The Accidental Novelist

I suppose I should be called the accidental novelist. Unlike many of my writing colleagues, I never penned stories as a kid or spent hours at the library checking out children's mysteries. As a teenager I enjoyed reading fiction, but it was mostly short stories in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and Liberty. My Nashville high school had a student newspaper, but I never had any interest in writing for it. The closest I came to being involved in the literary field was as co-advertising manager for my high school yearbook as a senior in 1943.

I first wrote about my accidental entry into the writing game when I updated my website several years ago. I wrote an article titled "Reflections on The Writing Life—My 60-year odyssey with the written word." In it I told how I volunteered for Aviation Cadet training in the Army Air Corps after graduation in June of 1943. I was called to active duty the following January after turning eighteen. With the air war in Europe going our way, they didn't need as many new pilots, bombardiers, and navigators as they did when I signed on. With the rank of Aviation Cadet, I was shifted about the Southeastern Training Command, winding up in the summer of 1945 at historic Randolph Field in San Antonio.

After first serving as a guinea pig in the School of Aviation Medicine, where I was probed and prodded by candidates for Flight Surgeon, I was assigned as a clerk in the Transient Bachelor Officers Quarters. Another cadet and I

Classic Spanish design of buildings at Randolph Field, now Randolph AFB.

mostly checked in and out pilots there for an overnight stop. We also served as cashier in the Officer's Mess that occupied another part of the building. My partner, a cadet named Wolfson, had spent a year at Yale before entering the service. While we were chatting one day, he said, "Ïf I had it to do over again, I'd study journalism."

That somehow struck a chord with me. Up to that point, all I'd ever wanted to do was fly airplanes. But with the war winding down, it didn't look like that would happen. The more I thought about it, the more I became obsessed with the idea. Journalism schools only dealt with upper class students, so after my discharge I immediately enrolled at the University of Tennessee, intending to transfer to some place like Wisconsin or Missouri in my junior year. But the accidental nature of my career still ruled supreme.

When my sophomore year began, the executive editor of The Knoxville Journal took a year's sabbatical to teach a newspaper reporting class at UT. I immediately enrolled.Then I learned the university was bringing in a new professor to start a full journalism curriculum the following year. By then I was working on the student newspaper and was in line to become managing editor of one edition. But shortly after school started that fall, The Journal editor, who had returned to his old job, called me and a couple of other of his former students and offered us jobs as reporters.

Since The Journal was a morning newspaper, we could go to school during the day and work as reporters at night until the first edition was put to bed, as we journalists would say, around eleven o'clock. But it gets even worse...er, more complicated. While browsing the library near the newspaper office one day, I came across two books by Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses Don't They? and No Pockets in a Shroud. I devoured them and became hooked on the mystery genre.

While going to journalism school during the day and working at the newspaper at night, I managed to squeeze in time on my little portable typewriter to write my first crime novel. I had filled in occasionally on the police beat and wrote a tale of a young reporter helping solve a murder. I gave it the title Time Waits for Murder, sent it off to a publisher, and soon had my first rejection slip.

I also wrote a spy story in the sixties, but it was 2002 before my first published book came out. My journey as an accidental novelist would take too much space to continue here, but if you'd like to read the full story go to my website where  you'll find the article I wrote in 2008. Incidentally, that 60-year odyssey is now up to 66.

Remember the Fallen, Those Who Gave Their Best

Memorial Day is a time of remembrance. We honor those who gave their lives for their country, and remember those who gave their best in service to their country. I know I shouldn't be, but I always feel a bit embarrassed when somebody says "thanks for your service." I guess it's because, unlike so many others, I was never shot at.

I enlisted in the Army Reserve for Aviation Cadet training in June of 1943, just out of high school. I wouldn't turn eighteen until the end of November, so wasn't called to active duty until January. D-Day in Europe was nearly six months away, and troops were fighting their way north in Italy. American and British bombers blasted away at targets in Germany, particularly Berlin.

With the air war going well, the U.S. Army Air Forces had more aircrew officers in the pipeline than needed. So they distributed us Aviation Cadets around bases in the South. I started out at Moody Field, Valdosta, GA, where I wound up doing KP (peeling potatoes, scrubbing pots and pans) and helping build a firing range the German POW's refused to participate in. When a College Training Detachment class opened at Winthrop College, a girls' school in Rock Hill, SC, I headed off to the first phase of training.

When nothing else opened up after that, I headed south to Sumpter, SC and Shaw Field, where luckier cadets were learning to fly the BT-13, also known as te Vultee Vibrator. I was assigned to the Air Inspector's Office, where I spent many hours filing Army Regulations. A lieutenant in the office test-flew aircraft after major inspections, and I rode the student seat on some of these missions. That was the closest I came to learning to fly.

In the spring of 1945, I finally made it to the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center (now called Lackland Air Force Base) for the next class in Preflight School. We studied subjects like meteorology, aircraft identification, and Morse Code. But, alas, when that was over, there were no openings for flight training. I joined other cadets at Randolph Field, on the other side of the city, to be guinea pigs in the School of Aviation Medicine. We performed such chores as getting physicals by candidates for designation as Flight Surgeons and trying out pills for airsickness. In the latter case, we took the pills then sat in swing-like gondolas where we were swung back and forth, higher and higher, to see how long it would take for us to get sick. I've never had a problem with airsickness, so I wasn't much help.

After a few weeks of that routine, another cadet and I were transferred to the Officers Mess, which also housed the VOQ, or Visiting Officers Quarters. We had rooms in the VOQ and worked in the office. After the barracks I had occupied, this was luxury. Built in the 1930's as the showplace of the new Army Air Corps, Randolph was known as the West Point of the Air. Its buildings were designed in Spanish Colonial Revival Style architecture, a far cry from those on bases thrown up during World War II.

It was here that I got the idea of becoming a writer. My fellow cadet had spent a year at Yale before joining the service. While chatting one day about what we'd do after the war, he confided that if he were to start college again, he'd study journalism. I'd never done any writing, but that stirred my interest. When news of the Hiroshima bombing came shortly after that, I sat at the office typewriter and started a story involving the A-bomb. When I was discharged about three months after the war ended, I set my sights on journalism school and enrolled at the University of Tennessee in January 1946.

While I don't think I contributed much in World War II, except my presence in uniform, I played a more significant role in the Korean War after getting an Air Force commission through ROTC. I served in the Estimates Division of the Directorate of Intelligence at Fifth Air Force Headquarters in Seoul. My job was to monitor enemy air activity and report on its consequences. I spoke on the subject at briefings for United Nations personnel and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service.

At one time I had the chance to join a group from the DI that journeyed up to the front lines, but for some reason I wasn't unable to make it. So I missed my best opportunity to get shot at.

But on this Memorial Day, I salute all those who served in whatever capacity. And I wish all the survivors a happy life. Mine certainly has been.

My accidental venture into writing

How authors get started in writing is a fascinating subject. I've read countless stories of people who wanted to be an author from the time they learned to hold a pencil. Others knew it would be their fate on reading the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew as youngsters. I'm not one of them.

I've told a bit of the story on the F.A.Q.s page of my website. Although I was a dedicated reader of short stories in The Saturday Evening Post and other weekly magazines as a teen, I never considered writing them myself. My closest connection to the printed page was as co-business manager (make that advertising salesman) for my 1943 high school annual, The Grey Eagle.

After graduation, I volunteered for Aviation Cadet training in the Army. My World War II military career did not consist of air raids on Tokyo or Berlin, however. I was shifted about from base to base waiting for openings in the next phase of training. I wound up in the summer of 1945 at Randolph Field in San Antonio, a legendary base with permanent buildings. I was assigned as a clerk in the VOQ, Visiting Officers Quarters, located upstairs above the Officers Mess.

I had a partner on the job, another cadet named Wolfson, who had spent a year at Yale before going into the service. While chatting one day, he told me that if he had it to do again, he would study journalism. For some reason, that idea took root in my mind. The more I thought about it, the more intriguing it sounded.

We had a typewriter in the VOQ office. I had used it to hunt and peck letters and such. After news of the atomic bomb exploded across the front pages, I sat down at the typewriter and began punching out a story involving a nuclear weapon. I don't think I got too far with it as the war quickly came to an end, and we began to consider what would happen next.

A lot of the guys who had volunteered for Cadet training came from families in high places. I heard that some of them had lobbied the War Department (now Defense) to release us, rather than put us in other Army units for postwar occupation assignments. Whatever happened, orders came down in the fall giving us the option of taking a discharge. I was ready to head home and resume my education, so I split.

I wanted to study journalism. I learned that the big J schools were upper class programs, meaning I couldn't get in until I was a junior. So I enrolled at the University of Tennessee in January of 1946. I considered transferring to Wisconsin, one of the top-rated J schools, but I learned that UT would have a reporting course in my sophomore year. I signed up for that one and enjoyed it immensely. The following year, a full journalism program was established.

I had worked on the student newspaper, the Orange and White, and was tapped to be managing editor of one of the semi-weekly editions. However, my reporting course teacher returned to his post as executive editor of The Knoxville Journal and offered me a job as a reporter. I skipped the student assignment and became a cub reporter at the morning daily.

I quickly found my forte was writing feature stories, finding interesting twists to make articles come alive more than with a straight news treatment. After reading two mystery books by Horace McCoy (They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and No Pockets in a Shroud), I decided to write one of my own. Going to school in the day and working nights didn't leave a lot of spare time, but I sat down in my basement room at the fraternity house and banged out a mystery novel on my little Smith-Corona portable.

The manuscript was rejected by a publisher, and I was too much a neophyte to know I should try others. I was hooked on mysteries, though, and on writing in general. I've been at it now for more than sixty years. Who knows what I would have done if it hadn't been for Cadet Wolfson?