P: In the meantime, Ralph had left teaching, because he had been teaching on the
 campus.

R: Yes. That is right. He was the State Farm insurance agent, and got called to active
 duty, and he had a partner, and something happened. I do not know exactly what
 [happened], but the partner suddenly was no longer on the scene and Ralph got an
 emergency leave to come home. He was looking for someone to step in and so
 [James Gilbert] Jim Richardson [assistant professor of finance] recommended me.
 We had become friends with the Richardsons; they were perhaps our first friends.

P: Now, Jim is teaching, already, on campus?

R: Yes. Jim had been there, I guess, for a couple of years when I got there.

P: And he is teaching in finance.

R: He is teaching in finance, that is right. And [he] was a character even then.

P: And you and Jim hit it off?

R: Yes. He and Caroline, I guess, were our first and closest friends. They took us
 under their wing.

P: Did you also have an office in Grove Hall?

R: No.

P: You were never there?

R: No.

P: Well, Richardson and Turlington shared an office for a while there.

R: I guess that is how they [became] close. So Ralph came home and was kind of
 desperate. Jim arranged for us to meet and Ralph said he would like me to help
 out.

P: Do what?

R: Run his office until he got out of the service. What happened was that I decided
 I would go ahead and start work on my doctorate, so I got the first fellowship from
 the College of Business. That paid, I think, $125 a month, and then I ran Ralph's
 office and made a little bit there, because the chamber appointment had run out.
 So for that next year I had that combination, taking classes and running the
 insurance agency.


 -27-