Sting-Ray Afternoons

by Steve Rushin
Hennepin County Library hardcover 319 pages
genre: non-fiction memoir

I really enjoyed reading this book! I'm not sure how much I would have enjoyed it had I not also grown up in Bloomington, MN at the same time as Steve Rushin. Recognizing the landmarks and remembering my own experiences enriched the reading. Steve is a fantastic writer, though, and I'm sure much of the humor and coming-of-age would translate to any city and state in the 1970s.

I don't remember much about Steve (we both graduated from Bloomington Kennedy after having been at Lincoln), but I distinctly remember his brother Tom! Older than us by a year, Tom was cruel and nasty (in my teenage eyes) when I encountered him at Lincoln. Reading this book makes me wish I'd known Steve! I saw him as just a "jock" and didn't realize he loved to read, play with words, and write.

page 28 - I had never heard 3M referred to as "Mickey Mouse Mining" before! The nicknames for Normandale - "Harvard on the Hill" and others - I was familiar with, but the 3M nickname was new to me. (His dad worked for 3M.)

page 33 - In 1970, "Dr. James T. Grace, Jr., has confidently asserted that cancer will be a memory by 1979. 'I predict that we can enter the decade of the '80s without the specter of cancer hanging over our people,' Grace says, a statement that everyone can suddenly affirm with the brand-new sentence starter: 'If they can put a man on the moon, surely they can [fill in the blank with your wildest dream].'" This is so true! The optimism about the future was so powerful at that time! (I was a little kid, too, so what did I know?) But the thought that cancer would still be such a major killer more than forty years later? Unthinkable!

page 44 - Oh! This made me laugh out loud! "Tom's Brillo-pad hair likewise won't lend itself to any form of basement taming. By the time Tom is seven, Bernie the Barber, scissors snipping in one hand, will survey his head from every angle and finally grab a handful of hair in exasperation: 'Your hair,' he will announce, 'belongs on a dog's butt.' The statement is no less cruel - and possibly a great deal more cruel - for being true." (At this point, it was just the humorous way he set up the scene about haircuts that made me laugh, not the unkindness toward his brother. Steve really is a talented writer!)

page 47 - "And so, in three of its 1956 models, Chrysler offered the Highway Hi-Fi, an in-car record player that could play specially manufactured 7-inch discs at 16 2/3 rpm . . . " What?! Playing records in a car?! There were so many places where I was amazing at how Steve incorporated his love of reading and information into his personal memoir.

page 60 - The Romper Room part instantly reminded me of how much I believed that she could see the kids watching her on tv! I wanted so much for her to say my name! Again, Rushin includes some very interesting history about the show that I didn't know about before reading this.

page 191 - Oh! The scene when he goes to the hotel with his friend to get Vikings autographs and after two weeks of wishing to connect with Alan Page . . . he is told that Mr. Page does *not* give autographs so *don't* even ask! I love love love how this turned out! His mom letting him wear his ratty "hillbilly" homemade Page jersey . . . and Alan Page noticing! "So - my chicken chest heaving, and on the brink of hyperventilation - I continue to watch as he pauses at the stairs, turns and looks back at the lobby, evidently having forgotten something at the front desk. But he hasn't forgotten anything. No, Alan Page walks directly toward me, takes the BIC from my trembling hand, and signs his name in one grand flourish in my Mead notebook. He smiles and puts his hand on top of my head, as if palming a grapefruit." I love this! But then, Alan Page is one of my personal heroes, too. But not because of football!

page 216 - The scene where the "Creek Freak" confronts his dad on the Fourth of July! Oh my! This, too, is beautifully written! I'm too lazy to include it (or re-type it) here, but what a great way to honor his dad and paint a vivid, powerful picture!

page 249 - ". . . but my year of reading about California will not go to waste. I am powerless to stop my factual exhibitionism." This made me smile! I love that he read voraciously in preparation for the family trip to California and then regaled his family with what he knew about the places they traveled.

page 257 - When they encountered a bidet in a hotel room . . . "Tom is telling on him now. 'John was trying to drink out of the . . . ' The new French word eludes him, and Tom finally says, 'John was trying to drink out of the butt washer!'" Too funny!

page 286 - Mortality and fear . . . When he worries that his own dad might die young, after a friend's dad of the same age dies of a heart attack. This scene makes me so sad for the young Steve (and so impressed that the adult can write about his young fears and struggles in such a personal and deep way).

page 305 - This was weird. I don't even remember anything about the first day of school at Bloomington Kennedy in the fall of 1982 . . . "A large dead fish will be rotting on the front walk into JFK when we disembark the school bus for our very first day there. Written in fish blood on the concrete: NEWCOMERS DIE." How could I not remember seeing / smelling something like that? Later on that page, "But of course no teacher has seen it yet, and when the first one does - within the hour - the message in fish blood is hosed away, and I'm left to wonder if it was ever there in the first place. Nothing remains but the faint smell of fish." Now I wonder if it really happened.

page 305 - So sad that his mom died so young! Again, he uses words so effectively to memorialize her. "In dying, she allayed my greatest fear - of death. Dying joined shoe tying and coat zipping and bed making on the long list of acts Mom demonstrated for her children, so that we could someday do it for ourselves." This, along with the scene where she substitute teaches at his Catholic school in junior high, are wonderful passages about his mother's impact on his and his siblings' lives.

page 307 - Their last time together (all five siblings) at the house they grew up in . . . I can't believe they emptied the house on their sister's wedding day! Ugh! I'm so glad I didn't grow up with four brothers!

This book is wonderful. I'm glad I read it. I wish I'd known Steve better in high school. He seems like a great guy!