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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

MORE INFO ON MEN IN FL UENTIAL IN MY LIFE

Some of the men that I have indicated elsewhere in this book, who have been a decided influence on my
life, deserve to be recognized to some extent, and I wish to say a little bit about each of them. Clarence
Brown was probably the most outstanding lawyer, al least for a period of time, between Jacksonville and
Tallahassee. Clarence was truly a brilliant man, but a man who had absolutely no time for foolishness or
frivolity, and was by no means easy to get to know. He was the head of the Brannon and Brown law
Firm, and the father of present attorney, still in that same firm, ol'Tom Brown. I got to knowing
Clarence Brown in borrowing money from time to time from the State Exchange Bank, as he was the
attorney for the bank. Mr. Earl Haltiwanger was the President of the bank and Mr. Emory Butler was
Vice President, but although Clarence Brown was simply the lawyer, he ran the show. If Clarence said
no, that would be the bank’s position. If Clarence found some proposal to be acceptable, then it was
acceptable to Mr. Butler and Mr. Haltiwanger. I have a great deal of admiration and affection for the old
State Exchange Bank due to the fact that I had to borrow money quite frequently in relation to my real
estate business. In the administration of Jimmy Carter as President of the Untied States, at one lime
prime interest rate got as high as 18% per annum. However, and probably unknown to the stockholders
in the bank other than Mr. Butler and Mr. Haltiwanger, that bank never charged me a nickel over 10%
interest at the time when so many other people were paying 20%. I really hated to see State Exchange
Bank sell out to a larger bank, since it was a thoroughly community minded bank, run by people with
common sense, and also run by people that were approachable. In fact, the President of the bank, Mr.
Earl Haltiwanger, had his son named Earl Jr. who was a couple of years older than me, but whom I
played in the Columbia High School band with, and we became real good friends. Earl Jr. later became a
nationally known medical doctor, specializing in urology. He taught many seminars in that specialty and
not many people in Lake City realize what an outstanding doctor was produced here in Earl Haltiwanger
Jr.

But, again, I have digressed. There is another thing I want to say about Clarence Brown. We became
good friends, and went on several dove hunting trips to central and south America, where Clarence
learned to admire my Ithaca 12 gauge shot gun, because I could run 2 cases of shells per day through my
shot gun without having any trouble with it and he was hunting with a browning automatic which
simply would not hold up to that much shooting as my Ithaca.

In those days, the doves would come into the grain field in Central America and northern South America
literally by the hundreds of thousands and you could fire as fast as you could keep your gun loaded. We
each had 3 or 4 small boys to do nothing but pick up the birds that we had shot. All of our shooting was
shooting at doves on the wing, and it was an unbelievable experience. The doves would almost literally
blacken the sky just as many of my readers have seen black birds in huge flocks, and you could kill as
many doves in a day as you could load your gun to shoot. We would frequently shoot two full cases of
12 gauge shot gun shells in a day.

Another trip that I took with Clarence Brown and several other residents of Lake City was a 2 week trip
to New Zealand. Half of the group was to fish the first week while the other half hunted deer (New
Zealand is simply over run by deer. They even hunt them by helicopter and sell venison in all of the
markets in the stores)

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