| Barber's Pure Milk
There were other dairies in Alabama -- Deep South, All-Jersey and Dairy Fresh are three which come to mind. But the name and brand which stood head, shoulders and udder above all the competition, both regional and national, was Barber's.
DAVE SMITH relayed this anecdote of Barber's Milk: In school at Edgewood Elementary we had Barber’s Milk. On one side of the little purple and white half-pint milk containers would be “College Knowledge”. These were a few paragraphs about some bit of trivia—along the lines of "When bullfighters wave their red capes, the bull charges, but not because of the color red. Bulls are color blind and can only see in black and white. It is the motion of the cape that upsets him...”. We students all liked it when new “College Knowledges” trickled in with each new milk shipment, to the point of holding up the lunch lines because we all scoured through the milk box looking for new ones. ### Dave: I'd say several generations' worth of Alabama kids grew up nursin' a half-pint of BARBER'S with their cafeteria lunches. Heck, I'd say it was probably the only truly appetizing part of the meal! ;-) Even some locations outside of Alabama, too. Barber's Milk was the dominant dairy in Tupelo, Mississippi (where I lived during grade school). I don't remember the "college knowledge", maybe the Tupelo plant didn't produce those. Our half-pints were red and white ... but always with that familiar "Puretest" logo! What I remember most about the containers was the line-art drawing of the milkman's face, along with the words "Thanks for buying BARBER'S." --Russell
1962 Barber's advertisements ... from the Birmingham-Southern yearbook:
BEFORE YOU ORDER THE APPETIZER, YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FOR DESSERT: Menu covers, ca. 1965, supplied by Barber's and used by some Alabama restaurants and drug store lunch counters back in the day...
RETURN TO BIRMINGHAM REWOUND: RETAIL 03/13/2005 -- 539 PM EST |
Tim
Hollis showed me a milk carton he has with that vision many of us saw during
our childhood as we broke open our half-pint milk cartons and got ready
to enjoy a tasty (snort) scrumptuous (chuckle) cafeteria meal!
