CURRENT ADDRESS:
Billy Morton
PO Box 253
Moore Haven FL 33471-0253
863.946.1982
Dear Jim (and The Class of 56),
This week my buddy Carl spent a week's vacation time from his job as a Lake Worth Traffic
Policeman in order to locate and buy a newer car for his 164 mile round trip commute from here
in Moorehaven, FL. to Lake Worth, FL over on the FL East Coast. A few years ago, when he
was looking for a car and I was fatter, he found a sporty one he liked. But when I tried to fit into
the small bucket seats, the majority of my rear was still in the air as the seats were too small.
Much to my consternation, this time he drags me along on his car hunts to make sure I can be
accommodated. That and his determination to get the best deal means I squander many hours
while he test drives, haggles, and checks out features. Carl is 12 years younger than I, and so
thinks of me as old and wise, if somewhat seedy. He expects me to tag along willingly, which I
do!
The other response delay was a Denver, CO phone call from my lifelong friend Sharron
Andrews Zaun. She was getting her Master of Science in Botany at the University of Missouri
while I was getting my Ph.D. in the same field. At the time I belonged to the Univ. of MO
spelunking club, and had become friends with Neal Zaun who was getting his Ph.D. in Physics,
and who really needed to meet a nice girl. So I intorduced them and it was love at first sight. He
asked me to be his Best Man at their fancy church wedding thrown in Sharron's home towm in
Billings, MO. That night Neal and I slept in the same room at the Motel. Sharron called me aside
and said, "Bill Morton, if I ever hear that you got to Neal before I do tomorrow, I will personally
find you and cut off your pecans! You see, Neal didn't know the score, but she did!
Anyway, she has an old aunt who retired from the Missouri Ozarks to Ft. Meyers, FL only 50
miles west of Moore Haven, FL. Seems Auntie has gotten too old to live in Cape Coral (just N.
of Ft. Meyers), and so Sharron flew down from Denver to take Auntie around to look for an
assisted living facility. We have been trying to dove-tail so we can get together while she is
nearby. As it stands right now she and Auntie will drive out from Ft. Meyers to lunch with us on
Saturday, which means cleaning house, lunch preparation, and red carpet pressures. Currently,
life for Bill and Carl is busy and refulgent.
And now the exciting news from Nancy Reeves Wooten, that there's going to be a 50th year
reunion for the Central High School Class of 1956. I've been to all the others, and I wouldn't
miss this one for anything, so put my name on the expected attendee list. You have herewith my
reservation. God willing I will definitely be there. I may have to fly up and rent a car, as my old
1989 Dodge pickup that Daddy left me in 1993 when he died might not make it. Still, I keep
clinging to it, as it remains a tangible if disintergrating link to him. My Ole Daddy was a good
man, and I miss him very much.
I really have dreaded coming out gay to the '56 class, I mean like....breaking the hearts of all
the really hot girls I dated in high school, but back then it wasn't a ruse. I didn't know myself
until I was a second semester senior at the University of Arkansas. By then I had already been an
International Farm Youth Exchange student to Europe to work on various Dutch Farms for a
year. I also had been in Alpha Gamma Rho, the agricultural social fraternity, dated girls just like
all my aggie frat-brothers did. The richer more erudite fraternities on campus used to call
us"Alpha Grab-A-Hoe,." and when the Engineers did it, there were melees and skirmishes to
follow. They often hid outside the library at night closing time to grab us and shave off half our
head of hair. But the college fellow I double-dated girls with because he had a car and I didn't,
grew closer and closer as the semesters rolled by, and eventually one thing lead to another...well,
you get the picture.
I graduated from the University of Arkansas in the Collage of Agriculture with a major in
General Horticulture with the highest grade point in the Ag College. That got me into Cornell
University where I got my M.S. in Environmental Horticulture, and got a Cornell University
Scholarship to go back to Holland in 1963-1964 as a research assistant and student in
Ornamental Horticulture at the Univeristy of Wageningen, Wageningen, The Netherlands. Yes, I
speak Dutch fluently! At the end of that I went to Belgium to take the Graduate Record Exams
required to get into Stanford University in California, and upon return to America I moved to
California and did a year of study there on a full scholarship. While at Stanford my major
professor died and the Carnegie Institute section where I was closed, as he was the last one alive
in it. I found just the right man for my Doctoral Research at the University of Missouri, where I
enrolled in 1995 and finished my Ph.D. in Botany in the College of Arts and Sciences, not
Agriculture as before. My aim was to broaden my scope enough to be hirable either in an Ag
College and/or Arts and Scienses College.
I landed a job at the University of Florida after interviewing all over the nation, even Hawaii. I
knew about Florida's Johns Committee which was formed in the early 1960's by wealthy
ex-Governer Johns to rid Florida of Gays in public positions like teachers and professors at high
schools, colleges and universities, as well as any other state paid employees, but in 1966, after a
lot of media outrage, they had supposedly been disbanded after firing 10,000 gay public
employees. I took that to mean that the purges were over since national newspapers said they
were. Not so! They just went underground. In 1968 I moved to Florida and joined the faculty at
the University of Florida in Gainesville. There were two of us in the Ornamental Horticulture
Department, and we were followed to very low key rural central FL gay bars, drugged,
propped-up and photographed in compromised positions, hauled before Nazi-esque review
boards, fired, blacklisted and humiliated even in 1969-70. We were also publicly ridiculed in
professional circles. My academic career at the time was finished as we were blacklisted and
potential employers were informed about our orientation when we applied. The other fired
fellow in my department was nearing the end of his academic career, with maybe 7 to 10 years to
retire. His firing brought on a pronounced stutter that ended his lecturing even before he was to
depart. In a few months he was dead.
Broken but determined, I got Daddy to front me $25,000.00 to buy 10 acres to start my own
business, a wholesale plant nursery, which I began from utter scratch. Talk about a hard job. In
an act of defiance to my oppressors I named the nursery Toad Suck Farm after Toad Suck Ferry,
AR. It was 1969, the year of the Stonewall Riots in New York, that ushered in the modern
gay-rights movement. Wilber Mills, AR Representative of Fanny Fox fame went before the U.S.
Congress to get the name Toad Suck Ferry returned to the town after the U.S. Corps of Engineers
built a Lock & Dam (and park) there on the Arkansas River and renamed the whole place
something else. Well, the U.S. Congress acted to return the old Toad Suck Ferry name to the
dam, park and town. And I was so moved that I chose that name as my defiance of the
University of Florida's narrow-minded agenda. I had that farm for 34 years, and eventually as
things changed in Florida Academia, I was so established that I kept going even though I got a
job at a local Community College for the majority of those many years. So it wasn't the
Univeristy of Florida, it paid money!
Man was I tired when it came time to retire. Being a full time nurseryman and a full time
college lecturer was not easy, so when I retired at 65 I just about ready to. Carl came along in
1978, after I had neglected my mental health by being out there at the nursery alone for 10 years.
He was 27 and I was 39 when we met, and I had dieted myself down to a dashing presence. As a
matter of fact I was so hungery the night I met Carl that I had to hold onto the bar to keep
standing. April 2, 2005 will be 27 years we have been together...fully half of his life.
The business had ups and down over the years, and so 10 years ago he took a job as a traffic
cop at Lake Worth Police Department to bring home added income for the sparse summer sales.
He liked it so much, and they liked him so much, as he soon became the second highest ticket
giver, he stayed on there, and I hired others to replace him at the farm. He oversaw the farm when
I was away teaching and I held it together when he was policing.
The lesson of all this is that life is certainly worth living regardless of the cards you are dealt.
During the 34 years I had Toad Suck Farm, Delray Beach grew from 16,000 to 160,000 including
its unincorporated subdivisions that have Delray Beach addresses. Thousands of homes were
landscaped with Toad Suck Farm plants. Delray Beach has asked me to write a book history of
my farm for them, and to name names and events of those who lived through all the growth and
changes. It's hard to believe they think of me as an old sage dating back to their humble
beginnings, when some mornings I feel almost like 20, but alas mirrors and my life partner don't
lie.
I'm already jotting down computer notes of dates, names, and places when they come back to
me, lest the day arrives I set me down to write and linger there drawing blanks.
Your old friend Billy Mac (William McDonald Morton) is looking forward to seeing all of you
1956 Central High Classmates at the 50th reunion. Goodness, can it really be 50 years ago?
Where went the time? And what I wouldn't give to be 18 years old again, knowing what I know
now! That is, if I could also keep what I consider my God Blessed and event filled life.
Yours truly,
Billy Mac