McKenna

The story goes that Richard McKenna was too poor to attend high school athletic games in Mountain Home, Idaho, but he figured out a way. He appeared at games, carrying a big dictionary, and challenged classmates to choose a word he could not define. He collected enough money for the games. His family was so poor that when they moved across town, he transported the household belongings on his little (red?) wagon. After completing high school, it must have seemed his only option was to join military service, for he did so.

After twenty years in the U. S. Navy, he wrote The Sand Pebbles, which made a movie too. If you’ve read The Sand Pebbles, you know a Navy ship of that time did not hold a single part unknown to McKenna.

Conclusion: his literary success must have stemmed from his vocabulary study while quite young. Oh, and an imagination, of course.

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