Time Well Spent: A Sailor's Story

Arthur S. Harrell has been writing since the 1920s when he was an elementary school student. His relationships and interactions with others have been captured in Time Well Spent. He and his brother pooled their caddying tips to take their suffering mother to the dentist, and, later, he was horrified when he had to help his dad prepare a corpse for their poverty-stricken neighbor. In the U.S. Navy, his love of the written word was immediately noticed, and he was put on track to become Chief Yeoman. Violence is in the background of his war stories, as his memories are about outstanding ship captains and rotten crab cakes. He gives details of what Pearl Harbor was like when his ship arrived after the attack. He also gives details of Nagasaki after the bombing, and the sailors who could hardly wait to go there so they could "kick some ass." His description of a shadow on the bridge paints a vivid picture of the bomb effects. " . . . all the juices had been cooked out of a human body, leaving behind this grisly remnant of true disaster." Each chapter is a vignette of life with an encouraging positive outlook.