Viewed from Summer 2018
Selling Muller Dairy was about the biggest risk I ever took. From a distance of eighteen years, it doesn't seem as great as it was back then. Back then, Muller Dairy was everything I knew and everything I was. When I was born, my Dad delivered milk.
I started delivering milk at about five.I remember a transistor radio on the tray that served as a
desk in the Divco. When We drove slow I could hear the music. When the Truck went fast, maybe thirty-five, the static would get so bad I couldn't hear the music.
I remember waiting on a Christmas morning on my parents bed for my father to come back home. He'd gone out extra early to deliver milk to his customers. As We waited on their bed Christmas, out of site mere feet away.
I remember my dad asking Karl and I who would go to work with him on the truck. Karl would say he'd go, then I said I wanted to go also. Then Karl said, he'd stay home, then I said I didn't want to go. It went back and forth like that for a while. I wanted to go to work with Karl and my dad. I must of been five,six.
I remember my Mom getting sick, I don't remember what it was, maybe colitis, maybe something else. She spent time in the Hospital I remember. It was a weird time, I remember Karl and I delivering milk together with my Dad in Valley Cottage near Tolstoy foundation, alot of those houses.
I remember an other time,waking up on a Saturday morning, it was summer and I'd slept out with Mike in the tent. My Mom calling me to get me up to go to work with my dad, me not wanting to. What I now wouldn't give now to go.
The Years would pass and I would deliver milk. I turned sixteen and my mom got me a job at a typewriter repair shop. I still delivered milk. I got my license, I still delivered milk. I went to college at RCC, I still delivered milk. I was trapped.
I had delivered milk all my life and in the mid-80's I taking classes, part time at Iona College. I was also in therapy and it was deep at the time. At the end of classes, I was three courses away from getting my degree and I couldn't, no, I thought there was no reason to go back, so I never did. I let Muller Dairy swallow me whole.
\ At the start of the 80's I wanted out. As the decade wore on, it became a safe place to be and when my dad died in February 1989, I was the owner. My Dad died because he smoked and he died at sixty-six. It was too early and I felt cheated and I was angry. During the next few years I was angry, sleepy and finally I was in a panic I'd loose the business. My Mom had sunk $40,000.00 into the business, I owed Hood Dairies $109,000.00 on weekly business of about $2,500.00 or so a week. I had killed the business. I had lose a few stops over my anger, I had not grown the business (Business, like relationships and sharks must always be moving forward and I think we have a died shark on our hands,- Anne Hall sorta) I had panicked over prices, cutting them thinking I'd lose a lifetime customer. I don't know what changed, but one day I decided to try and fix it. I got some stops back, I settled on a profit margin of about 22% and with an Angel looking over my shoulder I got a call from Mary Ann Connolly, who ran Meals on Wheels. She was impressed with my service and helped me get several Nursing Homes, I went into Nyack Manor, got them and suddenly I was doing $6,000.00 a week and life was good.
I started this piece because I went to The Crystal Spoon the other day and there was a dumpster full of stuff the place was throwing out. I look in to see what is in there and I see several milk cases in there. Like any good milk man I was a little enraged. People are always taking these cases, causing the cost of milk to rise and when they are done with them they throw them out instead of returning them.So I dug them out, stacked them for the milk company.
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