In the summer of 1959 behind the wheel of my dad’s conspicuous red and white Olds I would stalk the Erie Dairy home delivery truck in Spokane and write down every address where the driver stopped to deliver milk.
Suprisingly, I was never arrested for loitering. Along with four other college students on summer break and an older adult leader, we were hired by the giant Carnation Co. to run Erie out of business, a bit of good old preditaroy capitalism. Our leader was a goofy man reminiscent of Gillis on Life of Riley who would tell ribald jokes when we lunched in a neighborhood park.
Rightfully, the Erie driver was angry. He probably was an independent contractor and we would be taking money out of his pocket.
A “bright” young man at Carnation hired us for this crazy scheme that was doomed from the get-go. One could assume that Carnation was falling behind in home delivery sales so why not target the weakest competition rather than Darigold or Arden Farms. I am happy to say that this predatory captalism marketing initiative failed and we were terminated after a few weeks of stalking Erie. This effort must have alienated Spokane consumers from the Carnation brand.
Acting on a referral from the state emploment agency I took the job because it seemed like a good alternative to the misery of selling shoes at Leed’s downtown, manual labor at Alaska Junk or delivering for Miller & Felt drugs — all jobs that I hated.
Although I became friends with one of the other students in the group, I am not proud of a short-lived Carnation career. Summers in Spokane were uneventful and I longed to get from behind the wheel of my dad’s Olds and back to Seattle, the University of Washington and frat house comradery.
