Philip Brunelle, Jack Curtis, Whitey Evans, New Prairie Ramblers, Vern Sutton.
Leonard's Fight Song ( Philip Brunelle , Vern Sutton )
Lake Wobegon Leonards Pastor Ingqvist
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon this last week was good a hard frost here on Tuesday night which did away with the rest of the tomatoes. Kind of a big relief to people who thought they were going to be canning them for the next month or two. So they have spent a week of peace here this last week, most of it. Still is the squash to deal with but at least the tomatoes are all done.
A lot of people in Lake Wobegon not ready to even look at a tomato for a few weeks here. It's a quiet week too for most Lutherans in Lake Wobegon, for some of the rest of us, too who were at Lake Wobegon Lutheran last Sunday for the sermon. Pastor Ingvist delivered a kind of a tough one last Sunday that we weren't quite ready for.
The Sunday before he had given what people call his Audubon sermon about the birds and the trees and the flowers and the hills, and how all of creation declares the glory of God and so on. Piece of cake release it to listen to that very nice, very pleasant. And then this last Sunday he was on the subject of renunciation and sacrifice and not wanting the approval of the world, but to renounce all of it and give up everything that is nearest and dearest to you, and give all that you have to the poor and follow me. And it was that kind of sermon.
It was hard on me because just the day before I had we had done the show in Madison, WI and it was a wonderful audience. We had a great time doing it and I had in my pocket last Sunday a tape cassette of the show. Not all of it, but. Stuff that I had done. And I had listened to it- 20-30 times and it was very lovely. The applause alone was.. well, I mean, that's the reason I went down there. I wouldn't drive 400 miles to be rebuked and persecuted, you know, as Pastor Ingqvist was saying we were supposed to be if we were holy and we're doing the right thing and we're following the right path, people ought to revile us and persecute us, and we ought to welcome it. And not only welcome it but love them in return.
I tell ya, if I'd wanted to be persecuted and reviled, I wouldn't have driven 400 miles for her and got mad at home, you know, just as well as going to Madison, it was a hard sermon. Especially for those of us who only go to church once in a great while, it seems if we always miss the ones we'd like to hear and we always get in on these hard ones. I have yet to go to church and hear a sermon preached on my favorite part of the Bible which is those parts in the Old Testament where God is smiting people. And he smites em hard he.. he just... He was smoting left and right back then.
The part about loving your neighbor and loving those that persecute you and revile you, it’s a little bit hard for me to follow and is not really where my interests lie. But smiting is something I could get into in a big hurry. There's a lot of people I'd like to smite. I'd love to smite em. Till they begged for mercy. And then I might love him a little bit, but. I still might smite him down into.
Of course, that assumes that I would be one of the smiters. And not be among the smitten. Which maybe a person oughtn’t to assume.
The Lake Wobegon football team kind of was assuming it was going to be among the smiters here. They've opened their football season this last Friday. They have been in the in the Sauk Valley Six Man Independent League now for years and haven't won a game in about 3 years. They have been smoked pretty good by every team in that league. And so Dutch was thinking he would do something for morale and schedule an exhibition game against a real patsy. And he scheduled a game against St. Margaret's here on Friday of the central Christian Women's League.
But I tell you, those girls were big. They were mean. They came right at em. A lot of those boys on the Lake Wobegon team, the Lake Wobegon Leonard’s, that’s their nickname, The Leonard's, who named after Leonard Halverson, who used to be an assistant coach. He’s a great character builder as how they referred to him. A lot of those Leonards you know had been brought up to be nice to girls. And one of the Leonards that break through the line and go to sack the quarterback, you know but they, weren't brought up to sack girls. They were brought up to be nice to him, so he'd kind of walk up to her and take her by the arm as if to say, “All right, you're tackled now. Now you fall down.” And she give him one upside, the helmet. Made his head ring and next thing they knew she was in the end zone and laughing at him. That girl laugh that these boys had heard for years from their sisters. But to hear it from a football team and get beat on top of it was pretty humiliating.
Well, they kind of tried to insult him a little bit towards the end of the game, you know and say things like “boy, I wouldn't go out on a date with you if you paid me to.” But it didn't seem to hurt those girls that much there, they uh, they said a lot of stuff back to them.
So it was a tough beginning for the 1980 season. The boys are pretty worked up about it as a matter of fact, they wrote a new fight song. There which Lake Wobegon High School the Leonards have not had up until this point, though they have had a hymn which they sang at the beginning of each game not that it did much good.
They wrote a new fight song I'm not sure they're actually going to use this, but Vern Sutton and Phillip Brunell agreed to come out and do it for you here I'll help you out if the audience will help too.
We're gonna fight, fight, fight oh Wobegon and be strong and resolute. And our mighty foes will fall down in rows as we poke em in the snoot. Going to move that ball oh Wobegon, mighty Leonards shall advance and will laugh in their faces on a regular basis as we kick em in the pants. W-O-E-B-E-G-O-N we take boys and make them men L-E-O-N-A-R-D we’re the team you'd like to be. California oranges, Texas cactus. We play your team just for practice. Georgia peaches Alabama cotton. I'm OK and you're just rotten. Who are we? Lake Wobegon Leonards! Lake Wobegon Leonards. Let me hear you once again Lake Wobegon Leonards. Hail to thee Lake Wobegon The cradle of our youth. We shall upon the blue and gold In honor and in truth Holding high our lamps We will be the Champs And will vanquish far and near. For WHS the beacon of the west The school we love so dear.
Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon Minnesota. Where all the women are strong. And all the men are good looking, though not quite so much as they were last week, and all the children are above average. Every single one of them.
1980.09.20 Chicago Tribune / 1980.09.27 Berkshire Eagle: Tribute to Bill Monroe / Audio of the News available as a digital download.