When people say “you can’t go back” … they generally mean it in a philosophical way. We can’t replay the past, what’s done is done, and so forth.

For me, in ways perhaps not particularly typical, “you can’t go back” has turned out to be literal.

I can’t go back to my grade school because it’s gone. I can’t go see my college football team play, because they shut down the program 16 years ago.

And I can’t go back to my high school because it was shuttered back in June. Makes it difficult to reach out to other alumni and homecoming games are going to be thin on the ground, going forward.

Specific bits of tradition attached to the high school will be lost to history.

Like the “fight song” — the peppy tune played by the band during sports events, in particular.

So, in the interest of saving a bit of history, here are the words. Written, I believe, by an early choir director of my high school, mostly known as “L.A. Lutheran” during its 60-some years of history.

Oh … we will fight for the blue-and-white boys

We will fight for Lutheran High

May her colors ne’er be tainted

May her glory never die.

Loyal to our dear school boys

Lift her banner to the sky

We will fight to win this game

In honor of her name

Come on now Lutheran High.

I think that’s it, mostly. Doing this from memory.

It is meant to be played quickly and with the volume at “11.”

I didn’t often sing it; I mostly played it, as a member of the band and the loudest clarinetist in the school.

(If I had a musical instrument with me, in France, I would play it and write down the basic melody.)

My recollection is we had an assignment, as freshmen, to learn the words to the fight song, as well as the alma mater.

It pops into my head now and then, and whenever I think of it, of late, it is about how no one will sing it in the years to come.