Listen: Polka Power with poets Joe and Nancy Paddock
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Polka Power, a report and poetic response to the polka festival subculture in the Upper Midwest with poets Joe and Nancy Paddock.

MPR’s Vickie Sturgeon produced and hosted this series of five poetic looks at life in Southwest Minnesota. Others include:

·         "Frogs" - "Frogs", a raucous small-town happening in a narrative poem read by Joe Paddock.

·         "Phil Dacey" - Southwest Minnesota poet reads several of his works.

·         "It's a Pity" - Nancy Paddock shows her attempts to strike a balance with nature.

·         "The Geese" - poet Joe Paddock shows his perceptions of the migration of wild geese across the Minnesota Prairie.

From the KRSW Poets-in-Residence Series.

Transcripts

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SPEAKER: We're Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Infeld from Protivin, Iowa, 250 miles from home.

SPEAKER: OK. What are you doing here in Marshall, Minnesota in the Blue Moon Ballroom today?

SPEAKER: We came for the polka fest. We read about it in the entertainment bits, and so we thought we'd just come to a new place.

SPEAKER: Is a polka fest sort of a new thing that's happening, or has this been going on around in different places for quite a while now?

SPEAKER: Oh, it's been going around for a long time. But we never got around too much because we were farming, and we couldn't get away like we can now.

SPEAKER: Would you say that polka and old time music is your favorite music?

SPEAKER: It sure is. Otherwise, we wouldn't be going like we are.

[LAUGHS]

[POLKA MUSIC]

SPEAKER: In late August of 1978, the Blue Moon Ballroom of Marshall, Minnesota presented a polka festival. Oldtime bands from throughout the upper Midwest were featured, and fans came from far and wide to listen and dance. Minnesota Public Radio's poets and residents Joe and Nancy Paddock were on hand to capture some of the color of this event. Welcome to Polka Power.

SPEAKER: Well, they say it came from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Moravia, I think. That's where it originated. Anyway--

SPEAKER: The polka?

SPEAKER: The polka did. Uh huh.

SPEAKER: Now I guess I've generally thought of oldtime music as being kind of German in nature. But you're saying it comes a little further east in Europe, huh?

SPEAKER: Oh, I would think some would be German, too some, I don't know.

SPEAKER: The polka, the waltz, the schottische, old country rhythms living in the mind and flesh of immigrants to these prairies. This music bouncing in our bones from across the great water, the polka, the waltz, the schottische. this music, healthy as whole wheat bread, nurturer to the peasant soul within us. This music, the magic key, the carpet which carried our parents and grandparents around and around and around.

SPEAKER: Our parents and his parents were dancers, too. So I guess that's why we keep it up.

SPEAKER: Through long nights of house party and barn dance, over the rough planks of haymow floors in new barns, those boards, taking a second pounding to help pay the cost.

SPEAKER: Well, it was mostly neighbors got to gather around and had good time.

SPEAKER: While kids slept on benches and teenagers took walks to kiss under cottonwoods.

SPEAKER: Yeah, we've been married for 39 years. And we've been dancing about five years before that.

SPEAKER: You didn't happen to meet on a dance floor, did you?

SPEAKER: Well, I guess we did.

SPEAKER: This music, the polka, the waltz, the schottische, released country people for a time, flesh and mind from the struggle with stubborn ground.

SPEAKER: That's music made this country, really.

SPEAKER: Dedicate to all our farmers out there, farmer friends, wherever they may be. This one is called "The Farmers' Waltz."

["THE FARMERS' WALTZ" PLAYING]

SPEAKER: Who were some of the good bands as you remember in the old days?

SPEAKER: Oh, there were so many of them. [INAUDIBLE] Chiefs, Six Fat Dutchmen, and--

SPEAKER: OK.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

SPEAKER: So we played this twice already [INAUDIBLE] out there.

SPEAKER: A lot of the old time bands come from [INAUDIBLE], you know?

SPEAKER: Yeah.

SPEAKER: Well, I don't know. They're all good. I just can't mention one or two. They're all good.

SPEAKER: Would you name a few of them, just so we could--

SPEAKER: Oh, we liked the band that played here last night, Johnny Helget. They were very good. And we liked The Swiss Girls, and Whoopee John, and Father Capone's Band. And there's a lot of them that we like.

SPEAKER: Whoopee John's been around for many, many years. I suppose it isn't the same band that originally was here a long time ago. But are some of these others, are they newer, quite a bit newer, would you say?

SPEAKER: Well, they're probably newer than Whoopee John. Yeah. But they have new members or-- I don't really know. But they're all good.

SPEAKER: Here's another one. This one is called "The New Old Favorite Polka."

["THE NEW OLD FAVORITE POLKA" PLAYING]

SPEAKER: Are you from the Mankato region?

SPEAKER: No, we're from New Ulm.

SPEAKER: New Ulm? Well, that's where it all came from, isn't it?

SPEAKER: Yeah, I guess that's where it all started.

[LAUGHED]

The oom pah pah and the whoo hoo hoo never found a grave on these prairies, but a center around old New Ulm, polka capital to the world, they say. Whoopee John, The Jolly Lumberjacks, Fez Fritchie and His Goose Town Band, The Six Fat Dutchmen, Clem Brough, Wally Pickle and His Dill Pickles brought them in in crowds to play [INAUDIBLE] Blue Moons and Valhallas.

This music, these polkas, waltzes, schottisches, so simple and honest, so unself-conscious that there was nothing left but to dance till life slowly lifted into a sort of immense, circling flow, large and joyous as a nighttime sky of stars and moonlight with a million crickets singing the oom pah pah and the hoo hoo hoo never found a grave on these prairies.

SPEAKER: But I think it's going to come back. This was forecast here years ago. I think it was Lawrence Welk or some music magazine I read this polka music and waltz music was going to come back. And I think it is.

SPEAKER: But really, we haven't danced. We didn't dance a step until, what, about three years ago? Three years ago we started dancing.

SPEAKER: You seem to be excellent dancers. It must be something that you can pick up relatively fast if you have the ability, huh?

SPEAKER: No, not really. We've taken quite a few lessons, really. And it takes a lot of practice. After lessons, it does take a lot of practice. But it's a lot of fun. And anything that's worthwhile is worth working for, I guess.

SPEAKER: And now, polka fests and polka power and polka clubs of Iowa and North Dakota, of Sioux Falls and Mankato, their members dressed in vested costumes with white vinyl dancing shoes, doing steps so nifty, Grandpa would have stopped and clapped or maybe laughed before whirling back up into that immense life of the dance.

SPEAKER: OK. We're back on again. Waltz time this time. Incidentally, we'd like to thank our dance club from the Arkota Ballroom in Sioux Falls for coming dancing to us this afternoon.

SPEAKER: In the last five years or so that you've been going around to these festivals, you think there are more people coming to them now than there used to be?

SPEAKER: Oh, yeah, there are more and more. We meet a lot of friends all over.

SPEAKER: Do you get to know people that you see from in one festival at the other festival?

SPEAKER: Oh, we sure do. We just wait for that to see them again. Yeah, we visit each other places, too, now. We go back and forth visiting some of the people that we meet, Omaha, Nebraska, and South Dakota, and North Dakota. Last spring we were in North Dakota, visiting people that we met in Gibbon.

SPEAKER: You've got really kind of interesting-- you call them dance costumes or whatever. They're blue and green, and red and gold, and are these part of some sort of group that you have?

SPEAKER: Well, not these. I just made these couple of years ago to wear to the polka dances. But we have black outfits that Polka Club of Iowa are wearing with our name of the club on the back of them.

SPEAKER: I see.

SPEAKER: So they're just easy to take care of. So that's, I guess, why we wear them.

[LAUGHS]

SPEAKER: Would these be Czech costumes that are kind of traditional from the old country? Yeah.

SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE].

SPEAKER: That's all of our waltz time right now. We'll be right back, though, with some polkas for you, very, very shortly. We do have some literature up here for another polka fest. I see one fine couple stopped and picked, grabbed one. And you're welcome to take them.

That's way down there at Wahoo, Nebraska. But it's going to be a dandy. We're going to play for the Czechs at Wahoo, Nebraska--

SPEAKER: Next weekend.

SPEAKER: Next weekend, already, way down in Wahoo, by Lincoln, Nebraska down there. So come on up. Take a look at it.

SPEAKER: Well, dancing's somewhat the same. But they got different steps. And they got different arrangements in their polkas and waltzes. And much like the old 78 records were pretty much a straight waltz or a straight polka, but now they've got different arrangements, sounds different, more modern.

[POLKA MUSIC]

SPEAKER: (SINGING) [INAUDIBLE]

SPEAKER: This music, the polka, the waltz, the schottische, healthy as whole wheat bread, nurturer to the peasant soul within us. This music, the magic key, the carpet, which carried our parents and grandparents around and around and around.

SPEAKER: This program was produced by Joe and Nancy Paddock, poets and residents for Minnesota Public Radio station KRSW. We would like to thank Vince's Polka Band of Fulda, Minnesota, for allowing us to record their music at The Blue Moon Ballroom at Marshall. Produced in the Worthington Studios of KSRW with assistance from Vickie Sturgeon, this program was made possible in part with funds from The National Endowment for the Arts.

SPEAKER: How about--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

Funders

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