Tournament days

Here’s how we do a tournament. Get up at 3:30 am, driving straight through to California, spend the day with daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, go to bed, get up early, pack a gallon Ziploc bag with various snack foods (all that’s allowed to be brought in), grab two bottle of water each, and head to the stadium for a 9:20 am game. Phew!

The first obstacle to negotiate after paying $30 for parking (and being sure to remember where you parked) is to hope you can get your items through almost TSA-level security. There aren’t many people there for the first games as you can tell from the almost empty stadium.

The sevens series began in Dubai back in November of 2021 and traveled to Malaga, Seville, Singapore, Vancouver, Toulouse, London, and finally LA, close enough for us to get to easily and combine with a grandson visit. Win-win. Not saying we wouldn’t have loved to watch in one or more of the other cities, but the cost of going to LA was much cheaper. 🙂

Although we should be rooting for the US team, my heart belongs to the Blitzboks of South Africa. Ever since starting to watch, I’ve loved their intensity and play although they unfortunately were rather flat at this tournament. Also unfortunately for both me and the team, my favorite player Selvyn Davids wasn’t in LA due to injury. Here they are getting ready to play Argentina.

One of the fun things about sevens rugby tournaments is that fans dress up in all sorts of costumes and everyone has a good time. We didn’t dress up and didn’t have any team paraphernalia but I fell into conversation with fans from South Africa. This woman apologized for how the team was playing, introduced me to her mom saying that I knew all about the team, let us wrap up in her flag for this shot, and then went off and bought me a small SA flag. That’s all part of the fun

Other than South Africa not doing well, the only downside was that my face got rather sunburned. After the games, we headed over to our daughter’s for a bit of family time and a drink before heading back to our AirBnB for the night. Were we ever ready to sleep and try to recover for Day 2.

Friday Fictioneers…The Necklace

I really had to struggle to get down to 100 words this week.  I hope the story didn’t suffer as a result.  But it was a story I wanted to tell and I did the best I could.  If you’d like to read more stories, click on the blue frog to access the current links to other stories.

copyright Claire Fuller

The Necklace

Police interview
18 September, 1985
_______, South Africa
Peter S.

I was taking pictures for __________ magazine when I heard shouting and screaming. Everyone ran to where a gang of men had shoved a tyre around a woman. People yelled that she was a police informant. A man, her husband, I suppose, was trying to save her, shouting it wasn’t true. Two men dragged him away. Then someone dumped gasoline over her and somebody else tossed a lighted match.

No, I didn’t get any photos. I was bloody well afraid for my own life. Don’t think I could identify anyone.

 ***********

“Necklacing” was a practice that came into prominence in South Africa during the mid-1980’s.  As Wikipedia reports:

Author Lynda Schuster writes,

“

‘Necklacing’ represented the worst of the excesses committed in the name of the uprising. This was a particularly gruesome form of mob justice, reserved for those thought to be government collaborators, informers and black policemen. The executioners would force a car tire over the head and around the arms of the suspect, drench it in petrol, and set it alight. Immobilized, the victim burned to death.