And they got to ride on the back of the truck.
Hell yeah we all wanted to be garbagemen. I was fortunate enough to see the final days of the milkman and that one ranked right up there with the garbageman.
I actually was a garbageman for a while.
Heck! I remember the ice man who was still calling upon my grandmother's neighbors during WWII. His name was Tony and he spoke with an accent. When Grandma said she was fixing dinner and using "paprika", I accused her of "talking like the ice man". The kids in the neighborhood used to chase his truck, and he would throw us chips.
Regarding the milkman, do you remember that little fan-like sign that you would put into the neck of the empty bottles you were returning? You could pull out different spokes to tell the milk man what you wanted him to leave -- cream, buttermilk, etc.
Of course milk was not homogeonized during WWII. My grandmother would pour off the cream from the top of the bottle and save it. When she got enough, she'd put it in a mayonnaise jar, and it was my job to roll it around on the floor until it became butter. That didn't take long on a hot day (no AC during WWII).