The View From Mrs. Sundberg's Window

Polka Music. Oh, Yah

October 4, 2004

Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. It began with a polka, and you can't go wrong with a polka. You just can't. When I was young, every year about this time my grandparents came by and picked us up and took us out to the orchard or to a craft fair or to a pancake breakfast. One year they took us to the Legion Hall for Oktoberfest. We ate pork sausage ("Von Schwein," Grandpa called it) and sauerbraten with red cabbage and bread dumplings. We ate and ate. And when our plates were cleared, Grandpa ordered another beer and so did Grandma. My brothers and I had to ask for dessert by name. Nachspeisen. We said it and Grandpa gave a holler to the waitress, who brought out three slabs of Black Forest cake. Layers and layers. Grandma and Grandpa got up to dance, and while they danced we ate our cake and sipped their beer. And we watched them hopping around—smiles on their faces, Grandpa stumbling now and then, Grandma shaking her head. Then we got up and polkaed and what a feeling that was. After a while the polka band played "Edelweiss" and we sat down and Grandma and Grandpa seemed to hold each other up as they danced.

They're the grandparents who taught us how to make blood sausage, and how to pluck a chicken.
He showed us how to paint, and one year made statues of Chief Seattle for my brothers and a purple cradle for my dolls. She taught us how to fry side pork and when tomatoes are really ripe, and the proper way to mix up a batch of Lape cookies. They lived in a little brown brick house where we went for most holidays. The windows were always steamed up and there was way too much food but nobody complained.

Toward the end of the show Mr. Keillor and Mark Knopfler sang, together, this lovely song. Went something like this: "It's been something seeing you again. And this time we've had to spend you're so good to be around..." I've been humming it ever since. Makes me think about the people I love.
The ones from way back and the ones I had coffee with last week and those I saw yesterday at coffee hour in church. Kind of makes me want to have a party and invite all of 'em. Maybe have a pig roast. Or just a whole lot of cider and pumpkin pie. And I'd hire a local band to play under the trees.
Polka music. Oh, yah.