chapter 352

Syrian Milk

6/29/2014

servants of god 

I remember Dad sneaking into the kitchen refrigerator and slugging down a drink of milk right out of the glass quart bottle in the yearly 1950's. I did the same till I got caught. We used to get Abdallah Dairy milk delivered to the house by the boxy little delivery van truck. Sis wrangled me a good deal on this vintage bottle down in Cortland. I thought the glass beads might add a little more interest to the plain glass.

We visited the Dairy from time to time, I think to get an ice cream cone hand scooped from behind the metal and glass case. The Jersey cows were right out back behind the Dairy along Tompkins Street but now it is all residential housing developments. You could give them a phone call at #1234 to order more milk. Why can't phone numbers be this easy anymore?

Met part of the Abdallah family this week in Cortland. Robert Abdallah worked a farm up on Syrian Hill Rte 41 near McGraw. A bunch of the Syrians had moved in and lived up there. He still had the aluminum insulated box exactly as I had recalled being on our porch or back steps where the delivery man would take the empties and leave the fresh milk in. This confirmed my recollections as not being false memories.

Charlie Abdallah owned the Cortland Dairy where his cousin Norman also worked. A distant family member recently wrote book linked here describing this Ottoman Syria immigrant's story of their "First 100 years" in America. They had come in 1901 during the mass migrations when ocean travel had been reduced greatly to just one week. Their homeland of what is now Lebanon had previously been called Mount Lebanon but boundary lines and country names were continually changing with foreign intervention between the bloodshed in-fighting tribes of the Sunni Muslims, Shiites, Christians. Sounds kinda familiar. Makes one's head spin.

There are many Amish in Central NY farming as it was done a hundred or more years ago. Photographed this guy raking cut hay into wind rows along Rte 20 on the way to Cortland. They generally don't want their picture taken, but what about my rights to free expression. Anyway, telephoto lens from 200 yards perhaps satisfies both parties.

Mucho antiques along this Rte 20 highway. I snagged a couple of actual treasures from this friendly couple. No, not the plastic Christmas ornaments but a Oct 8,1907 blue green glass telephone line insulator like the ones that had been on the pole outside our house. The 200 year old barn in their back yard beyond the display tables was a little worse for wear.

fyi

Marked on the quart bottle was "SEALED L52 NU". Collectors of all sorts have nice reference web sites, indicating this bottle was produced by the Lamb Glass Co incorporated 1921 in Mt. Vernon, Ohio but subsequently bought by Thatcher Manufacturing Co of Elmira, NY.  Notice the red fire pyroglazed lettering on the bottle. My bottle is not dated but had to have been made prior to 1963 when production ceased. This would gibe with my years living at home. The wax paper containers swept the marketplace in the early 60s. Sis also has an Abdallah bottle made by Knox Glass Bottle Co of Pennsylvania.

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