Infamy Isn't All Bad

Let me start by saying I'm reasonably pleased with the way my life has turned out. For sure there are things I would have changed, had I known what I know now, but I'm quite happy with the overall result. At this point, you're probably thinking what the devil does this have to do with infamy?

It goes back 69 years to that fateful December 7, 1941. What happened that day put me on the path that led to where I am now. It was one of those blockbuster events that cause people to recall what they were doing when they heard the news. I was riding in my dad's car, listening to the radio. It was around 1:30 p.m. when the news broke on CBS Radio (WLAC in Nashville). I don't remember if I heard the initial announcement or a follow-up. But I remember the message.

The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. You can listen to the original radio reports at the Modesto Radio Museum website.

I had just turned 16 and gotten my driver's license. I didn't get to use the car much back in those days, and even less after gas rationing started in 1942. But like every other boy in my school, I couldn't wait to get out and join the service. My older brother was drafted after finishing his first year in college. I was only 17 when I graduated but promptly enlisted in the Army Air Corps Reserve, getting called to active duty a month after my next birthday.

In his famous declaration of war speech, President Roosevelt called December 7 "a day which will live in infamy." For me, it was a day that set the course for my life. That decision to join the Army sent me on a circuitous route around the Southeast Training Command. My final assignment was at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas.

While there I worked with a fellow Aviation Cadet who had studied a year at Yale before entering the service. We were talking one day about what we'd do when the war was over (it was winding down at the time), and he said if he had it to do over he'd have studied journalism. Up to that point I had never considered writing either as a hobby or a profession. But the idea struck a chord, and I decided to find a journalism school to attend.

One thing leads to another as things develop through life. If the Japanese hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor that day, I probably wouldn't have joined the Army Air Force, wouldn't have wound up at Randolph Field, and wouldn't have been steered into a writing career. So for me, that day of infamy started things in motion to produce a life that has been uniquely satisfying.

Currently I enjoy writing mystery novels and have no plans to break off in another direction. I've had a lifelong adventure with words. I tell the full story on my website in an essay entitled "Reflections on the Writing Life - my 60-year odyssey with the written word."

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?

Observe or Participate

Basically, I’m an observer, not a participant. I suppose over the years I’ve experienced a modest share of participating. I always dreamed of being a big sports star, but my high school football career lasted only two weeks. When I caught a knee in the mouth and broke off a front tooth, I knew my mother would give me the old Porky Pig line: “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!” With problems I’d already encountered, it resulted in a fixed bridge spanning my four front teeth.

World War II came along and I dreamed of flying fighter planes and shooting down Messerschmitts or Mitsubishis. The closest I got to the enemy was watching German prisoners in the chow line at Moody Field, GA. One of my jobs there was filing Air Force Regulations in the Air Inspector’s office. Since I liked to read, I spent most of my time reading the regulations before filing them. (Haven’t found a place to use them in a plot, however.)

As an Air Force intelligence officer in the Korean War, I combined my observation skills with a little deductive reasoning (prep school for writing crime investigation) to monitor and interpret enemy air activity in the war zone. They gave me a Bronze Star medal for that.

My observer status took front and center when I studied journalism and became a reporter on a daily newspaper. I’ve never been much of a talker, so it took a bit of effort to get the hang of asking questions when on a news assignment. I soon learned to get the maximum amount of information with a minimum of queries. Fortunately, most people, unlike me, are eager to talk and tell you what they know. In an interview with a famous violinist, all I did was introduce myself and he proceeded to regale me with many times as much information as I needed.

I never had much ambition to be a thespian, but I participated in the annual Gridiron Shows put on by Sigma Delta Chi (now the Society of Professional Journalists). While editing Nashville Magazine, I even took a bit part in a local production of Ionesco’s play, Rhinoceros. It was actually research for an article on the theatre, so it doesn’t count as pure participation.

I logged more observer time in the fields of advertising and public relations. As a copy writer in the ad agency’s Creative Department, I spent many hours dreaming up ways to glorify products in as few words as possible. Try writing billboard copy. On the PR side, I wrote news releases and brochures and manuals. I wasn’t the spokesperson type.

The closest I came to being a real participant was during the 18 years I spent managing a statewide trade association with over 4,000 members. I had to set up and participate in board meetings and conventions, and I made numerous speeches to local associations. Most of my work, though, was done from the sidelines. I wasn’t a get out front and take the glory guy. I created programs and sold them to my volunteers, who would bask in the limelight and get things moving. Only interested in results, I was happy to observe while they took the credit.

When I became a more-or-less fulltime fiction writer (meaning I have lots of other responsibilities that take up too much of my time), I put my observer status in high gear. The old cliché “writing is a solitary profession” is pretty well on target. But in the current milieu, hand-in-hand with writing goes promotion. I’ve been forced to become a full participant in that arena.

Normally, I don’t speak to people with whom I am unacquainted (or, as they caution little kids, I don’t talk to strangers). I rely on my wife to do most of the ice-breaking at book signings, though I’ve learned to hold out a promo folder or business card to anybody who looks like they might be a mystery reader. I will talk about my books to anyone who will listen. I used to do lots of appearances at book clubs, libraries, and such, but I’ve had to curtail that because of worn out vocal chords. How did I wear them out if I don’t like to talk? That’s another story.

The observer role suits me fine as I pursue my life as a mystery writer. I don’t go as much as I used to, but I see enough of mankind (sorry, no PC womankind or personkind) in all its permutations to satisfy my curiosity about the current scene. If you don’t happen to encounter me in one of my participatory ventures, check out my books and see if you like my observations.