Borden's Milk Delivery Truck
“Dear Mama, I’m so excited I can hardly chew.
We girls are sending our milk to Borden’s now! Love, Elsie.”
Remember a cartoon of a laughing cow, Elsie, used to advertise Borden milk products (shown in the picture below.)
In the mid-1950s, on Saturdays, a similar truck stopped in front of my parents’ house in Farmersville, Ohio, a town with a population of 587 in the 1950 census. The driver waited for me, and I hopped into Borden’s truck.
While sitting on the passenger seat, I watched him deliver milk bottles to the customers’ houses. He dropped me off at the end of his routine and waved to my parents.
Why did the driver let me ride with him?
Currently, no federal laws prohibit passengers from riding in a commercial truck. There are also no federal age restrictions on passengers that make it illegal to let a child ride in a commercial truck.
The exact reason is that the driver Joe Yingst, and his 6-member family were (still are) the closest family to my 3-member family.
When your baby happens to be deaf (or hard of hearing), you must face what to do (about which deaf education.)
Joe gave up farming in Covington, Ohio, and moved to Dayton, Ohio, so he enrolled his deaf daughter, Cheryl, to enroll at Nans Kennedy School for Oral Deaf in Dayton.
Like my dad, Paul, who sold his soft water business in Gallipolis, Ohio, moved to Farmersville and enrolled me in that school.
Joe’s wife, Martha, and my mom, Faith, were the closest friends until their deaths.
Identical to Joe and Paul. Being farmers’ sons, they were excellent horse-pitching throwers (about 60% ringers.)
However, Cheryl and I were classmates at that school.
At the memorial service for my father in 2013, Joe’s youngest son, Mike, delivered an eulogy for Paul Edward Gorrell. [As a teacher, Mike bowled many years with Paul in the Dayton SchoolMasters bowling League, including several years in the 1980s as teammates.]
“Paul also enjoyed watching sports. I could always talk to Paul about our Reds, Bengals, Flyers, and Buckeyes. The only thing we didn’t always agree about were those West Virginia Mountaineers. Paul loved his alma mater, and I eventually learned to keep my mouth shut if I wasn’t rooting for them on a given day. Because Paul wasn’t backing down on that one, “ eulogized Michael Yingst in 2013.
Oh, boy, I have a great memory!
Particular Information to Deaf Community:
One of Joe Yingst’s grandchildren happens to be MELISSA Elmíra Yingst-!
