A common scene for the writer as a boy along Cook Avenue in Laurel was 8-10-yard-capacity dump trucks hauling brick clay — like shuttle buses back and forth from early in the morning to late in the afternoon — along Highway 15 South, north onto Cook Avenue, to Laurel Brick Yard, north off of East 18th Street, between Meridian Avenue and Compress — then in the center of sawmills.
One truck driver was Mr. Leroy Jones, who lived on the corner of Jarvis Street and Cook Avenue before I-59 eminent domain acquired his dwelling and rerouted Jarvis south of Wesley Chapel Church to access Cook Avenue. Mr. Leroy worked like an ant — rapidly back and forth — with the truck heaped with clay, dumping and reloading.
