Sting-Ray Afternoons

Every generation has its own Sting-Ray, or so John Parsley reassured me in the early stages of this book, which he edited with his customary grace and wisdom. John recognized that a story about growing up in the 1970s in Minnesota could also be a story about growing up at any time, in any place, and for that and many other insights I’m forever grateful.

At Little, Brown, I also owe thanks to Michael Pietsch, Karen Landry, Gabriella Mongelli, Malin von Euler-Hogan, and Elisa Rivlin, an extraordinary group of professionals who showed nothing but kindness and patience. Dianna Stirpe is a copyeditor of the first stripe, an anagram she’d recognize and gently suggest deleting. I am also indebted, as ever, to Bill Thomas at Doubleday.

Given her devotion to the Boston Red Sox, Esther Newberg shouldn’t have the energy to pull for me, too, but she does, unfailingly. I am lucky to have her as my agent.

Steve Cannella and Chris Stone, my editors at Sports Illustrated, have indulged and encouraged my various whims over the years. Karen Carpenter at SI was also helpful, and her name belongs in a book about the ’70s.

Craig Finn has made art out of the Minneapolis suburbs—and the Southtown shopping center in particular—with his band the Hold Steady. He was also kind enough to read the manuscript and point out that Eddie Rabbitt, not Eddie Money, sang “Drivin’ My Life Away.” As a fact-checker, he is a rock star.

Mike McCollow is my oldest friend and remembers in vivid detail every moment of our singular childhood, which we spent more or less conjoined. This story is as much his as mine. I was helped, too, by the recollections of other Bloomington friends, neighbors, and parents, among them Tom McCarthy, Jim Clancy, and Doug Cannady, all of whom once lived in South Brook, whose residents made it an exceedingly lively place to be a kid. It still is.

I cannot adequately express my gratitude to the teachers I had at Nativity of Mary. They put big ideas in my head like helium into a balloon, and with the same levitating effect. Nativity is still there for the present generation of Bloomington kids. Likewise, the Penn Lake Library remains a place to get happily lost in books. The teachers and coaches at Lincoln and Kennedy made my high school years as seamless and fruitful as possible. I am grateful, too, for the continuing friendship of Keith Opatz and Kevin Sundem.

My wife, Rebecca, grew up in Massachusetts in a family similar to mine: she was forced by her big brother, Jason, to fight her sister, Rachel, in boxing gloves in a pink bedroom out of earshot of their parents. The start and end of each round was signaled by an owl-themed wind chime. Growing up in a large, noisy, chaotic family—and then raising one of your own—is not for everyone. But noisy families have been the great blessing of my life. If writing is a solitary pursuit, my children—Siobhan, Maeve, Thomas, and Rose—ensure that it’s never a lonely one. Tara Collins and Jessie are family, too.

The heroes of this story are my parents, Don and Jane Rushin. They passed along to all their children the richest possible inheritance: a sense of humor. Dad is the most modest man I’ve ever known. He’s allowed me to write about him for my sake, not his. It’s one more of the countless gifts he has given me.

Despite her well-deserved reputation for throwing away almost everything, Mom always saved what mattered most to me: baseball cards, books, and every photograph from childhood, with names, dates, and circumstances written on the backs in her impeccable penmanship. These photos and the memory book she kept for me were invaluable in writing this memoir. Mom, more than anyone, made me a writer. I miss her every day.

My siblings—Jim, Tom, and John Rushin, and Amy Kolar, MD—remain close, though we would never say so out loud. Despite distance and the passage of time, we’ll always share a bathroom at 2809 West 96th Street in South Brook. In many ways, we never left.

When we were kids, Jim used to answer most of my questions with a hostile question of his own: “You writin’ a book?”

Turns out I was.





Notes





Introduction


“Boys play aggressively in large groups”: “Suspicion Confirmed,” Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1973.





Chapter 1


“So I walked over to the desk drawer, got out my .22 revolver”: United Press International, “Lawyers Rush to Aid Pop Machine ‘Killer,’” Chicago Tribune, January 30, 1970.

“Mass travel by air”: National Defense Transportation Journal, vol. 22–23, National Defense Transportation Association, 1966.

“He frequently flies to Paris”: Walter S. Ross, The Last Hero: Charles A. Lindbergh, Harper and Row, 1968.

“If anyone ever flies to the moon”: “Juan Trippe, 81, Dies; U.S. Aviation Pioneer,” New York Times, April 4, 1981.

“I predict that we can enter the decade of the ’80s without the specter of cancer”: Dr. James T. Grace, Journal of Medicine, vol. 1, S. Karger, 1970.

“beer and soft drink containers, old hubcaps, iron bars”: “Family Helps Clean Face of America,” Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1970.

“We are a nation of pigs”: “Litter of Pigs,” Roanoke Times, reprinted in Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1969.

“will cost Illinois taxpayers 63 cents”: “Highway Litter Costs Reported,” Chicago Tribune, July 25, 1970.

Dr. Auerbach taught eighty-six beagles to smoke: “12 Dogs Develop Lung Cancer in Group of 86 Taught to Smoke,” New York Times, February 6, 1970.

the display ad in the Tribune: Chicago Tribune, September 22, 1966.

“Tape playback in automobiles…boat full of life jackets”: C. P. Gilmore, “Hard-Nosed Gambler in the Plane Game,” True, Fawcett Publications, 1966.

“tinkle” as he talked: Richard Rashke, Stormy Genius: The Life of Aviation’s Maverick Bill Lear, Houghton Mifflin, 1985, p. 258.





Chapter 2


“The Zeppelin, a British four-man group”: Peter Vaughan, “Led Zeppelin Was Good and Loud,” Minneapolis Star, April 13, 1970.

“She saw other children using the Romper Stompers”: “Romper Room—a Growing Family Affair,” Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1970.

Preschoolers in 1971 spend 64 percent of their waking hours watching TV: “Kids’ TV Addiction Told,” Chicago Tribune, October 18, 1971.

23 percent of all airtime is devoted to commercials: “Assail TV Commercials, Violence,” Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1971.

“relax minor tensions with a pill”: “TV Helps Turn Children to Drugs: Lindsay,” Chicago Tribune, February 8, 1970.

“Schools…are becoming the training ground for the next generation of addicts”: Ibid.





Chapter 3


“This airplane is the finest piece of aeronautical engineering”: Associated Press, “Jumbo Jet Returning,” Daytona Beach Morning Journal, January 23, 1970.

“Once you have flown on this plane”: Ibid.



Chapter 7


“The defendant’s attack did not end at that point”: Ray Kennedy, “A Non-Decision Begs the Question,” Sports Illustrated, July 28, 1975.

“Peter Puck, the silly cartoon character NBC uses as a guide for new hockey fans”: “Peter Puck Belongs in Sin Bin,” Chicago Tribune, February 25, 1975.

“a dozen jackhammers digging at your cranium”: Michael Anthony, “Music: Led Zeppelin,” Minneapolis Tribune, January 19, 1975.

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