Last night, in a feeble attempt to get Martin to bed, I tucked him into our bed and turned on the Big Joe Polka Show.  My thought was that he'd be so bored that he'd just nod off to sleep.  Instead, he found what might turn out to be his new calling.  He LOVED this show.  "This is a good show momma.  It's good for kids," he said. 

He thought the accordion was cool (he is my child after all), found a new favorite instrument in the concertina, asked loads of questions about the drummer, and marveled at the guy who could play the trombone AND the keyboard at the same time.  And seriously, who wouldn't.

He pointed out the matching outfits that each couple wore - "They like purple.  His shirt is purple and she has a purple dress on."  He wanted to know why that couple was "twirly" and the other one only moved their feet.  He was very compassionate about the guy who had on shorts and knee high sport socks, saying that "his legs hurt, he has tall, tall socks" instead of just mocking him like I wanted to do.

And, I must say, he was WAY impressed that I knew how to polka.  This, of course, is where my attempt to get him to bed went in the wrong direction as we polka-ed around the bedroom.  It probably goes without saying that doing the polka isn't a good precursor to immediate sleep.

He asked, "When I'm old, can I be on this show?"  I said yes, but I'm not all that sure about the future of polka.  I learned to polka when I was in elementary school, but even with that background, I certainly couldn't keep up with any of the dancers on Big Joe's.  Not to mention the shortage of polka partners in my same age range.  If that's the case for me, does Martin even stand a chance?  Maybe there will be a big resurgence in the polka field sort of like swing enjoyed a few years ago.  With Martin's genes (my grandparents were Mr. & Mrs. Square Dance of St. Paul... and that's related to polka, right?) and general interest, he could be one hot polka prospect in the future.  And I bet you don't hear those words in the same sentence very often.

Let's just hope that if polka ever does die out, that there will still be a place for fine songs like these:

In Heaven There is No Beer
In Heaven there is no beer
That's why we drink it here
And When we're gone from here
All our friends will be drinking all our beer

Too Fat Polka
I don't want her, you can have her, She's too fat for me.
She's too fat for me,
She's too fat for me.
I don't want her, you can have her, Please do that for me.
She's too fat,
She's too fat,
She's too fat for me.  Hey!