If You Don't Own A Cow.....

"Cloverland Milk Truck" oil on board (16 x 20) 2004

Most Baltimoreans of a certain age can sing the Cloverland jingle including the phone number NOrth 9- 2222. This truck is from an earlier era when the bottling plant was on North Monroe street and the phone number was the Lafayette exchange. The building that housed that plant is still standing on that spot in NW Baltimore. You cannot miss it because it has a big milk bottle built right into the side of it.There are other relics of that era in plain sight if you just hunt around a bit for them.

The original Cloverland Dairy bottling plant on N. Monroe Street.

Divco truck painted in the authentic colors of the Cloverland dairy waiting to  be used as a movie prop.

 In polling Baltimoreans I question very few who cannot remember the name of the dairy that delivered milk to their homes. We had Royal Dunloggin Dairy and adored our milkman Mr. Ross. He was the only man besides my father to who my mother wrote notes. Sometimes after supper she would scribble a line or two on stationery and insert it into an empty, rinsed milk-bottle which would then be placed on the side porch. In the wee hours of the morning Mr. Ross would pull up in his Divco truck and hurry toward our house with his metal basket of half-gallon milk bottles. Then he would read the note which instructed him whether to leave us an unscheduled delivery of chocolate milk, orange juice or heavy whipping cream...or as the song says..."no milk today."

"Cloverland Crossing" oil on canvas (20" x 20") 2004

GOOD HUMOR TRUCK - Ding-a-Ling-a-Ling

"Good Humor Toy Truck" oil on canvas (9" x 12") 2008

Everyone loved the Good Humor Ice Cream truck’s visits to their neighborhood during the summer. It had a set of bells that the driver manually rang announcing his slow cruise up and down the city and suburban streets. Most parents requested that the driver arrive after dinnertime and he happily complied so that he could sell more popsicles, fudgesicles or orange dreamsicles as dessert items for every member of the family. The odor of the smoky, dry ice, mixed with the gasoline fumes, was one of my favorite summertime smells. That aroma meant the “jingle man,” as we called the driver, was reaching into the back door of the truck getting out the more expensive treats like push-up rockets and of course “Good Humor” bars. Sometimes I diverted and got a Dixie cup that came with its own small, wooden spatula-shaped spoon. The slim wooden paddle and vanilla ice cream together made an excellent sensation in your mouth. The model here for my painting came from my vintage toy truck collection.