The Magic Chocolate Milk Cow

The Magic Chocolate Milk Cow still resides at my father’s house in Blakely Georgia. It’s a porcelain pitcher in the shape of a cow, and cow’s mouth is the spout. My paternal grandmother would pour the chocolate milk out of the Magic Cow for breakfast when I would stay with her. We would have scrambled eggs and toast made a special way. She would take white bread and spread a lot of butter on it then bake it in the oven until the butter was gooey. Then she would put a tablespoon of grape jelly in the butter and fold the bread over. It was heavenly.

The last time I picked up the Magic Chocolate Milk Cow I was surprised at how tiny it was. There’s not enough room in it for more than eight ounces of liquid. When I was a child it seemed to hold all the Chocolate Milk I could dream of drinking. How my grandmother managed to refill it so often without me seeing her I have no idea. There was nothing on television back in those days so we would sit and talk to each other. We have lost much when we sit our kids down in front of a television, and they tune us out.

There were artifacts from another era in my grandmother’s house, and I always assumed that these artifacts would endure forever. The claw footed and giant tub. The old coins she had from the 1800’s. She had a copy of a newspaper of when the Titanic sank. There were relics from World War Two. There were pictures of people long since dead, the photos sepia in color, instead of black and white.

There was a candle she owned, and I remember the candle because it looked so odd. It was a ball shaped candle and the wick was very tiny. The outside texture of the candle was very rough, and the color was bluish white. She would light for my entertainment for just a few moments at a time. I never knew what special place in her heart that candle held, but she never wanted to burn it for very long. While she was gone to town one day, I attempted to light the candle but as I tried to strike it, the head of the match snapped off. The burning spot of light landed right on my naked belly and burned me painfully. I hit the wound for days because I knew she would not only be angry with me, but also because I knew she would feel terrible about leaving me alone. When she did discover that I had been injured I was able to tell her that I had fallen down. It was one of the most successful lies that I had told to date at the time.

I didn’t see it as odd then, but my grandmother also had kept almost all of my father’s toys. Almost everything he had touched as a child was in that house, and truth be told, she had a lot of good reasons for keeping much of it. My father was a very gifted child it seems. The coloring books that he used he water colored instead of using crayons. The pictures were almost always perfect. Each and every area was beautifully painted in without a drop of paint anywhere it ought not to be. Tiny areas in each book were masterfully done; bird feathers, buttons on clothes or some other spot which need but a drop of paint. My father also craved a herd of deer from an apple crate when he was a child. The deer were in various poses; jumping, leaping, running, at rest, and at play. There most have been a dozen or so of them. The artwork he did with an electric pen, a devices which blackens or browns wood to form the shading of a picture looked as it were all done by someone with years of training. All of it by a boy no older than ten, it drew also a sharp contrast to what my father was capable of as a child, and what I was not capable of at anytime in my life.

My father had one of the early Erector Sets, with its steel pieces and all metal parts. There were metal plates that he had bolted together as a child that were still together when I found them. I marveled at how well he had put things together, and at how much strength to took to get them apart again. But even with all the parts that were there I couldn’t duplicate the devices that my grandmother told me that my father had built. My stays at her house were as if I had risen into a plane of existence that I not yet earned, even though I loved each and every moment there.

Almost everyone in America owned some small collection of World War Two souvenirs. My grandmother owned her share of these collectables but they were so common back then almost no one foresaw the day that they might be extremely valuable. She would take them out of the closet and I would put the German helmet on my head, and play with the various metals and ensign cut from the uniforms of Germans. I didn’t understand war, except as a function of television shows and movies, and I didn’t understand the meaning of how these weird looking toys came to be where they were. My grandmother’s brothers had gone to war, and they had brought back these things, as most veterans had. All of the stuff in the closet was stolen one night and to cover the crime, the thief burned my grandmother’s house to the ground.

Whenever I go to my father’s house, which is once or twice a year, I go to see  if the Magic Chocolate Milk Cow is still in the pantry, behind some other of life’s detritus. It is always there, and I’m always surprised at how tiny it is. It was once so very big, and brimming with Chocolate Milk. One day I’ll pick it up, and take it home with me, and I’ll drink Chocolate Milk from it again.

Take Care,

Mike