The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen by Lori Leachman
It is amazing how revealing and enlightening funeral celebrations can be. Long-held secrets may finally be shared. The truth of a particular situation is told. Long-simmering resentments are aired, or forgotten. Memories are resurrected. The nature of love is revealed.
I experienced all of these things at my father’s funeral in 2012. These revelations brought new context to my entire life. The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen is my effort to synthesize what I thought was true about my life and what I learned was true about my life, my parents, and their love story.
My father was the typical small town football star whose ticket out of Cartersville, Georgia was a football scholarship. My mother was a debutant wanna-be with captivating looks and a sense of herself. They met in the fall of 1956 at the Fall Football Banquet […]
Do you like to watch sports on TV? If so, I am sure you have watched one (or more) of those matches that were, well, a tad boring. Dragged for a while. That didn’t hold you interest because honestly, both teams were equally unappealing. On the other hand, I am sure you have also watched matches that got you so worked up that you were ready to throw the TV magazine at the screen, that you needed something, now, to distract you. In either of these cases, what do you do? 
… and I’m trying to catch my breath. First of all, congratulations to the marvellous Spanish team!!! 
Okay, so I’ll try to keep the gloating to a minimum.
This is a completely gratuitous post and I’m slightly embarrassed to even post it. Slightly. At least not enough to keep me from posting. 
And I can’t wait! I am actually not planning to watch every single match, but I will watch lots and lots of them. While I follow the German Bundesliga, the first league, with great enthusiasm every year, the World Cup is something else still. For one thing, it’s super-exciting to watch all (or almost all of) the best players of a generation, for another I thoroughly enjoy the peculiar brand of patriotism – one unabashedly supports one’s favorite team, but all in a sense of great fun – that comes with each World Cup. 
In general, I’m not a big fan of any Olympic opening or closing ceremonies, so will not even tip a toe into discussions about last night’s ceremony. Honestly, the highlight for me is always the parade of athletes.