Delivering Milk for Delmar

 

In Memorium Alan Austin

 

I learned just the other day of the death of my brother-in-law Alan Austin. He was married to my sister Ruthanne, and they had three children before they divorced, my nieces and nephews.

He was at least three years older than I.  We went to the same high school and worked together at Western Electric in Lee’s Summit, Missouri before Uncle Sam interrupted my promising industrial career with a stint in the US Army.

Long before then, in an effort to provide an income for My sister’s family, The Old Man (Delmar O. Kauffman) decided that Alan should learn the milk delivery business.  The OM provided the truck and the contacts at Meyer’s Dairy and also provided me to show Alan the ropes.  Even at the tender age of 15 I was an experienced milkman.  The year was 1961 and Alan must have graduated in 1960.  

Now, working for the OM did have certain distinct advantages, but they were, in truth, few and far between.  You could stop at various coffee shops on the route and get coffee and a sweet roll and the OM would pay.  Stop, but only once, I may add.  They were greatly outranked by the disadvantages.  Firstly, my labor was not seen as a negotiable quality.  The pay was poor.  The working conditions were second-class. The early start was at a soul-destroying 0:500.  Finish time was when you finished, say about 14:00.   My task was to turn Alan into a cracker-jack milkman on a shoestring budget and in record time.  

Nevertheless, I attacked the job with my usual gusto.  At my young age, I did feel a certain pride in being selected for this responsible position.  After all, I loved my sister and I thought that Alan was an all-right guy.  I vowed to do my best.  

I was hampered by macro-economic factors of which  I was just too young and too disinterested to take any notice of.

“Recession of 1960-1961 (April 1960 to February 1961)

The 10-month recession saw the GDP drop by nearly 2% and unemployment peaked at 6.9%, while President John F. Kennedy spurred a rebound in 1961 with stimulus spending that included tax cuts and expanded unemployment and Social Security benefits.”

Perhaps this was not the most auspicious moment to start a new career (new, at least for Alan).

On the plus side, folks needed basic commodities like milk and in those days (I know this is hard to believe, you'll just have to take my word for it) most folks had their milk delivered by conscientious and hard-working men like me, the OM and Alan.

I believe home milk deliveries are now almost non-existent.

What Happened to The Milkman?

So why did home milk delivery start to decline?

There were also a few other factors: mainly, refrigeration and grocery stores.

By the 1930s and 1940s, almost every home had a refrigerator. Fridges replaced iceboxes- the first step in the decline of milk delivery.

The invention of refrigeration meant that people didn’t need milk delivered to their homes as often because they could keep it cold on their own.

It’s easy to see how home milk delivery went into decline. So why is it making a comeback now?

In a world where many things are processed and imported by big corporations, more people are becoming sceptical about where their food comes from. People have begun to focus more on buying local food.

One of the benefits of having milk delivered to your door is the comfort of knowing exactly where your milk is coming from.

You’re supporting your local dairy farmer, a valued community member just like you. When you spend money on local businesses, that money gets put back into your local economy instead of going to an out-of-state or out-of-country conglomerate.

Your milk hasn’t been sitting on a grocery store shelf for who knows how long. When you have milk delivered, it can go from the cow to your doorstep in as little as 24 hours!

 

What is for sure, there are now no milk deliveries in Kansas City or surrounding suburbs.

Damn, good old google has proved me wrong:

Shatto Home Delivery

Whether it is the simple fact that you have fresh products on your porch weekly, or it is the excitement that is gained when the kids wake in the morning and rush to get the fresh milk from the porch box, we are certain you will enjoy bringing the Milkman to your home.

 I regret that I don't know anyone who has milk delivered.

I seriously digress!

Let’s get back to 1961 and my efforts to see my brother-in-law prosper in the home milk delivery business.

A word about the home-milk delivery process. First you take your milk truck to Meyer’s Dairy (on South Dodgion in Independence - the building is still there and you can clearly see the loading area) You calculate the quantity and variety of milk or dairy products you require for the day’s round.  You fill out the paper-work and load the truck. Then you go to the local Ice-house. Ice was imperative in any weather but the dead of winter.  The Ice house was just off Noland Road.  I can see it in my dreams, but I suspect it’s not there any more.  The milk had to be kept fresh or it would spoil on the customer's doorstep.  

A word about the milk truck.  The OM was not in conscience going to splash out on a brand-new fancy truck for Alan and I to deliver milk in.  No way.  He did get us a truck from somewhere, who knows where?  It was just about serviceable, but did have one glaring defect.  The power steering did not work.  Now if you have ever successfully driven a large-ish heavily laden vehicle with no power steering then I say you are either Superman or a bodybuilder.  It took a lot of effort just to negotiate straight roads.  Turning was problematic.  A whole new method had to be employed if any progress was to be made.

I say this in my defence for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Now, also in my defence, I contended that then as I do now,  the best way to learn the milk business is to deliver milk to customers. That’s how I learned and if if it was good enough for me, well it would have to be good enough for Alan.  

We came to an arrangement.  I would drive the truck and he would deliver the milk, meeting the customers and learning the important parts of the job whilst on the job.  Simples!

Well, there were a few drawbacks.  Firstly, I was only 15 and had no driver’s licence.  At that time in Missouri this was not an insurmountable obstacle.  I had been driving cars for about two years and whilst helping the OM deliver milk he used to sit me on his lap (I was a skinny kid) and let me steer whilst he did the gears and pedals.  I learned to use a column shift by sitting in the driver’s seat on the odd occasion when the OK was actually outside talking to customers (usually because they owed him money) and practising my shifting.  I was good at it.  I was supremely confident in my ability to train Alan to deliver the milk whilst I the truck.

So befell it on that day . . . I paraphrase the Canterbury Tales . . . when it all went wrong, we were somewhere in the suburbs making our way from one stop to another whilst I was trying to man-handle that beast with no power steering around a tight right-hand corner when I made a fatal error.  Well, I say fatal, but actually no-one died or was even hurt!  

I got as far to the right as I thought I safely could.  I misjudged. I can see it again in my mind’s eye.  There was a car parked on the road and some lady was in her front yard watering her plants.  I was too far over and sideswiped the car in the road. I wrenched the beast around the turn, slammed it into third and shot off up the hill.  

Alan stopped me from compounding an already crappy situation and making it  into a tragic one.  We shuttered to a halt and rolled backwards down the hill, coming to rest by the parked car.  It was a fairly new 4 door Chevy as I recall.

The lady turned off the watering hose and told us to come inside whilst she rang Meyer’s dairy to confirm that the truck was insured and to report the damage.

Her phone was, fortunately as it turned out, up a small flight of stairs, perhaps in a bedroom, so she eventually called down to us, “What’s the driver’s name?”

I said a silent prayer and looked at Alan.

He said nothing, nor did his expression change.  “He just said,  Alan Austin”.  Since the injured party could not see us, and I suspect did not notice who was driving the milk truck any way, she returned downstairs satisfied that the company’s insurance would pay.  

There was little apparent damage to the milk wagon, but the car was going to need substantial repairs to the bodywork.

I, needless to say, never told the OM or Meyer’s Dairy who was really driving.  Neither did Alan, to my knowledge. OK, tell a lie, I did tell the OM  very many years after, when no harm could befall.

I was sad to hear of his passing.  I never remember having a cross word with him.  I saw him last at another nephew’s wedding and exchanged pleasantries.

I was glad I knew him and he was part of our family.

State Cola Factory Number One

 

A lesson in real socialism

I was amused to read in the Sunday Times about Jeremy Clarkson’s conversion to socialism. Amused, shocked and perplexed might be a better descriptor.

Our Jeremy is probably best known as a critic of government, any government and an undying opponent of any attempt to limit the individual’s choice as to how they wish to screw up their life.

This seemingly illogical conversion is all to do with his more publicised and perhaps better known conversion to the fraught life of an Oxfordshire gentleman farmer.

The bee in his bonnet this week is the continuing drama surrounding cladding on buildings - in the wake of the Grenville disaster. Clakson owns a flat in London and - guess what? It’s covered in cladding. Not the good stuff either. His insurers want to up his cost from £6 000 to £80 000 a year. Not surprisingly he’s about as happy as a badger sitting securely in a sett on his farm which sees the hose pipe snaking down bringing his demise.

What’s to be done? Take off the cladding? Cost £400 000. Bit of a non-starter.

Leave it to Jeremy to neatly sum up the predicament he (and many others) are in. “There’s a technical term for what we are. And, it’s fu**ed.

Fortunately, like most of his rants this one has a solution.

Jeremy proposes that “the government should start a state-run alternative for the thousands of people who are in the same boat as me.” But, what if the government says the risk is too great even for the government to step in and insure. (Yeah! Right - this is the government who has spent billions bailing out banks and buying shitty Covid-gear!)

Jeremy says in that event the government should pay to have the cladding removed.

There’s a pattern here in case you missed it.

Basically anyone but the owners of the affected flats should pay - says our Jeremy.

Were it not for the fact that Jeremy has a long record of moaning about the government getting involved in what is a private business - insurance companies, many reading his article might be taken in by the very real injustices he exposes. They may even support his plan for the government to do the nice thing and help him out.

Fat chance! These are the same guys who are currently baulking at paying a few quid to maintain Covid tests for the general public.

The whole thing smacks of socialism.

No other word in the English language is guaranteed to bring on a attack of apocalyptic proportions to Tory suburbia. The idea that socialism is to be used to solve problems, even problems brought down on the heads of unsuspecting citizens like Clarkson is just too awful to contemplate, otherwise implement.

Briefly socialism is: “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Trust me, that’s what google says, so it must be right.

Sounds horrifying, doesn’t it? Even if Clarkson is in favour, it must be terrible.

When I taught Animal Farm to 15 year old’s, I always used cola as an example of how socialism might work in the real world

Now some people like Coca Cola, some like Pepsi Cola and some like other brands of Cola.

Each company making cola drinks owns the means of production, distribution, and exchange of their product.

Not only that, but each company spends in one year (even one week even) the amount equal to the total budget of a medium sized African nation trying to increase its market share by even the infinitesimal amount. This money does not improve their product, nor does it benefit the nation in any way (except for swelling the coffers of the advertising industry).

So, I postulated, why not simply form the state cola factory number one to pool the resources of Coca-Cola, Pepsi and others to make all the cola and use the previously wasted advertising budgets to fund new hospitals (state hospital number one), new schools (state school number one) and other worthy enterprises.

I know I will be accused of brain-washing young, easily impressed children, but, in my defence I can only say that all these newly recruited socialists, after reading Animal Farm and seeing how socialism might work in practice, were soon un-brainwashed. Indeed a plea that what we need is more public-spirited pigs fell on stony ground and deaf ears.

It is amazing to hear people, who ought to know better (like say Trumpie, or Bo-Jo) railing against socialism. They happily practise it whenever it suits their purposes.

"Neither Biden nor Trump are socialists in this robust sense. However, in common parlance, socialism has come to mean an expansive economic role for the government via federal spending on the one hand, and industry mandates and regulations on the other. By this definition, Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome tells me, both candidates are socialists, just different versions.

Neither has any compunctions about using massive deficit-spending to boost economic growth. Neither is averse to picking economic winners and losers by helping industries they favor and crippling those they don't via regulations and mandates. Trump, Lincicome notes, has been quite adept at using Uncle Sam to slam industries that hurt his America First agenda — and boost those that help it. Biden, meanwhile, is a typical Democrat who wants to use Big Government to tax rich companies and individuals and pursue a redistributive liberal agenda.

In an interview that aired on Wednesday, Former US President Donald Trump said Boris Johnson had become increasingly socialist, adding that he was "not sure that people are loving it." Mr Trump was mainly referring to Mr Johnson's environmental policies. This comes just a month after world leaders met in Glasgow as part of a last-ditch effort to keep the target of limiting global warming to 1.5C alive."

There are many more examples. Just open your eyes and look for them.

Most of us are living in what is best described as democratic-socialist countries and are governed in that way.

It’s only the pejorations of dodgy leaders that make is so tragic

Chiefs EoS 2021-2

 

Oh, woe is me!

Can we say enough about how the Chiefs blew it? No. The Super Bowl trip was booked and paid for and then in a half of unprecedented sorrow and error it all went up in smoke.

Wisdom says that the offence suddenly collapsed and lost the game.

Not so. I remind all that it’s defence that wins games, and if anyone had cared to look at the signs an average at best defence have been there for some time.

To recap, at half-time the Chiefs led 21 to 3. And, they completely screwed up the last possession in an uncharacteristically poor way. Andy Reid has to accept responsibility for that. The defence simply could not protect an 18 point lead. End of story.

Just a week ago we were marvelling at the 13 seconds of magic that did for the Bills. We came to believe that Mahomes' magic could overcome all and everything.

As fans, we have gotten used to Mahomes and the offence bailing us out when the defence really isn’t that good. Chris Jones had no sacks and Melvin Ingram one. Joe Burrow was occasionally under some pressure, but they could not complete the job. The other men on the line contributed very little.

Bottom line: the defence lost the game.

Where do we go from here?

Last season it was the O-line that led to the embarrassment against the Bucs, so now we flip to the defence. Is this unusual? No. There are 32 teams trying to win the Super Bowl each season, and 31 of them are going to be disappointed at the end. Each team will identify things they need to improve on for the next season and plan accordingly. 31 of them will not win the Super Bowl the next season. So, putting it into perspective, the Chiefs have been in the AFC Championship game four years in a row and won two of them and s Super Bowl. By most objective standards this looks like success.

For the Chief’s fans this just looks like normality. We have been spoiled.

The initial reaction from Veach was we need to address the defence - particularly the D-line. And, he’s probably correct. Nadi and the crew on the inside did very little against the Bengals. Melvin Ingram is a stop-gap and although he did quite well is ready to move on. The bit-part back-up’s like Dana did a bit but not much. Are there players on the roster who could step up? Maybe. More likely it’s time to use some draft picks and free agency to revamp the squad. What about Spags? Jury is out. Andy Reid must be very disappointed that they could not protect a good lead in the most important game of the season. Maybe it’s time to move on?

One of the thing is certain, we'll be rooting for the Rams at the weekend.. Not in a surly fashion, but simply to embarrass the Chiefs defence. I expect they are feeling down in the mouth, as well they should.

Like most fans we wish both teams well and hope for a good game. There's always next year for the rest of us, but chiefs fans know that this is a real opportunity missed. Chiefs v Rams is a Chiefs win, almost every time.

News has it that there again is no coaching job for Eric Bieniemy. This is sad, but may work to the Chief’s advantage. I’ve often wondered if he is Andy Reid’s replacement, or at least pencilled in for that one. There is no doubt that he is a top offensive co-ordinator.

In other news, Mahomes seems to be taking all the blame for the loss to the Bengals. I repeat, it’s the coaches and the defence who should be in the firing line.