STING RAY AFTERNOONS-Steve Rushin's Memoir of 70s Childhood in MN

Steve Rushin is journalist, novelist and sportswriter.  His articles have been finalists for the Nat'l Magazine Award.  His sports writing earned him recognition as Nat'l Sportswriter of the Year (2005.)  In his 2017 memoir, STING RAY AFTERNOONS, Rushin recalls his boyhood days growing up in the midwest in a typical, middle-class family of five kids, two parents, in a predominately white community that could pass for the "Happy Days"sitcom of the 70s.  Rushin's childhood could be described as carefree, mainstream and without trauma.  Except for the brotherly torments, covetous pleas for status welding consumer items and typical, hazardous pursuits.  Steve's upbringing is complacently mundane endowed with a winsome nostalgia for more innocent times.  This charming time capsule of Rushin's childhood serves as a zeitgeist which will appeal to a narrow niche; those sharing a similar upbringing and members of his familial clan.  Taken in fragments, Rushin's recollections are appealing and informative; perhaps more than necessary regarding background history on various products, popular cultural and events indigenous to Minneapolis and Steve's personal life.  Too much intimate information gets shared as when Steve describes having shat himself playing ice hockey or the perpetual urine flow contests and endless prank phone calls (now obsolete stunts.)  This memoir should extort chuckles from Steve's childhood friends and his own children, but fares poorly to otherwise pique curiosity.  However, Rushin is a skillful writer with incredible recall for details and pleasing paraphrasing to hold the reader ensconced at a remote distance.  "Childhood disappears down a storm drain.  It flows, then trickles, then vanishes, leaving some olfactory memory-of new tennis balls, Sunday-morning bacon, a chemical cloud of Glade-to prove it ever existed."  The book is a softball memoir that feels lightweight when seen through percipient eyes that witness brutal killings as the murder of George Floyd that occurred in Rushin's hometown.  Perhaps, in speaking of gentler times Rushin captures something deemed refreshing and for cherishing as an anecdote to our present  apocalyptical times.  There is a resonating, universal theme about the ever changing family that can never be the same as when we grew up under the same roof.  The forlorn observation of his family's irrevocable evolutions expresses a longing for days past.  "Our family of seven, our aluminum sided house {bursting at the seams}: (in Mom's words), will never again be as loud, the kids' bathroom will never again be as crowded. diners will never be so chaotic." "They {parents}want to preserve this time in a locket, freeze us as we are now and will never be again".