Dear William: The Yeast Is There

About the Book

A native of North Carolina, I hit Jacksonville in April of 1941 as an aviation cadet, trained at NAS, was designated Naval Aviator and commissioned Ensign in December, 1941.  The next 18 months was spent flying seaplanes out of Bora Bora, S.I., followed by 6 months flying fighters off of the carrier Bunker Hill, and 3 months flying Hellcats land-based on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.  When I got back to NAS Jacksonville, I trained 7 British, 7 marines and 7 Navy pilots to fly the F4-U Corsair before leaving the Navy for John B. Stetson Law School at Deland in September of 1946.  

Two years later, I became a licensed attorney in Florida, under the "diploma privilege" law but found no job that would pay more than $150.00 per month.  Having $1,500.00 left from my savings on Bora Bora, after purchasing a garage-like apartment from Lonnie Wurn's parents, I decided to "starve on my own," hung out a shingle in the Smith Building, which stood where the West End of the property appraiser's building now stands, and rented a one-room office from a CPA, George Dandelake.  I lost $60 per month the first 3 months, made $60 per month the second 3 months, and by then my net income was up to $300 per month.

Ruben Ragland, the foremost admiralty lawyer in Florida at that time, asked me to investigate a fertilizer fire on board a ship at the Wilson and Toomer docks in November of 1948.  When I turned in my report, he, Louis Kurz and A. Lloyd Layton offered me free space in their library, put in a telephone for me and told me my business would be my business and they would pay me for anything they asked me to do.

Like a flash, I moved from my $35.00/month office in the Smith Building, with my two law books, to a rent-free fully stocked library on the sixth floor of the Consolidated Building, which sat on the south side of Bay Street between Ocean and Newnan, where the JEA substation now sits.

Rogers, Towers & Bailey (RT&B) had offices on the fifth floor.  "We" were on the sixth floor.  In that building, the restrooms for men and women were on alternating floors.  The ladies room was on the sixth floor, next to my office/library, so I got acquainted with most of the secretaries from the floor below.  To do my work, I hired Mr. Kurz' secretary to come in from 7 to 9 a.m. to transcribe the wax cylinders on the old dictaphone.  I cannot name all of the lawyers who were in the Consolidated Building at that time but one was Theo Hamilton whose daughter, Melody, has been married to Harry Mahon for many years.  At one time, Bill Durden and Bill Adams were there and Art Boone and Carl Swanson were on the ground floor.  One of the "old geezers" in the building at that time was Martin J. Pearl, and a few more I can't remember.  The City Attorney's Office was there, consisting of Bill Madison, Inman Crutchfield, O. O. McCollom, and, later on, Claude Mullis and Fred Simpson.  Of course, RT&B was staffed by William Rogers, C. D. Towers, Sr., Cecil Bailey, Charlie Luckie, Elmer Norton, Taylor Jones, Raymond Blackard, and Charlie Towers, Jr., the "junior partner."  I knew them all.  Only Charlie survives.

My first encounter in a contested proceeding was before Judge Ogilvie which pitted me against Walter Arnold, a fearsome foe at that time, and even now.  I was trying to make a father/ex-husband send his son to college, by obtaining a modification of a Final Judgment of divorce.  This battle occurred on the top floor of what is now the midsection of the Yates building.  As I observed my opponent coming down the hall, someone whispered, "That's Wayne Ripley."  That got me off to a bad start because I began by addressing Mr. Arnold as Mr. Ripley.

To prove my case, I called the mother/former wife as my first witness.  When she didn't give me the answer I wanted, I turned to her son and began asking him the same questions.

About the Author

In many ways, this book is an intellectual and spiritual autobiography. It begins in my boyhood in the Piedmont section of North Carolina, as one of five children of a Methodist circuit rider and his loving, long-suffering wife. From those early years in the 1920s it jumps to the 1960s, a period during my manhood when I learned a good deal more than I expected to learn about man's inhumanity to man, which never quite got through to me until I began to try to answer good questions raised by others, the answers to which did not satisfy me. It is a story about a man who, having been blind to his own bigotry, came to see it vividly, then grew deeply frustrated when others refused to look at the bigotry in themselves.