THE LAWLESS STATE OF FLORIDA
When Jane and I first moved to the State of Florida back in late 1972, the state had seven million residents and the Arab oil embargo was just starting to show its ugly financial effects.
Tourism was slowing and new construction of all kinds had come to a halt. Disney had picked a bad time to open its Orlando location and we were happy not to be actively in the labor market.
In those days Florida was still a laid-back outpost of America where you didn’t need a fishing license and liquor stores had drive-up windows where you could get your open beer in a “sippin-sack” or a mixed drink to drink as you legally clutched around town in your “pick-em-up-truck”.
The sleepy small downtown southern atmosphere was everywhere. Motor vehicles parked with open windows and their keys left in the ignition were the rule. In the stores you were politely addressed by a “yes sir” or “yes ma'm” and out on the road it was still customary to wave a greeting to everyone that you met.
Shortly things were to change and I have heard the blame put upon those “God damn Yankees”, but the drug culture, food stamps for everybody and more lawyers than the whole world could tolerate crammed into one state with lawsuit mania gone wild definitely did alter the status quo.
Soon the national franchise establishments out gunned all the mom and pop businesses and there would be no going back to the relaxed world of neighborhoods that were a community unto themselves.
Billboards sprung up along Florida’s highways touting this slogan; “SEE FLORIDA LIKE A NATIVE!” and the depiction below was looking down the barrel of a loaded revolver.
Out on highway 95 at the South Carolina border was an oversized billboard welcoming all south-bound traffic with this slogan; “YOU ARE ENTERING KKK TERRITORY”
Make no mistake about it, Yankee this is the “Heart of Dixie!”
By the early 1990’s little old laid back Saint Augustine, Florida with its 12,000 people had the dubious distinction of having 22 pages of lawyer ads in their local phonebook. The back cover of that phonebook featured a lawyer and his law firm that Jane and I had business dealings with that had an advertisement stating, “If your neighbor has done you wrong we will make it right”.
LAWYERS, ATTORNEYS AND ST. AUGUSTINE’S BOOMING NEW BUSINESS;
This isn’t exactly a money generating enterprise, just a money redistribution activity.
In the early 1970s when Jane and first arrived in the Sunshine State the population was 7 million residents and little old St. Augustine had just over 12,000.
We slowly became aware of a local business that didn’t at first seem to show any outward signs of industrial enterprise.
While thumbing through the St. Augustine phone book I had to do a double take and then start counting. The Yellow Pages had twenty pages plus the back cover of nothing but lawyers and their ads. This made me think…how could a small town like this possibly support and sustain this many lawyers?
Well, I soon began to see just how these money manipulators worked when I made my first visit to one of them for a land transaction. I was told right up front that I had big problems and that I really needed their service.
(I have to tell this lawyer joke here because it is so fitting; A man asks the lawyer how much he charges and the lawyer responds; $500.00 per question. The man shockingly says isn’t that a lot of money? The lawyer responds, yes, and what is your third question?)
This wasn’t a stagnant segment of the economy, quite to the contrary in the next twenty years the number of lawyers advertising in the St. Augustine phone book went from twenty to twenty-eight pages while the population of the state climbed to 17 million.
With this many lawyers the competition for the client buck became extraordinarily apparent while reading through the Yellow pages of the phone book.
(Here are just a few of those ads that I found innovative and amusing.)
This eye catching ad comes on strong; ACCIDENTS? HELP! Car*, Truck*, Slip and Fall*, Dog bites*, Injuries of all types. If you have been seriously injured or lost a loved one in an accident DUE to the carelessness of someone else. I would like to help you.
If you can’t come to our office we will be glad to come to you with 24 hour service 7 days a week. (Home delivery just like the pizza guy.)
This next one, a former criminal prosecutor lists a long catalog of specialties and ends his ad like this; 24 hour service/ major credit cards accepted! (If you have credit you are in.)
Get a load of this next attorney who right up front is bragging about influence peddling.
(If I am not mistaken, influence peddling used to be a criminal offence.)
“Former Deputy State Attorney and Chief Prosecutor.”
Here this next one is the ambulance chaser extraordinaire; Featuring “Serious Injury and Death Cases” this lawyer goes on to advertise home and hospital visits, 24 hour emergency service, Local, National and International cases. We Fly To Meet Your Needs!
Just like a good neighbor this next lawyer states up front that he is; “Here to Help” with no fee until a recovery is made…so, for piece of mind call now! Any type of injury from dog bites to bikes and machines to name a few are part of the long list. In small print on the bottom of the page was this disclaimer; (OUR FEE IS BASED ON A PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL RECOVERY AND IS COMPUTED BEFORE DEDUCTING OUT-OF-POCKET EXPENSES.
(A specialist); “Practice limited to: CAR ACCIDENTS” (No use being a Jack-of-all-trades when there is enough dough in this stuff!)
The variety of claims range from; “Personal Touch to accepts credit cards, certified, “We do it All!” and bankruptcy justice for our client…screw all the others? This “Specialist in extractions” claims to limit his practice to ten different categories including “breast implant cases and asbestos.
I loved seeing this featured word “HONEST”, could they possibly be casting mistrust and suspicion about the truthfulness of their competition?
Speaking of featured words this bankruptcy law office underlines for emphases; FREE OF CHARGE and goes on to list four categories of bankruptcy, Chapter 7…liquidation, 11 reorganization, 12 farmers plan and payment plan all with free initial consultation.
The ad photos in the Yellow pages say more than a thousand words could possibly say but here is my summarized interpretation of a few; With a beach bum hair-do and tight lips this guy says with his eyes; “I’m Tough”.
The photo of two bearded partners with the scale of justice prominently placed between them says; “trust us, we do it all”.
The woman with an eye-catching picture of a smile of innocence has trust and confidence beaming off the page…how could you not trust her?
The team photos give the impression that you will have the whole law firm pulling just for you. Then in court you shockingly find out just because they share the same roof doesn’t mean they are always on the same team.
The law firm lists three members but there are only two in the photo?
Hidden implications lurk in ads playing on personal greed and my read comes out differently than the printed word though I know that reading between the lines is a dangerous place to search for the truth. A bankruptcy specialist seems to say to me in his ad; “Screw everybody for your excesses and irresponsibility.
This ad from an out of town firm seems to say to me; Yah, we are out of town but what the hell, it pays to advertise.
I loved this header featured in one of the ads; “EXPERIENCED”. My first thoughts were; Experienced? Oh really? How long?
There was even a map accompanied by credit card logos that was supposed to entice the prospective client to just drop in the law office credit card in hand.
The phone book company’s lawyers must have had a hand in this little ad placed on each and every one of the 28 pages of attorney’s ads just to cover eventualities that could arise out of this group whose source of income came from expunging legal settlements of one kind or another. “The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely upon advertisements. Before you decide, ask us to send you free written information about our qualifications and experience.”
As this old Spanish saying I love so much says; “A good lawyer makes a bad neighbor.”
If you were going to be in business in Florida you had better be fully aware of how to protect yourself from financial ruin. First you would need extensive liability insurance that had a policy value at least twice your net worth. In fact even if you weren’t in business you needed liability insurance to cover things as strange as a thief injuring himself during the act of robbing you in your own home. Next you had better have a good lawyer on a contingency that was ready to pull your feet out of the legal fire.
This Florida legal industry is one of the most entrenched, lucrative and competitive industries in the state.
Even all the doctors in the area combined had less than 20 pages of phone book ads probably because that in the end the lawyers wound up with all the loot.
Lawsuits against the medical profession made a whole state wide industry in itself and some doctors in St. Augustine actually got sued to the point that they were driven to financial rack and ruin so that they then had to cease and desist their practices.
A lawyer acquaintance of ours, Patrick R., was going in for surgery and we told him definitely not to let the doctors know that you are a lawyer. Patrick actually had a quizzical look on his face when he responded, “why not?” We said that the one thing that doctors absolutely unequivocally detest and despise are lawyers and what better time for a disgruntled doctor to do a little payback than when they had a lawyer under the knife.
The American trial by jury system was made to order for these slickster lawyers that could bamboozle the bucks for insane settlements and then throw in punitive damages to suck out every last cent.
I am still shaking my head at this one. A Florida woman sued a hospital for a million dollars and collected. She claimed that she had lost her psychic powers because of a hospital administered brain scan. If she was indeed a true psychic she would have known in advance of the outcome…right? Can you believe that a jury actually deliberated this one…and then gave her a million bucks!
***
Florida had the very best politicians that money could buy, land developers found new ways to snare prospective buyers with catchy names for their developments like “The Dunes” that was actually out in the woods far from any shore, “The Shores” far from any water, “The Heights” down in some marginally swampy low land and “St. Johns Woods” with nary a tree in sight.
If truth in advertising was the only sin of these developers it wouldn’t have been so bad but the new buyers usually wouldn’t find out for several years that there were no reinforcement rods in cement walls that began to crack and buckle or the roof blew away for lack of proper fasteners. But the eager Yankees would buy just about anything if the payment schedule was easy. And so they did as another land rush boom expansion picked up speed and momentum. Florida has this allure like the irresistible temptation of a gambling establishment. The jackpot is just another wager away, and the old adage once burned twice warned does not apply.
By the 1980’s we were beginning to see the first wave of this transition to lawlessness in the land of the fuzz-buster when our dinghy was stolen three different times.
The first time our distinctive dinghy was stolen we had our live-aboard boat Dursmirg anchored out in Matanzas Bay off of the City Yacht Pier in downtown St. Augustine. We had gone ashore leaving our very distinctive little dinghy that had our boat’s name, Dursmirg, painted on each side in one foot tall block letters plus on the stern was painted Bingy Dinghy I.
These thefts were in broad daylight in front of the City Yacht Pier crew that all knew us well and our strange little one-of-a-kind Bingy Dinghy.
We reported the theft to the marine patrol and in less than an hour our dinghy was returned and the thieves apprehended.
We were asked if we wanted to bring charges and I said, “Absolutely”.
Taking the tender of an anchored out boat is just like stealing a man’s horse in the desert. We lived aboard our anchored out boat and our dinghy was the only way home or to shore and yes, we were allergic to shark bites, so swimming in and out was out of the question!
Well, the young thieves father we knew slightly came to us irately furious stating that, “this was not stealing”.
Then I told him that as long as he had absolutely no concept of the law and property rights that the judge would just have to try to explain this matter to him, as I obviously could not.
Well that was just the beginning not just of the stealing and vandalism but also the national attitude that the victim could and would be damned.
After all this was “The Lawless State of Florida”.
It soon became apparent that it was a bigger offense to attempt to protect your own property than it was to be the burglar, who in many cases would sue and win judgments against the robbery victims for any bodily injuries incurred while in the act of committing the crime.
Florida had become “the land of the victim be damned”, with no recourses or restitution for the victims and of course with all the high-powered lawyers and bleeding heart juries it was far better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent.
Jane and I worked hard to build our resources and try to make the world a better place.
By the mid 1980’s we had increased our holdings to include 640 feet of river frontage and a deep-water dock to accommodate our fleet that consisted of our 46-foot motor sailor Dursmirg and our commercial fishing trawler Secotan plus a number of smaller vessels that included our 26-foot Columbia sailboat El Barco.
In our last eight years living in Florida, we were broken into nine different times and vandalized. Two of those times I apprehended the thieves at gunpoint.
It became necessary to sleep with an automatic shotgun and pistol plus devise a silent system of burglar alarms.
My first alarms worked but didn’t catch the thieves. Using motion detectors connected to lights and a radio I would get light and sound that kept most burglars away. The occasional raccoon also was sent scrambling.
Later I became even more sophisticated with silent alarms and a sensitive intercom system.
A note here; because of the huge liability situation that property owners were put into while being victimized by thieves it was very important to have a complete and thorough knowledge of just what the legal ramifications would be under these numerous robbery circumstances so we had several intense discussions with our lawyer before we even attempted to defend our own property.
Here is some of the advice that our lawyer gave to us; “Number one was to never shoot the villain in the back, make sure that you are dispatching the intruder and not just wounding him with no more than three shots. If for some reason the intruder is outside be sure to drag him inside and last but not least put something in his hand …even a rolled up newspaper will do. Then next call me, (your lawyer) and don’t notify the police, I being your lawyer will take care of that”.
So, there you have the situation that the property owner was put in and the confidential advice from our lawyer. If the situation was handled differently the outcome could be disastrous and criminal charges might even be brought against the victimized property owner. The police department gave similar advice.
I discovered that my greatest asset when dealing with these thieving scoundrels was silence and surprise.
So, with no lights and my very best sneakers, (my bare feet), I would quietly creep out, with my loaded gun cocked and ready, stealthy in the shadows to appraise the situation; first fact finding, how many people would I be confronting?
Were they armed?
How aggressive were they and when could I get in position where I had them covered while I would have a protected position in order to carry out the open warfare that could easily ensue?
Then as Jane was at the same time tip toeing off silently to call the police, I waited for the precise moment to apprehend the thieves. Surprise is essential in this situation followed by a complete take-charge atmosphere. At the correct moment I would chamber the shotgun…an unmistakable sound and give the command: “Don’t move! Don’t even move!” The police would be there shortly especially when my wife informed them that her husband was holding suspects at gunpoint.
If I had been a violent type of person I certainly could have had my opportunities to blow these thieves out of existence but I did manage to turn them all over to the police at gun point so that whatever justice there was could then be carried out.
One of these incidents happened while our commercial fishing vessel, Secotan tied to our dock, was being boarded at 4 AM. Jane and I were sleeping aboard our boat Dursmirg also tied to the dock. The two vessels were tied stern to stern.
This was a particularly quiet early morning. There wasn’t even a whisper of breeze and the distant crash of ocean waves was just barely audible.
Only the occasional nocturnal sound of a hungry raccoon rummaging through the abundant oysters crunching and cracking in search of a meal could distinctively be heard.
Then the alarm was sounded!
Our ever vigilant nocturnal neighbors noisily let us know of the presence on an intruder.
Only those in tune with the special realm of wild aquatic natural tidal marsh would recognize these distinctive voices of nature.
First the clack-clack-clack of the great blue heron as he plumed his wings to take flight and almost simultaneously the little nearly obscure marsh grass dweller, the elusive marsh hen gave out its rat-a-tat-tat.
These were my signals to leap out of even the deepest sleep and spring into action.
Silence and stealth were my tactics. With a loaded automatic pistol in hand and ready for action bare foot and silent as a cat on the prowl and slinking through shadows fact finding first.
How many intruders were there?
What were they doing?
Were they armed and if so with what?
Then develop a strategy.
Next with cover for myself I would find the best moment.
We had in excess of $10,000 worth of electronics aboard our shrimp trawler which was evidently too big a temptation for our neighbor Harold.
Harold’s mother owned the largest commercial building in downtown Jacksonville, Florida and had lots of high priced lawyers to get her kleptomaniac son off the hook, but he still received six months probation, which was at least an acknowledgement of the crime being committed.
When the police arrived I turned Harold over to them and he proceeded to call me every dirty derogatory expletive laced name he could conger up.
I told Harold that if the judge bought his story it would be OK with me but he needed to tell the judge because I was pressing charges and I knew that stealing was just so much fun until he got caught.
Ironically after this incident a series of break-ins and robberies of marine electronics at the marina just up the river from us dried up.
Florida became a lawless place and glib tongued lawyers boasted of having perfect records of springing all drunken driving cases, grand theft auto wouldn’t even warrant one night in jail and the convenience stores were being held up 2, 3 and even four times every night.
It was like the thieves would take a number and wait their turn standing in line to get in to steal.
As I now think back over the years to my childhood I recall that my father always exceeded the speed limit when he drove and that was breaking the law. Well it soon became the standard thing to do especially when radar detectors almost became standard equipment in new cars in America. The law soon became a joke and little by little anything that could be gotten away with was acceptable.
Fuzz busters made a joke of the basic law, so where do you draw the line?
Sure America had its lawlessness; we were continuously being robbed while we were building our boat Dursmirg.
When we made our maiden voyage from Superior, Wisconsin to Florida we had three incidents of uninvited intruders. In Florida we had our dinghy stolen three different times but now the pace and frequency of robberies went wild. Was it the drug culture and all the criminal lawyers making an industry to exploit?
The Muslims are strict and swift with their form of justice and cutting off the hand of a thief and turning him lose or stoning to death instead of incarceration takes care of their problem then and there.
This is in many ways much more cost effective than lengthy prison sentences. New York City’s policy of zero tolerance completely reversed that city’s horrific crime problem and that could possibly be what is needed nationally if it ever becomes popular again to make lawlessness a criminal offense with no exceptions for the rich or influential.
I certainly hope that some overzealous and fanatical movement won’t take the law enforcement to the extremes of hand amputation.
For Jane and I sleeping with loaded guns and burglar alarms just wasn’t going to lend itself to a quality lifestyle so we headed to a peaceful out of the way spot with a tropical climate excellent for Jane’s health and where there was still police brutality against criminals. This is where a property owner could still defend his property and would even be commended for doing so.
On this crowded planet, law and order will continue to deteriorate as more and more disadvantaged people are on the outside of opportunity with no hope of ever bettering their condition.
It is easy for me to see that it wouldn’t take much prodding for some homeless and hungry child to pick up a gun and take what he wants.
If that was the only problem the solution would be simple but as I stated earlier drugs, lawlessness and complete apathy among other things have made this world a lot less harmonious and safe place to live in.
These problems could be solved without becoming fanatical, but human nature won’t make a change until some fanatical political leader riles the masses into a lynch-mob mentality and a fanatical solution seems like the only logical solution.
And so the radical fanatical pendulum must take its course again and again.
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