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A Sampler of Passages from My Wings at Sunset, just to pique your interest.

Introduction	Who wants to open himself honestly to public scrutiny? Yet what good is memoir sharing if it isn’t candid and honest? It is the emotional, intellectual and spiritual undressing that gives such storytelling both interest and integrity. I have lived and am still living a full and colorful life. I want the yarns I spin out here to connect somehow with you who are collecting (intentionally or not) your own treasury of experience. Maybe you will find stimulation in identifying with some of my memories. I hope you will laugh with me, perhaps cry with me, and even argue with or criticize me.
Chapter 3: A CHILD’S GARDEN OF MEDIA	Radio and I grew up together in the 1920’s. In our Spring Grove home our first Atwater-Kent receiver had three dials, each having to be fine-tuned to the same frequency. It was powered by an automobile battery, which my father placed under the receiver. We would gather in the living room to be enthralled with music from Chicago and voices from New York… It was a wonderful era. In the midst of the Depression of the 1930’s we were unabashedly awe-struck by this magic device that translated invisible ether waves into sound. My dream of becoming a radio announcer began, I think, from hearing the velvet baritone of Andre Baruch enter our home from WGN in Chicago.
Chapter 5: PACIFIC ODYSSEY	As wars go, ours was mercifully short. And I found it fairly safe and antiseptic compared to others’ horrendous life and death encounters. If course it didn’t feel very safe when we were bombing an enemy island and were inviting anti-aircraft to shoot back at us, as if we were flying into fireworks on the fourth of July. And it didn’t feel safe when we were strafing and bombing a Japanese cargo ship whose guns were firing red-hot bullets our way. And it didn’t feel safe as we were flying close to Japan at night seeing a radar image of a bogie plane tracking us off to our starboard side. And it didn’t feel safe when aboard ship one day we had a Kamikaze guest at lunch time. Our ship—a seaplane tender—was hit.
Chapter 9: FAITH-BASED LIFE	The creative process is a mystery and a major fascination to me. There is something spiritual about it—it doesn’t fit under the scientist’s microscope. There is a quality of fantasy often connected to creativity… I don’t normally use prayer to solve creative problems, even though I believe in the power of prayer. It doesn’t seem right to me to think of prayer petitions as a functional matter, as if we put the squeeze on God. Sure, I know the verses that say, “Seek and ye shall find” and “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.” Rather, I like to invite the working of God’s divine spirit into my thinking. It is in that aspect of the Triune Godhead that inspiration comes to us. The breath of God. Inspiration itself means “breathing in.” I imagine God breathing life into each human being, stimulating the human mind to creative thought and to the making of art.
Chapter 14: WRITING THERAPY	Different types of writing are therapeutic in different ways. There is a great psychological reward to having conceived of a creative work and witnessed its delivery to its intended audience. Unlike the team process that produces radio or television scripts on demand and on schedule, writing articles is a lonely task. Most writers of articles have to do research and have to outline in advance the point of what they’re writing and where they are going with it. In my case, after I have gathered data that seems potentially interesting and relevant, I have found it helpful to sit down at the computer with a blank page on my screen and just put down all the thoughts that I can collect whether they are useful or not, and then let this material speak to me.
Chapter 17: SUNSET REFLECTIONS	I once heard the German “theologian of hope” Jurgen Moltmann invite us to visualize the future not as our going to meet it but rather as it coming to meet us. Advent, you know, and all that. I find that sort of imaging difficult. The future is so terribly abstract. Who can describe it? …I am often reminded, because I am in my mid 80’s, that my expected span of life may already have expired. But I haven’t expired and I pray I can live for more years. I love life. But I try to be a realist. As a cancer survivor, I often feel I am already living on “borrowed time.” Each of us is, to a certain extent. I would be a fool if I didn’t face the possibility that I could meet my Thanatopsis moment any day. …Life itself is a gift given to us by God and the decisions must be His. I try to help by maintaining a reasonable life style, by regular checkups and physicals. I have monthly sessions and shots from my oncologist. I have a neurologist who, at my most recent session, told me. “You’re in good shape. Live a good life. Enjoy good wine!” I laughed. He smiled.

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Page last modified by Richard Lee on 16 December 2007