My parents and cousin listening to sage advice from a Polish uncle.
What’s a book about a Polish kid without some mention of polka dancing?
Growing up in Northeastern Wisconsin, I’ve done my fair share of polkaing. It started out on Miller Street, of course, where my brothers and I would flip through our four channels on the television and wind up on “The Polka Variety Show” on any given Sunday morning. We loved “The Polka Variety Show” … not because we loved polka so much but because we just loved to make fun of the people on it. If you’re not familiar … well, the concept was really quite simple. Every week the show would broadcast from some church hall or community center, and just show people dancing to polka music. It was kind of like the “American Bandstand” for polka lovers, except that a live band played all of the music, and nobody was rating the songs based on the fact that “it had a good beat, and I could dance to it.” Because let’s face it: Polka music was made for dancing. If polka music doesn’t make you want to jump up and boogie … well, then, you have no soul. My brothers and I always got into the polka spirit; we used the show as an excuse to dance like maniacs in the living room, making up our own ridiculous polkaesque dance moves. That would get us nice and hyper right before we left for church, something my parents had surely appreciated.
Speaking of church … another thing we really liked was the polka mass. Once a year, usually as part of some parish picnic or festival, there would be a polka mass, otherwise known as the most awesome type of mass that ever existed. An actual polka band would set up in church (or under the tents at the festival, usually next to the beer tent). All of our normal church hymns, and sung psalms and responses, were all replaced with polka-style music. As kids we thought it was the funniest thing on the planet. We wished every mass would be a polka mass. As an adult, polka mass is usually followed by several brews and a fish fry in the beer garden, so it’s basically Catholic dream day.
But not all polka stories are happy. I know you must be asking yourself how this is humanly possible, given the pure joy that polka music has on everyone’s heart. But leave it to me to have an embarrassing polka story ….
