The Prince of
Polka – The Pre-Prom Dinner Dance
by Don Drewniak
The church in
Fall River, Massachusetts that my mother and
maternal grandparents attended was St. John's
Ukrainian Catholic Church. It owned a picnic area
in a wooded area on Eagleville Road in
neighboring Tiverton, Rhode Island throughout the
40s and 50s.
The picnic
area consisted of three weather-beaten wooden
structures and an outhouse or two. During the
summer months, it was the site of Sunday picnics.
One of the three structures was utilized for the
sale of liquor. The second for the sale of food:
holuptsi (cabbage rolls), pedeheh (same as Polish
pierogi), kovbasá (kiebasa) and kapusniak (cabbage
and sauerkraut soup). The third was a dance
pavilion that always featured an accordion band.
And, of course, the music of choice was the polka.
I was probably
as young as four when my mother began teaching me
how to polka. Over the years, she would farm me
out to other “ancient” women. As a
result, I became reasonably good at it. The only
other dance I managed to master was the briefly-popular
Chicken in the late 50s. It involved the flapping
of arms and walking backwards imitating a chicken.
With the polka
and the Chicken as the mainstays in my dance
repertoire, I somehow made it through a few
dances held at St. Patrick’s School and
Durfee High. Then came my senior prom. Fittingly,
my prom date was a Polish classmate, Helena (name
changed to protect the innocent), who I dated
sporadically during the second half of my senior
year. The prom, held on a Friday night, was
preceded the night before by a dinner dance at
the Pocasset Country Club in nearby Portsmouth,
Rhode Island. It featured a band that played
mostly rock and roll mixed in with a few slow
dances. With just a few minutes left before the
band called it quits, I had managed not to
embarrass myself on the dance floor.
Then came
another of life’s never-to-be-forgotten
turning points. The band leader announced that
the next dance was a polka. Helena jumped up,
grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto the floor.
No one else joined us. The music began and we
both proceeded to put on a show and, in the
process, had the attention of most of those in
attendance. The band played and played. We danced
and danced.
And then
disaster struck. I missed catching her hand as I
turned her into a spin. There was a square-shaped
wooden support column in the middle of the floor.
She spun into it full force. Bouncing off the
immovable column, she dropped to the floor. I
dashed to her and helped her up. She was
physically unhurt, but the psychological damage
was irreparable. The drive back to her house was
dominated by silence.
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