March 26th, 2008
The New Sharks
Okay….
- Ray jumps, kills boater off Florida Keys
- ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Steve Irwin killed by stingray
- Sting Ray Seriously Injures Florida Man
I’d been on earth 26 years without hearing of a single instance of ray-related mayhem, then, in the last year-and-a-half, there are three. What is going on?
Steph and I were discussing the situation a few days ago and, at almost the same time, we name-dropped a little piece of juvenile literature known as The Black Pearl. Perhaps you remember it? We both had to read it for middle school English. In one of those tender moments that only brings a couple closer, we confessed to each other that we both had a gut-wrenching fear of manta rays, and that it was all because of this book.
Neither of us could even recall anything about the novel’s (human) characters or plot. All we had was that the cover looked like this:
Sorry, this is such a low-quality image, but it’s the only reproduction I could find. Evidently they’ve changed the “standard” cover to this:
I doubt if any of today’s adolescents are going to remember this super-lame image 16 years laters. Of course, I could see how — ya know, theoretically — the old cover might have caused a certain cross-section of the 11-year-old population with very active imaginations to wake up screaming at 4 am every night. The publisher probably gave in to pressure from frustrated parents, who were tired of repeating to their worried children that “giant rays are not out there attacking people who dare to enter the water.”
And not a moment too soon, ’cause what in the world would they tell them now?
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