Page 5

January 5

We’re spoiled at Mountie Stadium every fall. We have, without a doubt, the best PA announcer in the state for Friday night football games. Unfortunately for many years, Patrick Ludwig was known for his signature line that always went something like this, “Score at the end of the first quarter: Lumen Christi: 14, Northwest: ready to score.”

Unfortunately, there were several times you would even hear as he announced the final score, “Northwest: ready to score.” Just kidding – he would never do that to them.

But the Mounties have been resurgent over the past few years under the guidance of my pal, Coach Slater, and luckily we don’t have to hear that “ready to score” line very often anymore.

In our family, Patrick is known for his signature line when he DJ’d our wedding, “Please make welcome your new bride and groom, Nicholas and Dede…Frey.”

Patrick and I have (sort of) co-hosted the Northwest Athletic Boosters’ Cash Bash for several years. He is the official emcee and I am his sidekick, helping provide a laugh track for his jokes while pulling out 350 raffle balls over the course of the evening.

A couple of years ago at Cash Bash, as we were chit-chatting about our kids and lives, he mentioned he had taken over the Sunday morning “Polka Time” show on WIBM radio, here in Jackson.

“Sweet,” I said. “Polka Pat Ludwig.”

“You like polka?”

“Well, my free dance partner and I skated to the 'Pennsylvania Polka' one year and my grandfather always sang the 'Too Fat Polka' as part of his campfire set list,” I replied, knowing that was the extent of my knowledge on the subject. I like to dance, but never really took the time to learn to polka.

I tuned in that weekend on the way to church just to hear him, and then kind of forgot about it for a long while.

Over the last several years, one of the Rush Rock Stars’ favorite family events is the Great Lakes Folk Festival, held in downtown East Lansing each August. We always try to catch a TexMex band and a polka band at the Dance Stage that is right behind Rick’s (man, I could write a whole book about my experiences at that place). Both of the boys always enjoy the polka bands, and hop and dance around, and I’ve watched the people that know what they’re doing enough that I think I’m probably a C+/B- polka dancer.

A few months ago, my radio was tuned into WIBM because I had been listening to football the day before, and Gavin and I clapped along loudly to all the songs Polka Pat played on the way to church that day. It has now become the Sunday morning ritual whether I’m riding to church by myself or with the family to turn on Polka Pat and clap loudly along.

This morning, in between songs, I said to Gavin, “I’ll try to get a hold of Polka Pat sometime and get him to play the Too Fat Polka while we’re driving to church so you can hear it. It’s kind of funny, but it isn’t really very nice, so you need to understand that.”

He’s known for some time that we know Polka Pat, and I think he is still kind of amazed by it. 

“You have his number?” Gavin asked.

“They say it like 72 times a week on the radio, kiddo.”

At this point, we’re getting closer to church and Bode says something completely off topic, but it changed the course of the conversation and it really is sweet that he was thinking about it in some way, for who knows why?

“Mom, remember when Papa didn’t die and Mimi always said to him, ‘Talk louder, Papa’?”

So we turned down the radio and started talking about the different struggles that people have to overcome in their lives, and that was a more perfect lead-in to worship than “I don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for me.”