The Milk business and the Trailers from the 1960's through the 1980's up until about 2015

One of the things that has changed over the last fifty years or so is the milk business.
     Starting in the early 60's when I was first exposed to it, it was home delivery. Ambitious people like Ed Greco, owner of Maple Grove Dairy formerly at the corner of Waldren Ave and Route 59 in Nyack, next to the Thruway exit built their business just after World War 2 by going through Camp Shanks, then called Shanks Village in his uniform getting ex-solders to buy milk. Back then Everyone got home delivery of bread and milk.
     My Dad, after the War went back to his job at Krug's Baking Company in New Jersey. That lasted until the early 1950's when they went out of business. He then got a job where his brother was working, Miller Dairies. My Uncle Ken wanted to work for Orange and Rockland and back then it was called Rockland Light. He couldn't leave Miller because his salary of $40.00 a week was higher then what Rockland Light was paying. With the benefit of 20/20 hind sight it was a mistake staying.
    Miller was a major milk dealer in the area and when I was a little kid I went into their packing room and watched a man hand fill empty milk cases with paper milk containers. Even back then, early 60's, glass bottles were on their way out.
     During the 60's, in Rockland, there were at least forty milk companies. There was also a code of conduct I was told. When a new family moved in, the first milk company to there door was the company that got to deliver milk to that stop, and the price was set, no one would under cut another dairy. My Uncle and Ed Greico would laugh at the mark up on a half pint of milk. It was something like 2 cents on a 5 cent 1/2 pint of milk. Back then 2 cents was big bucks. As a percentage it was 40%. When I closed Muller Dairy I was at about 22% and to get bigger stops your percentage would shrink to around 18%. When I worked at Marcus around 2009, to do the Culinary Institute, a major account and big milk user of around $2000.00 a week, the percentage needed to be around 15%. Tom my boss would always complain that Marcus couldn't afford that percentage. When the company got caught with a price out of line they would lower the price, then slowly, over time, maybe weeks, maybe months inch the price back up until it reached a healthy profit level.
     The Problem with the milk business at the start of the 21st Century, milk companies had conditioned their customers to expect to be ripped off on their price, even if you were not doing it, some other companies salesman would come in and if he couldn't take the business, he would burn it for the other company and their salesman by offering a price that was unaffordable by even the best companies.
     I went out with my Dad, starting sometime around 1964, do half a day and after an hour or so, I'd ask him how many stops do we have left. He'd start to count, going, one...twooo...threeee..... He'd keep going and after a while I'd hope he'd stop because I didn't want to do that many stops, but he'd keep on going, getting to somewhere in the thirties, I think. It seemed like a lot to a little kid. My pay for that half a day was $5.00, a full day $10.00, big money!
      My Dad would drive his Divco into one of the many developments being built in the early 60's. He delivered milk in Valley Cottage. We start on Lake Road we'd work our way from the front toward the back of the development where they were still building houses.

He'd pull his Divco up to a group of houses in the development, he'd hand me several quarts of milk or if it was more, a milk carrier, he would tell me to go deliver to a certain house, while he went to another. I'd go off and do the house. When I got back he'd tell me I had to move quicker. At the next stop, I'd run, a glass bottle or two clanging against the metal carrier. When I got back, he would say I didn't have to go that fast. I never did figure out how fast was the proper speed to deliver milk.
     My Dad was left handed. He grew up in a school system that insisted he write with his right hand. Supposedly he could write very well with his right hand, I never saw him write with his right hand. His writing with his left hand was described by my mom as chicken scratch, you know, at least all you farmers out there know, the marks left in the ground after a chicken has been scratching around. Bills would be handed out to a customer every week or every month, whatever the terms were and when I came across a bill in  the milk box that accompanied some money, I'd bring it to my Dad who wrote paid on it. To Me it looked like he just scribbled all over the bill, he'd hand it back to me and I'd run back to put it in the milk box. So I started carrying a pencil. When I found a bill in a milk box and some money with it, I'd count it to be sure it was correct, then I'd scribble all over the bill, take the money and leaving the bill.
         Divco's were very spartan in their design. There was a seat for the Driver, a small dash  and pedals to drive standing up. On the other side of the cab is a spot near the wind shield made of metal that fit two milk cases side by side. My Dad's box, a wooden milk case with all of his paperwork filled one spot. The Other was were I sat. The Dashboard consisted of maybe four dials, under the dash a space heater would rasp away in the Winter letting you know it was filling the cab with warm air. That was it. The one addition my Dad added was a transistor radio that sat on the tiny desk like piece of metal right where the two halves of the windshield met

. When I went with him he let me switch it to the music I wanted to listen to, usually WABC. It played all the most popular music at the time.The truck would get moving on a major road  and cause static and frustrate a young music lovers like myself trying to listen to his favorite tunes. WABC had the slogan, 'News, five minutes sooner'. I never understood what they meant.I never connected the fact that the news started at five minutes to teh hour as opposed other stations starting it on the hour. Back then every station had to air the new at least once an hour. I listened to The Four Seasons, The Beatles, and Stevie Wonder on that radio.
     Being a kid of about eight or ten during the 60's delivering milk I would spend a lot of time in the truck while my father delivered milk. Somewhere in Valley Cottage, time has blurred the location my Dad and I were delivering milk. We drove up and down roads making pretty good time. We came to this hill and as he normally would do he down shifted the standard transmission (Ask Your parents or grandparents what it is) and eased the truck down the hill. It was a little steeper than normal hill. About half way down the hill he stopped and shut off the truck. He grabs several containers of milk and ran off to deliver to the house. Immediately, as was normal I jumped into the driver's seat. To a young kid this was the opportunity to play behind the wheel, press the pedals, make believe I was driving the truck. So I pressed the gas, turned the wheel, hit the brake to slow down, then I hit the clutch... I my surprise the truck begins to move down the hill. I take my foot of the clutch expecting the truck to stop, instead the truck starts up, surprise isn't the word. In an all out panic I slam my foot on the brake and use my right hand in a vain attempt to stop any milk cases from falling out of the back. I don't know what happened next, but the truck didn't drive off with me and it didn't end up wrapped around a tree or in the bushes. I guess my Dad, as always, when I was young and with him came to the rescue and stopped the truck. I know I was upset and afraid, but I don't think he yelled at me for what happened. I think he blamed himself and was just glad I was alive.
     On the back of a Divco there is a full sized bumper that is set up as a step to get into the truck. For some reason, I guess it was always in the back of my mind, my Dad told me never to sit on the back bumper when the truck was moving. Maybe some kids did it while he was delivering milk.
     One sunny summer afternoon, when I was maybe ten or twelve, out playing ball on the street or even just hanging out by myself, I don't really remember. My Dad comes driving down the street to do a delivery to a neighbor's house just up the street before he was to stop at our house for lunch. For some reason I got it into my head that this was the time I would sit on the bumper of his truck and find out what the big deal was about not doing it. I could not see anything wrong with it. I'd sit back there, he start down the street and stop a few yards down the street and I'd wait for him to go inside. No One would know and I'd know what all the fuss was about. My Dad grabs a few quarts of milk from under the ice and ran along the side of the house around to the back. I see my chance and take it. I don't remember being excited or anything, it just seemed like something to do on a quiet summer day. I sit down on the middle of the bumper, where it's the widest. I grab onto the underside of the bumper for support and wait. A few moments later the truck rolls a little as my Dad gets in and the engine came to life. I looked down at the trail of water the truck has left from the melting ice as my Dad put the truck in gear. He hit the gas and I am on the road, as the truck pulled away. Getting up rubbing my sore backside I walk down the street following the trail of water from the melting ice the truck had left as it pull away. I now knew why not to sit on the bumper of the truck, but I still didn't know why anyone would want to do it, because it hurt.
     The first time I ever saw a naked women was when I was on the milk truck delivering milk, I was nine. Again my Dad had gone to deliver milk and I was left in the truck, I was bored. I began pawing through his box. His box was a wooden milk box where he kept all of his important papers and his route books. Down closer to the bottom was an area that time had forgotten and many interesting things could be found there. Key chains with pictures of Miller Dairies on, business cards and the odd milk cap for a glass bottle. Deep down in a dark corner I found a small box that looked like it contained playing cards, someone out there knows where this is going. I open the flip top and tap out the deck of cards. To my mixture of delight and soon after shock there were pictures...let's all say it together...Naked Women!! This was not your usual pack of French postcard type of naked women card, this was the raunchy, legs spread, show it all, down and dirty, leave nothing to the imagination naked women playing cards. I spend a moment admiring the women's breasts on the top card. She showed a little down south and I was amazed and for some odd reason enjoying myself. I flipped to the next card and didn't stop at the breasts but went straight south. The next women, a brunette, sitting on a chair legs spread eagle left nothing to the imagination. I looked and was horrified. How could anyone be interested in that. It was ugly and hairy and there was all of these folds of, well you get the picture. I put the cards away, making sure to shove them back into the same spot they had been hiding and I covered them with hopefully the same papers. I wondered why anyone would ever have sex. The next time on the truck I took the cards out again, just to check. It was all still the same, just horrible. The third time I went to look for them, they were gone.
     I remember one time the Beatles movie, A Hard Day's Night was playing on the four-thirty movie and I hustled to get us home earlier than the usual 6-6:30. It looked like We were going to make it with time to spare when We hit Hanchar's Restaurant. I waited outside in the truck while my Dad bought the milk in. As the minutes passed by, I wondered what the hold up was. It was just my Dad being my dad and taking care of one of his long time customers. That night We got home at quarter to six, with just enough time to watch the credits roll.
     Hanchar's across from Rockland Lake and The Bobin Inn, just up the street were great places to get a plate full of nice salty French Fries. I'd sit in the kitchen eating golden crispy fresh french fries, my Dad having finished his delivery having a cup of coffee, light with sugar talking to the owners and trying to hurry me along.
     I have few memories of The Bobin Inn.

The first one was the night I walked into the dinning room by mistake and it was so black dark, I couldn't see anything. When my eyes finally adjusted, the room was lit by small table lamps, giving it an intimate atmosphere. It was the country still and people were on vacation. The Other is the rows of camp houses we'd deliver to behind the Bobin Inn. We pull out of the Bobin Inn, in the summer and instead of going right toward Hanchar's, We would make a left, then another quick one and slowly go down a slightly overgrown tree covered narrow road, passing small bungalows on either side. People sitting in their lawn chairs would look at us as we passed by, I felt like I was on display, I didn't like it. We stopped at a large building and my father got out and delivered just a few quarts of milk. Then a few more to a bungalow or two. To an eight year old it seemed like an eternity. In the 60's I couldn't understand why people would go to these cabins, but I lived here. We emerged from the Bobin Inn bungalow colony, finally I'd think back to the normal. One year we made a turn into the bungalow colony next to the Bobin Inns.

All I remember are the two bright yellow brick columns that flanked their entrance, they are still there.
     The few Delis and Restaurants We delivered to were in and around Valley Cottage. At Valley Cottage Deli, my Dad would take a milk case in each hand. Hanging down from his hands he'd carry them into the Deli, then go back out for more.
     One of my memories of the 60's was the price of a half gallon of milk on the side of the milk case in Valley Cottage Deli.  97 cent didn't seem like such a bargain then. The Breyers Vanilla Ice Cream sign twirled around above the low casket freezer,in the stores front window proclaiming  half gallons of Ice Cream for $1.29. My Dad loved Breyers vanilla Ice Cream.
     Some nights before We left the store, my Dad would do a quick shop at V.C. Deli. Some Cereal, Ice Cream and a few other items. My Mom didn't drive and there were no supermarkets. Across the street was a Pharmacy. I'd occasionally go over there to look at the comic. DC comics were my favorite, Superman,Batman,Sad Sack. One Night, my Dad bought me a model of Superman breaking through a wall by punching it. Being a kid of ten or so I had to open my prize before I got home. My Dad warned me that I might lose some of it if I opened it now. I forged ahead anyway, I had to inspect it. When We got home and I put the model together, You guessed it, a part was missing. It was the top of his arm, from his shoulder to his hand. I asked my Dad if I dropped it in the truck. To his credit He never said I told you not to open it
Hanchar's Restaurant, run by Marie and I think Johnny Hanchar was a stop my Dad did when I would be out with him on those half days. We'd deliver to the restaurant located near the entrance to Rockland Lake State Park. Next to teh restaurant where an motel is now was a ballfield. We pull into the parking lot run the truck up to the side door of the kitchen. The parking lot was sort of walled off by these tall oak trees. Every year I pick up a handful of acorns and play with them while my dad delivered to Hanchar's. My dad would go in the side to get an order from Marie. I'd sometimes go in with my dad. Sometimes Marie would make me a large plate of french fries. There seemed to be no better french fries in the world back then. My dad died in 1989. Marie and Johnny by then had given the restaurant to their son who really didn't want to run it. I had my father in law deliver the them. Sometime in teh early 1990's the Hanchar's finally sold the place. I remember the day Tony let me know the new owners, Kennelly's didn't want milk from us. I went to them to find out why, if we'd done something wrong, we hadn't, they just wanted to use their own people. I was in my late thirties when it happened. Losing that stop was one that really hurt. Another sign post in my life, even when ennelly's stayed in business and thrieved for twenty odd years. Sometime in 2022 they sold and as of December 2022 the rumor is a senior housing complex is going in.      Divco's those unique trucks, if You thought they looked like they were straight out of the 1930's, you'd be right. From my understanding, Divcos over the lifespan of the truck were little changed. Their design and safety features were from the early part of the 20th century. Their value as a delivery truck never went out of style. A driver could drive the truck standing up and without wasting too much time deliver to a house, jump back into his truck, move it down to his next stop and so on. When I went with my father I stood across from my Dad where, in a normal vehicle, the passenger seat would be. If it was warm, the door would be open and I'd hold onto the door frame or a silver handle outside. If it was cold, the doors, accordion style would be closed. I'd still hang on in case a stiff wind might blow and open the doors. A small heater under the dash would heat the cab. The top speed of a Divco was about fifty. I took one on the Thruway in the eighties and opened it up. I had my foot plastered to the floor and I kept looking down to see if something was stopping the pedal from going any further. These Trucks were meant for back roads and suburban development deliveries, where there were several stops in a short period.
     One of my favorite stories was the time I tried to drive standing up. It was 1987 about and it was a simple process I was told. The small round Pedal on the floor was the gas. The large one next to it was the clutch and if pushed all the way down, the brake.

Loading dock where trucks are. Office right, Ice House yet to be built, left

     Over on the side street, in Valley Cottage, near St Paul's school I decided was the best place to try it. It was a road that was only known for a bus accident in the early 70's. If I had remembered that I might of chosen somewhere else, but it was near a convent and a catholic school I delivered, that had to mean something. I stop the truck facing Kings Highway, with St Paul's on my left. I removed the seat and placed it on top of the milk in back. I leaned on the steering wheel, touched the gas and got a little roar from the engine. I pressed the clutch down testing putting it into gear and tested the break. The Truck had a hand break near the steering wheel which I pulled back several times working up the nerve to start. The parking brake held the truck in place, I pushed it forward releasing it. I depressed the clutch until it became a brake to hold the truck in place. While leaning on the steering wheel I put the Truck into first gear. Slowly I let the clutch come up. The Truck jumps forward throwing me against the wheel and I figure I had to go for it. So I take my foot off the clutch and the Truck jumps a second time forward. Laying on the wheel trying to steer everything felt sped up. I take my first look up at the road and before where there were no cars, now suddenly they were everywhere. I run the stop sign at the corner of King's Highway, turning left, swerving over the yellow line and back again. The seat as if on cue falls off the milk onto the floor to the right and out the door. I am trying to stop the truck, save the seat and prevent any milk from falling. Somehow I bring the bucking bronco of a Divco to a stop across the street from St Paul's School. I could feel the Saints laughing at me for my failed and pathetic attempt to drive a Divco standing up. All the Spirits of milkmen past who drove Divcos were hanging their heads in shame as they tried to hide their laughter. My Dad and all of those Spirits most of been looking out for me, I had survived my one and only attempt to drive a Divco standing up.  

The bottling room across from the gas pump 1970's after closing

     At the end of  the Day with my Dad we'd come back to the Dairy. It would be empty at that time of night. We'd drive up on the far left corner of the lot. At the close corner of the building was a simple small square door where empty cases were put. Behind the flap of a door were rollers that would take the cases deeper into the building. I never saw that part of the building. I only heard the cases sliding down on the rollers.
   After we were down there we'd go to the other corner of the building and empty all the cases for the glass bottles. When finished and the truck was empty, we'd swing around the building, passing where the tanker truck would park and stop at the gas pump in front of the garage. We'd gas up across from the bottling room at the pumps in front of the garage where Uncle Ken worked
and go home. If not, we'd load up with milk at the front of the building, then head over to the ice house and depending on the temperature, my Dad would cover the milk in Ice for the night. I'd usually walked around near the Ice house, or down closer to the road near the milk machines. I remember seeing my first milkshake in a container for sale in the machines for 25 cents. Big bucks in those days of nickel candy.
 

 In the 60's my Dad would get home from work about 6-6:30, maybe have dinner with the family then move to his chair, have a bowl of Breyers vanilla Ice Cream and fall asleep. As the years passed. He'd go out later, get home later and We'd see him less.
     I was with some friends at our annual Yankee Stadium gathering this year and one of them remarked when we were younger, they knew I had a Dad, but they never saw him.
     In the early 70's, Miller Dairies was bought by Dellwood Farms from Yonkers. A few years before my Dad and Gary Miller signed a contract that the State of New York insisted they had to have because of milk licensing laws.

Dellwood would hold that over our heads and make us ransom it from them over the next few years. It got to the point that my Parents would remortgage their debt free house to get away from them. The loan would be paid off when my Father died of Cancer in 1989 by the insurance on the house loan.
     My Wife recently (2018) called me from a yard sale telling me there was a Dellwood milk box there. It was from the 70's she said. She sent me a picture and on the front of the box was the saying that seemed like a cruel joke back then, From Dellwood with love. It even had that picture of a doll or maybe it was a little girl. I hated it still all these years later.
     My Dad worked from a trailer placed at Miller's until Bill Vines came to the rescue in the mid-70's and helped move him over behind his office on West Nyack Road. A Trailer was set up behind his office. An Incident or event or whatever You want to call it happened just prior to the Trailers going behind Bill's office or just before my uncle was moved there or even there was a complaint made about them being there. I don't know much about it or even remember everything that went on, but it had to do with a gas pump. Bill Vines yelling at his son Jimmy out in  front of his Office saying he was supposed to be there already. I just happen to be talking to Jimmy at the time and I said to someone later, "What went on with the Gas pump was illegal" and got the response that if I wanted the trailers behind Bill's office it had to be done.

Dellwood Dairy Yonkers, NY

Dellwood Milk case

     A second Trailer would be fit in there when my Uncle got tired of all the Union rules bullshit over at Dellwood and with the help of Bill Vines got a milk license. Before Farmland broke the milk licensing law in the early 80s, they were very valuable. You couldn't sell milk in New York State without one. Eventually Bill Vines helped my Dad get one. It was the late seventies and the world was ours, or at least Rockland, because that was all the license covered.
     At our most prosperous, My Uncle and my Dad worked out of two trailers and used two other trucks for storage. My Uncle and my cousin delivered for Muller Dairies, their company and my Dad and I delivered for Muller Dairy of R.C. I always felt we should of been Muller Dairies, but my Dad and Uncle never let anything come between them. Nothing as small as the name of a company. Working behind Bill Vines' office was easy and convenient. You could and I did walk to work. I got there after a five minute leisurely walk. During the Spring the walk was the best.

Occasionally we'd get people to come by and ask if they could buy some milk. It was always for their own use and we would always sell it to them at a price cheaper than the stores. It never amounted to much and we did it to be nice and it never came back to haunt us. The only issue we had working behind Bill's office was getting tractor trailers into the property. A fence was put up between our operation and a new condo project that had sprung up to the west between us and the post office. Every few months it seemed someone would complain that a tractor trailer had hit the fence and during the summer the condo people complained about the noise of the trucks backing up to our facility. Trailer would back into the facility early in the morning sometime around four or five. The Refrigeration unit would be hammering away and the back up horn would be beeping. I could understand their frustration, but We were there first. Our time behind Bill's office was coming to an end by the middle 90's because of the continued growth of Rockland. The growth that had once created 60 plus milk companies to deliver milk in the county was now starting to push the last two out.
     The first move happened after both my Dad and my Uncle had died. My Cousin, Billy had reduced his business to one truck because he could not rely on help. His relationship with Bill Vines was never like his father's or my father's. Bill Vines and the Muller boys had been boyhood friends and known each other for many years. The Muller's had been active in helping Bill Vine get elected to different offices over the years. Billy and I saw him differently. Billy would move his trailer and flatbed to Chester NY in the 90's, I'd get forced out before the new century.
       I got my license to drive when I was seventeen. My Dad gave me stops to deliver on Saturday mornings, maybe some during the week. I don't remember all the details of how I started delivering retail stops by myself except there was an argument. I think Bruce had decided to stop delivering milk for us and they were all dumped in my lap. This was before GPS and it was before I knew any roads outside of West Nyack. The stops were in and around Congers and Valley Cottage. I remember delivering to houses on Ridge Road off of Lake Road in Valley Cottage. I don't remember how many. It was the remnants of a second route my father had purchased in the 60's and employed different people to run. At one time he had his brother Joe running it. There was Bill Carleo. Bill was a guy who had a life plan. As far as I knew he just had a high school education. He worked for one company for twenty years and got his pension. Quit that job and worked for another company getting a second pension. Now to all those future people who don't know what a pension is, it is a promise by an employer to pay money to an employee after they have worked for a company faithfully for a set period of years. In 2020 Pensions are being discontinued and under funded. Soon there will be none.
       I also delivered to some houses off Middletown Road in Pearl River, Nanuet area. In the early 80's I was given an eight track tape player for Christmas and I purchased Elton John's new album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. I'd stick the tape into the portable tape deck and work my way up and down a few of the side streets delivering to a couple of houses on several streets. It was not hard work or time consuming. No one ever asked for anything other than their same old milk order. It was not like in the sixties when you'd find a note in the milk box and you'd run back to the truck to get someone a  half pint of sour cream or whatever. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is still one of my favorite albums. Each and every song on that and several other albums from the 70's bring back vivid memories of something I was doing when listening to it.
      The End of the 70's, the beginning of the 80's was the last of the great milk strikes. I don't know if there were others, but for us Muller Dairy of R.C as we were officially known, the milk strike was a needed boon. We had just escaped Dellwood, mostly, they gave some milk to us and provided us with big fifty pound blocks of ice to keep the milk cold, can you imagine that now. The rest of the milk came from Glen-Mohawk Dairy from somewhere upstate. My Dad drove his old reliable 1964 Miller Divco and soon would buy an old refrigerated Divco, whos refrigeration unit Uncle Ken would piece back together and that started my fascination with refrigeration. It would culminate with me taking a class in it over at BOCES in the late 90's. I was going to take a second class, but for some reason never did. A few years later I did sell my business, so it didn't matter in the long run.
     It just fascinated me that if you ran a gas through a machine condensed it to a liquid and then ran it over through a radiator it would pick up heat as it turned back into a gas. Then It would run through an other radiator and all the heat in it would leave, turning it back to a gas, it still amazes me.
     The Last great milk strike started sometime in the late 70's. The Unions in New York City wanted pay increases that management felt were excessive. So as was the habit in the 60's and 70's they went on strike.
     Glen-Mohawk's unions were a different local and not part of the strike. The City's Unions shut off all of the milk supplied to the city. There was the usual violence and vandalism that occurred in strikes in those days. The one unforeseen happening were retail locations in the city began coming out to the suburbs to find dealers that had milk. We had a small boom in business, it could have been better. We could have charged a premium for our milk, but we were not the type of people who thought of doing things that way. The strike lasted for several weeks and as soon as it was settled the extra sales disappeared as expected.
   

We were getting milk from an upstate farm called Glen and Mohawk. When I started to write this section I couldn't remember their name. Like any good resourceful ex-milkman I went out to my mom's storage shed in her backyard and looked through the milk cases she had stacked up along the walls for storage until I found the light blue case I needed. I turned it sideways and it was a NEDCO milk case. I continued on and near the bottom of the third stack, slightly cracked was a second light blue case and on it was Glen-Mohawk, my prize.

     In 1983, a few short years after We started with Glen-Mohawk, they went bankrupt and in the process emptied the insurance fund that made sure Farmers got paid. North East Dairy Cooperative, NEDCO bought their processing plant and got us in the deal. Their product dramatically improved, life was good with NEDCO, but it lasted only a few short years. NEDCO went bankrupt and we were moved to Dairylea and became acquainted with Gene Kessler. He was what I later would realize was a typical salesmen. He was loud and over the top and friendly. You were his best friend and after a while we felt he was. He would bring product down from the Dairylea depot, give us credit on milk that was bad from the plant, advocate for us with higher ups and just generally take care of us. For the first time ever I felt that a milk company wanted us and was interested in our well being. That lasted for a few years until something happened. I think Dairylea sold all of their downstate business to Tuscan in Elmhurst Queen. We wanted nothing to do with a city dairy and Gene Kessler was not going to be our salesman. We voiced our complaints and they did some fancy paper shuffling and we were once more back with Dairylea and were getting milk from upstate New York. Dairylea was bought by Hood Dairy out of Massachusetts and my Dad to my confusion asked Marcus Dairy from Connecticut  to deliver us milk. We split our volume between the two companies
     And then my Dad died. He was diagnosed with cancer just before Christmas 1987. There was a family meeting in the living room, I think the Christmas tree was up and in the back of my mind I knew it was coming. Family meeting were rare.
     We all gathered around near the tree. My Dad stood there in white sock feet, no shoes. He had on his typical green or maybe it was blue shirt and pants. For some reason he seemed a little smaller at that moment. My mom spoke telling us that our father had cancer and he was going to be treated for it with chemo. Life changed some, but not enough after that because when he died fourteen months later I was not ready to take over his business.
     After the announcement, Christmas came. The whole family chipped in to buy him, at the time a large screen TV, it was 36" from upper left hand corner to lower right hand corner. It was a huge jump from the 19" we had in the Living Room. Dad was always hard to buy for and this year we felt we had gotten him a great gift, until it was pointed out later that it was the only gift he got. For a regular Christmas that would of been OK, this wasn't a regular Christmas.
      The following Summer a first happened. My Mother called all the family relatives left on my Dad's side of the family and invited them all to West Nyack for a family reunion. I and several others thought it would not happen. They'd been out on Long Island for decades and neither group had made an effort to get together. The only time the Long Islanders saw the Upstaters were at funerals. Neither side was at fault, it was just life. The Reunion happened on a bright summer Saturday afternoon one summer day. And it was a big success.A large group of people arrived the day of the reunion. People I occasionally saw, others I saw regularly and then there was the group I never saw. The Day dawned brightly and not to warm. Groups arrived and everything went perfect. Then life went back to normal.
          February of 1989 was a tough time to leave a family that hadn't gotten time to really know him. The last dozen years before he'd gotten sick he would get up out of bed around 10 am, convinced that he could not get up any earlier because he'd gotten home so late the night before and he had. He would have breakfast and head down to the trailers in his Divco. He'd load it up and off he went still delivering to the few houses that wanted milk delivered to their door step. They'd been customers for most likely forty years and time hadn't and wouldn't change them. Mixed in with the home deliveries was now the bulk of his business, the small markets and restaurant. Names that come to mind, The Hi Ho, run by George Marcello, Hartell's run by Bubby and Carol Hartell, South Broadway Deli, Valley Cottage Deli, Bonocore's Deli, and quite a few others. He would roll into the trailer around 9 PM or so, unload, straighten things out down there and come and eat dinner around 10 pm some nights. How could he get himself straightened out, it was a vicious cycle. I'd come home from a night out drinking and he'd be sitting up in his chair smoking his cigar or fast asleep with a once lit cigar hanging out of his mouth and a line of ash on his blue workman's shirt.
       No one asked or talked about dad's cancer. If it was terminal or curable. The two in the know never said and the ones who didn't were too afraid to ask. I took on more responsibility, but not enough. I didn't want to be more responsibility, that would make it real that he was going to die. 

     When Chemo started he took on a helper to help him do his route. Sometime over the winter of 1988-89 my Dad stopped delivering milk and a kid took over his route. The Chemo didn't stop the cancer. It was too far progressed even before the chemo.

     Near the end the Cancer had spread from his lungs to his brain and everyone knew it was the end. One night I asked him to make out the order for the next day. He sat on the edge of the bed quietly for a moment, He began, "Ah, thirty case of, ah, " he'd always said 'ah' when he was thinking and I ignored the longer then usual pauses. They didn't mean anything. Finally after a frustrating couple of minutes with no success ordering the milk someone, my mom most likely, maybe my dad told me in a slightly harsh voice I should be doing the ordering. I was hurt and pushing me to do the ordering pushed reality a little closer to me. In my defense, how could I take his job away. It was his life and if I took it over, it meant he was dying.
     For the last few weeks of his life he spent most of his time in bed until one Saturday he got up and went to his chair. He sat in his all Saturday and Sunday. I still have that chair (March 2020). It falling apart and I will soon have to get rid of it

Everyone who was local came by to talk to him.  Uncle Ken came over sat next to him and they'd talk.  During those two days I thought he had rallied and might be OK for a while.That Monday he was back in bed.Watching Someone die is never easy and you always think it is not going to happen today, but eventually the day does come. On Monday morning my Dad stayed in bed and didn't get out. I started interviewing him about his life, but I'd waited too long. Again the interview meant he was going to die. After about ten minutes he asked if we could do this some other time. A Time that would never come. He lasted through to Saturday. That night, I needed to get out, so I went down to the Deer Head Inn on Western Highway. A Couple of Beers into the evening the bartender calls me and he says I have a phone call. It's my Mom and she says very simply she thinks my Dad has died. I remember going home and standing in the living room, off to the side as Lou Lafasciano, a lifelong neighbor and another man come into the house.They move anything that would stop them from getting my Dad's body out. A chair, the table, the path was cleared. Lou Lafasciano asks anyone in the house at that time to leave. I feel a hot flash of anger, the first of many over the next few years and I mumble to myself there is no way he is getting me out of my house. I needed to see this. All these years later all I remember is how wide open the living room was and that I was asked to leave. I know I saw my Dad's body leave, I think they used a gurney and his body was covered. But I still needed to be there.

     A Few Days later We went to Joe Sorce's funeral home, down into his basement, into a dug out area that reminded me of the catacombs in Europe, to look at caskets. He guides us to a mid-range priced casket, thank you. The Funeral was a few days later. At the beginning I took a quick video of the flowers and him. That Video and the interview video, I think I have lost. During the Wake, Bruce, a family friend delivered milk to all of our customers.When things went back to what would pass for normal for the time being, my Mom and Bruce took care of my Dad's route. I did my route. 
      I took over doing my Dad's route when I realized the majority of our income was bought in by his route and the person who was doing it had quit, I think. The biggest change beyond that was I drove his Divco. The steering in it was very loose and it took me a while to get used to it. I drive it down the road and I felt I needed to move the wheel back and forth to keep it on the road. After a while I got used to it and it was a non event.

     Before my Dad died he'd begun, with Bruce looking into getting a new truck and going away from Divcos. Divco had lost a lawsuit several years ago and gone out of business.Trucks and parts were becoming more and more difficult to come by and my Dad wanted me to have a safer truck. A Box truck with a fourteen foot box was purchased. Everyone tried to tell me to go with a sixteen foot box, but I'd never driven a big truck and I wanted to keep it as small as I could. Eventually I would fill the truck and remember I'd gone with the smaller box. The Truck was an 1984 and it would serve me well for several years. When I got a new truck in 1994, the old truck became a storage/ back up truck. When I sold the business to George Gottberg from Consolidated, he gave me several hundred dollars for the truck. When I tried to drive it down to Union New Jersey, it smoked so badly I got it towed. Several years later I get a call from a police department somewhere in New Jersey saying they found a truck on this property abandoned. I was the last registered owner and they needed my permission to move the truck to the dump. I gave it feeling very lucky it ended that quickly. I also thought about the $3,000.00 in new springs I put on the truck before I'd bought my new one, (Clarkstown Police had deemed the truck unsafe and had given me a few weeks to fix it up. I did, then decided to get a new truck.) From the time I sold the truck to George at Consolidated until the call from the Police I'd figured someone had salvaged some almost brand new leaf springs. Guess not.

     
 It was just after my Dad died from cancer that our milk supplier won the bid for Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg. For them is was a nice bid, for us a small Rockland milk company it was an other windfall. Where there had once been sixty plus milk companies in Rockland there were now less than half a dozen.
     It was a simple bid to deliver. There were three stops, two kitchens and a the canteen very close to each other. We delivered to the center for about four years. The first two years were through the milk company Marcus Dairy out of Connecticut and the final two were through Dairylea/Hood.

On the left, just after the building's push out, I think was the first delivery

    The deliveries were to be made first thing in the morning and all delivery tickets were to be signed. I arrived at the first Kitchen. The loading dock was wide enough for about a truck and a half, so if a truck was there, you waited. I was told to put the milk on the loading dock and then to knock on the door and someone would come out and sign for it. Following the directions, I put the milk on the loading dock in nice neat rows, all the stacks the same height and all the same kind of milk in each stack, easy to count. Then I would knock on the door and wait. After a moment or two with no answer, I'd knock again and again. Finally after about five minutes someone come out to sign the delivery ticket. The person would then tell me to leave the milk on the dock, which I did. This went on for several months until one day I was outside the door for what seemed fifteen minutes. So I signed the ticket. After that I would deliver the milk and sign the ticket if no one answered the door after the first knock. After a few months of this I got tired of signing my name and started signing peoples names I heard on the news, then I went to historical people and as I was searching for new people to sigh, I was met one day by a kitchen worker who told me if I didn't start getting real people to sign, I wouldn't get paid. He then said with a smile, he found some of the names funny.
     For the first year or two there were three stops to make at the center. Sometime around the third year we delivered The second kitchen closed and we were down to two. It was the beginning of the closing of the Hospital in my eyes.
     The third and final stop was The Canteen. It was never a big stop and it never went quickly. It was run by a man whose name escapes me. He had a women working for him, a girl really who must of been at most in her twenties. And she was suffering for premature hair loss. It was not even just slightly, it was sever. I suffered for the same hair loss problem and felt it was worse for her. She tried wigs and they never seemed to fit her just right, they always looked like a wig.
     Bids went out each year to renew the contract. For four years we'd been lucky. When the results of the next years bid were announced, our milk company had not won it. That was in the final year of our delivering to Rockland Psychiatric Center.
     I was in my third years of running the milk business, We were getting milk from Hood Dairies, who'd bought out upstate Dairylea. I had been angry about my Dad's death and I'd lost some business because of it. One specific stop, Summit School. The Kitchen was run by a women with a very bad temper named Jennifer. After my Dad's death I'd gone in there to get into a fight with her. All She needed to do was say or do something to piss me off. It didn't take long, she threw me out and I was out of there.  I become afraid of losing more business, so I cut the price of the milk we were selling at prices that were impossible to break even, much less make a profit. I remember going into Hartell's Grocery, a friend of my Dad's convinced that if I didn't lower the price of milk I'd lose them. They never gave an indication they were unhappy with the price of their milk. I'd gotten myself and my mother into a debt of around $109,000.00.This was on sales of maybe $200,000.00 a year, maybe a little more. The Salesman, who's name I have forgotten, a very nice guy, got fired over it. I was put on a budget and told I'd have to pay for my weekly deliveries plus $500.00.
     Every so often, if you look, God's hand in life shows. One Day, the head of the Depot in Newburgh calls and tells me he wants to meet with me and my mom. I've lost his name. He comes down with our salesmen, Gary Fitchett, a guy I'd later run across and tells me Hood has sold the Depot and the business in the area, including me to another company. That company was Crowley Farms. The bigger news according to him is Crowley didn't assume our debt. So We are a clean slate with Crowley and we better keep it that way, We did.
      My Cousin, Billy decided to move his business to Orange County. He owned a piece of property near his house and there were no neighbor to complain. Before He closed up in the early 2010's that open land around his trailer had filled with houses and just like where I was, the complaints followed.
     After the death of my Dad and my uncle and Billy moving up to Orange County, I stuck it out alone in West Nyack, it was the 90's. There were still complaints about the fence getting hit and my relationship with Bill Vines had not been strong for many years and when I started failing as a businessman, it got worse. Bill would come by every so often and get milk that he would not pay for. My Mom and I didn't like it. I didn't understand that Bill gave my Dad a break on the rent for it. So when I stopped it and told him that When You are sinking, you plug even the small holes. He shot back that I could do that, but the milk was not free, it was in place of a rent increase, which a got on the first of the next month. So much for saving money. That was the first nail in my coffin there. The next nail started when Bill had the parking lot covered in fresh rock and I decided to get small cement pads for the trailer wheels to sit on so it wouldn't sink, a great idea well past it's time I thought. I dig the holes and then I dig the footing in the holes so there would be no heaving and to stop cracking I added wire to the forms. A Friend helped me get the proper cement in and I even did a small pad for my new refrigeration unit, a gift from Crowley for my increased business. The only problem was I didn't put the dirt on tarps, so Bill's new rocks got covered up and that was another strike against me. The Final strike wasn't even me. Bill sold the property to another individual. Wither Bill poisoned the water or this guy had grand plans to erect, as rumored a building where my trailer was, I was served with an eviction notice. It said I had thirty days to leave and the rent was tripled until I left. My Accountant said just pay your normal rent and get out as soon as you can. It didn't have to be thirty days, but not to stay longer then I had  to. I was out in less than sixty day, moving over to Rt. 9W in Congers.
     My Mom had never been comfortable with our Accountant, so We had changed to a new company and in a meeting the accountant tells me what I already knew. To be successful, We had to get bigger. I'd already done some work in that regard by going back to Summit School to ask Jennifer if she'd like to come back to us. To my great surprise she said yes. As I walked out I said to myself, If I'd known it was that easy, I'd come back years ago, It was 1991.
     In 1992 I got involved with a women, Teri, who'd become my wife. She'd help me through the final years of the milk business and give me the confidence to try something a little bit different at the turn of the century.
     The Dates of this story are confused, but the facts are the truth. I was with my friends Jim and Phyllis. Jim and I were drinking Southern Comfort and I was more then a little drunk. From out of no where I lean over to Phyllis, his fiancé and say, " I can only ask this because I'm drunk, but if you have some friend you want to fix me up with, that would be OK. I don't remember if she said anything and if She did it wasn't anything like Iv'e got the perfect girl for you. The conversation was also something that was forgotten by the next morning or at least remembered for what it was, a drunken thought out of nowhere that I was a little embarrassed to have uttered. I guess the reason I said it was I'd never had the best of luck picking girlfriend. They all seemed to be more damaged then I was and that was not a good thing. During our relationships I didn't try to fix them, which would have been worse. I'd just get sucked into their darkness, before clawing my way out, or being thrown free by them. The only relationship I'd had in the previous years that was any good was the one I'd recently just ended. It was a long distant relationship and I wanted something a little closer then a seven hour drive.
     I was given the job of best man at Jim and Phyllis' wedding scheduled for the first part of November 1992. a superb bachelor party was thrown and video'd. If You find it please understand I was just thirty-four and still just a fun loving kid.
     At the Reception, after the new couples first dance or soon after Phyllis asks me to dance. We talk a little about nothing and she stops on the dance floor next to another couple and says, "lets switch". I look over and see this dark haired beauty who is dancing with her father. I'd always been a sucker for dark haired women. Go figure, Freud. We dance and talk and have a nice time. I think Phyllis told me after the switch that she was fixing me up with two women to dance with that night, neither knew. It was a difficult thing for me to deal with. I was never very good at asking girls/women out and now Phyllis had two single unsuspecting women set up for me. I had my choice. After dancing with Teri, Phyllis pointed to a blond, her other person I could ask out if I pleased. I told her one was enough and I think I danced with her a few times, I real don't remember anything much more then at the end of the wedding, I was heading over to ask her for one final dance or to ask her out or both. When her brother in law gets up to ask her to dance. I'm thinking, it just has to end this f'n way, cause it always does, except I see her shoo him away quickly. I continue to walk over and I think we dance and I ask her out for the following Saturday. I'd like to say it was a dream made in heaven, but we were both in our mid-thirties, both had been hurt in the past and our defenses were up prepared to be hurt again. It took a while, but we both changed and mellowed, became more receptive to the others ideas and somehow got married in 1995.
          My mood and attitude over the last six years had vastly improved. Business at Muller Dairy of RC had stabilized. Weekly milk bills in the early 90's had dipped to around $2,000.00 a week. Starting in 1995 business would go through the roof and with a few generous connections it would skyrocket to somewhere around $6,000.00 a week.
          I got a call from Meals on Wheels in Nanuet, that got me Northern Manor, which got me the other two nursing homes associated with it. I went and took Nyack Manor Nursing Home. It all happened over a period of a few short months. Each Nursing Home and Meals on Wheels was enough to pay a weeks bill and all paid in 45 days. Now that is unheard of.

     Two mistakes I made during this amazing period were turning down a nursing home in Westchester County because it was across the river and being offered the remains of Maple Grove Dairy now run by the three remaining drivers and turning that down. Ed Greico had died a year or so earlier and his widow had given the business to the drivers and they were not able to make a go of it. I turned it down because I didn't feel capable of handling the responsibility of two new drivers. The third would be retiring. They wanted to hand it to me for free!! I offered to help them out financially until they could get a new milk company. This decision would come back to bit me when one of the drivers would hit some of my stops in Haverstraw a few years down the road, after his partner had split from him.

     The mid 90's were good to me. I saved ten thousand dollars from the business to buy a new truck. I asked a refrigeration company, that I did business with for a good company to buy a truck from. They said this company down in New Jersey. I went down there and purchased a used truck. It had split rear wheels, which I was told was the way to go, not and an old Dellwood box on the back with a new refrigeration unit.   I didn't want the old Dellwood box with it's green insides and very thin walls. It reminded me of all things Dellwood and I really didn't want to be reminded of them, but Dellwood was gone and I needed a new truck. I was told a few years later that I'd over paid for that truck by about 10,000.00 dollars.

   I was told Dellwood went with the narrow walls to get more cases of milk on the truck.Supposedly Management was negotiating with the union and the union wanted a limit on the number of cases on a truck. Management agreed. They then went out and switched from a sixteen quart case to or invented the twenty-four quart case.

     In my old truck, a family friend, Bruce had constructed shelves in the nose of the box. In the new truck I followed his use of load bars and wood and came up with a very useful set of shelves. On the main shelf I stacked cases of eggs. I don't remember how many I could fit, but the amount of eggs I sold a week was like thirty or forty cases. I stacked cases of Dannon yogurt on these shelves also. I sold a lot of Yogurt to several Nursing Homes. I don't remember all of the items I put on the shelves. I loaded the truck, facing the back, blower at my back, left to right 1/2 gallons, quarts, low fat milk and gallons on the right. I never varied it and I never took down the load bars until I was shown a better way at Consolidated a few years later. I blew out my shoulders grabbing milk two rows back, three case down because I refused to take down the load bars and work closer to the load.

      The Truck ran like a top and the unit worked great. The Split rear Wheels would continually be problems for me.I didn't understand them. I didn't maintain them. A Split rear wheel was the tire and a round piece of metal. It went on spokes attached to the axle. Nuts on the spokes were tightened to hold it together. You had to check the nuts every so often to make sure they were tight. I never did or no one ever told me to. I was in Nyack, near the corner of Franklin Street one day when I hear metal bouncing on the sidewalk. The Owner of the Hudson House Restaurant, Matt Hudson walks up to my door and hands me a nut and a stud from my truck, it had broken off. Another time I was driving in South Spring Valley, doing some stops on Route 45 when I felt the truck not engage for a second when I hit the gas. I pull into my next stop and discover the back tire is loose and I didn't have a wrench to tighten up the lug nuts. It's Saturday afternoon and I'm almost done with my route,so I'll just go home. I start the truck, put it in gear, the rear wheels slide and clip off the air connections and now I have two flat tires on the right side of my truck. I call a tow truck and for several hundred dollars I'm towed to the trailers in Congers. Then I call a mobile repair service and he wants three hundred dollars to come out on a Sunday to repair my tires. I agree so Monday would not be a big drama.

   Every day, starting around seven-thirty, I'd load my truck the same way. I'd do my route the same way. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I'd start at Tolstoy Nursing Home, then to Nyack Manor, over to Valley Cottage Deli, then to Meals on Wheels in Nanuet and then to Northern Manor on Middletown road by then I'd of offloaded the majority of the milk I had on my truck. I'd head over to Bardonia Deli, then I think I'd go to Stony Point. Ending my day in Nyack between six or eight O'clock. Tuesdays was Pearl River and Spring Valley and New City. Thursday was an off day and Saturday was a half day picking up deliveries from Tuesday.

  I've been out from delivering  milk for seventeen years and things I knew by heart are starting to fade. Over the years I've had dreams, nightmares about forgetting to load my truck properly, forgetting to go out and deliver milk to stops for maybe weeks, if not months. It's funny, writing about it I miss it and the energy I used to do that every day. My heavy day was Friday. I'd load the truck starting about 7:30, get on the road around 8:30. Start at Tolstoy Nursing Home in Valley Cottage, then to Nyack Manor, Valley Cottage Deli, over to Meals On Wheels and then to Northern Manor in Nanuet. I'd get to Stony Point, Dee's Deli before noon. I'd go as far north as Lynch's Restaurant in northern Stony Point on Rt. 9 W, I swing around doing several stops and hit Northern Manor Nursing Home in Haverstraw around 4 pm. The Manager never liked that I showed up so late, but I always had fresh, non leaking milk and I put the milk where he wanted it and waited for him to check it. I did this with all my stops. Some time in the 90's I gave every stop a discount to put their own milk away, because I just didn't have the time any more. I took back the discount the next month. I saved myself an hour and a half not putting milk away. A good fresh product, a good attitude and having everything the customer wanted was the key to my success. I settled on a reasonable markup around 21% and I was doing OK. I should have and could have gone up to 23%. I'd finish my route in Nyack doing Restaurants and Deli's. The Coven Cafe, a gay bar would be one of my last stops. It was run by a couple of women who were the nicest people on earth to me. They gave me a part time job there in 93-94 when I was considering going to culinary school.

     I may have talked about how I sold the business, but I will again. I was in Valley Cottage Deli, it was January 2000. The Bonamola's were selling the Deli after more than forty years and I was a little insecure about keeping the stop. A gentleman named Joe Castle walks up to me in the Deli and introduced himself. He handed me his card and says he works for Consolidated Dairies and if I am ever interested in selling I should call and ask for either him, Johnny or George. At that time I considered Consolidated the enemy. They were an outside company that had come into the county a few years ago with cheap prices and I didn't like or trust them. I took the card from the guy, I wasn't very pleasant, I think. I don't know what happened to start me down the road to sell the business. At the time I was 42. I was married to Teri for five years and I had worked through the last economic downturn and I saw another one coming. Things were good and I didn't want that to end. I remember Teri wanting me to change and she might of said hear them out. So on an unremembered day I called and talked to Johnny at Consolidated Dairies. They invited me down to Union NJ to see their operation. I said I could be there at four, I think it was a Friday some time in January 2000. I stopped my route in the middle after all the important stops had been done and not changing my dirty work clothes I got in my very new Ford Mustang Convertible and drove down the Garden State Parkway to talk to some strangers about selling a business I'd been in all my life.

     I remember driving down the Garden State Parkway. The Road not too busy. I came to exit 142 and started to get nervous. I didn't want to make a wrong turn and get lost. The way to the plant was easy and I made it without getting lost or being late. I don't really remember the interview too much. I talked with George and maybe Johnny. George was friendly, Johnny was a little standoffish, I think. The interviews went well and I think they offered me a job and to purchase my business. George told me to get a price and we would talk. After the interview I went home and finished my route, or as much as I could. I don't remember being happy, sad or excited.

     At a local Diner called PBJ in West Nyack that weekend Teri and I ran into George Drescher and his wife. George worked for the town highway department. He and his wife were just finishing up their breakfast. I asked about how to get a job with the Town. He said when I went in to ask for the blue application. I never did. The Job offer from Consolidated I couldn't turn down. The Money in retrospect was not a lot, but it was more than I was making and George true to his work said I'd make more money and work less, which is what I did. My Salary started at $29,000, I sold the business to Consolidated Dairies for $40,000.00, half going to my Mom and the other half I invested in the stock market and as I predicted a down turn in the economy took a good chunk of that money. In 2003, We moved into the house in Congers the remains of the money went into the down payment for the house. I added some money to the stock money and it was still less then $16,000.00 at that point.

     The first few days at Consolidated I delivered milk in a Consolidated Truck with an older guy named Joe driving it, doing my route. After a while I asked how I could end this? I was told to integrate it into existing routes. I did this with surprising speed.

     My first day full day as a salesman, I remember driving a red Ford Explorer. It was nice and had running boards on it. I drove around to some of my stops wearing an ill fitting collared shirt. I'd rarely worn them in the past and they never fit well. All those years of lifting milk, I guess. I switched to golf shirts and jeans shortly after that. I worked hard some days and other days I didn't. As long as my customers were taken care of and they were, no one cared what I did. I'd slip off to a movie a couple times a month during the day or take an extra long lunch. I was working less and getting paid more. I'd get home about four in the afternoon to make dinner for Teri at six.

     One Summer during a week, maybe ten days there was a thunderstorm every day just after I'd get home. I'd sit on the porch in Nyack and watch it, then go in to make dinner. We would move in 2003 to Congers.

     On some of the bad days I'd have to get up at three-thirty in the morning because some driver decided to call in lazy, I mean sick and I'd take up the slack. During the early two-thousands, I had to teach this driver a school route. He wanted to start early. So never sleeping well when I had to do a route I told him We would meet in Union at Two AM and go. I remember watching this TV show called Judging Amy on Thursday night at Ten, then leaving the house for Union. I slept sorta in my car at the depot while waiting for him. This went on for over a week and after a while I got into a routine. After I finished the route I'd go home and not to sleep right away, but soon after. The longer I did it the easier it got to work nights. It was still a thousand times worse then working during the day. The High of the day was around nine AM, after we were done and I was home in a quiet house. It was bright and sunny and I was done with work and everyone else wasn't! Then I'd get tired and sleep the rest of the day away., waking up around four in the afternoon missing the beautiful day.

     Sometime around 2004 Consolidated Dairy decided to move out of Union, and go to Wallington New Jersey and switch from Tuscan to Farmland Dairy.

At the time the move seemed to be a no brainer. Farmland, run by Paramalot, an Italian Company that received money from the Italian government had 'misplace' a billion dollars and run Farmland into the ground and needed the business. Consolidated Dairy got what looked like a sweetheart deal. Ten years later, not so much, but then it looked great. We got rid of storage trailers, got a real warehouse of  our own. The nice fresh, just bottled milk would come from the plant next door. We had tons of room to store other products and load trucks.

Farmland- We were off to the right of the flag and back

     The repercussions started immediately. At Tuscan in Union we had a contract with Dairy Queen to deliver all their mix in the metro area. Farmland had bottled the original mix, so the company supplying us with the new mix cancelled our contract. George the President of Consolidated Dairy went about spending money to fix up all the trucks and then some. Salesmen, myself included gave equipment to customers without asking if it was okay. If it got a customer, they got one. Vast amounts of equipment disappeared. The Company, Big Apple Refrigeration selling it to us delivered it and if a salesmen didn't get a signed contract for it, the refrigeration was gone. I did that several times. I thought the refrigeration company delivering the unit got the paperwork.
     The end of my career at Consolidated started when George bought in a new management team near the end of 2004. They were this group of hot shots with that city attitude. I listened and did what I was told to do, keep my head down and work, I'd be okay, I didn't like the changes.
    I was affected by the changes. I lost my office space.  I slammed walls and draws as I cleaned out my office. Not a good thing, when I was not given another.I ignored that hint. Then Michael Gottberg gave me space in his office and all was fine.
     One Day in March 2005 after coming off a route I was called into one of the bosses offices and I hear him say 'this is never easy', half to himself and half to me. I'd never been fired, not since I was sixteen. I know it was coming, but I couldn't believe it was going to happen. I'd done nothing wrong! I stood there and listened to the words coming out of his mouth and couldn't believe them. I asked if it was immediate or did I get two weeks. I don't remember what he said.
     After He fired me I sat around the office with all my stuff for a while. I didn't know what to do. I was in my late forties and I'd never had this happen to me before. After a while, Michael Gottberg said why don't I go home, there's no reason to stay, so I did. I don't remember how the company car was returned. I do remember there was no reason to stay around. I received no severance. It was just see you later. I didn't even talk to George about being let go. I was told changes had to be made if the company was going to survive and I understood on one level. On another, I was mad and deeply hurt. I knew if they cut staff I might be gone. The ranking of salesmen was Johnny, an owner, Ronnie, a close friend of ownership who'd been there forever, and then I felt I fit in third. I thought massive layoffs were ahead. A recent hire in the transport dept was the next and only other firing I'd hear of. I think I went because of the amount of money I made. I was on a commission plan and had raised my salary from $62,000 up to $75,000 under it and it was too much money for them to spend at the time. It was March 2, 2005.
     I'd never been unemployed before. So I swore I would continue to get up at the same time I always did and to keep busy. I knew Teri would not put up with me staying in bed to all hours.So on day one I was up at 7 am and was out of the house by 8 and over to my mom's. The Time over at her house would grow until I was there until almost lunch time when I would go home to have a salad and write. I'd always fancied myself a frustrated writer. I felt with the right motivation and the right amount of time I could write a novel. So with the opportunity at hand I sat down to become a writer.
      The Novel was going to be a three parter. I would write the middle book and come back to write the first and third later. Book Two would start out with the appearance of a mysterious Uncle who'd not been seem in many years. He needs his nephews, young kids help to get back to this land of enchantment he'd left or was thrown out of. Only the young or young at heart could get there, sort of like the song toyland. How You get there would be mysterious. The Kids would wake up to a quiet house bathed in half light and as long as they stayed out of the dark places they would not fall back to sleep and could go to this amazing place. One of the kids a younger one would reach into the darkness for a cookie or something and kind of fall into the darkness asleep. To be found on the floor at daybreak cookie in hand with no idea how he got there and where his brother and sister were.
     Outside the house the land would be transformed into this dessert with tall flowing sand dunes. It was like the house had been transported to this land. Not exactly 'Wizard of Oz' style. The Uncle old with a large belly, would step out into the sand and becomes young again, around fifteen or sixteen, full of life. The Group would head to the Hookah Palace in the capital city to smoke from the pipes of the mystics. Under the spell of the Hookah they would see visions. You could only stay in this land if you smoked the hookah. If You didn't Your image would slowly fade away and people could no longer see or hear you. What happened after that no one knew. The Story would be filled with drug references.
     After the Hookah Palace, the group would head to the camp of the Uncle's friends to stop the invaders conquest. A part of the group would get detoured into the land of the dead, while others would track the marauders, while a third group held the attacker at bay.
     At that point I made a serious mistake. Instead of continuing with the story, I decide to go back and edit it. Stephen King always said he liked to put the story away for awhile and let it age, get a little distance from it before he edited it. When I went back to read it and edit it I got lost in the process and couldn't get back on track with it. So like a lot of my efforts toward things I put it aside and over time it was lost. It didn't help that I wrote some of it by hand and some of it was on a computer that I got rid of. One day I will get back to that mystical land.
     As an aside, book One was about the original group of friends who got together after school in the sixties to watch movies on channel 4 and channel 7 from 4:30 to 6 (there really was a movie on at those times in the 60's). The three or four friends, about fourteen, one was a girl and there was a younger brother who wanted to be part of the movies and the adventure also. They would watch the movies and it was a special event when it was an adventure week or an Errol Flynn week. Each person had a wooden sword and a nick name from an Errol Flynn movie or an action movie. The Leader, Tommy who had the younger brother and it was their house the movies were watched it, (In the kids TV room, Four walls with a couch, an old chair or two and a lamp that Mikey would always break) Tommy had chosen the name Captain Blood from the movie Captain Blood. Tommy had even perfected an Errol Flynn accent. Tommy's brother, Billy was Captains Courageous, a Spence Tracy film ,but that was OK. Jeannie choose Sir Guy from the adventures of Robin Hood  because she liked the way he fought and she thought the actor looked like her father. All the guys called her Maid Marian because it got under her skin. Mikey kept changing his name because he could never find one that he liked all the time.
They would have sleepovers together. At the last ones, Tommy and Billy's parents didn't know how much longer it would be proper for a group of young boys to have sleepovers with a girl, That Night they discover the mystic lands. They are introduced to Gunga Din. He introduces them to the Hookah Palace. Their Adventure brings them in contact with the Rebels. During their battles Billy is captured or killed. No One is sure. Mikey goes back to the real world disillusioned by Tommy's actions and Billy missing. Jeannie stays, but has been hurt, disillusioned by all the killing of the rebels for unclear reasons. She disappears.
     Book Two-Three brings Mikey back with his nieces and nephews, but he is a different person, he's grown up, He looks at Tommy, his lifelong friend like he is a stranger.
     Mikey's nieces and nephews are ready for an adventure. Tommy reveals he has been to the edge of the world and it is dying, disappearing, becoming smaller. Tommy insists before they leave they must defeat the rebels and stop the world from destroying itself. After several intense battles, they discover an older, wiser Billy is leading the rebels. Jeannie is with him. A final showdown happens destroying both armies. Gunga Din announces to both armies that the sickness destroying the World started the day the kids arrived. The Rebels knew this and were trying to eliminate the sickness. The Kids have to leave this world for it to heal itself.
     I never finished the first story and so I never got to the next two books. I got a Job in August of 2005 with Marcus Dairy and walked away from the mess the story had become.
     In late July, I'd been out of work for five months. Teri was getting antsy thinking I'd never go back to work. She saw a vague job advertisement for sales help in Northern Westchester and NYC. I didn't want to answer a vague ad, but she said what could I lose, so I did. I received a phone call asking if I could meet for lunch and talk about a working for Marcus Dairy. I was asked if a certain day was a good day to meet for an interview. I agreed and decided to clean the Mustang before I went to make me feel more comfortable about the drive up. I arrived a little early and was introduced to Tom Schiappa. He was a tall graying man, who was very polite and in retrospect He was working off a plan out of his book of plans that he used for life. We talked in the office for a while, then He asked if I'd like to go to lunch and he made up an excuse to ride in my car. Tom had long legs and the Mustang was close to the ground. An older inexperienced person getting into to it was a chore, but he managed, while I silently cringed while he got in hoping nothing would happen to dampen my job prospects. We ate lunch and talked. Afterwards We went back to the Office where I think he offered me a job. The Salary was only $62,000.00, I'd been making $75,000.00. He said I could make it up quickly enough, I never did. After a little hemming and hawing I agreed.
      It also turns out he rode in my car to see how I kept my car. He figured if Marcus Dairy was going to give me a car he wanted it kept nice. I would start Monday August 5th, 2005.
     I didn't know what I'd gotten myself into. Over the next eight years I'd find out. The first few day I  spent at the office in Danbury CT. I'd been to Danbury once and on my first morning of work I got into my car and set off for the office. I was in a state of slight anxiety and when I get excited and things go wrong I panic a little and start to get up tight and my decision making can be poor. In the age of GPS, it is rare to find yourself lost, this was pre that. I crossed the Tappan Zee bridge and I remember missing my exit or at least thinking I'd missed it and turned around. I remember getting on the Saw Mill to hit Rt 84 east.
It was the longest route I could of taken to Danbury. Instead of taking about 45 minutes, it was in the neighborhood of an hour and a half. I receive a call from Tom about half an hour after I was supposed to be there asking, nicely if I knew I was supposed to be at work today. I told him yes, that I just took a wrong turn. It was a bad way to start our relationship, I should have called when I knew I'd be late. I just thought I might make it on time and when it got late, I thought I should have called earlier.
    When I got there, the atmosphere was relaxed. I hung out with Tom. He wanted to show me how things worked at Marcus. I remember Heather, his girl Friday (it's an expression meaning she does everything he wants and it's expected she'll do it right) walking in at some point saying there was an unhappy customer on the phone, I think complaining about sour milk, one of my pet peeves. It might of been in my territory, I don't remember, I just remember saying "Do You want me to take it?" That was how high my confidence was at the time. I was a successful milk salesman and I could do it all. I soft talked her and resolved the problem. The next day or so I went out with Gary the guy I was going to replace. He picked me up in Nyack and We spent the day visiting all his customers. He was on such good terms with them that it reminded me of the relationship my Dad had with his and I felt I could have. We end that day, I think at the office. There was an undercurrent of tension in the relationship between Gary and Tom, but I just dismissed it. It didn't concern me.
     The only problem, from my point of view was his margins were out of whack with the rest of the industry. He wanted a premium price for what essentially at this time was a commodity. Milk everywhere was the same product. Only the label was different. You stayed with a company out of habit or loyalty, not because the milk tasted any better then the guy's down the street.  Milk salesmen, if anyone had stopped to think were at this time in the midst of destroying loyalty and habit making every customer a price whore or at best just ignoring you when you came into solicit their business.
      The next Incident that should have sent red flags flying was the first of the month price changes. Unlike Consolidated Dairies everything went through Tom. It was the way it should work in a company. The problem as stated before was Tom had lost the feel for the street. He didn't know what was happening out there. After the price change, which was steep, he yells at me that I'm taking away his margins. I probably didn't say anything. I should have said others companies will come in and take all of these really good stops Gary has collected, and they were good.
     One by one as the days, weeks and months passed these wonderful stops disappeared. I did my best, but it wasn't good enough. I would cut my price and hand the price change to him, he'd yell. I'd spend extra time with my customers and not solicited new customers, he'd yell, "You're not a social director". And finally I'd lose a customer and he'd yell. I talked to a Salesmen who worked Connecticut, he said it was difficult picking up new customers because most everyone had been served by Marcus and would never come back. Tom was a what have you done for me lately guy.
      I rarely would win. This was my biggest, I started stopping into a former customer named Eddie. He ran a Supermarket for a Mr Lee. He'd been forced to change suppliers from us to an other milk company. I'd tell Tom about my visits and he'd say, "Don't waste time with him, there's nothing there." I felt other wise and I liked him. He was a Yankees fan and we'd talk baseball. After a few months of this he announced that he was going to open a group of Supermarkets and I was about to have my biggest win. Tom in his usual way had to take the lead on it, which was OK. I would  just cringe at his dated shtick. (look it up, it's Yiddish for a gimmick or comic routine)  Tom's used complements that were very see through, He'd say how do you keep this place so clean, but it wasn't extra special clean. His Sales routine had become dated and transparent. Tom would always say, if I went against you, I 'd clean up. I believed him then because I didn't believe in myself and Tom was a bully. We ended up getting the stop and for a while life was good.
     Life at Marcus Dairy was very different from anything I'd ever experienced. Whenever a bid came out at Consolidated, Ronnie would make it out and I would pick it up and go to it alone. At Marcus for the most part I always went with Tom. The only one I went alone on was one way up state, just south of Utica. On these bids, with Tom, we would always have lunch in a diner. Tom would almost always make the lunch uncomfortable. It got to a point that it was difficult to eat my stomach would be in such a knot.  On One Occasion I was asked to join Tom on a bid I hadn't been with him on. I think it was after a bid for the Newburgh school district. I'd had lunch, and when I joined him, he was in a good mood because We'd won the bid. He was starving and I guess he didn't want to eat alone. He kept pushing me to get something to eat. He didn't want to eat alone or have someone sit at the table while he ate. The thought that always makes me crazy is Tom and I could of been good friends, if he had not been my boss. If We'd been Neighbors, he'd help me on different projects I'd do around my house, like paint the house. I'd be suitable impressed at his lawn mower from the 1960's and how clean and well maintained it was. We'd be good neighbors, there for each other.
     I imagine Tom always pictured himself as a father figure to us all. He would lord over us as a benevolent dictator, only yelling at us when we had strayed from our appointed tasks.
     I was at Marcus Dairy from 2005 to 2013, about eight years. In that time I quit at least four times.
I don't remember the specifics of all of them, but one time I was talking to Tom on the phone, I think I was in Brooklyn. The conversation from him got very abusive and it got to the point that I yelled into the phone, "I QUIT!!" and I threw the phone down onto the floor of the passengers side of the car. I refused to answer the phone for a while and I don't ever remember him apologizing to me for anything he ever did or said and he didn't when I picked up the phone again finally. I think we both acted like it didn't happen and he was a little nicer. Of course it didn't last. Another time he got me so upset I called George from Consolidated and asked him if he had an opening. There was a time George called me and asked me if I wanted to work for him. Life at Marcus was OK at the time and I politely declined the offer. I should of run screaming from Marcus Dairy on that day. I did tell Tom about the offer hoping it might moderate his behavior toward me, it didn't. He seemed to never let anything change the way he did business.
At the very start, Teri told me when I wasn't happy to quit, I had little invested, but I couldn't. I had a sick loyalty to my employer, any employer that gave me a job and a check. I just found it difficult to leave. I had never left a job in my life up until 2013.
     It started in the winter of 2012, December to be exact. I had a good December. I'd brought in some good business and I noticed Tom was calling me, Joey. It was a small change, but something like that denotes a change in a person's behavior or out look, so I enjoyed it and tried to keep doing what I'd been doing.It didn't last.
     Sometime around the middle of January, 'Joey' was gone and it was back to Joe and I could see his anger beginning to build towards me again. I don't remember when the call came, but I received a call from George at Consolidated Dairies. I missed it and had to call him back. He asked me if I was interested in coming to work for him again. He gave me the standard speech about having a great team of guys and I'd really fit in. He invited me to visit the office.
     I knew I had to get out of Marcus. It was sometime in February or the beginning of March and I was having trouble picking up accounts. I worked as hard as usual, but the accounts weren't coming. Tom's good will toward me had long since disappeared and he would regularly rage.
   I ran across Paul, another Marcus salesman in, I think Beacon. We both go into a stop that I thought was impossible to get. He engages them and the both of us are signing up this new group of three stops. We are late getting into the office that night and Tom yells at us that we are supposed to be in the the office by 4 pm. He didn't care that we had picked up three stops, I had also asked Paul if I could have them because I'd hit a cold spot and needed them. They would turn out to be short lived victories.
      My Heart beat fast as I headed down to Consolidated after work at Marcus. The Offices at Consolidated were filled with people as I walked in around 6 pm. It was familiar, at the same time it was different. The Offices were the same. George was at the end of the hall, as he always was, but Johnny's office had someone else in it and the scariest realization was Ronnie's office didn't have him in it. I'd always pictured Ronnie as the heart and soul of the company. He talked with everyone from the owner to the drivers. He spoke Spanish he'd learned on the streets as a kid to the drivers and he knew everyone. He was the glue. I walk down the hall to George's office. I shake hands with everyone I know and I am introduced to the faces I didn't know. For the next hour or so we talk about old times and people. Finally I receive an offer of employment. I accept.it. George tells me my new bosses will take me out to dinner. Back in 2000 when George said he was going to take me out to dinner, I kept putting it off. This time I wanted to make a better impression and accepted the offer. Ronnie's son, Randy was my new direct boss. Jordan Litz was the office manager, both nice guys and I was to meet them the next week on route 17 around 6 pm for dinner. I got the impression no one wanted to be there, but it was their job and I wanted to fit it and be there for the rest of my working life.
    We ate steak, I stayed away from alcohol, as did they. We had a pleasant conversation and a good meal. It was over in under forty-five minutes. A good start to my new career at my last employer.
    Now came the rough part. I had to give my two week notice. I walked into the office on a Friday. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Tom required his salesmen to be in the office and report directly to him the activities each salesmen had accomplished over the last 24- 48 hours. I wanted to go first. Of course he calls me last.
     When He finally calls me, I go down the hallway to his office, my heart pounds in my chest. I don't leave jobs. I'd never done this before. I sit down in the chair opposite his desk. I think I'd written or typed out a letter telling Tom I was leaving, giving two weeks notice and how I'd enjoyed my time at Marcus and how I'd learned to be a better salesmen. All the right things to do. He asks me if he could change my mind, I say no. He is nothing if not a gentlemen and for the next two weeks he treats me well. If He had treated me this way all the time I never would of left!
    Sometime during the two weeks I am asked where I am going? I wasn't prepared for the question and I lie and say US Foods in New Jersey. My first mistake, I should of said I rather not say. I just didn't know what to say. I make several more mistakes on my way out the door. The biggest one, trying to be a good guy, I tell Paul, a fellow salesman and supposed friend what salary I am making. He was there longer and I made more. I want to help him so he can get a raise, big mistake. He tells Tom I told him what I was making when he talks to him. Big Mistake. Never try to be a nice guy to former co-workers, always think of the former company and leave on good terms.
     Life at Consolidated was more relaxed and I still worked hard.It is true, you can never go home again because it was different and not like the old company. George was there, but Johnny was gone, working for other companies, Michael had done something and George had fired him and Ronnie left to get away from the pressure of running the sales. His son, Randy had taken over. A nice guy, but I got the impression he did a lot of staying home work. The  Litzs had taken over running the company. A Father and Son, nice people,just not milk people. The Father, Frank Litzs was big picture guy, very cerebral, always thinking about what this fact and that fact together would do to the big picture. He also liked to talk, but he might of been too hesitant to act.
     The first and biggest problem I found when I returned was the product that was once so good was trash. It always leaked and was poor quality. It got to the point I was talking to the salesmen for Farmland trying to get the product to come in in better shape. I even took pictures and sent them to him. It would get a little better, then back slide. I was told the environment over there had become toxic and anyone with knowledge kept their heads down to stay out of the line of fire.
     While at Consolidated I picked up a real nice grocery in Spring Valley. I shared it with Elmhurst Dairy and Johnny Gottberg. And I always had to hustle to keep it. If they forgot to order milk, I bought it to them. Around Christmas the Dairy manager hinted about where his bottle was. Without missing a step, I asked him what flavor he liked and bought him a bottle of Vodka out of my own money.
     I even did deliveries to Nursing Homes I picked up out on Long Island. I knew people at Prime Source, a nursing home supply company we did business with. One time around four in the afternoon I get a call from the guy I knew saying this nursing home in Westchester didn't get some product. I tried to tell him it was too late, but he kept at it. So I loaded up milk from the warehouse in Wallington NJ and drove it over the bridge to the eastern side of Westchester. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but then I felt it was. I got to the Nursing Home around 5:30,well after the traffic coming home had started. I got a thank you from the guy running the kitchen and left. I hoped actions such as these would help me to keep my job and to make customers feel the a loyalty to me and my company, it didn't. Most Customer's felt that if they had to call the salesman to get them product they ordered,something was wrong with that company. I didn't see it that way. Every time I jack assed out to Long Island I thought I was cementing the relationship. The Nursing Home was looking for a more reliable supplier.
     The End of Consolidated Dairies came at the end of October 2015. Before Our time several weaker milk companies had gone under. The first company to go under was a major surprise, Beyer Farms. It was the major supplier of milk to New York City and always seemed to be in complete control. In early 2003, with Consolidated at Farmland, we heard Garalick had given all there business in the City to Beyer.A debate had ensued between George and Frank Litzs wither it was good for Garalick or Beyer. It turned out it was better for Garalick. They had gotten over extended, Garalick cut them off and the Unions chocked changes. After They went under, law suites followed and the price of milk dropped 50 cents a gallon, sending more companies toward the precipice. I didn't know Consolidated was that close to the edge. I just revealed in the orgy of signing up former Beyer stops. In two days I signed up several school districts on Long Island, one in Jersey City, lots of business. Three Nursing Homes in upper Manhattan with a combined bill of over $10,000.00 a week. By the beginning of the next week it was all gone. Cream O Land took it.
      We had a meeting at the end of the day. All the new faces in the offices gave away what the meeting was about. The Sky grew October dark and overcast as the meeting started. Everyone was pleasant and everyone who wanted a job with Cream O Land would get one. It looked like a savior had come to free us all. Everyone had to sign a non-compete contract. At first I balked, remembering Ronnie saying he'd never sign one unless they gave him something for doing it. After I questioned, I think the head of the sales department about it he calmly told me they were just protecting their business and he added some other thoughts. My Mind blanked on me, like it sometimes does in stressful situations and I couldn't think of a reply, so I signed, knowing it was a mistake,but I also knew, no signature, no job.
     The last day of Consolidated Dairies was very sad. I went to the Offices and warehouse,they were all empty. Piles of bi-product carts were piled in one corner of the parking lot by the building.Piles of other useless equipment were next to it desks, chairs, white boards. All things I thought, "Wow, why are they throwing that out." And just like when I closed Muller Dairy, anything in that pile I want, I thought, "I have no desire to own any of this." It funny, later I would want stuff from Consolidated Dairy, just like with Muller Dairy.
     The parameters of my job at Cream O Land were vague at best. I knew the business, but I had a problem, I didn't know where my territory was. I asked my new boss, he replied that I should ask so and so in the office. I guess even he didn't know.
     I went out every day, like I'd always done. I'd start my day around 9AM taking care of any problems and all the while look for business. I knew there was little to no business to be had in my territories. I'd been patrolling it for years and I knew most of the business in it. Or maybe I was just lost. There was no one to guide me and get me comfortable in the company. The Company was 102 miles away. The first Week or so at the company I was told I had to go down to the company for a few days to get known and feel what it was like there. The First day I get down there everyone is friendly,I say hello to the few Consolidated Dairy leftovers and generally have an awful day. I was never meant to be inside and I didn't like it. I was scheduled to come in a second day, I don't remember if it was the next day, but I had a nursing home that I needed to see or I felt it was going to leave. I took care of it plus a few other stops and by the time I start down to Cream O Land it is after 1 PM. I call the guy who routes the trucks, Scott. He is the guy I am supposed to report to when I got there. He is known as the maniac, throws temper tantrums and generally being a royal jerk. His Voice is tense when I call him and tell him it makes no sense for me to come down at this hour and maybe I shouldn't. He'd given me permission to take care of the Nursing Home issue. He agrees and that is the end of it, or was it? I'm sure that one incident didn't lead to me being fired, it was a combination of a lot of things. Top of the list was my inability to bring in new business. I was dedicated, hard working, but my results didn't show it. I heard a salesman who worked for an other company Cream O Land absorbed say, "Oh working here is great, You don't have to do anything and they don't bother you." I thought that couldn't be true because the company was so well run.
     Cream O Land had absorbed several Dairies or at least taken their business over when they had gone out and there were about ten dairies that had gone under up to that time, more would follow. Cream O Land was crafty. They had people who knew the right people and as each of these companies went under they would take the cream and leave the rest. The perfect example being when I picked up all those Nursing Homes in southern Westchester, the Bronx and upper Manhattan. Someone who knew the guy at the top, maybe they were in the same country club or golfed at the same course, whatever it was they had connections and it didn't matter that my prices were better they chose Cream O Land. So remember Children and I hate to pollute your minds like this because it's like telling you about Santa Claus (Oh, don't worry,he's fine) but and let's all say this together, "IT'S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW, IT'S WHO YOU KNOW" well at least in a situation like this one anyway.
     The End of my Cream O Land career came the first week of January 2014. I do thank Cream O Land for waiting until the new year to do this.
      The Day started out well, I got a call from a Chef who worked at a stop I used to be the Salesmen for. He was over seeing the kitchen in a Nursing Home in Manhattan. I went in talked to him and it looked real good that I was going to get the stop. He was going to talk to the powers that be and I was to call him in a day or so. As I walked out of the building my phone rings, it's my boss, my real boss. He asks if I can get to the Dairy in an hour. I tell him I am in Manhattan and it will be a little longer then that, but yes I can be there. I feel a hole in my stomach form, but I dismiss it. Once You have been fired from a career job, you are always looking around the corner to see if it is coming again. After I brush it off I get into my Company Car, the Ford Escape and start down to Cream O Land. During the hour and change drive down there a couple of times it crosses my mind they might be calling me down there to fire me. Each Time I dismiss it. They haven't fired any of the previous salesmen, why now. Around Lunch, one O'Clock I arrive. I am asked to wait in the boss's office and do. The wait turns out to be maybe twenty minutes which I think is strange. He walks in with a few other people and I know he doesn't say it, but I could swear I hear the works, "This is never easy..." I don't remember exactly what he said, it was something like we have to let you go. I immediately go into shock. I'm thinking, not again, it can't be happening again. He is talking and I start to try and listen. The Guy on the Radio said it was important to try and listen even though you don't want to. I don't feel anger, I'm numb, I feel nothing. I hear them say something and the car is bought up. I remember saying, "You take my job and your leaving me with a car payment?" In the long run I would need the car, It would run well and I would drive it daily until I gave it to my daughter in 2018 with over 155,000 miles on it. I don't think I ask, but I think the firing was immediate. I might of been paid for the full week, but I doubt it. I ask one last favor before I leave. I used most of  a tank of gas to get there would they let me buy one to get home. He says expense it, I did. I'd also had Ford do a transmission check and replace the fluid, it was expensive, but I thought with all the problems of that model of car it was a good idea, not knowing I would be fired soon after. To Me it looked suspicious. I thought they might not pay it. To Their Credit, they paid my expense report in full
     OK, for the second time in my life I am unemployed. The first Time the world was different. There were Milk Companies to apply to and I was only in my forties. This Time over a dozen Milk Companies had gone out of business and I was fifty-seven years old. I should have been in the middle of my max earning years, but I was for all intents and purposes starting over. I was disgusted with the milk business. It had always been a jealous lover. Whatever I gave it it would always want more. I gave it my childhood, it demanded my teenage and early twenties, she got it. When It became unbearable after my Father's death and I threatened to leave, it became scared and attentive. I wanted more and she gave me my job at Consolidated. I foolishly became comfortable and even started to love her again when she took away the best job I'd ever had. I was hooked and couldn't imagine going anywhere else. I went to Marcus Dairy, the abusive bitch of the milk industry and I suffered her taunts and sarcasm. She would continually tell me I was no good and could be replaced easily. I was her bitch for five years.When I finally left, the milk business had one more trick up her sleeve. She gave me back Consolidated. She wasn't the young lover I'd been torn from years earlier. She was a well used, over played down trodden madam that didn't know her life would soon be over. We both worked together hard that final go around until she let go of life and again I was left in the hands of a company that was not a lover, but a cold uninterested bitch. She wanted to know what I could do for her and she had no interest in returning any love to me. When She found me lacking, she would toss me aside and not think twice about. By then I was a beaten man.
      In the Summer of 2008 when I arrived at Marcus Dairy I felt I could do anything for the company I was joining. I took that phone call not knowing the risks it might carry because I knew my job. I knew that if I talked gently, but firmly I would win the day. Now seven years later I wanted nothing to do with the milk business or even selling. In my years there I'd seen the vast majority of clients change from customers who looked at you like partners to whores who asked what have you done for me lately. I WAS THROUGH WITH IT.
      Well not totally. I hooked up with George from Consolidated to collect some outstanding bills owed the dairy. I would go as far south as southern New Jersey to collect the monies owed to the Dairy. I made some tax free money, but with the miles I put on the car it was not really worth it. It kept me busy while I decided on my next move. I think I was sending out resumes, but it would have been with my usual enthusiasm for the task,  very lacking. 
    One Day I went to The Crystal Spoon to collect some money owed. The Crystal Spoon came out of nowhere one afternoon when I was still at Marcus Dairy. Tom gave it to me to investigate. It turned out to be a large stop that did over a thousand dollars of milk a week. Mostly half pints. They paid regularly, but Tom was suspicious of them and kept their credit tight. Which infuriated me. Well, Tom was right eventually. After I left Marcus I picked up The Crystal Spoon as a customer for Consolidated and after Consolidated went out, they stilled owed money. Money that would never be repaid.
     On this particular day I walked in, sat down in the chair next to Roger desk, the bookkeeper. I asked for some money after we had chatted some. Roger said I need to talk to Paul first. I walk into his office saying good afternoon, Roger said I had to talk to you about money. Paul asks me to sit down and he proceeds to offer me a job selling frozen meal services to places like nursing homes and day care centers. I'm interested and after a little thought and reservations about the job being 100% commission I took it. Why not I was out and about anyway. So that was the start of my career at The Crystal Spoon. It  changed later that month when the person doing insurance meals billing quit. Paul, ever the opportunist offers me his job. We agree on a salary I would get paid even if I am not in the office, figuring I'd be doing a lot of selling. Things change.
     As of January 11, 2019 that is the end of my life in the milk business. I still work at The Crystal Spoon, but I don't leave the office to do sales. If I had a reason, I could, but Insurance meals has grown to be busy. It's still part time and I don't get paid much, but it is rewarding. Where can you go do your job and have someone say God bless you. But all I did was my job. It's really nice. More pay would make it even nicer. I make in a week at The Crystal Spoon what I used to make in a day at Marcus.














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