“These interviews are usually a little bit more personal, you know, a little bit more of an inside look at the subject,” I explained. “I don’t know if you’ve ever read Mugshot or have an idea of what it’s all about, but…”

“No, I haven’t read it. Guess I’ll have to check it out now,” he said politely with a smile.

“Well, we thought it’d be kind of cool to get a look at the man behind the business, give people a chance to see what you’re like, rather than what you do for a living. A follow-up to the special section.” (Background: View Newspaper Group published a section all about Milnes Auto Group on Thursday. Pick it up for more information about the business and its 30-year history.)

I gotta say I was looking forward to getting a chance to take a peek behind the Bruce Milnes curtain, that brushed aluminum façade or pristine glass veneer that adorn each of his car dealerships.

He was game. Open body language, utterly relaxed and seemingly unfazed. As always.

“So, let’s get started. How old are you?”

“Sixty-fiiiive,” he drew it out with a bit of a wince, speaking in the same voice that I’ve come to know over the years from interviews about his businesses. He always appears calm, a cool customer that seems to know something you don’t. And he speaks in a way that makes you want to know.

“Where were you born?” I asked.

“Marquette.”

“What brought you down here?”

“Actually, y’know, I’ve got a pretty interesting story I should tell you. I think you’ll be kind of blown away.”

I assumed that he would tell me about the fact that, before car dealerships, he started out as a teacher in North Branch Schools, where he met his late wife and the mother of his children, Brenda. Or the fact that he opened his first dealership on Black Monday, the day the market took a dump in 1987. But no. This was much different.

Let me preface this story by saying that I’ve heard that sentence before: “I’ve got an interesting story.” And, nothing against those other stories, because many of them are pretty interesting. But this went miles beyond. This one kind of took the cake.

Behold.

He started it with a smooth and easy laugh, preparing himself, or me, or both. “All right,” he began. “So, I was born in Marquette. And I was an illegitimate child. My mother died when I was 4. And my stepfather didn’t want me, you know, I wasn’t his kid.”

His speaking was even. Almost tranquil, as if he were telling me a story he’d heard somewhere. No visible emotion or resentment or anger or sadness. Just facts. I was already riveted and I distinctly remember making sure my recorder was running.

“Well, I went to live with my grandparents, and my grandfather was a pulp cutter. Do you know what that is? It’s like a logger. It’s a hard life. Cutting trees all day, up there, and in the winter. It’s a bitch. When I was 14, he got me a chainsaw to help him cut. Went to work. Ten cents apiece for an eight-foot log. So, you gotta cut a lot. Then stack ‘em. And I wasn’t even getting that ten cents. I was just helping my grandpa. We were pretty poor. We had an outhouse when I was kid. Didn’t have a TV until I was about 13.

“Then, unfortunately, my grandfather died when I was almost 15, had a heart attack. Well, my grandmother and I didn’t have any money, so I went to work at a grocery store, just working as a carry-out. Just so I could buy clothes and help her out with food or whatever else. Then we moved to Houghton Lake, and that’s where I went to high school.

“Well, my grandpa always pounded into my head, ‘You need an education. Need an education.’ So, I graduated from Houghton Lake, but I remember the counselor telling me I shouldn’t go to college, because I wasn’t a great student. Just a C student and kind of a goof-off, but my grandmother, when I was 18, told me it was time for me to go. It was just that old-school thing, you know, she said it’s time for me to go out on my own. And I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I figured I’d go to Kirtland Community College with my friend.

“Didn’t have any money, went and got a job there as a janitor, and literally, for two weeks, I had ten cents in my pocket. But the good news was that I got to clean the cafeteria, and there was usually some leftover food. And then there was a vending machine you could shake and a bag of potato chips would drop. Just until I got my first paycheck, though. Which wasn’t much, either.”

I was utterly immersed in this story, to say the least. Here, in front of me, is the Bruce Milnes I’ve known for the past three or four years, always dressed well, always put together, always with a kind of knowing grin. And I was learning that this man had every disadvantage one could possibly imagine.

He’s the living, breathing definition of a self-made man, the embodiment of Frederick Douglass’ famous quote: “Self-made men… are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any of the favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.”

I told him he sounded a bit like a real-life Don Draper. He said he’d never really seen Mad Men.

He described the long and arduous rise to where he now sits, overseeing three monumentally successful dealerships in Lapeer, each of which he helped build from the ground up, sometimes literally grabbing a shovel or a broom to help his staff. Because, as he says, “If it’s important enough to do, then I want my employees to know that I’ll do it, too.” Right alongside them.

And it’s a work ethic he’s instilled in his children, too. His son, Blake, who oversees the Ford dealership in Lapeer, and his daughter, Brooke, who oversees the Chevy dealership in Imlay City, are both outside in the dead of winter, helping porters and underlings brush the snow off the cars in the lot. His youngest, daughter, Brittany, isn’t in the family business, but I’d wager she’s been instilled with a similar ethic.

Because he’s been working for more than half a century, he says he does his best to make time to relax, traveling whenever he gets a chance before he “phases out” of the business. (No immediate plans for retirement yet.) And, in the meantime, he’s trying to mentor Blake and Brooke to run the same honest, trusted business he’s built, with integrity, where customers are treated right.

And then, once he retires, he says he wants to head back up north, at least for the summers. Which is pretty poetic. Returning back to the roots that created him.