A Book Review - A Story About Growing Up the '60s

I just finished a book called, "Eleven Miles South of Half Moon Bay", by Bill Sullivan. It is very well written, and I liked it, but it also disturbs me. The  theme and characters are very close to me. You see it is not fiction. It is the true story of the childhood and coming of age in the '60s of the main character, Bruce Stevenson, and his cousin, the author Bill Sullivan. They are closely related to me. Both are children of my cousins, Dr. Bob Stevenson and his wife Ginny, and Dr. Bob's sister Daphne Sullivan and her husband, William Sr. Dr. Bob and Daphne are my double cousins.

You see, my father, John Stevenson, and their father, Robert Stevenson, were brothers; and my mother, Bertha Flagg, and their mother, Dorothy Flagg were sisters. That makes Bob and his brother Tom, and my sister Jane and me, by blood ties, as close as one can get to being siblings without having the same parents. However, they grew up in Dayton Ohio, where Bob was a doctor of veterinary medicine, and my sister and I grew up on a dairy farm in Bethel Connecticut. We really didn't know each other well. I hope I don't have you too confused!

Our life experiences were similar in that wars had much to do with them; both WWII and, in the case of our children, Vietnam. We all married at about the times of WWII, and our children are all about the same age. My husband and I had three children, two boys and a girl, and my cousin, Dr. Bob Stevenson Jr. and his wife Ginny had four children, three boys and one girl. Bob and Ginny's children were reared near Dayton Ohio, and developed strong roots to the area. My husband was a career Navy enlisted man, and we were transferred every two years for 22 years. When my son John enlisted in the Air Force right out of high school, he had 20 addresses to declare for his security clearance, and most of his school years were spent in more than one school. That was because rentals were hard to find in those years, so we were forced to first rent a house that was more than we could afford, so we would find another closer to fitting our budget. Then, a few months before we were due to be transferred again, naval housing would become available for us. It was a hard life for kids.

According to Bill's story, Bruce was a rebellious, pugilistic, but brave young man who spent his early years trying unsuccessfully to keep up with his brothers and cousins in playing marbles and other games, think up mischief, and fighting kids of other neighborhoods. He was included on a hunting trip to Kentucky where he tried to collect rare lizards. He enlisted in the army very young - before finishing high school. He was sent first to Gernabt and was honorably discharged four years later after he returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam, a year before my son John did his tour of duty there in 1968. From Bill's story, I got the impression that Bruce had his act together better when he was discharged, than when he enlisted in the Army.

That wasn't so with my son John. He had a mental illness that my husband and I didn't understand, or maybe we didn't want to acknowledge. I feel a lot of guilt. He came back from Vietnam with very obvious mental illness. I am not going to burden you with John's life story; this is supposed to be a book review about Bruce's life story. But I will tell you that after a lot of time passed rambling around, and periods when he was a menace to other people and himself, he eventually killed himself at 31 years old by jumping off a building.

Bruce's story also ends in death. In 1970, when he was just 21, he rushed into the sea 11 miles south of Half Moon Bay, to rescue someone he didn't even know. His body was never recovered. I can tell you that, because the story is really about how he lived his life, and lived it with all his might. It is about his faithfulness to friends, and his devotion to his family, especially to his brother Eric, his sister, Louise, and his cousin Bill.

I had John's body cremated and the ashes scattered at sea, as is customary in part of my family. So the mortal remains of the two second cousins who never knew each other, ended up off the coast of California in the Pacific Ocean

I cannot know how others will enjoy this book.  I am too close to the sorrowful aspects of it to be a good judge. But I found the story of Bruce's early years, his letters home from Vietnam, and his wild motorcycle trips around the country, very entertaining. If you read it you can get a good idea about what life was like, especially for young people, in the 1960's

Here is a link to Bill Sullivan's page.

 http://www.willyvista.com/