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Tomorrow is homecoming in Upsala. In my day it was the Upsala `Cardinals’, but some time ago Upsala football merged with Swanville and now it is the USA (Upsala Swanville Area) `Patriots’.
Some of my favorite memories of football games are those played in the mud. I was an overweight freshman on the Upsala Cardinal team in 1957. Freshmen wore the old uniforms and helmets and we did not win any fashion awards. John Atkinson, a senior running back, ran with his knees pumping up and down high and hard. He still managed to make yardage. In practice, I would simply bounce off of his knees. The memory of the pain is still with me. That was the year when no other team even scored on the Upsala Cardinals football team. Clarissa got to our three yard line, but our defense held.

A couple of years ago, the entire 1957 Upsala football team was inducted into the Upsala Sports Hall of Fame. I was one of nine of the twenty-nine original members of the 1957 Upsala Cardinal football team who showed up for our induction into the Sports Hall of Fame. One of the guys, Dave Chuba, came all the way from Ohio. Our quarterback, Bob Soltis, was named All-State that year. It was the second year that inductees were chosen. Bob’s brother Ralph was chosen the previous year and another brother John was a junior on the 1957 football team. John accepted an individual award for his brother Bob. There were lots of Soltis boys and they all played football. No one lifted weights in those days, they just threw bales of hay all summer. Us “village kids” had a tough time keeping up.

The APHC show this week is back at their home base at the Fitzgerald Theater for the second live broadcast of the season. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band joins Chris for classic sounds from the other end of the Mississippi River, there will be guitar rock from Margaret Glaspy, and author George Saunders will share selections from his novel Lincoln in the Bardo with a little help from the acting performers. Plus: Chris Thile is working away on a brand-new Song of the Week, the band members (singer Rachael Price, pianist and music director Rich Dworsky, drummer Matt Chamberlain, Brittany Haas on fiddle, bassist Paul Kowert, and Sean Watkins on guitar) are warming up their various musical implements, our Royal Academy of Radio Actors (Serena Brook, Tim Russell, and Fred Newman) is running lines backstage, and — we hope — you’re thinking up suggestions for the Instant Song Request segment. And if that weren’t enough, there will be another round of musician birthdays. Can it top last week’s epic edition? Tune in Saturday on your local public radio station or watch live — 5pm to 7pm Central Time — at prairiehome.org to find out!

“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal which is worthwhile.” Vince Lombardi.