Although All My Lazy Rivers is about John's young life in Indiana, it transcends Hoosierdom. John was the first of the first babyboomers, born in Indiana, in 1946, educated in Indiana schools, and then taught high school English for 40-some years, where I can imagine him -- I didn't know him then -- as a cross between Frank McCourt, and Mr. Chips.
I hoped that reading All My Lazy Rivers would provide insights into the developing male mind, to better understand adult males. I have two brothers, a son, and an ex-husband, and a crush on an older-model babe guy, so this understanding is crucial.
This is what I learned, about males, from the first volume of John's memoir, that ends, as John - Buddy - graduated to junior high school: males know how to make tomatoes explode (you have to read the book to find out how), will go to any lengths to make a crush like them, as in having a crush on a teacher, and trying to learn to bowl, to please her, males see HUMOR, where girls see FEAR, males are more willing to paint their younger siblings with green enamel paint than girls, they don't embarrass easily by their families, and males seem to have more elan, when it comes to trying to kill their siblings. I was reading this book, during a Madeline Albright lecture, at my local Barnes & Noble. I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing, during the part John described trying to kill his brother, by stuffing him, in the clothes dryer. I wish I had thought of doing that to MY brother! John was 8, his brother 5. What can I say!
My favorite chapter was "All My Lazy Rivers," about a 1950s style Christmas with the family, that conjured up my family's holidays of a jillion years ago. Just as the poignancy gets too thick, John -Buddy boy hits you with a brick of irreverent stuff, to snap you out of it. The book's weakness: too short. Not enough. John Buddy boy: are you reading this: I want more.
--Annie
For 2 YouTube Chapters, go to:
My First Crush: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itzqxJxM9-E
Twisted Easter Book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S31W0tU0mPs
Thade Correa, in Bloomington, Indiana wrote, on Amazon:
John Bolinger's ALL MY LAZY RIVERS is a poignant memoir of growing up in Northwest Indiana. At turns profound and hilarious, it is filled with vivid personalities repeatedly engaged in escapades so fantastic, strange, and funny that the reader will most likely laugh out loud in disbelief at least once every chapter. I certainly did. Written in eloquently spare prose, Bolinger's book is a tender elegy for the wonders and absurdity of childhood, as well as for the past itself--which, as this book shows, never truly dies but rather constitutes the very essence of who we are. This is a story meant for anyone who wishes to relive the magic of childhood in all its splendor and wild abandon.
