JoAnn Hill
asked
Pamela Richards:
I was going to ask you what brought you to writing in the beginning, but I think you just answered my question. Excellent article by the way. I enjoyed "Singing for Silence," immensely. JoAnn Hill
Pamela Richards
Thank you, JoAnn!
Now that you ask, I find I have the opportunity to answer your specific question more directly. I grew up in a family that loved reading, writing, and storytelling. All day I hid behind a book, even reading while walking home from school. Before making a stab at homework and going to bed to read with a flashlight under the covers, every night at supper I sat and listened to my father's stories of the day--the good, the bad, the mundane.
The one subject my father never discussed was his experience in World War Two, which he entered at age seventeen in time for the Battle of Okinawa. When we asked, we got very little from him but those bare facts. When I was growing up, we didn't have all the knowledge about healing trauma that we have now. His war stories would never have been appropriate for family table conversation, perhaps. But sometimes I wish he had a better outlet for his unresolved memories than nightmares.
My mother was an editor for a Christian publishing company when they met after the war--he was a graphic artist working under her direction. Despite her Cambridge postgraduate education, his command of the language was at least the equal of hers, and for entertainment, the two of them liked to place astronomical bets on the spelling or the meaning of some archaic word. "Five thousand dollars!" was the standing bet. I believe my father ended up well ahead, although he never collected the thousands he was owed.
My father was employed by a prominent printing company as a salesperson--a profession which had some resemblance to the account men described in Mad Men, but set in Pittsburgh, not Madison Avenue in New York. So I grew up around wordplay and to some degree, the publishing business.
All of this emphasis on language I carried with me when I met Richard Mullins during our freshman year of Bible College. Of course, I never imagined that I would write about him some day. But I knew he was remarkable, to be writing songs of that caliber at our age.
I have gone on to lead a life which for many years I wished I could forget.
I began to understand why my father would not speak of his war years. It was to my own surprise that I eventually began to write a memoir. I'll explain how that happened in response to the next question.
Now that you ask, I find I have the opportunity to answer your specific question more directly. I grew up in a family that loved reading, writing, and storytelling. All day I hid behind a book, even reading while walking home from school. Before making a stab at homework and going to bed to read with a flashlight under the covers, every night at supper I sat and listened to my father's stories of the day--the good, the bad, the mundane.
The one subject my father never discussed was his experience in World War Two, which he entered at age seventeen in time for the Battle of Okinawa. When we asked, we got very little from him but those bare facts. When I was growing up, we didn't have all the knowledge about healing trauma that we have now. His war stories would never have been appropriate for family table conversation, perhaps. But sometimes I wish he had a better outlet for his unresolved memories than nightmares.
My mother was an editor for a Christian publishing company when they met after the war--he was a graphic artist working under her direction. Despite her Cambridge postgraduate education, his command of the language was at least the equal of hers, and for entertainment, the two of them liked to place astronomical bets on the spelling or the meaning of some archaic word. "Five thousand dollars!" was the standing bet. I believe my father ended up well ahead, although he never collected the thousands he was owed.
My father was employed by a prominent printing company as a salesperson--a profession which had some resemblance to the account men described in Mad Men, but set in Pittsburgh, not Madison Avenue in New York. So I grew up around wordplay and to some degree, the publishing business.
All of this emphasis on language I carried with me when I met Richard Mullins during our freshman year of Bible College. Of course, I never imagined that I would write about him some day. But I knew he was remarkable, to be writing songs of that caliber at our age.
I have gone on to lead a life which for many years I wished I could forget.
I began to understand why my father would not speak of his war years. It was to my own surprise that I eventually began to write a memoir. I'll explain how that happened in response to the next question.
More Answered Questions
Bill Phillips
asked
Pamela Richards:
I've met so many people with personal Rich stories (a man in Mich. city who's a preacher for Vinyard who sat with Rich touring while he learned the dulcimer and tons of others). I just wonder what was Rich's most unremarkable personality trait? I heard he could be stubborn. I have a bit of that as well. Thank God for His changing power in our lives.
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