Dan Commins

I joined the Coast Guard when I was 18. I was just going to do 4 years and get out at 22. But I decided to stay in for 6 more years and that became 20 years. Then after I retired. I came, I retired up in Michigan, I came back to Vermont where I, I grew up in Middlebury. Then I was a cook in the Coast Guard, so I stuck with it. But, prior to joining the Coast Guard, I cooked at Proctor Hall after school and on weekends. I started out a $1.25 an hour back in 1972. So, I worked for 4 years up here at Proctor before they, before I joined the service. And I think that’s one of the reasons I like boating so much. I have 3 boats, so, I have one for my dog and then one for me and my wife and then one we take, a canoe. Vermont has a lot of different waters, that need different crafts for. So, we’ve got a rowboat and a canoe, 21-footer, cruiser out on the lake on that is pretty nice. And, what else. I don’t know if it’s the circle life as to why I came back to Proctor. It’s kinda weird. It’s really weird because we’re listening to the same music that was on the radio back in the 70s, because the older radio stations are now playing the classic rock and stuff like that. I have flashbacks of people that used to work here with me and it’s like, I remember when he…It’s kinda weird. Has it changed significantly? Yes. We used to have like the hot lunch ladies have at a high school. You know they’d dish out, you could eat all you wanted, but they had two serving lines and then they had the plus accounts. They had Janice and Diane and they would just serve you your food. You had your tray and your plate that you’d just scoot along. And like I said, it was all you could eat but it still wasn’t just load your plate up like it is now. But in other ways I think it was more personal, instead of just having cooks put the stuff out on the line. Some of the students we know but other than that. And, then the volume of students has changed drastically. It seems like it anyway. I think we were serving like 600 or so 650, now we’re doing usually 1200 or so a night. Or we just eat more. That could be it too – that’s possible.

How did you originally get into cooking? Has it just always been a passion?

My father called up. My father used to be a supervisor in the custodial department back in the 70s. So, he called up one day, “Hey, you want a job,” sure. Get up to Proctor and see Rodney. I said okay. So, I came up here and just something that evolved. That’s pretty much all I’ve known my whole life. After school started cooking and on the weekends. And then joined the Coast Guard as a cook. Decided I was just going to do 4 years but then that turned into 8 and then it snowballed from there. Then I was half there and thought, oh, gotta work somewhere, might as well stay in. Did my twenty, got out and retired. And came back here.