dear on the milk carton

check the eggnog -
that story wandered up and down so many walkways i could hardly keep up --
merry christmas

On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 9:02 PM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> At 11:40 AM 12/18/2014, Alistair Bell wrote:
>
>> All the little loose bits and bobs seem to elevate then come back
>> down in different locations.
>>
>
> I was a milkman for a few months in southern Maine/New Hampshire in
> winter and spring of 1978.  In fact I delivered milk on my shortest
> of three routes during that severe storm that became known as the
> Blizzard of '78 a few miles south of there.  It was much worse in
> Boston, but quite a storm where I was nonetheless.  My dad owned a
> small boathouse which he loaded up with head-size rocks so it
> wouldn't float away at the height of tide.  And my visiting aunt kept
> giving me the strangest looks when I stopped in at Dad's house which
> was on my route.  Ten minutes later I started to strip off in the
> bathroom and discovered she'd put a handful of ice cubes down my back.
>
> All of which has exactly nothing to do with my point; I just like to
> boast.  Point is that H.P. Hood dairy company sold me a clapped-out
> old F-500 reefer van with top speed regulated to 45 mph and no
> shocks.  Literally none, no place even to mount them.  Also a brake
> line repaired with copper, but again that's another story.  Don't do
> that! should suffice for now, or "work hardening" for the technically
> inclined.
>
> I of course was full of beans and speed; and quickly turned the wick
> up as much as I could (it was my truck, nothing to stop me, nor
> require me to mention it to the company mechanic on tap for
> $20/day).  And the roads were full of frost heaves.  45 mph turned
> out to be just right for the rear axle to launch itself just as the
> yoghurt cups had turned over and were descending.  They'd hit with a
> crunch and split, or the tops come off.  Over a few days it would
> also start leaks in the bottom corners of the glued-paper cartons,
> especially the half-gallon ones.  To this day I always check the
> corners before buying a carton of dairy-stoffe.
>
> Here in Providence there are a couple of dairy companies that deliver
> in the city still.  But H.P.Hood saw the writing on the wall for
> suburban and rural routes back in the mid-'70s.  They fired their
> drivers and sold them their own routes back under a carefully
> thought-out plan to shift the risk to the drivers.  You had to put up
> some cash and agree to operate the route for four months.  They'd
> give you a note for the truck at low interest, maintain a spare
> driver and spare truck you could rent separately or together, collect
> leads for you, teach you the route, help you get commercial
> insurance.  You had seven days credit at the loading dock, and you
> could keep the truck plugged in there for a dollar a day if you
> chose. And if you did it for four months and didn't like it, they'd
> buy everything back and run it until they could sell it to someone
> else.  My three routes had given full employment to three men a
> decade before; I covered big chunks of Dover, Stratham, Exeter,
> Kittery, Eliot, Berwick, North Berwick, South Berwick.  270
> miles,  180 customers, 10 mpg, ten cents a quart gross markup on milk
> (but huge on ice cream and seasonal novelties); and as soon as a tiny
> restaurant or nursing home grew a fraction Wholesale would swoop in
> and beat your price.  That stung, and all they had to do was keep
> tabs on how many cows (6-gallon cartons) and half-pints and
> half-gallons of whipping cream you ordered.  But credit where due, I
> stabbed with a pin and paid myself $125 per week, and four months
> later our reconciliation came out even almost to a dime, including
> $250 depreciation on the truck.  Not much by the hour, but it was a
> living.  I saw more sunrises than before or since, and it was comical
> how traffic would yield to me**.  They did that for another ?decade?
> before wrapping up the operation completely.
>
> **And once a man stopped to help me out of a pickle.  He must have
> driven a delivery van, but he didn't say.  You could see straight
> back from inside, and everything from straight sideways on the right
> through ahead to straight aft on the left.  But the only way you
> could see the missing quadrant on the right side was to walk over to
> that side of the van and peer out the window.  I got wedged in a left
> entrance onto the Spaulding Turnpike and might be there yet.  So if
> you see me approaching acute entrances at 90 degrees, that's why.
>
> Yours,
> David
>

--
roger whittaker 604.414.6266

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