought spinach made you strong” cousin Pierre interrupted while younger Antoine, the ham performer of the bunch, started singing:
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man
I’m strong to the “Finich”
‘Cause I eats me spinach
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.
“Yes of course spinach makes you strong. But try to make chocolate milk with spinach!”
Joe had the last word. There were never any comments from us in the peanut gallery. That’s how much we loved Joe.
A born pedagogue, Joe instructed us on how to place the cold, condensation-slippery glass bottles into crates without dropping one on the driveway. He was a good teacher because no memory of any smashed bottle comes to mind.
The milk was precious, especially that inch or two of thick cream on top. All of us would drool at the mere thought of popping off the cardboard caps and sticking our index finger inside the bottles to dislodge the lusciously thick nectar. A couple of us tried to manage the feat incognito before stepping up the side porch to bring in the Hood order but the Mamans were never to be fooled. Happily, the punishment for cream swiping was less severe than the one for placing dead toads inside bicycle seats.
Hood Milk glass bottles
When the milk delivery was over and Joe was about to head out to the next customer, he tenderly looked at the gang of us lingering around his truck. He knew that we were waiting for something even more special than blue popsicles and double chocolate fudgesicles. We cousins can still see Joe’s grin as he took out an impressively sharp pick, chipped away at the huge glacier-colored cube beneath the crates and distributed shiny shards to us all. A roar of “MERCI Monsieur Hood” filled the heavy humid air.
As he backed out of our driveway, Joe smiled, waved and shouted “you kids behave now.”
We were left drooling ecstatically.
What unparalleled joy licking that ice was!
What a great milkman Monsieur Hood was!
What an unforgettably inspiring human being Joe was!
****
Christmas – https://richardhowe.com/2021/12/20/recollections-of-noel/
2) The heavy cotton Hood uniform was union-made by A. E. Jewell & Company Uniforms Inc. of Worcester, MA. It had two pockets in front with patches of the Hood cow head logo and the milkman’s name.