My Address to the Annual Holstein Association Conference

Recently I was honored by being invited to deliver the keynote address to the annual Holstein Association of USA conference.  You may have caught my speech when it was rebroadcast on CSPAN2, but for those of you who weren't lucky enough to be in attendance, or are not avid CSPANers, I thought I would reprint my speech in its entirety.

Here it is:

There is a plague that is sweeping across our country, and spreading like wild fire. Your neighbor, your friends, your mother, and your pets have all been affected by it. Yet our state and federal officials, the people we pay with our hard earned tax dollars, refuse to even acknowledge there is a problem. They turn a blind eye and concentrate on more “important” problems like poverty, crime, and education.

Well let me tell you something, Chester! If we ever want to put a stop to those kinds of problems we need to stop dancing around the edges of the real problem. Like my dear departed Mama used to say, “If you got a problem with the pork, go straight to the rooster.” Mama was a dear woman, but not too bright. However, her point remains clear, in order to solve our problems we need to go straight to the source and stomp out the most insidious and hateful crime that troubles our country today!

That’s right, we need to stomp out lactose intolerance, and we need to do it now! It pains me to see fine cows tipped onto their sides by ignorant milk haters! Why, I get choked up every time I recall my visit to George Smith’s dairy farm.

George took me on a tour of his farm, during the course of the tour George showed me one of the most awful things I have ever seen. Everywhere I looked there were heifers on their sides, plaintive moos escaping from the lips of the ones still strong enough to moo. The sight of all of those noble creatures stranded on their flanks, utters hanging slack and motionless, made me weep.

I vowed then and there to stop this outrage.

Somewhere there is a child afraid to ask for a glass of milk because daddy doesn’t like the way “that white stuff” looks. Elsewhere, there is a man dressed in an immaculate white uniform, his hands stained by years of handling ice cream sandwiches, sobbing milkless tears because the tires of his ice-cream truck were slashed. If only Mr. Softtee were there to offer him a shoulder, or rather a cone, to cry on.

I refuse to live in a country where the simple act of purchasing a dairy product gets you strange looks from the cashiers at the supermarket. I long for simpler times when hard working men delivered milk and butter directly to your doorstep. There was no shame involved. No need to have cheese mailed to you in plain brown paper packages like you are some kind of pervert. What has happened to us?

Just the other night I was at a cocktail party and I inquired as to the location of the traditional cheese log; a party just isn’t a party without a log shaped slab of cheddar. The hostess actually had the nerve to say to me, “Oh, my husband is lactose intolerant so I can’t have the stuff around the house. It causes problems.” Right there in supposed “civilized” company, lactose intolerance rears its ugly head! I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as those people. I just knew they were all thinking about how much better orange juice was with breakfast than milk!

I rushed out of that party and hurried to that bastion of American consumerism, the supermarket. With differing brands of products sharing the shelves peaceably I thought I had found a garden of sanity in an insane world.

Then I saw it. They had given the dairy products their own section, all the way to one side of the store, out of the way. I suppose it was so that the “superior” products wouldn’t get tainted by an errant bit of Monterey Jack! The manager assured me that the dairy section was just as good as the rest of the store,  I guess he thought that the milk was separate but equal. Well, with that attitude and a nickel you can’t buy a pitcher of warm spit!

I asked the manager why the dairy products were located along the far wall of the store, and he told me, and I quote, “It just makes sense. The dairy products have special needs .” Of course it makes sense to his lactose intolerant mind. Milk is “different.” It has “special needs.” So we should just concentrate it all here in this special case. I expected him to click his heels and goose step down the aisle.

I have said a lot about the problem but solutions are my real forte. The pharmaceutical companies have jumped on the bandwagon peddling “miracle” pills that supposedly suppress, or completely get rid of, lactose intolerance. Yet despite the fact that these pills are readily available, milk crimes happen everyday.

I’m sure you have all heard about the milk crime ring that was busted just the other day. It seems that a group calling themselves “The Organization Against Increased Consumption of Bovine Related Products” were systematically going into supermarkets (which are already hotbeds of lactose intolerance) and changing the expiration dates on all the dairy products to make them seem as if they were in immanent danger of spoiling thereby frightening off potential milk sympathizers. Something has got to be done!

I propose a system of forced integration, welcoming dairy products into our everyday lives once more. I urge the government to bring back those smiling milkmen and start delivering dairy products to every man, woman, and child in this great nation of ours. Only by forcing people to embrace milk can we hope to end lactose intolerance. Together we can transform our dairy hostile country in the land of Milk and Gouda.

Let the milk flow from coast to coast, drenching the American people in its udder goodness! Together it can and will be done! All you have to do is take the first step, instead of 2% use whole milk. Instead of celery, why not a pound of Swiss cheese? Putting water in your cereal? Why not use heavy cream, it’ll get the job done 20 times better. Don’t dip your chips in salsa, use 100% pure American butter!

Together we can build a bridge into Dairy Country!

Thank you, and good night.