27 Years Ago Today...

It was 27 years ago today I received "the power and authority to administer the meal, publicly before the altar from the other pastors with prayer and the laying on of hands," as Dr. Martin Luther describes it in a 1531 letter to Johann Sutel (see Luther, Ministry, and Ordination Rites in the Early Reformation Church, by Ralph F. Smith). You can watch the laying on of hands and presentation of a stole at my ordination on this clip from the video of that service.



The place was in the Chancel at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, Canoga Park, California (now Faith Lutheran Church), about 20 feet from from where I had been baptized 33 years, less one week, earlier. I took a few moments today to listen once again to the words from the rite, and invite you to do so also.

Presiding at my ordination was the Rt. Rev. J. Roger Anderson, first Bishop of what is now called the Southwest California Synod, ELCA. My parents presented the stole to the Bishop.

Also speaking the charge to the newly ordained in the rite were the Rev. C. David Olsen, of blessed memory, then my pastor at Resurrection; the Rev. Jeffrey Frohner, a seminary classmate who had been ordained a few weeks earlier and was serving in Santa Barbara; and the Rev. Brian Eklund, who was then pastor at St. Mark's, Los Angeles, where I had served my cross-cultural experience in January 1990.

Also committing the office to me were (in suits, from left to right) Pastors Jack Lundeen (St. Luke, Woodland Hills), John Stump (then retired, and Dave Olsen's predecessor at Resurrection); and Bryan Woken (Shepherd of the Valley, Canoga Park).

Thank You for Shopping at Sears

Last month Sears declared bankruptcy. Today's news is that the company hopes to sell most of its profitable stores, perhaps to its biggest shareholder, to keep the business alive. We'll see how well that works.

I started working for Sears after graduating high school in 1977. (That's me behind the thick glass of the Cashier's Cage in this Spring 1978 Polaroid taken by a sweet CSUN coed working in the stationery/photo department across the aisle at the Sears in Northridge Fashion Center.) We were an "A" store, ranking among the biggest in the company. When something new happened at Sears, Northridge was among the first stores to do it. As an accounting student at CSUN I read the Wall Street Journal, which helped give me some insights into the company. Such as, Sears was already in trouble.

Granted, Sears was still the biggest department store by any measure. But K-Mart was moving up and Sears was not responding very well. I remember a front page WSJ story describing Sears' plans to overcome the competion. And then a year or so later, there was another front page story describing Sears' new plan, replacing the earlier, unsuccessful plan. I recall thinking as I read that new story, "Wait a minute; that earlier plan hasn't even been implemented in our store yet."

Throughout the '80s Sears tried several different strategies. The one that affected me most was the creation of the in-store "Sears Financial Network," where I spent the last 2½ years of my Sears employment at Sears Savings Bank, the company's California savings-and-loan, at the in-store Northridge SFC (Sears Financial Center) branch. SSB's branch operations that weren't sold to Citicorp or California Federal Savings were shut down at the end of 1987, shortly before I started seminary. Yes, I helped close a bank.

Kmart never caught Sears. Walmart would pass them both, becoming the top retailer in 1990. Kmart went bankrupt in 2002, emerging from bankruptcy the next year. In 2004, Kmart bought the now obviously struggling Sears, so today's Sears Holdings Corporation is, in a sense, really Kmart.

Smiling at Vespers

My favorite evening hymn is "The Day You Gave Us, Lord, Has Ended" (LBW #274) partly because the fourth stanza always makes me smile:

The sun, here having set, is waking
Your children under western skies,...

You see, I grew up in Southern California, 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean. From childhood, when the Sun was setting for us, I've imagined it rising over Japan. But Japan ("The Land of the Rising Sun") is in the east, so (at least in my mind) the setting sun is waking children under eastern skies.

One evening I finally realized that the hymnwriter John Ellerton was from England, not California. And as a little boy he likely never thought he should be able to see the Sun setting behind Japan.

And hour by hour, as day is breaking,
Fresh hymns of thankful praise arise.

From a post of mine of a couple of years ago at ALPB Forum Online.

Fifty-Nine

I have now lived 59 years. I was born in 1959. Apparently that makes it my "Beddian birthday":

A Beddian Birthday occurs when the age a person is turning, is the same number as the last two digits of their birth year. The Beddian birthday is named for NYC firefighter Bobby Beddia who noted this coincidence.

So yesterday I did something suited to a man my age. Friday is my "day off," and after going out to lunch and then taking advantage of the "going out of business" sale at the Bergner's in Sheridan Village (everything is 50% off; last week it was 40%, so we're getting closer) to get some towels, I headed over to the local Ford dealer to sit in a new Mustang.

No, I'm not looking to buy one (at least right now; I'm still quite happy with my 2002 VW Golf TDI), but earlier this week I saw the announcement of the return of the Mustang GT California Special for 2019, and that set a bit of a fire in my soul.

Mustangs do that to many people of my generation. When I was 5 my cousin Claudia bought new one of the first 1964½ Mustangs. And parked outside my 11th grade math class at Canoga Park High was this totally bitchin' original 1968 California Special, in white with blue stripes that a senior drove to school. That California Special had been truly unique to California, but I took notice when at the 2007 Chicago Auto Show Ford had a couple of new GT/California Specials on display. These newer ones aren't quite as different in appearance from a regular Mustang GT as the '68s were and, when it makes them available (2018 is one year the newer GT/CS hasn't been produced), Ford sells them across the nation.

So as I was pulling into the parking area of the Ford dealer's lot to sit in a new Mustang, a young salesman came out to greet me. But I was to be disappointed, for on the lot (he quickly told me) the only Mustang they have was that 2004 Mustang Cobra sitting a few feet away. That's right -- the Peoria Ford dealer has no new Mustangs. None! Nor any used Mustangs new enough to represent the "retro-future" Mustangs designed by J Mays that first came out in 2005.

Oh, well; I'm not looking to buy a new car.

25 Years!

It was 25 years ago today that I received (to borrow phrasing from Dr. Luther) "the power and authority to administer the meal, publically before the altar, from the other pastors with prayer and the laying on of hands." Here you can see the conclusion of that reception:



I wrote more about that day in a post 10 years ago:

O Lord God, dear Father in heaven, I am indeed unworthy of the office and ministry in which I am to make known thy glory and to nurture and to serve this congregation.

But since thou hast appointed me to be a pastor and teacher, and the people are in need of the teaching and the instruction, O be thou my helper and let thy holy angels attend me.

Then if thou art pleased to accomplish anything through me, to thy glory and not to mine or to the praise of men, grant me, out of thy pure grace and mercy, a right understanding of thy Word and that I may also diligently perform it.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, thou shepherd and bishop of our souls, send thy Holy Spirit that he may work with me, yea, that he may work in me to will and to do through thy divine strength according to thy good pleasure. Amen!

That is Luther's Sacristy Prayer, and I pray it every Sunday as I vest for the Divine Service. I'll sometimes think then that it would be good to post it here and it is particularly fitting to do so today (thank you, Pastor Weedon, for the idea), for it was 15 years ago today that the Rev. J. Roger Anderson, Bishop of the Southern California (West) Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America addressed me as we stood in the Chancel of the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, Canoga Park, California, about 15 feet from where I had been baptized 33 years (less one week) earlier:

According to apostolic usage you are now to be set apart to the office of Word and Sacrament in the one holy catholic Church by the laying on of hands and by prayer.

Bishop Anderson was joined in the addresses that followed by the pastor loci and my pastor, the Rev. C. David Olsen (of blessed memory, who preached that afternoon), the Rev. Brian Eklund (pastor then and now at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Los Angeles, who had supervised my seminary "Cross Cultural Experience"), and the Rev. Jeffrey Frohner (a friend and seminary classmate who had just begun serving his first call at Trinity Lutheran Church, Santa Barbara). With them standing around me, the Bishop then examined me:

Before almighty God, to whom you must give account, and in the presence of this congregation, I ask: Will you assume this office, believing that the Church's call is God's call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament?

I will, and I ask God to help me.

The Church in which you are to be ordained confeses that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God and are the norm of its faith and life. We accept, teach, and confess the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds. We also acknowledge the Lutheran Confessions as true witnesses and faithful expositions of the Holy Scriptures. Will you therefore preach and teach in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and these creeds and confessions?

I will, and I ask God to help me.

Will you be diligent in your study of the Holy Scriptures and in your use of the means of grace? Will you pray for God's people, nourish them with the Word and Holy Sacraments, and lead them by your own example in faithful service and holy living?

I will, and I ask God to help me.

Will you give faithful witness in the world, that God's love may be know by all that you do?

I will, and I ask God to help me.

Almighty God, who has given you the will to do these things, graciously give you the strength and compassion to perform them.

After the Prayer of the Church and Come, Holy Ghost, they (though Brian and Jeff aren't really visible from this angle) were joined in the laying on of hands by the Rev. John Stump (Pastor Olsen's predecessor and my pastor at Resurrection during most of my college years) and the 2 nearest neighboring ELCA pastors, the Rev. John Lundeen (then of St. Luke Lutheran Church, Woodland Hills, and one of the Augustana Synod's Lundeen clan) and the Rev. Bryan Woken (then and now at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, Canoga Park (West Hills). And thus they committed the Office of the Holy Ministry to me. Every time I attend an ordination, or simply take a few moments during devotions to review those promises -- many of us who have been in the Society of the Holy Trinity for a longer time have a card with them imprinted on the obverse of a holy card of Rublev's icon of the Old Testament Trinity -- I am struck once again by what I have been called to. How awesome! And how inadequate I am to bear that office.

Being reminded of that is a good thing. There is another similar Sacristy Prayer of Luther's that I don't use, but it always makes me smile, then ponder:

Lord God, thou hast appointed me a bishop and pastor in thy church. Thou seest how unfit I am to undertake this great and difficult office, and were it not for thy help, I would long since have ruined it all. Therefore I cry unto thee; I will assuredly apply my mouth and my heart to thy service. I desire to teach the people and I myself would learn ever more and diligently meditate thy Word. Use thou me as thine instrument, only do not forsake me, for if I am left alone I shall easily bring it all to destruction. Amen.

What an exciting day it was 15 years ago. And despite all I've done since, somehow it's not yet been destroyed. What a gracious Lord God we have!

Amen.

Which "Home" Is This?

Last week on my Google News feed I noticed a headline with "West Hills" and "crossbow," but didn't click the link. I should have, though, because the story happened about 100 yards from my parents' front door. Yup, not 100 yards from Zion's South Side parsonage. It made for an interesting story to hear about during my brief visit home this week.

P.S. KABC should have stayed with its initial report; that address is in West Hills, not Woodland Hills.

We Came in Peace...

It's hard to believe that it's now 46 years since Apollo 11's Neil

Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin climbed down the Eagle's ladder the first earthlings to set foot on the Moon. As NASA notes, that was only 8 years after after Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard were the first men in outer space. It was an exciting time to be a boy growing up, watching adventures like this live on (our black-and-white) TV. I remember, too, the almost-unbearably loud rumble of Saturn V engines being tested at the nearby Rocketdyne facility.

At a conference not long after returning home, Armstrong called it their flight "a beginning of a new age" and Michael Collins, who orbited the Moon by himself in Columbia as his crewmates walked on the lunar surface, spoke of future journeys to Mars. Well, folks, that was in 1969. Who would have believed that in 2015, one would be hoping that NASA might next send astronauts near (but not onto) the Moon within another 8 years.

50 Stars: The Rest of the Story

The photo is a clipping of the first time I appeared in a church publication, the monthly newspaper of the old Pacific Southwest Synod, LCA. The date, as you can see (click for a larger version), is January 1971. The names aren't listed in the order we're standing: its Mr. Pfundstein, me, Bruce, Greg, Ken, and Jon. Here's the story.

I first went to camp when I was 11. It was one week in the summer of 1970 at Camp Yolijwa, the Synod's camp outside Yucaipa, California. That's in the mountains east of San Bernardino. I had never been that far "back east" before. I'd never been away from home that long before.

First thing every morning we'd all gather at the flag pole to raise the colors and say the Pledge of Allegiance. "Hey," I whispered to one of my friends the first day, "you notice anything about that flag?" The stars looked different. It was a 48-star flag! For boys who had been born the year Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union, we thought it was pretty pathetic that the church camp would have an out-of-date flag.

Naturally that became an item of conversation when The Odd Squad -- Bruce, Greg, Jon, and I were all in the same Sunday School class, Ken was a year ahead (and who'd been trying to get all of us to Yolijwa) -- and we'd been we palling around Resurrection, were in the choir, etc. -- came home. I don't recall who gave us that moniker, but I'm thinking we were tagged with it shortly after The Mod Squad came on the air. None of us, of course, were anything as cool as Linc, Pete, and Julie.

Several weeks later, Pastor Gibson gathered us all together at church and took us to one of the Canoga Park mortuaries, where we were presented with a brand new 50-star flag. Which we then presented to Mr. Pfundstein, who came up to the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Canoga Park from the Synod Office.

I've intended at some point to tell that story here just because. The old Odd Squad doesn't have much contact with each any more. Bruce and his family would move away after we were confirmed and his dad got a new job in Ohio. He's an ELCA pastor in Reading, Pennsylvania. The rest of us stayed in the West Valley through high school. Ken went to ULCA and, after working a while at Hughes Aircraft, headed to Silicon Valley -- his older brother (Wayne) is an ELCA pastor in Port Byron, Illinois. Jon and Greg went to Humboldt State and made their lives elsewhere. Jon is the Director of the New York Aquarium.; Greg (last I heard) is with the Portland, Oregon, water works.

So why "the rest of the story?" That showed up Monday over at the pretty good lutherans blog, which I recently discovered as a fine source for ELCA news.

Robert Heft, the designer of the 50-star U.S. flag, died Saturday at Covenant Medical Center in Saginaw, Mich. He was 67.

Heft created the flag in 1958 for a high school project. He was 17-years-old and a junior at Lancaster High School in Lancaster, Ohio.

He received a B- for the project, but the teacher eventually changed his grade to an A.

“His interest in flags originally came from his volunteer work as a former Boy Scout,” his newspaper obituary said. “Bob was a very proud American. He devoted his life to inspiring others.”

President Dwight Eisenhower chose Heft’s design to replace the 48-star flag. At the time, Alaska and Hawaii were expected to soon make the country a 50-state nation.

Should you read it all here, you'll discover that Mr. Heft was -- a Lutheran.

Oh, It's There!

I was a die-hard LA Herald-Examiner reader and subscriber (and still think real newspapers should be published in the afternoon), so I really hate it when the Los Angeles Times gets it right. Nevertheless, as a follow-up from yesterday's post, here's the beginning of today's Times story on the new Topanga Division LAPD station. Remember the question: Where is the police station?

LAPD opens new station in Canoga Park

Its 265 officers will serve the southwest San Fernando Valley. The department also celebrates its 140th anniversary.

By Ruben Vives

There was a lot to cheer about Saturday in Canoga Park.

The Los Angeles Police Department celebrated the opening of its 21st police station and launched the commemoration of the department's 140th anniversary.

Although the station is in Canoga Park, near the intersection of Schoenborn Street and Canoga Avenue, a panel of city leaders chose to name it the Topanga station in recognition of the Gabrielino-Tongva Indian tribe, which once inhabited the San Fernando Valley.

The station was going to be named the Northwest station but officials changed it after community members indicated that they wanted to honor the region's history, said Councilman Dennis Zine, whose district includes the area.

The 54,000-square-foot station was built at a cost of $36 million; the funds came from Proposition Q, a public safety facilities bond measure approved by voters in March 2002. Officials said the structure incorporates energy-saving light fixtures and other "green" features, including an efficient irrigation system.

About 265 officers assigned to the Topanga station will patrol the southwest portion of the San Fernando Valley, which includes Canoga Park, Winnetka, West Hills and Woodland Hills. The area has a combined population of 190,000, more than the cities of Green Bay, Wis.; Salt Lake City; or Topeka, Kan.

At least 40 volunteers also will help the station's officers, assisting in administrative and other duties, said the station's commander, Capt. John Sherman.

"We are starting a police-community partnership," Sherman said during a welcoming speech. "This is your police station."

Read it all here. But remember this -- by the third sentence, you knew exactly where the Topanga Division station is. Chalk up one for the [shudder] Times' reporting. Who? What? Where?...

Who? What? Where? When? (Uh, Where?)

The San Fernando Valley's Los Angeles Daily News (that would be the home town paper) for New Year's Day includes a very nice article about the new police station in opening in Canoga Park this weekend.

LAPD's Topanga station to open

By Brandon Lowrey, Staff Writer

CANOGA PARK - Capt. John Sherman of the Los Angeles Police Department was smiling as he paced the bare halls of the LAPD's new Topanga station, which will soon be his to command.

Sherman nodded to a veteran detective who, dressed in shabby clothes, rolled some red-orange paint onto an office wall.

The 47-year-old captain contemplated the placement of a map showing his station's domain. It would go on his wall, next to photos of his wife of 28 years and their three adult children.

Volunteers buzzed around Sherman while construction crews peeled a chain-link fence away from the front of the high-tech station, set to officially open for business Sunday after a community celebration Saturday.

Sherman, born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, said the new station has drawn more volunteers than he could have hoped for.

"There's new enthusiasm in this community that wasn't here before," said the captain who has served in the LAPD nearly 24 years. "This will clearly be one of my most memorable experiences - helping build Topanga. I'm pretty proud of that."

The criminal element, however, might be a little less enthused about Sherman's plans.

"There's a gang area right here that's going to get a lot of attention from the Police Department," he said.

One of the Valley's most active gangs, Canoga Park Alabama, is in the station's sights.

The Topanga Division is one of two new LAPD stations opening Sunday. The other, the Olympic Division, is located near Koreatown.

Read it all here.

Then try to answer the following question: Where is the new police station? I'm not looking for "all the news that's fit to print." I just want to know the key detail of the news story!

Fortunately, we web-savvy people can find the LAPD's own press release with the street address. Which is very helpful, since it turns out the new Topanga Division is near, but not on, Topanga Canyon Blvd.

At least it's in Canoga Park.

It's Rudy Lugo Stadium

From Saturday's Los Angeles Daily News;

Canoga Park shows dedication to late coach Lugo

By Gary Miereanu Special to the Daily News

Seventy years of Canoga Park alums poured into the school Friday night for a homecoming game filled with emotions that resonated far beyond the Hunters' final winning tally.

The crowd of approximately 4,000 - including SRO stands on the home side of the field - paid open tribute to Rudy Lugo, dedicating the field in the name of their late head football coach, and retiring his No. 80 from his mid-60s playing days - the first football number to be retired in Canoga Park High history.

"The first time I saw the 'Rudy Lugo Stadium' (sign), I was taken aback," said Christopher Lugo, the late coach's son who now serves as a Hunters assistant coach. "I've been running on this field ever since, well, since I could walk. I'm very honored to have this stadium named for him, and to work at the same place he did. I know he's with me, watching me, helping me, and that makes this dedication that much more special."

Alums from 1938 to 2008 attended the game, including members of Canoga's City Championship teams from 1969 and 1981. But in a clear sign of the times, there was no candlelight ceremony - rather, the Canoga's student body president asked for everyone to open their cell phones, raise them over their heads in order to create an illuminated honor.

In between the festivities, there was a football game. Junior tailback Tom Wilson rushed for 300 yards and two touchdowns to lead Canoga Park (5-4, 4-1) to a 30-14 victory over Grant (4-5, 3-2) in East Valley League play.

Read it all here. Oh, and just to show how we can keep in "in the family," Gary Miereanu is Canoga Park High Class of 1978 (one year behind me) when he wrote for what was then the only weekly newspaper in the LA Unified School District, the Hunters' Call. And I've known Gary he and my sister started Kindergarten together when I was in Grade A-1.

And then there's Bill Plaschke's column in Thrusday's LA Times sports section:

It was a wonderful life for Rudy Lugo

Poor Rudy Lugo.

For nearly 40 years he coached on a football team that never sent a player to the NFL, never brought him a national honor, never even gave him a parking space.

For nearly 40 years he worked in an office with bars over the windows, lived in a home where kids trampled the lawn, hung out at a church where he prayed in darkness.

Poor Rudy Lugo.

As the head coach at perennially modest Canoga Park High in a cluttered corner of the San Fernando Valley, he lived a life as regionally invisible as the greasy garages and doughnut shops that surrounded him.

He was on television once. He made the headlines never. He earned a $3,500 stipend for teaching kids to play a sport that most of them would never play again, in a city that would never make any of them famous.

Poor Rudy Lugo.

He died of cancer two weeks ago, and Canoga Park will never be the same.

"It wasn't like the town lost just another person," former player Ricardo Hernandez said. "It was like we lost a member of our family."

At his funeral, mourners spilled out of Our Lady of the Valley Church and huddled on the front lawn watching monitors.

After the service, when the hearse drove Lugo around the Canoga Park High football field for the last time, dozens of players and fans rushed back to salute him.

At the school, students randomly hung signs on hallways and doorways, teenage writings filled with honor and angst.

"Rudy was much more than a coach," one read. "He was a man who dedicated his life to us kids."

In the downtown streets of this 70,000-person suburb, folks stepped out of thrift shops and bakeries to remember him.

"Best coach and teacher ever," said Felisha Ibarra, who works at a wireless store adjacent to a sidewalk plaque dedicated to Lugo. "It's like everybody around here has been affected by him in some way."

For the two weeks since his death, "Mr. Canoga's" booming voice has not been silenced, but replaced by those who speak in his honor.

Listen to the sobbing middle-aged construction worker who, while spending one football season in a juvenile detention center, received an inspirational letter from Lugo that he still holds today.

"We knew our father touched a lot of people," said his daughter Melissa. "But to actually see all this . . . we had no idea."

Read the entire column here.

Rudy Lugo Night at Canoga High is also covered here on the CPHS website, while tributes to Coach continue to show up on the Memoirs section of school's website.

Let's Hear It for Hunters!

That's Canoga Park Hunters.

First...
a comment posted by "Anonymous" about Rudy Lugo's funeral. (Note: the photo is from one of my yearbooks; yes, he looked like that when he was my 10th grade PE teacher.)

At yesterdays services at Our Lady of The Valley you could see the many lives he had touched and you could sense the history of love that coach has left behind as his legacy. There were generations of Hunters going all the way back to the early 60’s to the current class of 2009, old classmates in football jerseys and lettermen’s jackets and new and retired faculty.

Topanga Canyon blvd was closed from Sherman Way to Vanowen St so that coach could make on last trip around the football field in the hearse along with the current football team and its coach.

You can read the rest of that comment here -- and other recent responses about Coach's impact in life and death in the comments to my first post about him.

Second...
a current Canoga High senior has submitted the video below to LA Time Warner Cable's "My First Vote Project." The grand prize for one Los Angeles area high school student is a trip for two to Washington DC during the Inauguration. Your vote for her video would be much appreciated.


This video was submitted as part of the Time Warner Cable's "My First Vote" Contest

(Disclaimers: 1) the young Hunter is one of my sister-in-law's students and 2) her video includes comments from one of my CPHS history teachers and a current teacher I've known since he was born, who is also one of the singers -- though I might not have guessed that except for this.)

Lugo Inspired Players for 4 Decades

More on what Rudy Lugo means for Canoga Park High School from today's Daily News:

His eyes were puffy and red, his heart heavy. Every step assistant coach Chris Lugo took out on the Canoga Park High football field Friday night made the lump in his throat grow bigger.

But this is where he was supposed to be. His father, longtime Canoga Park football coach Rudy Lugo, who died Tuesday at age 60 after a two-year battle with lung cancer, would want it that way.

"This field," said Chris Lugo, "is the place we shared the best times of our lives."

Both teams observed a moment of silence for Rudy Lugo before Canoga Park's game against Firebaugh of Lynwood on Friday night. The players on the other side of the field had probably never heard of the man known affectionately in these parts as "Mr. Canoga," the guy who grew up down the street from the school, starred for the Hunters as a baseball player and football player, came back to teach and coach just as soon as he graduated from college, then never left the sidelines for the next four decades. ...

Firebaugh High School is one of the newest high schools in the LA area, opening in 2005. Current seniors will make up its first graduating class -- a quaint detail for this football game at one of the Valley's oldest schools, no? More on Canoga High and Mr. Lugo...

Canoga Park has always been one of the Los Angeles Unified School District's smallest high schools. But most people here look at that as a good thing. The kind of place where four generations of the same family would go to school. Where guys like Danny Argott and his brother Arthur Argott come to cook hamburgers and hot dogs for the booster club every Friday night long after their own sons and daughters have graduated.

"I was born right down the street and you could hear the football games every Friday night," Danny Argott said.

For the past 40 years, Rudy Lugo was the patriarch of that big family. The guy parents trusted to teach their sons right from wrong, the guy a troubled kid went to for help when he got into a tough spot.

"To me, he was just my dad. I don't know if I ever understood the magnitude of the situation. How much everyone cared about him," Lugo's daughter Melissa said. "But I do now. Every day he lived his passion, every day he made a difference. ... You know how people say someone lived a good, long life. Well, my dad didn't live a long life, but he lived a good life."

In his obituary Wednesday, it was written that Lugo was a wrestling coach, football coach and teacher at Canoga Park. It's amazing how inadequate words can be sometimes.

"He was a great man, and he taught all of us to be men," senior football player Jeffrey Monico said. "He treated all of us like sons. And he taught us how to be men. He taught us about respect, about life, how to respect and treat women. He talked to us about being a good father."

As a coach he was tough, but respected. When he spoke, the entire locker room was silent. If he yelled, you could hear it from across the field.

Then later that night, you'd get a phone call around 10:30. It was Lugo, calling to apologize for yelling, making sure you knew he did it out of love.

"I got a few of those calls," Manary said. "When he'd yell at you, you'd get like the fear of God. But what he was saying was always right. And you knew he loved you."

It was a little strange then, to celebrate Lugo with a moment of silence.

That big, booming voice was as much a part of Lugo as his generous heart.

But maybe this was just one of his inspirational speeches. One that made every player in the locker room grow silent. On this night, in one quiet moment, the silence did the talking.

Read it all here. I'll confess to being slightly annoyed that I couldn't find the score at the Daily News. But that rather fits with this Jan. 14, 2003, article the paper links as part of "remembering Rudy Lugo."

Coach all right without all-stars

The Daily News recognizes the top high school football players and coaches in the region today with our annual All-Area team.

The group of standouts we've selected represents the best of the best this year from a region that consistently produces major-college standouts and future professional stars.

No one from Canoga Park High is on the team.

And as far as Hunters coach Rudy Lugo is concerned, that's perfectly fine.

While schools like Birmingham of Lake Balboa, Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks and Hart of Newhall produce championships and stars, Lugo's mission is to produce good people. If he succeeds, he reasons, he's as successful as any coach anywhere.

Sure, Lugo would like to win like those other guys. But the Hunters simply don't have the players. The school's relatively small size (2,000 students) and the fact open enrollment allows the best players to transfer to other schools make it a long shot to win a championship.

With that in mind, Lugo stresses the value of commitment, discipline, teamwork and effort with no guarantee it will ever be rewarded. And, every once in a while, little Canoga Park will upset a big, bad team to show the players it's OK to dream.

Making the most of a little, the Hunters finished 4-6 last season. Hardly a disgrace, particularly if you take Lugo's perspective.

"It would be nice to have Division I college players," Lugo said. "But that probably won't happen. So you work with what you've got, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you're working as hard as you can to be the best you can be, no matter how good that happens to be, you have nothing to be ashamed of. That goes for players and coaches."

As all good coaches do, Lugo painstakingly prepares his players for each game. The players might not know at the time but, if they're paying attention, they absorb a lot more than a series of schemes.

That's where the losses can come in handy, as tools to teach critical lessons that winning can't provide.

"Our responsibility is to help teach kids to deal with all the situations they'll experience in life," Lugo said. "It's attitude. It's about how do people react to situations. That's the most important thing because that enables a person to deal with the daily frustrations of life. So what they learn on a football team, which is a family, they can take to their own family should they encounter problems with finances or health or even disagreements among themselves.

"Hopefully, some of the habits and work ethic they take from their experience playing football will help them in the future."

Read it all here.

Oh, I found the score in the Long Beach Press-Telegram: "Canoga Park 26, Firebaugh 6: Tim Wilson ran for 190 yards and two TDs to lead the Hunters (3-6) over the Falcons (1-7)."

Meanwhile, folks are writing their remembrances, thank yous, and farewells on a board set up at the school.

And after Tuesday's funeral mass, all are invited to a funeral potluck meal at the school.

Yeah, that's my high school. We're Les Libres, the Class of 1977.

Rudy Lugo: Mr. Canoga

Eric Sondheimer writes in today's Los Angeles Times

Rudy Lugo, a teacher who coached football and wrestling at Canoga Park High School for many years, died Tuesday at his home in Canoga Park after a two-year battle with lung cancer. He was 60.

"They called him Mr. Canoga," said history teacher Richard Tibbetts.

Born Nov. 22, 1947, Lugo graduated from Canoga Park High in 1965 and played baseball at what is now Cal State Northridge.

After earning his degree, he returned to Canoga Park High as an assistant coach in 1969 and became a physical education teacher in 1972.

Lugo coached wrestling from 1975 to 1996, and became the head football coach in 1986, giving up the position after the 2006 season because of complications from lung cancer.

Read it all here. And, yes, that history teacher in my little brother.

In the Los Angeles Daily News, which is the San Fernando Valley's newspaper, Ramona Shelburne writes:

Rudy Lugo, the beloved teacher, football and wrestling coach at Canoga Park High, died Tuesday at his home in Canoga Park after a two-year battle with lung cancer. He was 60.

Lugo wore Hunters green nearly his whole life. He grew up around Canoga Park, starred as a football and baseball player there from 1962-65, returned to the sidelines almost as soon as he graduated from San Fernando Valley State (now Cal State Northridge) in 1969 and virtually never left until after the 2006 season, when he handed the program over to current head coach Ivan Moreno and his son Christopher Lugo, who is an assistant.

"He was Mr. Canoga," Canoga Park athletic director Lori Thomas said of Lugo. "He was my teacher, my friend, my colleague. I don't think there's anyone who didn't learn something from Rudy. He fought his cancer like he played his football games, he would never allow a running clock because that meant giving up. And he did the same thing with his cancer, he battled it all the way to the end."

Lugo's teams often took on his personality: Gritty, tough, hard-nosed and fearless. Canoga Park is generally one of the smallest schools in the district, but you'd never know it by the way its football and wrestling teams performed under Lugo. Or, in the tough kids Lugo made a point of trying to turn around.

"He was never afraid of anyone," said Jake Gwin, Canoga Park's boys' soccer coach and a close friend of Lugo's. "He had this great, deep reverberating voice that you'd swear you could still hear in the hallways after he spoke. When he talked to you in a stern voice, it got to your soul. And all those gangsters and hoodlums who heard that voice, man, it got to them because they knew there was a sincerity to it.

"You know, I think Rudy could be the world-record holder in converting gangsters and hoodlums into good, strong young men."

Read it all here, and check out some photos, too. Lori (Giacopuzzi) Thomas is (like Richard and me) also a second generation Hunter, being 2 years ahead of me at our K-12 schools. (Connections, connections, connections.)

A rosary for Coach Rudy Lugo will be held Monday at 7:30 pm Monday; his funeral is Tuesday at 10 am. Both will be at Our Lady Of The Valley Catholic Church in Canoga Park (just a couple blocks up Topanga Canyon from the school).

In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to: The Rudy Lugo Fund, c/o Canoga Park HS Booster Club, 6850 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Canoga Park, CA 91303.

Canoga High's Rudy Lugo Dies

The news came in a phone call this morning out of the blue from a schoolmate I'd not heard from in years. Here's how it appears on the Canoga Park High School website:

RUDY LUGO 1947-2008

It is with great sadness that the family of Canoga Park High School announces the passing of Rudy Lugo.

After a long courageous battle with cancer, Rudy passed away at home with his family and friends present.

Rudy Lugo was a graduate of Canoga in 1965, and began his career as a teacher and coach for Canoga in 1972. His life was devoted to the students and staff of his beloved school, and he was a huge influence on our entire community. Rudy was a teacher, a coach, and a friend to the highest degree. He was also a devoted son, husband, and father. And to GENERATIONS of young people, he was a tremendous role model for how they should conduct their lives. His lessons and legacy will continue to live on in them.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

The Daily News blog reports he died yesterday.

I'd written about Coach Lugo here 2 years ago and it was that blog entry and this one that prompted the phone call, as they show up pretty quickly in a Google search. That's the way it happens, no? Sad news brings old friends and family back together. It was good to catch up with you, Bill. Who'da thunk we Hunters of the late '70s would be all over the nation?

Coach Lugo, who was honored this spring by the Guadalupe Center in Canoga Park, will be honored during half-time at the Homecoming game November 7. Says that announcement:

Please join us in showing gratitude to Coach Lugo for the positive influence he has had on generations of young people. He retired from Canoga last year, and we wish to honor him for his long career of service to the community.

The Homecoming Game will be Friday, November 7th, at 7:00 pm. Come out early (about 6:00 pm) and watch our students in their annual Homecoming Parade. Two years ago, a large group of Coach Lugo's former athletes marched in the parade, and we'd love to see "Lugo's Legends" one more time!

Please make your plans to help us FILL THE STADIUM on this night to remember!!

Tickets for the game are $8.00 for adults, and $5.00 for students with school ID.

We look forward to seeing you back home again!

Well, I won't make it back home. But I sure wish I could be there. Thanks again, Rudy, for all you taught me.

    In paradisum deducant te angeli:
    in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres
    et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem.
    Chorus angelorum te suscipiat,
    et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem.

LA Train Wreck

Yes, I am familiar with the area of this afternoon's crash of a commuter and freight train in Chatsworth. When I still lived in Canoga Park, I would sometime stop near the 180° curve where Old Santa Susana Pass went over the railroad track to watch a Southern Pacific train go by as I was coming home from work in Northridge. (Hey, boys like to watch trains! In those days there was no passenger traffic on that road.) It looks like the collision was about 1000-1500 feet east of that point, as a northbound train would be curving to the east. It looks horrific. Prayers for those on the trains and for the rescue workers.

Breaking Faith

From the current Chapter News page of Lutherans Concerned/Los Angeles:

Faith Lutheran, Canoga Park Votes Unanimously to Join RIC Program

In a wonderful new development for the reconciling and welcoming ministries in the Los Angeles region, Faith Lutheran Church voted unanimously at its July 6 congregational meeting to adopt an Affirmation of Welcome to LGBT people and to join the Reconciling in Christ program of Lutherans Concerned.

Pastor Wayne Christiansen is overjoyed, having worked very hard for this step for years. The congregation, which owns and operates two campuses in Canoga Park, is heavily involved in growing a new Spanish language mission, with the able ministry of Pastor Cesar Arroyo. Along with Angelica Lutheran Church in downtown Los Angeles, Faith becomes the second Latino-oriented Lutheran ministry in our region to unequivocally open its doors to lesbian and gay people. Congratulations, people of Faith!

I mentioned Faith Lutheran at the conclusion of this post a couple of months ago, though not by name. I figured that, between my homepage and the linked list of Lutheran churches whose pastors would perform a legal same-sex marriage, you could figure it out for yourself.

Meanwhile, for what's it's worth, at both of the congregations that merged into Faith Lutheran Church in the year 2000, Resurrection (where I was baptized, confirmed, and ordained) and Epiphany, homosexual Christians had been finding open doors and hearts for years before Pastor Christiansen came on the scene. But RIC isn't about "welcoming" gay and lesbian people. It's about excluding those who take seriously what the Holy Scriptures (in both Old and New Testaments) and the Church catholic have had to say about marriage and relationships -- and thus continue to ask for the theological case for the blessing of homosexual relations to be made.

Just about 3 years ago, Los Angeles Daily News staff writer Holly J. Andres opened Five Decades of Service: Congregation Plans Special Celebration for Sunday writing, "Proud to say, 'This is your grandmother's church,' Faith Lutheran Church will mark 50 years of spiritual and outreach ministry on Sunday with a special service and celebration." Frankly, even then I was no longer sure that it was "your grandmother's church" any more. ("Ghandi Day" at a Lutheran church?) Now, sadly, it is clear that it is proud to have become something else.

Canoga Park High on TV

If you have broadband or (like Dad and me) are a very patient dial-up holdout, you can catch a bit of my high school and its redwood trees, what the old Quad (where I spent brunch and lunch periods for most of 3 years) looks like today, the beginning of the Los Angeles River, and a certain history teacher (and alum) thanks to LA's TimeWarner Cable So-Cal News. It's a 90 second bit once you've pressed on the picture and got it all.


The occasion is CPHS receiving a $500,000 grant from the Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation, which will be used to improve the school's outdoor garden, build a family picnic area, and plant more trees on the campus.

Way to go, Hunters! (And way to go, Richard!)

We Have the Same Parents

Dad keeps asking me, "Have you been on the Canoga Web site lately?" I finally made it over there tonight and found the article he wanted me to see. It's about one of our high school's history teachers and Dad's favorite line is, "He was also an advanced auto-shop major."

While that's a great line, this is better:

• What does Mr. Tibbetts do in his spare time??
o He is in charge of restoring our redwoods in our school. We are the only school in the Los Angeles Unified School District that still has redwoods. The reason that he got involved was because an alumnus stated that all of the history of Canoga and historic items were gone. He decided to change that. He wants to make our history something that we remember and that continues through time.

I'm actually quite proud my brother for that.

My little brother.

Do you think he looks 4 years younger than me? ;-)

More '40s Reunion

A story and photos of the Canoga Park High School 1940s Reunion now appears on the school's website. See if you can pick out my dad (Class of Winter 1944) in any of the photos!

Update: (6 March 2008) -- The story is gone, but the photos can be found here.