Hotdogs and funerals—right down the street from the funeral home sits a local ice-cream shop that also serves hamburgers, fries, and other artery clogging prizes the entire family can enjoy. However, nothing tasted as good as the footlong hotdog with sauce or as, us, locals would mispronounce, “a footer with sauce.” Mm-hm, boy, howdy, are they good! When I would come home on leave from the air force, the first place I wanted to visit was that little ice-cream shop to order “a footer with sauce” or, in my younger days, “two footers with sauce.” Again, I’m hard to kidnap. Don’t judge. Well, wouldn’t you know it, one evening when my sister and I were still young, Igene and Irene returned from the funeral home with two footers with sauce. Both footers were laid out in a cardboard box...much like the people in the funeral home now that I think about. In the box, each footer was placed inside the paper sleeve with the ice-cream store’s name on it. Due to the ride home, the footers were a little cold, and some of the sauce were stuck to the paper sleeve as well as some of the bun. No matter the condition, my sister and I held our footers proudly as if we were going to raise them like flags before a defeated enemy after a long hard-fought battle with starvation. No doubt this is what the marines felt like raising the American flag after the Battle of Iwo Jima. Bombs burst in the air of our minds as we relished (no pun intended) in our wiener victory!

Hotdogs and funerals-right down the street from the funeral home sits a local ice-cream shop that also serves hamburgers, fries, and other artery clogging prizes the entire family can enjoy. However, nothing tasted as good as the footlong hotdog with sauce or as, us, locals would mispronounce, "a footer with sauce." Mm-hm, boy, howdy, are they good! When I would come home on leave from the air force, the first place I wanted to visit was that little ice-cream shop to order "a footer with sauce" or, in my younger days, "two footers with sauce." Again, I'm hard to kidnap. Don't judge. Well, wouldn't you know it, one evening when my sister and I were still young, Igene and Irene returned from the funeral home with two footers with sauce. Both footers were laid out in a cardboard box...much like the people in the funeral home now that I think about. In the box, each footer was placed inside the paper sleeve with the ice-cream store's name on it. Due to the ride home, the footers were a little cold, and some of the sauce were stuck to the paper sleeve as well as some of the bun. No matter the condition, my sister and I held our footers proudly as if we were going to raise them like flags before a defeated enemy after a long hard-fought battle with starvation. No doubt this is what the marines felt like raising the American flag after the Battle of Iwo Jima. Bombs burst in the air of our minds as we relished (no pun intended) in our wiener victory!

“Mullaly executes the work with finesse, effectively balancing a believable young cast with high, real-world stakes . . .engrossing.”- Kirkus Reviews Seventeen-year-old Aly Bennett has been in love with her friend Luke for years. She hasn't told him how she feels for two reasons. 1) She's the girl with HIV. 2) She lied about how she got it. Aly never meant to lie. The words just slipped out on her first day of a support group for kids living with life-threatening conditions. It was the day she met Luke and Caroline, who would become her best friends and the closest thing she has to a family. After so many years, Aly doesn’t know how to tell her friends the truth. So she paints and she runs and she tries not to think about the future she can’t have. But when a Boston prosecutor asks Aly to testify in a trial—and her relationship with Luke intensifies—things become complicated. If she testifies, Luke and Caroline will learn the truth—that Aly has been lying to them for most of a decade. If she doesn’t, a monster could go free, again.

Includes plastic insert with equivalent measurements and metric conversions.

The blogger behind Confessions of a Funeral Director—what Time magazine called a "must read"—reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed: The family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial The act of embalming a little girl that offered a gift back to her grieving family The nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away The funeral that united a conflicted community Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde offers an intimate look into the business and a new perspective on living and dying

Security consultant Vic Andrews fears nothing. Except emotional entanglements. He lives on the edge and by his own rules. Never mess with your best friend’s sister, for one. Especially when that sister is sweet and sexy goddess Gina Delgado. Vic is strictly a “no strings attached” kind of guy, and a young widow with three kids is guaranteed to tie his heart in all sorts of knots. Too bad other parts of his anatomy aren’t as easily deterred. Gina is no stranger to men like Vic. Men in love with their dangerous professions. Her firefighter husband may have been a hero, but his bravery is little comfort to Gina now. She refuses to face that kind of loss ever again. Still, a girl has needs. And Vic, with his military-hardened body and tender touch, is just the thing she needs to fulfill them. As long as they can keep things casual. But getting involved with Vic puts Gina at the risk of more than heartbreak. When Vic becomes the target of a terrorist seeking revenge, no one around him is safe. With Gina and her family in a madman’s sights, Vic will break all the rules to keep her close…and keep them all alive.

Its rainy. The oncoming headlights are blinding me. I have to stay awake. Its 2:00 A.M. and less than two feet behind me is the body of a woman scheduled for burial in about six hours... A 24 year-old Hispanic male has taken a bullet to the head. A drug deal gone bad. The Mortician in charge has done a remarkable job hiding the head wound. The wound is invisible... This was no White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. No Beverly Hills. No Beverly Thrills. It was a step above a flop house and maybe only a half-step... Every day in the City of Angels and Actors, hundreds of people are buried. These are their stories... L.A. Funeral Director and comedy writer Denny Dormody, a working actor and an active member of the Screen Actors Guild, moonlights to pay the rent... "Denny Dormody, I hope you become a better writer." -- Kirk Douglas "Good to meet you. Good luck and good writing..." -- Michael Connelly, Author, The Black Box Comedy scribes Denny Dormody & Michael Conley have inked with Loeb & Loeb for Literary representation -- The Hollywood Reporter

Mike Royko: The Chicago Tribune Collection 1984–1997 is an expansive new volume of the longtime Chicago news legend’s work. Encompassing thousands of his columns, all of which originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune, this is the first collection of Royko work to solely cover his time at the Tribune. Covering politics, culture, sports, and more, Royko brings his trademark sarcasm and cantankerous wit to a complete compendium of his last 14 years as a newspaper man. Organized chronologically, these columns display Royko's talent for crafting fictional conversations that reveal the truth of the small-minded in our society. From cagey political points to hysterical take-downs of "meatball" sports fans, Royko's writing was beloved and anticipated anxiously by his fans. In plain language, he "tells it like it is" on subjects relevant to modern society. In addition to his columns, the book features Royko's obituary and articles written about him after his death, telling the tale of his life and success. This ultimate collection is a must-read for Royko fans, longtime Chicago Tribune readers, and Chicagoans who love the city's rich history of dedicated and insightful journalism.

A lively and thorough history of Detroit’s culinary icon: the coney island hot dog. Detroit is the world capital of the coney island hot dog-a natural-casing hot dog topped with an all-meat beanless chili, chopped white onions, and yellow mustard. In Coney Detroit, authors Katherine Yung and Joe Grimm investigate all aspects of the beloved regional delicacy, which was created by Greek immigrants in the early 1900s. Coney Detroit traces the history of the coney island restaurant, which existed in many cities but thrived nowhere as it did in Detroit, and surveys many of the hundreds of independent and chain restaurants in business today. In more than 150 mouth-watering photographs and informative, playful text, readers will learn about the traditions, rivalries, and differences between the restaurants, some even located right next door to each other. Coney Detroit showcases such Metro Detroit favorites as American Coney Island, Lafayette Coney Island, Duly's Coney Island, Kerby's Coney Island, National Coney Island, and Leo's Coney Island. As Yung and Grimm uncover the secret ingredients of an authentic Detroit coney, they introduce readers to the suppliers who produce the hot dogs, chili sauce, and buns, and also reveal the many variations of the coney-including coney tacos, coney pizzas, and coney omelets. While the coney legend is centered in Detroit, Yung and Grimm explore coney traditions in other Michigan cities, including Flint, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Port Huron, Pontiac, and Traverse City, and even venture to some notable coney islands outside of Michigan, from the east coast to the west. Most importantly, the book introduces and celebrates the families and individuals that created and continue to proudly serve Detroit's favorite food. Not a book to be read on an empty stomach, Coney Detroit deserves a place in every Detroiter or Detroiter-at-heart's collection.

A hilarious guide to the intricate rituals, customs, and etiquette surrounding death in the South-and a practical collection of recipes for the final send-off. As author Gayden Metcalfe asserts, people in the Delta have a strong sense of community, and being dead is no impediment to belonging to it. Down south, they don't forget you when you've up and died-they may even like you better and visit you more often! But just as there is an appropriate way to live your life in the South, there is an equally essentially tasteful way of departing it-and the funeral is the final social event of your existence so it must be handled flawlessly. Metcalfe portrays this slice of American culture from the manners, customs, and the tomato aspic with mayonnaise that characterize the Delta way of death. Southerners love to swap tales, and Gayden Metcalfe, native of Greenville, MS, founder of the Greenville Arts Council and chairman of the St. James Episcopal Church Bazaar, is steeped in the stories and traditions of this rich region. She reminisces about the prominent family that drank too much and got the munchies the night before the big event-and left not a crumb for the funeral (Naturally some early rising, quick-witted ladies from the church saved the day, so the story demonstrates some solutions to potential entertaining disasters!). Then there was the lady who allocated money to have "Home on the Range" sung at the service, and the family that insisted on a portrait of their mother in her casket, only to refuse to pay for it on the grounds that "Mama looks so sad." Each chapter ends with an authentic southern recipe that will come in handy if you "plan to die tastefully", including Boiled Bourbon Custard; Aunt Hebe's Coconut Cake; Pickled Shrimp; Homemade Mayonnaise; and Homemade Rolls.