Follow-up to Recent Blogs - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

Blog about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.

Follow-up to Recent Blogs

My blog posts over the last couple weeks about working for our neighboring farmer back in the ’60’s caught the attention of several readers who provided some further insights into those times.

For example, my sister pointed out that our neighboring farmer, Jim Bornhorst, whom I worked for and wrote about, was inducted to the Ft. Loramie Schools Wall of Honor in 2015. Here’s the closing sentence of his induction announcement:

Jim Bornhorst has always been a “behind the scenes” kind of guy. He has a lot of good ideas and follows through on getting things accomplished. Jim has instilled his children with those same values of service and volunteerism to their communities.

Not only did he instill service and volunteerism traits to his children, his influence extended to his youthful employees like me, as I’ve tried to follow in his footsteps by similarly offering my services for the betterment of the community, having also been elected, like Jim, to our school board and local government leadership positions.

Jim Bornhorst

My story about plowing a straight furrow garnered the following note from cousin Jack Hoying, local carpenter & photographer (he’s literally a Jack-of-all-trades!), about his memories as a kid working the fields on his Dad’s farm near St. Patrick:

"The story on our farm was that the first time Dad had one of the boys start a field (I think it was a disc, not plow), Dad said "Drive straight to where that cow is standing". Well someone forgot to tell the cow to stand still, and there was a huge arcing first pass!"

The other comment came from my younger brother who shared this story from that era that he had never divulged until now, and which I vehemently deny:

"Yes, I do remember that summer. I believe it was the same time but I recall coming home from Jim’s place because I was playing with his son, Tony, a classmate of mine, and Dave picked me up after his long Saturday of painting or plowing. Rather than going right home to the farm, we went into town. For some reason, the power steering pump went out on his '62 Chevy and as we were coming out of the alley next to Gaier's garage, Dave couldn't make the turn and knocked over a stop sign. Of course he told me to keep my mouth shut and never to tell anybody so I kept that a secret until now. LOL!"

Even though this alleged incident happened 50 years ago, the fact that the stop sign was next to Gaier’s garage, which is owned by my sister’s husband, and who's son-in-law Nate is the current constable in Ft. Loramie, the case may be re-opened. I’ll have to be very careful driving through Ft. Loramie over the upcoming holidays when we visit as there may be an APB out on me!

Keep those cards and letters coming, but leave the incriminating stuff to yourselves.