Cows have Feelings Too.

When we were kids, things were a lot different. I used to hear that same thing from my Dad ALL-THE-TIME. In fact, my Dad used to say “when I was a kid I used to walk 5 miles to school every day”. He must have been one skinny runt to be able to walk 10 miles round trip every day through snow, sleet, wind, rain and every sort of weather in between. The postman had nothing on my Dad, no siree. So, when my Dad was a kid, he’d tell us how he used to drink warm milk straight from the cow. Yikes. Are you kidding me? Next thing you’ll say you milked the cow by hand too. Not me, I’m going for bottled from the “Milk Man”…door to door delivery of COLD WHOLE MILK!! The milk man brought it and picked up our empties. If we were really good that week, Mom might order strawberry milk that came from “strawberry milk cows.” Or if we were really, really good, we got chocolate milk from the “chocolate milk cow.”

We got to the point that when we even heard him starting something like “when I was a….” that we either high-tailed it out of there or made some smart-alecky comment like “here we go again.”

So, when I reached adult-hood, I swore that I would never, ever plague my kids with “when I was a kid, I…” No way. Well, here we are and I have kids of all sizes, ages and I’ve found new ways to say the same thing. For instance, “when we used to be kids,” I’d ride my bike every day to school 3 miles one way! Maybe my kids are a little spoiled asking for rides to school so they can look cool. I mean, come on; kids that ride the bus are not cool….really?

And milk? Why drink milk when you can drink pop 24/7? And even if we think of drinking milk, so many choices….Skim, 1{99169ffa410f0de1782b4a88223ae28621eb59504fd4426e3dbe55e73599c86a}, 2{99169ffa410f0de1782b4a88223ae28621eb59504fd4426e3dbe55e73599c86a}, Whole, Chocolate, Goat, Strawberry, Fizzy. And if you are Lactose Intolerant, (Lactose Intolerant? Now you’ve gone too far!) There is always the fake milk made of Lord knows what ingredients, but it sure didn’t come from my friend the cow. And forget the milk man, man! Gallon jugs that you throw in recycling. We’ve dumbed down milk. Those poor unappreciated cows.

If I were a cow, which I’m not; I‘d be revolting by now. Can you imagine seeing red cows, black cows and brown cows carrying strike signs? “UDDERLY Disgusted!” “Got Milk? NOT!” “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Milk”

I say thank goodness for cheese! With so many varieties in the great state of Wisconsin, it’s just plain old natural milk making it happen. Yeh, we still have the chocolate and strawberry milk cows for those really good kids that Mom treats, but it’s the black cows “bringing home the bacon” so to speak. And it’s our parents who have respected our cow partners to bring us nothing but the best in milk

So, next time you sink your taste buds into a squeaky fresh white cheddar cheese curd or other dairy fresh cheese made from Real Milk from Real Cows, think of the countless kids who have endured years and years of “when I was a kid, I used to….”

Until next time,

Musky Mike