The building was being overrun and swarms of protesters poured in through windows and destroyed doors. In a world filled with angst and anger, it was just one more blow to the human spirit. Pandemic, contested elections, major city violence were not enough, now this had to happen. The sanctity of that special building was now being sullied. The governor offered to send in the National Guard, but the local police refused thinking that the mob would soon disperse as the early bird special at the Diner was about to begin. The radio station in Ord Nebraska, founded in 1965, was being attacked.

Why was this particular station being mobbed by hundreds of oldsters wielding canes, walkers, crutches and throwing metamucil cocktails? What was the provocation? Perhaps a political controversy aired recently, or a price gouge the station advertised while Geritol reached a hundred dollars a barrel? No, this was the sin of blasphemy; while for years this AM site had played polka music for four hours on Sundays, now they cut down to two hours. The shockwaves out of the mouths of the Polish and Czech resounded to the heavens.

You could not walk through a nursing home in Sherman or Valley Counties without hearing the happy polka or waltz every Sunday from 10 am to 2 pm. In fact, it was understood in celestial law that no souls would be required of the residents during those hallowed hours. Catholic ladies would even (gasp!) pause praying the rosary while such music played (not that you can’t be happy and pray at the same time but tapping the toes and working the beads was and is an onerous challenge). In a truly Polish or Czech home, Ed McMahon and the Publisher’s Clearing House people had to wait until after 2 p.m. to make any presentations.

If there happened to be a fire, God forbid, in the care facility during that revered juncture, no resident thought of escaping without their radio and an extension cord. You may have left your nightie on the bed in the room but you had your tunes. Modesty and decorum be darned, they’re playing the “She’s too Fat for Me Polka.” So what could be the reason for limiting the joy of the elderly and most of us to only two hours. “The love of money is the root of all evil” (located somewhere in a book called the Bible).

Undoubtedly the Polka Show was not getting the money in advertisers and donations to continue the whole four hours. Didn’t that station know that money can’t buy happiness (alcohol is most likely an exception)? Don’t they know that, “Man does not live on bread alone, but also on the lyrics of ‘Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie'” (the new Polish Paraphrased Scripture)?

Alas, money can only give comfort but never true happiness. Joy is something that springs from within; things outside of us like a chocolate chip cookie can spark our happiness but it had to be within our souls in the first place. Your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit even though at times we feel like our bodies are outhouses filled with stench. On our good spiritual days we find that our bliss is the Holy Spirit in the knowledge of God the Father in communion with His Only Son. Our jubilation is eternal because that is what God is, and what He intends for us.

The Party of the Parsimonious Polka Protestors are meeting tonight in Room 304 to talk a little treason.