A Celebration for the Rev. Prof. Lee O. Hagglund

A Celebration for the Rev. Prof. Lee O. Hagglund
Or, “Sweet are the uses of—diversity.”
Or, Does Baker Maultsby do chauvinist-pig songs?
Or, this can’t be from Ab; it doesn’t mention wrecks, fires, bread-lines, or diesel!

Yesterday I made the mistake of reading through a couple of my old blog entries, and they were just so, uh, heavy, that I had to remind myself that I work for the U.Meths, not freaking NPR! With that in mind, I resolved to write something really light—and to dedicate it to a hero of mine who knows that life is much too important to be taken too seriously.

Lee Hagglund is among the finest gentlemen I have ever met. He is a gifted mathematician, a completely dedicated family man, a colleague of absolute integrity, an incomparable sportsman, and a musician of incredible talent. All of my Wofford friends—and some of my Winthrop friends too—know those things. What is not generally known is that Dr. Hagglund has also worked in Africa, and that indeed he has sometimes contemplated a life of service on this beloved Continent. (May we all pray that it be so.)

Now I should like to communicate to Dr. Hagglund that, although his Lutheran roots might be directing him toward Tanzania, if he should wish to serve a bit further south, we could find him a place at A.U, where math teachers are always needed and the choir is reputed to be the best in the world. Furthermore, at A.U., Lee could observe some of the diversity that characterizes the peoples of Africa. Unfortunately, this is a characteristic that American tourists typically fail to notice. But Africa University currently has students from twenty nations; their cultures are beautifully different, and I want every reader of these blog-notes to remember that! Furthermore, I intend to preach diversity particularly hard in the direction of Lee Hagglund. Because Lee Hagglund is a child of the Sixties, and because Lee Hagglund is such a lover of music, and because Lee Hagglund is so into, well, observation, I decided to write Lee a Sixties-type song about human diversity at Africa University. (Vivvy, please note that I have not relinquished factual accuracy for meter or rhyme-scheme. And if this verse doesn’t offend somebody, then I might as well quit the Methodists and work for NPR.)

Oh, those Mozambican beauties, they can really shake their ass,
And Afrikaner girls, with the way they cook, they get their boyfriends fat real fast.
The girls from old Angola, they know how to tint their curls.
You smell that French perfume? You must be in the room, with some hot DRC girls.
Glad that they could come to Mutare—
Glad they didn’t stop in Harare—
Glad that they could meet our Mutare girls….

Before the week’s over I’ll try to write about the Manicaland Agricultural Fair—uh, in case anybody is still reading this mess.