THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 13, 1994 TAG: 9406130051
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK MOBLEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940613 LENGTH: WILLIAMSBURG
Not to mention the ``Old Time Religion Polka,'' the ``It Is No Secret Polka,'' the ``Battle Hymn Polka'' and - roll over, Handel - the ``Alleluia Polka.''
{REST} Polkaphiles from up and down the Eastern seaboard gathered at the George Washington Inn for the Dick Yash Polka Weekend. Friday and Saturday they danced. Sunday morning they danced, too, but not until the Rev. Gerald A. Przywara had finished saying the Polka Mass.
``Stand and sing as good Americans,'' bandleader Dick Pillar said just before 10 a.m. As he entered his second or third verse of ``America,'' promoter Dick Yash said over the music, ``People here - Indiana. A polka club down in Vero Beach, Fla., Georgia. North Carolina. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a whole bus.''
The polkangregation of 300 sat at banquet tables decorated in red and white, the colors of the Polish flag. Przywara, who serves two Virginia parishes, entered as Pillar played ``We Gather Together.''
Pillar, of Uncasville, Conn., has been playing polka music for 37 years and Masses for 20, ever since he heard about one out in the Midwest.
``God wants you to get happy,'' he says. ``We don't dance in the aisles in the church. But we get happy.''
``The music and the whole polka atmosphere reminds me of everything I grew up with,'' Przywara told the congregation. He's half Polish-American, half Italian-American, and celebrated some of the Mass in Polish. ``We had genuine family love mixed with all the traditions.''
Up-tempo hymns had the feel of white Southern gospel, with a rock-solid downbeat and the happy, bouncing upbeat of glory guaranteed. Slower hymns were waltzes embracing the listener like a dance partner. The accordion's reedy wheeze surfaced in ``How Great Thou Art.''
``You are the church. You are the pillars and foundations of everything we stand for as Christians and Catholics,'' Przywara said. ``Thanks be to God.''
A drum roll was followed by the national anthem. Between Dick Pillar's verses of ``May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You'' his band played a bit of ``Auld Lang Syne.''
``Dick has a very nice Polka Mass. One of the better ones,'' Pat Zylowski of Lake George, N.Y., said at lunch afterward. ``We travel all over. Last year we went to Chicago with him.''
Zylowski and her husband were sitting with two other couples who'd ridden to Williamsburg on Pillar's bus. They had two things in common: They were all retired, and they'd all met their mates at polka dances.
John Urbaetis said, ``We've been dancing through life ever since.''
by CNB