I was raised in a Christian home and, in fact, my mother led me to Christ as a youngster.
It's never over. You don't want to be in the position to be down four runs in the ninth inning, but it's not over until the last out.
Life was very simple. My parents had come from the North of England, which is a fairly rugged, bleak, hard-working part of England, and so there was not the expectation of luxury.