DYNGUS DAY NEWS ARCHIVES -

The following is a collection of news articles from Buffalo, South Bend and other Dyngus Day celebrations across the nation.

Polonia On Parade
April 6, 2007
Artvoice
By Geoff Kelly


South Bend, Indiana has long maintained a spurious claim to the title, but the organizers of Dyngus Day Buffalo know the truth: Buffalo is the Dyngus Day capital of the world.

“It’s one of the biggest parties in Western New York,” says Marty Biniasz, “and nobody celebrates it anywhere on the planet the way we celebrate it in Western New York. We are the Dyngus Day capital of the world.” It can’t help but be true. The day after Easter Sunday, Western New York hosts dozens of Dyngus Day celebrations-in churches, community centers, VFW posts, taverns and restaurants, private homes-that draw thousands of revelers. Biniasz, recognizing an opportunity to market both the region and his old East Buffalo neighborhood, decided last year to create a Web site to provide a warehouse of information about all the festivities. That Web site, DyngusDayBuffalo.com, proved to be immensely popular and became the catalyst for the creation of a not-for-profit group of the same name.

Dyngus Day Buffalo, partnering with a variety of public and private groups, has been promoting Dyngus Day events relentlessly in the past week: taking out advertisements; coordinating events and donations; setting up a photo opportunity on the fireboat Edward M. Cotter (dubbed “The World’s Largest Dyngus Day Squirt Gun”), complete with accordions playing polka music on deck and traditional Polish dancers. The group, founded by Biniasz, hopes to ratchet up Buffalo’s appreciation for the holiday through publicity and parties-and, most notably, by means of a parade through Buffalo’s old Polonia neighborhood on the East Side: down Broadway and Fillmore, down Peckham and Paderewski to the towering old Central Terminal, where organizers expect to draw thousands of revelers to bid farewell to the strictures of Lent. (The parade begins at 5:30pm; see page 16 for the route.)

It is, to the best of anyone’s recollection, the first ever Dyngus Day parade in Buffalo. It is also a rare opportunity to turn the city’s attention to the neighborhood. Like so much of the East Side, the Fillmore District is scarred by abandoned houses and vacant lots, shuttered storefronts and crumbling edifices. “If we can position ourselves and market ourselves, we can become a cultural tourism draw for the whole community,” Biniasz says. “And at the same time we can help in the revitalization effort of this old historic Polonia neighborhood, which seems to have been abandoned over the past 20 or 30 years,” adds Eddy Dobosiewicz, chairman of the parade. “There are some many cultural and architectural treasures here that we don’t want people to forget about it.”

What is Dyngus Day?
“Dyngus Day is an old Eastern European tradition celebrating the end of Lent and the rebirth of spring,” says Dobosiewicz. “But in all actuality there’s not a lot of people who celebrate it anywhere. They don’t really celebrate it a on a wide scale in Poland or Eastern Europe anymore.” Dyngus Day is largely an American holiday now, celebrated in Polish and Eastern European enclaves in cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, South Bend and Pittsburgh. Buffalo’s own Dyngus Day tradition-at least as it is celebrated today-reaches back no further than 1961, when the Chopin Singing Society began throwing Dyngus Day parties as fundraisers. So popular were those events that Dyngus Day parties began to spring up in every neighborhood where Poles had settled, especially in church halls, community centers and VFW posts. Once upon a time, the Dyngus festivities lasted a week, until the post-Resurrection party was shortened to one day in the 19th century, by decree of the Catholic Church. On that one day, young men would signal their amorous intentions to young women by dousing them with water. (In one iteration of this tradition, the young man sneaks into his intended’s bedroom-most likely with the complicity of the young woman’s mother or father-and wakes her with a bucket of cold water.) Women would respond by beating young men with pussy willows. Thus it is known as Wet Monday in Poland, or smigus-dyngus. Smigus means to strike, more or less, evoking the pussy willows, while dyngus means a worthy gift or ransom, referring to the small gifts, often decorated eggs, that were exchanged as part of the holiday.

The traditions of Dyngus Day predate Christianity in Poland by hundreds of years, and are derived from pagan celebrations welcoming the spring. Like Mardi Gras-its pre-Lenten counterpart-Dyngus Day may be related to the Roman Lupercalia, with which it shares an emphasis on courtship and fertility rituals. So pussy willows signify the advent of spring and rebirth; water signifies life and fertility. The prodigious eating and drinking that attend Dyngus Day signify relief. “Buffalonians love a party,” says Dobosiewicz, “which is why Dyngus Day has always been big here. We want to help make it bigger and bigger.”

Touring the old neighborhood
Standing in front of the Central Terminal, which hosts a gala party Monday evening after the parade, Biniasz said, “You could say beer saved this building.” The majestic and dilapidated terminal might have fallen victim to wrecking balls and bulldozers a few years ago if not for the determined efforts of preservationists, who had the wisdom to plead their case by throwing parties in its dramatic vaulted concourse. Those parties made way for art exhibitions and dramatic productions. Today the terminal is stabilized, and its clock towers have been restored. More than 20,000 people have passed through the Central Terminal’s doors in the past few years, thanks to tours and events. The building’s future may be undetermined still, and largely unfunded, but there is hope.

Neither Biniasz nor Dobosiewicz live in the neighborhood anymore, but their memories and continuing attachments have motivated them to join with East Side groups, such as Broadway Fillmore Alive, which are trying to reverse the decay by attracting attention to the neighborhood’s treasures and traditions. “Even growing up as a child I knew this neighborhood was unique,” Biniasz says. “I would bring friends in a from other parts of the city and they couldn’t believe what was here.” Monday evening’s parade will pass by such Fillmore District landmarks as the Broadway Market, the site of the long-gone Sattlers Department Store and the former A. Schreiber Brewing Company-once the largest Polish-owned business in Buffalo. The marchers will pass the Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle on Fillmore, and then under the shadows of Saint Stanislaus and Corpus Christi churches.
 

“The first wave of Polish immigrants that came to the community came in the 1870s, and those parishioners founded Saint Stanislaus in 1873,” says Biniasz. “Thirty years later, after the turn of the century, Corpus Christi was built, because the Polish population was growing at such a rapid rate.” The churches-and these two were followed by more to the east, north and south-competed to build the highest steeples and the most impressive facades. The neighborhoods, especially the working-class dwellings, sprang up around the churches, which were the community’s gathering places. The characteristic working-class abode was the Bork cottage, named for the German developer Joseph Bork, who donated the land for Saint Stanislaus parish in the hopes that the Poles would move in around the church and buy the houses he was building in the neighborhood. Bork built thousands of these simple, wood-framed, two-storey cottages, which were cheap enough for mill, factory and brewery workers to afford. As the immigrants were joined by their family members from abroad, they would build additions telescoping backwards into the deep lots. Dozens of people might live under one roof.

By 1880 there were more than 5,000 Poles in Buffalo, and 10 years later there were four times that number. By 1940, there were more than 75,000 Poles, mostly on the East Side-by far the largest ethnic group in the city, with their own newspapers, their own political organizations, their own schools and their own taverns in which Polish was the first language and English a distant second.

Many of those taverns are still going concerns, and are on the Dyngus Day parade route: the Market Bar, Arty’s, the Three Deuces, etc. All of them throw Dyngus Day parties. The Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle throws one of the most famous and raucous Dyngus Day celebrations, according to Biniasz. “It’s known as the wettest Dyngus Day party,” he says. “There’s so much water that you go in the basement and it’s like a waterfall coming down.

Designating a Polonia historic district
Buffalo’s African-American population increased dramatically in the years after World War Two-and so did the Polish population, as the devastation of Europe spurred a new round of immigration. Racial tensions and the postwar rise of the suburbs resulted in many Poles moving west. (To some degree, this mirrored the displacement of German and Jewish populations that had moved away when the Poles arrived, though the earlier displacement was less dramatic; much of East Buffalo was farmland at the time the Poles arrived.) African-American Buffalo built its own churches and institutions on the East Side, buoyed by plentiful jobs in the city’s steel mills and factories, which appeared robust even as they were quietly growing obsolete.

The death of Buffalo’s industrial economy is reflected in the neighborhood’s long, precipitous economic decline. Today 38 percent of the Fillmore District’s population lives below the poverty line, the highest percentage of any predominantly residential district in the city. Whole blocks have been decimated by the self-feeding cycle of abandonment, decay and demolition.

The Central Terminal provides an analog to the fragile state of the neighborhood: Though the present remains bleak, there is reason to hope. The neighborhood has attracted new waves of immigrants-Pakistani and Yemeni Muslims, Vietnamese Buddhists-and they have opened their own mosques, temples and schools. Black churches and community groups continue to fight the neighborhood’s decline. A sizeable, if diminished, Polish population remains, too; Saint Stanislaus and Corpus Christi’s congregations are, in fact, growing, and both churches-Saint Stanislaus especially-have ambitious neighborhood redevelopment plans.

The growing diversity of the neighborhood might seem to argue against a new effort, spearheaded by Common Council President Dave Franczyk and a number of East Side community groups, to designate an old Polonia historic district. Why label the neighborhood with a moniker that speaks largely to its past? Because, Dobosiewicz, points out, Buffalonians love their city’s history as much as they love a good party. Standing at the corner of Fillmore and Paderewski, he enumerated the possibilities in the blocks leading to the Central Terminal, looming to the southeast, with the spires of Corpus Christi and Saint Stanislaus rising above the roofs. A restaurant here, a tavern there, a couple young homeowners willing to buy a house on the cheap and fix it up-these are the little things that could catalyze the neighborhood’s rebirth. “If parade or a historic designation draws attention and investment to this neighborhood, that’s what matters,” he says. “There’s so much potential here.”

Poles Ring A Dyngus Bell: Fireboat Cotter has right colors as symbol of Happy Fest
By Tom Buckham, BUFFALO NEWS 
04/04/07

In the interest of promoting Buffalo as the “Dyngus Day Capital of the World,” if not the entire universe, Marty Biniasz has seized on the Edward M. Cotter as further proof of his claim.

It cannot be mere coincidence the world’s oldest working fireboat is red and white, same as the Polish flag, Biniasz said Tuesday before a ceremony christening the Cotter as the “world’s largest squirt gun.” For the uninitiated, squirt guns are an essential ingredient of Dyngus Day, a post-Lenten Polish-American tradition Biniasz and fellow enthusiasts have stretched into a weeklong celebration in Western New York. As part of the fun, young girls chase boys with pussy willow switches, and the boys squirt them back. What could better symbolize these devil-may-care shenanigans, Biniasz thought, than the Cotter — a floating landmark with the “squirting” capacity of 11 fire engines?
 
This year’s edition of Dyngus Day will begin after the last bite of Easter dinner is consumed Sunday, with the first “blessing of the instruments” for polka musicians in Pvt. Leonard J. Post Post 6251, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cheektowaga. The ceremony will kick off the 15th annual “pre- Dyngus” party in the veterans hall.

The celebrating will resume with Monday’s first Dyngus Day Parade through the city’s Polish East Side, starting at 5 p.m. at the Broadway Market, and the Chopin Singing Society’s traditional festival at Hearthstone Manor in Depew. It will continue through the following Saturday with dancing and music at various venues across the region.
 
By Biniasz’s reckoning, more than 50 musicians from Buffalo and as far away as Chicago, Detroit and Toledo will help roll out the barrel at many of the nearly three dozen parties planned during the week. Dancers from the Harmony Folk Ensemble and the Polish Heritage Dancers will be on hand for Sunday’s blessing and pre-Dyngus party, starting at 7 p.m. in the VFW post at 2450 Walden Ave. Featured performers will include Grammy-nominated Lenny Gomulka & Chicago Push along with Eddie Biegaj and Crusade.
 
According to a 19th century Polish encyclopedia, the word dyngus comes from the medieval “dingnus,” meanings worthy, proper or suitable.

Buffalo’s Dyngus Day was established in 1961 by the late Theodore V. Mikoll, a Buffalo lawyer who led the Chopin Singing Society for 28 years. He recalled that during his childhood, girls would celebrate the end of Lenten fasting by swatting boys with pussy willows — dyngus is the Polish word for these switches — and the boys would spray water on the girls.

Mikoll figured people still would welcome an excuse to escape the Lenten confines with music and beer, and before long the Chopin Singing Society on Kosciuszko Street was the place to be the day after Easter.

In partnership with public and private bodies, Dyngus Day Buffalo, a not-for-profit organization founded by Biniasz, has taken the event to a new level. The aim: to promote Polish customs “with accuracy, integrity and liveliness” through public education and awareness.

For the full list of events, visit DyngusDayBuffalo.com.

Dyngus Day Parade makes a dry splash
Polonia does itself up proud with inaugural event here
By Harold McNeil
The Buffalo News
04/10/07

It was far too cold Monday to be throwing actual water at women, so the colorfully costumed participants in Buffalo's first Dyngus Day Parade came up with a drier alternative: buckets of shiny blue and silver streamers.

That kind of improvisation lent an air of the eclectic to the affair. Sure, pussy willows abounded, along with other water images associated with the Monday after Easter celebration. But the parade — which snaked from the Broadway Market over to Fillmore Avenue and up Peckham to the old Central Terminal — also took a few left turns toward the untraditional.

Parade entries included a miniantique car show, complete with an early 1960s pink Chrysler convertible with a modified horn blaring "La Cucaracha," and a three-man band playing the Beatles' "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da." And in a bow to Mardi Gras, holiday revelers on floats and in cars threw candy and red and white beads to curbside spectators.

It was all part of the magic of Dyngus Day, at least according to one who knows. Andrze Ogiba of East Amherst is a native of Mielec, Poland. There, he said, the ancient custom of men dousing women and women whacking men with pussy willows is still practiced. "Oh, absolutely," he said. "In Poland, Dyngus Day is called the Dyngus Smingus. Smingus is chasing with the pussy willows. Dyngus is getting wet." It's a tradition that dates back to 10th century and the Christian baptism of Polish Prince Mieszko I.

Ogiba was outfitted for the parade in a traditional costume worn by the men in the mountainous Patry region of Poland. He said the specific Dyngus Day customs vary from region to region, and change over time. Those differences would naturally be reflected in American celebrations of the holiday.

"We're trying to put everything together and celebrate as one big Polonia," he said. The idea of "one big Polonia" was sort of a theme for Monday's event, centralizing the disparate celebrations into one general location on Buffalo's far East Side.
"Community is bringing the unity, and that's what it's all about here," said Sister Mary Johnice, who also took part in the parade.

"This is what the East Side used to be," Sister Johnice said. "I've been a child of the East Side from the beginning of time, 1946, and I've seen the East Side grow and grow and grow, but somehow we lost the spirit. But again, it's becoming vibrant. It's so good to see this." The event attracted revelers from across Western New York, including Chris Cooley of North Tonawanda, a professional volunteer at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, who came with her daughter and grandson. "It's wonderful. Everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day and on Dyngus Day, everybody's Polish," Cooley said.

In addition to noontime festivities at the Lt. Col. Matt Urban Service Center on Broadway, Monday's celebration culminated with an after-parade party inside the old Central Terminal, where folks danced to Polkas performed by a band called "Those Idiots," imbibed beer and feasted on kielbasa, Polish ham and pierogi. Even though it was rather cold inside the cavernous, former railroad terminal, Dave Halady of Clarence said he didn't mind. "We're a hardy bunch," Halady said, "and it's good to see all of Polonia come together."

Buffalo's odd rite of spring: Once a year, pussy willows and water get their very own festival

Francine Kopun

The Toronto Star, April 8, 2007

 

In Buffalo, N.Y., the mad, last-minute rush to prepare for Easter includes two items that don't make many shopping lists: pussy willows and squirt guns. That's because the city is home to the largest celebration of an ancient Polish rite of spring – Dyngus Day, traditionally held on Easter Monday. That's when thousands of residents and visitors will gather in community halls and neighbourhood pubs around Buffalo and its suburbs to eat and drink and polka, and – oh yes – sprinkle each other with water and tap each other with pussy willows.

"It's like a reverse Mardi Gras," says Eddy Dobosiewicz, a Buffalo comedian and chairman of the Dyngus Day parade, which will wind through the city's historic Polonia district tomorrow evening. "Mardi Gras happens prior to Lent, and you get it all out of your system before Lent. Dyngus Day happens after Lent, your reward for giving up whatever you gave up during the Lenten season."

And the water, the willows? Tapping a love interest with pussy willows is an ancient courtship ritual, once common in rural Poland. Sprinkling each other with water is said to be a reminder of the baptism in 966 of the first Christian King of Poland, on an Easter Monday.

Imported to western New York State by Polish immigrants at the turn of the century, the tradition mostly took place in the homes that crowded the Polish quarter of Buffalo. Parents would wake their children on Easter Monday by sprinkling them with water.

"My mother would wake us up by splashing a little water on us," says Dobosiewicz. "As we got older she started using squirt guns, and as we got older still, I think she wanted to use a hose."

Toronto native Ted Zdybal, 40, expects to be roused from his sleep by his cousins on Dyngus Day – they usually drop by in the morning to wake him up, dousing him with water when he answers the door of his High Park home. Later in the day, he'll be bringing Bialy Orzel – the White Eagle Polish Song and Dance Ensemble – to perform at festivities in Buffalo. "It's a huge party for a Monday night; it attracts thousands," says Zdybal, artistic director of the group. "Most people take the day off work, and it lasts into the wee hours."

The tradition has mostly died out in Poland, according to Marty Biniasz, 34, founder of Dyngus Day Buffalo. In his city, however, it's been growing ever since the city's Chopin Singing Society held an official Dyngus party 45 years ago to raise money. (Buffalo's Polish immigrants had been celebrating Dyngus Day since the 1870s.) In fact, Dyngus Day is now a week-long event, with activities taking place around the region.

Events kick off tonight with Polish dancers and a Polish folk ensemble performing in the town of Cheektowaga, just east of Buffalo. The majority of events take place tomorrow and mostly involve food, polka and, of course, water.

"If you have a problem with centrifugal force, you should stay away from Polka dancing," says Dobosiewicz. "It looks a little complicated. The best thing to do is find yourself an old Polish lady, grab onto her, and go along for the ride."

Super-soakers have been banned, following an unfortunate incident several years ago in which a fit of exuberance led to a small flood at the Adam Mickiewicz Library, a former speakeasy and now one of the best-known Polish landmarks in the city.

As for water pistols, some venues permit them, but with limitations. "We don't allow it on the premises, the premises are too nice, they can do it outside," says Ann T. Mikoll, a former state judge who, with her late husband, Theodore, organized the inaugural Dyngus party 45 years ago. Mikoll now heads the Chopin Singing Society, which Theodore once led.

The water seems to work pretty well as a courtship ritual. Joyelle Bartlett, 29, met her husband at a Dyngus Day event three years ago. The Adam Mickiewicz Library was packed with revellers, one of whom kept squirting Bartlett and her friend with water.

"It seemed like it was just coming from all directions," recalls Bartlett, a health inspector for the local Erie County. "Everybody had squirt guns and pussy willows and all that silly stuff. You know it's part of the custom and you just go along with it. It was a very fun night." Bartlett introduced herself to the man behind the squirt gun, and his friend. The next morning, the friend called her for a date. "We've been talking ever since," says Bartlett.

South Bend, Ind., also celebrates Dyngus Day. National attention was focused on the festivities there in 1968 when Bobby Kennedy, campaigning in the Indiana presidential primary, attended the celebrations held by a Democratic club.

South Bend claims to be the first, with a 75-year-tradition of celebrating Dyngus Day, but Buffalo claims to be the biggest.

Founder Biniasz is expecting as many as 50,000 people to participate in all the events, including visitors from western New York and southern Ontario – Burlington, Hamilton and St. Catharines.

The origin of the name "Dyngus" is disputed, according to Father Czeslaw Krysa, a Catholic priest in the Buffalo area. He says it may have been derived from the Latin word "dignus," which means to make worthy. Or it may have been derived from an old German word, "dignen," meaning to redeem. "To a certain extent," he says, "it's the Polish version of St. Patrick's Day

Polka music was in the air and beer flowed nonstop from Cheektowaga to Hamburg and points beyond as the area's Polish-Americans rolled out the barrel Monday to celebrate Dyngus Day. At the Hearthstone Manor in Depew, the banquet hall was crowded by early afternoon for festivities that would last well into the night, courtesy of the Chopin Singing Society. Ann T. Mikoll noted that, while at least two dozen area venues had planned events to mark the unofficial holiday, "ours is the granddaddy of them all." Yet Mikoll, a retired State Supreme Court justice, was happy to see that the tradition established in Buffalo 45 years ago by her late husband, Theodore V., has spread beyond Polonia and that many non-Poles now take part in the revelry. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," said Mikoll, who, with other members of the Chopin society, was decked out in a bright red blazer with a red, black and white necktie. Her husband, a Buffalo lawyer who led the choral society for 28 years, planned Buffalo's first Dyngus Day observance in 1961 at the group's headquarters at the time at 18 Kosciusko Street on the Polish East Side. Mikoll remembered that during his childhood, girls would celebrate the end of Lenten fasting by swatting boys with pussy willow branches - dyngus is the Polish word for these switches - and the boys would spray water on the girls. He guessed people would still welcome an excuse to break out of the Lenten confines with music and beer, and before long the Chopin Singing Society was the place to be the day after Easter. From there, the tradition "grew like Topsy," Ann Mikoll said. While the Chopin society treated luncheon guests at the Hearthstone to traditional Polish songs, the City Side Band had 'em on their feet at Fairgrounds Gaming and Raceway in Hamburg, where for a change people were more interested in dancing the polka and eating kielbasa and lazy pierogis than in $2 wagers. Polish flags were draped from the windows overlooking the first turn for the track's second Dyngus Day celebration, the brainchild of Marketing Director Marty Biniasz. "We've got a great early-bird, bloody mary-drinking crowd," he said as the tempo picked up and eight couples whirled across the dance floor before the bandstand. "We pride ourselves in having the first live polka music of the day." An East Side native who established the Web site DyngusDayBuffalo.com to chart various celebrations, Biniasz wants to take matters further by making Buffalo a regional Dyngus Day destination. "To stay competitive with other cities, you've got to offer something that is unique. And here's an event nobody does like us," he said. South Bend, Ind., is the only other place Biniasz knows of that makes any effort to observe Dyngus Day. Biniasz has studied how Groundhog Day put Punxutawney, Pa., on the national map and how Oktoberfest in Kitchener-Waterloo got to draw folks from all over Ontario and beyond. He is devising a strategy that will "continue to increase the national profile" of Buffalo's post-Easter celebration. The effort is getting an unexpected boost from National Public Radio, which recorded a segment Monday about Dyngus Day that included an interview with Mikoll.

Dyngus Day diehard Natalie Litwin learned long ago that the early birds catch the willows. That's why the Kaisertown resident was among 800 revelers who turned out Sunday night at Pvt. Leonard J. Post Post 6251, Veterans of Foreign Wars, in Cheektowaga to get a one-day jump on a Polish tradition. She has been celebrating the end-of-Lent custom for seven decades, since she was a child. Even in those days, mischievous men chased women around with scented water, and frisky lasses swatted passers-by with pussy willow branches. "My mother didn't approve of it, but my father just loved it," Litwin reminisced Sunday as the sounds of polka bands and the aromas of authentic Polish food filled the air. Scholars have long debated the origins of Dyngus Day, but everyone can agree on one thing - the Monday after Easter was picked long ago for a special celebration that signaled the end of the Lenten season, which was a period of strict fast in Poland. Families would stage feasts on Sunday, followed by a day of revelry with friends. To others, Dyngus Day signals a spring rite of cleansing and rebirth. And some see Dyngus Day as a potential tourism magnet. They're convinced that it could be transformed into one of the nation's major ethnic festivals with some creative marketing and a little coordination. "Cultural tourism is big, and Dyngus Day offers a truly unique experience," said Marty Biniasz, who is involved in a group that is thinking big for future years. Biniasz said organizers from dozens of local Dyngus Day bashes will meet this fall to plot strategies for luring more out-of-town visitors to events that now stretch through the week. The group, called Dyngus Day Buffalo, hopes to market the string of celebrations to groups in Cleveland and other regions, perhaps even forging large-scale deals with tour bus operators. Welland, Ont., resident Diana Jazvac thinks that it's an attainable goal. She was among a group of Canadian polka aficionados who attended Sunday's festivities in Cheektowaga. Jazvac been attending Dyngus Day bashes since she was 14, two years after her family moved to Canada from Croatia. "No one cares what your nationality is on Dyngus Day," said Jazvac, who coordinates polka events in Ontario. "These are traditions that everyone can enjoy." The VFW post is sponsoring a second day of festivities today, said organizer Jackie Schmid, and more Dyngus Day celebrations are being held in dozens of other locations. An event schedule is posted on the Web site, www.DyngusDayBuffalo.com.

Buffalo received a dose of national publicity this week, and for once it didn't center on the Buffalo Bills or winter weather. Instead, Buffalo's enthusiastic celebration of Dyngus Day was the focus of a segment Tuesday on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Nina Temple-Raston reported that only two cities in America - Buffalo and South Bend, Ind. - do Dyngus Day, and Buffalo's celebration is by far the largest. Temple-Raston interviewed current Dyngus Day organizer Marty Biniasz, who emphasized the courting ritual behind squirt guns and pussy willows. "A reasonable person could ask how such a ritual could lead to bliss, but here in Buffalo, it seems to work," Temple-Raston said. "Just ask Joyelle and Chris Bartlett." The Bartletts met on Dyngus Day 2004, after Chris kept squirting water in Joyelle's direction. They got married last May in Annunciation Catholic Church in Elma. As the couple left the church, friends and relatives eschewed throwing rice. Instead, their friend Hadley Pawlak reported, guests swatted them with pussy willows.

Polka Time: The best bands are up and dancing on Dyngus Day
GARAUD MACTAGGART 
Buffalo News News
4/14/2006

Dyngus Day has a religious component to it (commemorating Poland's adoption of Christianity), but since Dyngus Day falls on the Monday directly after Easter and the self-denial season of Lent, this celebration can easily turn into a full-scale party. The resulting revelry is basically an excuse to dance, eat, have fun splashing water on folks and whip people of the opposite sex with pussy willows. There is a real good case for likening these Dyngus Day parties to pre-Lenten fertility rites, where the ancients praised heaven by engaging in a bacchanal. One of the key elements at these gatherings is polka music, a relatively simple 2/4 pulse that, when slowed down, bares an uncanny resemblance to the Texas Two-Step. Polka music is, by its very upbeat nature, party music. In the right hands, polka tunes are happy and infectious riffs with lyrics that aren't as concerned with weighty matters like world peace or nuclear proliferation as they are with smaller, more intimate matters: family, love and having a good time. Often associated by people not familiar with the genre as a crowd of Polish-American folks hopping and swirling around a dance floor to music played by a Polish-American band, the reality is something less exclusive. Anyone can play, and anyone can dance. Jimmy Sturr, for example, is a multiple Grammy Award-winner and the top-selling polka band leader in America, but most of his gene pool hails from Ireland, and he has recorded polkas with some of the biggest country music stars (Willie Nelson, Mel Tillis, the Oak Ridge Boys) in the world. Dyngus Day is, without a doubt, the most concentrated opportunity for fans and the curious to explore polka music in Western New York. Area venues vie to bring in the best groups, and the breadth of talent for them to pick from, national and otherwise, is pretty impressive. Nationally known bands with devout fan bases are booked into some places, but a few of the local outfits are competitive in their own right. This isn't too surprising, since Buffalo was home to the Dynatones, one of the finest polka bands in the country and an incubator for polka heroes like Jan Cyman (now with the Musicalaires) and Polka Hall of Fame members, drummer Larry Trojak and concertina player Dave "Scrubby" Seweryniak.

Dyngus Day 2006
Artvoice, Eddy Dobosiewicz
4/13/06

Well, slap me with a pussy willow branch and hose me down, baby, because it's that time of the year again. We're not talking about the tax deadline, we're talking about Dyngus Day. For those of us not from this area, Dyngus Day (a.k.a Easter Monday) is an old, rural Eastern European custom of revelry and horseplay that signifies the end of the Lenten season of sacrifice and the beginning of the new growing season—sort of a reverse Mardi Gras. Very few places in the world still celebrate this event. Even in Poland, where Dyngus is said to have originated, the holiday has dropped off. But to the average Western New Yorker, Dyngus Day means a day of drinking, dancing and debauchery, not necessarily in that order. It is said that Judge Anne Mikoll and her husband Ted—who was president of the Chopin Singing Society at the time—brought this custom to Buffalo after their trip to Poland nearly 50 years ago, and now this ritual of pussy willow spanking and water dousing has spread throughout the region. Buffalo can now lay a claim to being home of the world's largest Dyngus Day celebration. Put on your "Kiss me, I'm Polish" t-shirts and dust off your dancing shoes, because spring has finally arrived. For a list of all the parties to check out, visit the website at www.DyngusDayBuffalo.com.

No matter what your own ethnicity, if you’ve lived in Buffalo for a while, you’ve surely heard of Dyngus Day: the Monday after Easter when Poles mark the end of the somber Lent season with a great big party. Maybe you know about the pussy willows and the squirt guns employed to attach members of the opposite gender in a time-honored Sadie Hawkins-style courtship rite. And perhaps you’ve even heard that Buffalo boasts the largest Dyngus Day scene in the world. But traditions can be a little daunting if they’re not your own. By estimate, Western New York plays host to as many as 100 Dyngus Day bashes of various sizes every year (about thirty of which take place in official halls), so how does an outsider find out about them, let alone pick one? Thanks to tech-savvy Western New York Marty Biniasz, a simple trip to www.DyngusDayBuffalo.com will provide you with an updated list of events, complete with location, admission fee, menu and entertainment lineup for each. While there, you can read about the celebration’s origins back in 966 AD, brush up on the Dyngus-vs.-Dingus controversy (the latter spelling is a no-no unless you live somewhere like Pittsburgh), and memorize the Polish phrases for “I like you,” ‘Let’s get married,” and “I’m broke,” in that order. The site is a labor of love for Biniasz, and there’s no way to miss the passion he feels for the subject. “It was always a part of my upbringing. My dad would wake up on Dyngus morning by flinging water on us. It was just a normal occurrence. As I got older, and talked to people around the country, I was that they were fascinated by the whole thing.” He’s been an avid promoter of the event ever since, and he envisions it one day evolving into something akin to Mardi Gras: an event capable of bringing large numbers of revelers to town in search of something utterly unique. “We’re so homogenized as a culture that we’re always looking for events and experience that set us apart,” he points out. Which brings us back to the tourist’s dilemma: Where does one begin to sample the holiday’s inimitable delights? ‘There are two options for the Dyngus novice, one in the suburbs and one in the traditional East Side setting,” Biniasz suggests. “The Chopin’s Signing Society part, which is now held at Hearthstone manor in Depew, is the longest-running celebration, but for someone who wants to the get a taste of Buffalo Polonia, where’s the event at the Adam Mickiewicz Library, which is geared towards younger Polish American.” Either way, “you’re not going to find a celebration like this anywhere else in the world,” Biniasz boasts. And yes, that includes the mother country, where the tradition, historically a rural phenomenon, has largely become a casualty of modernization. Biniasz chalks up the resurgence of an Old World tradition in the New World to the fact that the first great wave of Polish immigration to the Rust Belt occurred between 1880 and 1920, so that “our snapshot of culture was taken in the late 1880s. We’ve got a real cultural time capsule here in Buffalo.” If he’s right about that Mardi Gras analogy, you might want to get in on the fun before the tourists arrive – and stock up on your pussy willows supply while you’re at it, before Party City introduces a lien of plastic ones.

SALAMANCA - Buffalo might have the reputation of being the Dyngus Day capital of America, but if Stan Grochowina has anything to say about it, Salamanca will at least join the list of other cities in the United States where the day after Easter is celebrated with enthusiasm. "I don't remember there ever being Dyngus Day celebrations in Salamanca," said Grochowina, a former Legion Commander. Grochowina said he thought it would be a good idea to start the celebration of Dyngus Day and he planned one to take place at the Hughes-Skiba Post 535 of the American Legion on Wildwood Avenue Monday night. He enlisted the services of a Polka Band, "John Moore and the Friday Nighters" from St. Mary's, Pa., arranged a menu of traditional Polish food and invited people to attend. Historically a Polish-American tradition, Dyngus Day celebrates the end of the observance of Lent and the coming of Christianity to Poland when Holy Baptism was administered to Prince Mieszko on Easter Monday. With older possible roots in pagan fertility rites, it is also a sort of Polish Sadie Hawkins Day when boys attract the attention of the girls by squirting them with water. In return the girls swat at the boys with pussy willow branches. In Buffalo, Dyngus Day had its start with the Chopin Singing Society in 1961. The first party was held in the Society's club room on Kosciuszko Street on Buffalo's Eastside. The practice grew to attract a new generation who moved the even bigger festival to Cheektowaga in the 80s. Other towns with large Polish-American populations followed suit and now Salamanca can add its name to the list. At the Legion Monday night, it didn't take long for people to get into the swing of things. Once the band started playing, there were at first, a few polka dancers on the floor and after a few songs were played, more people took part. Tom and Tina Paprocki of Avery Avenue were seen on the dance floor and Salamanca's First Lady, Beverly Pond, was ushered through a polka by Stan Grochowina who said they did a good bit of laughing as well. Seneca Elementary School teacher Joel Skudlarek attended Dyngus Day in celebration of his 50th birthday and danced the polka with his sister, Cheryl Miller. "For a little while we are the same age," she said. One Dyngus reveler was an out-of-towner who left his friends at the Seneca Allegany Casino to come to the Legion for some Polish food and do a little dancing. He found a partner for himself among a group of ladies who "follow the band around just because they like to dance," he said. Meanwhile, the Grochowina sisters, Emily, Molly and Steffiny, manned the sale of Polish food and dished out plates of treats such as pierogi, smoked or fresh sausage, rye bread and "poor man pigs in a blanket." If the goal of Salamanca's Dyngus Day celebration was to celebrate an old tradition and share a sense of community, Monday night's party at the American Legion might be a polka step in the right direction.

Pussy willows were flying at the Dyngus Day celebration at Dom Polski Hall Monday night. The hall, on Oliver Street in North Tonawanda, hosted the traditional Polish party complete with an authentic menu and red and white balloons galore. Roberta Pfeil, president of the club, said she and other members had been cooking since 8 a.m. Two kinds of sausage, rye bread, colored eggs, macaroni and potato salads and placak, a Polish coffee cake, were consumed by the plateful as part of the Polish feast — the “swienconka.” “We don’t get to do a lot of the heritage stuff,” Pfeil said. “There’s really not that much interest. This is about the only thing people come out for.” Nearly 200 area residents came to dance, eat and socialize, including some who were only Polish for the day. Scott Hall, a North Tonawanda resident, was hanging out with some friends. “This is my first time celebrating a Dyngus Day,” he said. “I had to come and see what it was like.” Lisa Phillips, also a North Tonawanda resident, said the food was great but the people there to celebrate were better. The crowd was a diverse splattering of purebred Polish and people looking to have fun. Phillips has been to several such celebrations, and likes that the one at Dom Polski Hall hasn’t changed much. “It’s a traditional Polish menu, and the band has been the same for years,” she said. Mark Monnett, a City of Tonawanda resident, has been a long time member of the club and had been looking forward to the feast and the fellowship of the Dyngus Day festivities. He said he couldn’t pick a favorite part. “It’s the food, the drinks, the music, the atmosphere and the people,” he said. “There’s a great crowd of people here.” The Godfather of the club was also in attendance. Edjey Wieclaw, a North Tonawanda resident for 72 years, said his Polish blood ran deep. He said the camaraderie at the Dom Polski Hall Dyngus Day couldn’t be beat. With decades of Dyngus day celebrations under his belt, Wieclaw said he felt right at home. “All the Polish people throughout the ages have come down here to be part of the heritage in North Tonawanda,” he said. North Tonawanda resident Frank Wasasl said he was lured to the party by the promise of delicious Polish sausage, and wasn’t disappointed. But the spark that set the celebration ablaze was definitely the fellowship. “It’s the socialness of being together,” he said. “It’s a celebration of brotherhood.” Contact Carlene Peterson at 693-1000, Ext. 113.

Polka-Palooza! Dyngus Day in Buffalo 
By MICHELLE KEARNS 
Buffalo News Staff Reporter
4/5/2005

Grown men squirt water at women with toy guns. And it's fine to flirt by tapping the one you fancy with the tip of a pussy willow branch. Showing open affection for polka music is also cool. So is dancing to it. Such are the rituals of Dyngus Day, a day where fun lasts until the wee hours of the morning, much like St. Patrick's Day or Mardi Gras.

Yet the Monday-after-Easter parties - local Dunlop tire workers used to have the day off as a matter of course - have a romantic Polish twist that draws busloads of visitors from across New York and even Pennsylvania. "It's so absurd, you can't help but love it," said Hadley Pawlak, a 26-year-old public relations account manager who grew up on the East Side, where the local Dyngus Day tradition is said to have started at an old Polish singing club 43 years ago.

Her favorite stop on the Dyngus Day circuit remains the century-old Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle on Fillmore Avenue with its Polish beer-stocked bar. The end-of-Lent celebrating usually involves beer drinking, kielbasa eating, live polka bands and dancing with abandon. "The day held so much promise: Who's going to be out? Who's going to be squirting you? And who's going to be whipped with pussy willows? Everybody's guard's just down and it's just fun," said Evelyn Sliwa, 30, who also grew up in the once-predominantly Polish East Side.

"It's the whole introduction to spring and the dating season and everyone's feeling frisky," said Sliwa. She, too, goes back to her roots and celebrate at the Mickiewicz club, which she calls Mickey's. "It's not a drink fest," she said. "It's truly an afternoon to evening of merriment." What is now a slew of public parties - one Mickiewicz member counted 100 one year - has become a celebration found only in Buffalo.

"We could really capitalize on this," said Marty Biniasz, 31, who grew up in the old Polish part of the city. Biniasz sees the Dyngus Day as a cultural treasure Buffalo could market. His Web site, www.biniasz.com is devoted to local Polish history and features a list of Dyngus Day parties. He recalls a Dyngus Day when an accordion player took to the street as people danced on their porches. "It is an East Side memory I wish I could revisit," he said.

Dyngus Day celebrations came as a pleasant surprise to a Polish citizen living here. "It's really unbelievable they keep tradition that has already disappeared in Poland. That's something," said Andy Szewcyk, 25, who came to Buffalo for undergraduate studies and has just been elected Mickiewicz vice president. "In today's Poland, it's not really popular," he said. Back home, Szewcyk is annoyed by the only remnant of the tradition that started as tribute to the baptism of Poland's first Christian prince: Young boys douse people with cold water. "It's really not pleasant," he said.

This year, fans of the old East Side neighborhood are working to bring more parties to its historic streets. The Broadway Market will host its first Dyngus Day affair, with live polka and food, this year. "We're hoping to create an annual event, not for just the Broadway Market but for the entire East Side," said Bill Hibbard, the chairman. And in hopes of bringing Dyngus Day celebration to the now-defunct Central Terminal, which still needs money to reinstall plumbing and electricity, the Beef Station restaurant on South Ogden Street will throw a fund-raising gala with live music and food.

"We're putting it back into the public consciousness," said Pawlak's father, Russell Pawlak, president of the train station's restoration corporation. Former State Supreme Court Judge Ann Mikoll said it was her late husband who first had the idea, 43 years ago, to throw a party at the Chopin Singing Society on Kosciuszko Street. He was so fond of the old Polish Dyngus Day custom, she said, that he thought people should celebrate it more.

In Poland it is a mischievous, and now mostly rural, celebration of spring - mothers sprinkle water on sleeping children, boys dump water on the unsuspecting, and young men spray water, sometimes scented with perfume, on single women they'd like to date. The Buffalo parties that added beer, music and food to the water and pussy willow-tapping took off. The ones at the old Chopin club were known for dancing, mayhem and the intimacy of the narrow hallways. Jeanette Tymosiak met her husband at the party there 10 years ago. "We danced, and that was that," said Tymosiak, who loved to dance and always had trouble finding friends to join her.

Evemarie Schlehr, 44, fondly remembers all the polka dancing she did there with her brothers. "Everybody was in a great mood," she said. The Chopin Society moved to Cheektowaga in 1995, and this year's party will be in the more spacious rooms of the Hearthstone Manor in Depew. It will feature all the traditions of folk dancing, polka and sausage, ham and rye bread feasting. But said, Mikoll, who is society president, no squirt guns. "There's no water permitted," Mikoll said. (People do try to sneak them in. One year, some 300 guns were confiscated.)

But at the Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle, which started its own parties after Chopin left the neighborhood, squirt guns are allowed so long as they're small. Once water overflowed, pouring through the floorboards and on the head of the club president, who was in the basement fetching a case of beer. Now there are limits. "We banned super-soakers," said club secretary Robert Sienkiewicz.

In an attempt to chronicle Dyngus Day history, another member, Andrew Golebiowski, has been making a documentary. The work-in-progress has taken several years - he can only bring himself to spend part of the party holding the camera. "It's hard to do it in one year because you want to enjoy it, too," he said.

In past years, that party has become a success with admirers who are as fond of the library as some were of the Chopin Society. During one, a group of young Irishmen Sliwa met had such a fine time dancing that they were sliding across the floor on their knees. On another evening when the electricity went out in the neighborhood, the party quickly moved to the parking lot, where people used car tape decks for music and headlights for lighting.

"The party didn't end," she said. "That's the kind of spirit that exists on Dyngus Day."

Edyta Ostrowska, a junior international studies major, remembers experiencing Dyngus Day first-hand when she was growing up in Poland.

Traditionally in Poland, boys would throw water and try to drench girls. The girls were able to seek revenge the next day by throwing water on them. Boys would also go door to door with treats to entice the girls to go outside with them. "Boys would be soaking girls for days before the holiday and about two days after because they were so excited about it," Ostrowska said. "The girls would talk the next day about how many boys came to their door that night."

Thanks to Buffalo's prominent Polish community, Dyngus Day celebrations made the leap from the Old Country to the Queen City. The holiday is also one of the biggest celebrations in Buffalo. The Dyngus Day parade draws tens of thousands of citizens, including congressmen, senators, the governor, and all of Buffalo's local celebrities. It is celebrated the day after Easter — this year, it falls on March 28.

Dyngus Day is also of the most colorful festivals in Buffalo, drawing thousands of native Poles, Polish-Americans and tourists for live bands, polka dances, Polish buffets, Polish beer and maybe even a little water throwing.

According to Marty Biniasz, who founded the Web site dyngusdaybuffalo.com, this year said there are about 30 venues across the Buffalo area for the post-Easter holiday. Biniasz, a marketing manager in Buffalo said he has several recommendations for the best of Dyngus Day 2005.

For the best traditional Polish meal, Biniasz suggests the Chopin Singing Society, where admission is $8 and from 2:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., Buffalo community members will rock out to traditional Polish and polka music. The doors open at 11:30 a.m. for the buffet, which costs $14, following a blessing of the Easter Table at noon. The best bands — Lenny Gomulka and the Chicago Push, and Frankie Liszka and the Brass Connection — will be playing at the Private Leonard Post VFW at 5 p.m., according to Biniasz. The show costs $10.

But for the most authentic experience on Dyngus Day, Biniasz said the must-see places are St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church on Fillmore Avenue in Buffalo, and the pub at Adam Mickiewicz Library. St. Stanislaus, Biniasz said, is "the mother church of Polonia," and the festivities start at 3 p.m. The Adam Mickiewicz Library is a pub with a great feel of authenticity, Biniasz added. It includes the largest selection of Polish beers, liquors and vodkas, starting at 6 p.m. "When you step into (St. Stanislaus and the Adam Mickiewicz Library), it's like you stepped back into traditional Poland," Biniasz said.

Full lists of the activities going on, including locations, times, costs, band information and contact numbers can be found on dyngusdaybuffalo.com.

The lure of Dyngus Day, the post-Easter celebration of Polish origin, has been described in many ways by many people. Watching throngs of young people pour into Hearthstone Manor in Depew for the Chopin Singing Society's 44th annual celebration, the society's president offered a decidely contemporary take:

"It's like Chippewa (Street) on Friday night. This is the Monday Dyngus Day at the Hearthstone," said Ann Mikoll, a retired State Supreme Court and Appellate Division justice whose late husband suggested the local observance. "They go where the action is; the action is here," said Mikoll.

Actually, the region was host Monday to several Dyngus Day celebrations, whose origin can be explained in the pagan spring rites of cleansing and purification, or Christian rebirth and baptism. Traditions feature men dousing women with water, and women reciprocating with swats from a pussy willow branch.

Pussy willow switches were the accessory at local celebrations, which began at noontime at some locations and were expected to continue through the wee hours at most.

Back in the day, St. Stanislaus Catholic Church had been the spiritual center for Poles on Buffalo's East Side. On Dyngus Day, it's a homecoming for those who have moved away. Late afternoon in St. Stanislaus Social Center, the place was thumping with the music of the New Yorkers. Long lines of tables, set up perpendicular to the stage, bore "reserved" signs identifying the families expected to fill them.

Theresa Barilec of Holland, who left the neighborhood decades ago, would be spending Dyngus Day with extended family. "All the relatives will fill this table," said Barilec, who was accompanied by her husband, Steve. Those who fill the tables come from Lancaster, Cheektowaga, Amherst, Clarence. "Everybody's Polish today, like everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day," she said.

"Dyngus Day is definitely the greatest show on earth - it really is," said Joe Heleniak of West Seneca.  "My wife is not a music fan," he said, explaining her absence. "I'm the polka nut. I come every year."

It's Smigus Dyngus
By MELISSA BLOCK 
National Public Radio
4/21/2004

NPR's Melissa Block talks with Mark Kohan, editor in chief of the Polish-American Journal, about the Polish holiday of Smigus Dyngus -- better known as Dyngus Day or Wet Monday. On this day in Polish tradition, boys soak girls with water on the day after Easter. The tradition lives on among Polish-Americans, especially in Buffalo, N.Y., where dozens of parties, complete with polka music and squirt guns, are scheduled. Listen the NPR story, click link below:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1238919

New Website Details Dyngus Day Activities in Buffalo 
By MARK SCOTT 
WBFO-FM News Director
3/28/2005

Easter Monday is Dyngus Day, the traditional Polish day-after Easter celebration. For the first time, there's a web site available with complete information about all the festivities taking place Monday.

What is Dyngus Day? How do you celebrate? And what's the deal with those pussy willows? The answers to those and other questions are now available at a new website, DyngusDayBuffalo.com. It's the brainchild of Marty Biniasz. He said it's his goal to make Buffalo's Easter Monday celebration one of the nation's premier ethnic celebrations.

"This is a way of growing the profile of Dyngus Day," Biniasz said. "There are many locations, with many polka bands. This is a way of bringing all the information together."

Biniasz says the roots of Dyngus Day date back to the year 966, when Poland converted to Christianity. Today, it's evolved into a celebration of Spring where boys and girls chase each other with pussy willows and sprinkle water on themselves. Biniasz says it's a celebration to mark 40 days of fasting during Lent.

"Dyngus Day is the opposite of Mardi Gras," Biniasz said. "While Mardi Gras celebrates the final hurrah before 40 days of sacrifice, Dyngus Day is the celebration after. All the stuff you couldn't eat and drink during Lent you are able to do on Dyngus Day."

There are 30 celebrations scheduled throughout the Buffalo area Monday, featuring 20 polka bands. Biniasz says there will be more live polka music played today than at any other time of the year, not only here, but across the entire nation.

SOUTH BEND -- Forget the kielbasa. The true meaning of Dyngus Day isn't about sausage, or even beer. Dyngus Day is about politics. Democratic candidates use the day to rev themselves up and shoot themselves off toward the May 2 primary election and the general election in November. Republicans do their best to hang on, but on Monday the GOP's pancake breakfast, held at its headquarters in Mishawaka, was no match for the raucous celebrations that Democrats held all over South Bend. U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola made a point of appearing at Dyngus Day's main altar, the West Side Democratic & Civic Club, even though he knew full well that he wouldn't be introduced or allowed to speak from the stage. It is, West Side president Tim Hudak reminded, a Democratic club. Chocola chatted with attendees and took time to speculate a bit with a reporter on whether the Toll Road lease and time zone issues and the declining popularity of the president will hurt his chances in November ("Time will tell." and "It could.") "I can only focus on what I control," Chocola said. "I'm not going to change my position because of the popularity of the president, good or bad." Whether voters will blame Chocola for the switch to daylight-saving time and the Toll Road lease isn't clear, but Democratic congressional candidate Joe Donnelly brought the issues up frequently while predicting at various stops that he will unseat Chocola in November. Donnelly also told the throngs that if they liked $3-a-gallon gasoline, "Chris Chocola is your man." "I know I'm not a favorite here," Steve Francis, who is Donnelly's rival for the Democratic congressional nomination, acknowledged to the West Side crowd. Francis was nevertheless well-received, especially after proclaiming that, "after May 2, we're all Democrats." Democratic candidates made stops at several other locations Monday, including Elks Lodge No. 298 at 1001 Western Ave., which hosted the Solidarity Day celebration; Fiddlers Hearth restaurant, 127 N. Main St., which offered an Irish take on the Polish event; and the St. Adalbert parish hall, which was home to the first Latino Dyngus Day/Solidarity Day event. The bilingual Pat McQuade, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for state Senate District 11, was a hit as she addressed the St. Adalbert crowd in Spanish. "That was wonderful," said Jesusa Rodriguez, one of the event organizers. "That's what we need." Instead of the usual Dyngus Day fare of kielbasa, noodles and cabbage, the Latino event offered beef tacos, chicken in chili sauce and rice and beans, drawing compliments in the process. Francis reminded attendees that he had taken part in the recent march for immigration rights and spoke of the need to recognize immigrant contributions to America. State Rep. B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, was introduced more than once Monday as the "next Speaker" of the Indiana House of Representatives, a position he held until Republicans gained control two years ago. Bauer confidently predicted that the Democrats will prevail in November. "Right now, we win easily," he said. Although past Dyngus Days have drawn U.S. senators, Indiana governors and even Bobby Kennedy, when he was running for president in 1968, the 2006 edition was somewhat lacking in star power. State Treasurer Tim Berry, who is seeking the Republican nomination for state auditor, was in town. So were Dan Parker, the Indiana Democratic chairman; and Michael Griffin, of Highland, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for state treasurer. Former Mishawaka Mayor Robert C. Beutter was content to attend the Republican breakfast, his third Dyngus Day event since leaving office. "Dyngus Day was never a hot button for me," he said, noting that the day, "always leaned toward Democrats more than Republicans." Berry, in his second term as treasurer and a veteran of several Dyngus Days, said he had fond memories of going to the West Side club and being treated well. "It's a unique day in Indiana politics," he said, while acknowledging that people elsewhere in the state don't really understand it. Republican congressional candidate Tony Zirkle got into the celebration, passing out short position papers and even getting introduced -- by county Democratic Chairman Owen "Butch" Morgan -- at the Latino event.

Taskforce in Full Force For Dyngus Day Celebrations  
By JUDI LYKOWSKI 
WNDU-TV
3/28/2005

Dyngus Day is a day celebrated each year in which mixes politics with partying. Add in the warmer weather, and it could be the recipe for trouble. Dyngus Day may not be an official holiday, but in St. Joseph County, police consider it one. It's one of four days out of the year they enforce their countywide law enforcement DUI Taskforce.  

South Bend Resident, Kim Paholski says she worked hard for the array of food eaten on Dyngus Day. "After cooking a big dinner for the family, it's kind of nice to eat someone else's cooking," said Paholski. Traditionally, Dyngus Day in South Bend is a day for the Polish community to celebrate the end of Lenten diet restrictions.  

Cecilia Maciejewski Rowe of South Bend says the day is enjoyable. "It’s a lot of fun, and it's an excuse not to go to work on Monday," said Rowe. Intertwined with kielbasa, the festivities have become somewhat of a who's who and who's out. "I just like to see people I haven't seen in a long time," said Lisa Banasiewicz.   Most jump from club to club.

But some couldn’t remember where they were, because they had so much to drink. The good news, however, was some who drank too much were taken home by designated drivers. The bad news is the majority of Dyngus Day revelers didn’t get that far. South Bend Police Department Sergeant, Gene Eyester says Dyngus Day brings many calls to the station for accidents.

"It probably ranks in there with one of the four,” said Eyester. “And again, it depends on the circumstances, whether or not it's an election year, how the road conditions are and the weather." This year's good weather is a perfect combo. That's why the DUI Police Taskforce was out full force. "We did have a young lady that was killed here on Bendix,” said Eyester. “Which was the result of activity of Dyngus Day."   That was back in the 90's, but police know it could happen again. Most of the Polish clubs closed their doors at 11 PM, but that certainly didn't mean the drunken went home, and neither did police.  

Dyngus Day Lesson Is Part of Any Well-Rounded Education  
By JACK COLWELL 
South Bend Tribune
4/10/2004

Smart as they are, my Notre Dame journalism students didn't know the reason there will be no classes Monday. "Because Monday is Dyngus Day," I instructed them. "Dyngus Day?" Puzzled looks greeted my explanation. They thought having Monday off had something to do with Easter, specifically with allowing time for travel back to campus after going home for Easter. Most of them, except for a couple who come from around this area, had never heard of Dyngus Day. What do kids learn in college these days?

While the observance of Dyngus Day is the reason for no classes Monday, there actually is a connection with Easter. Easter is a moveable feast, I noted. They were all aware of that. Well, with Easter coming at different places on the calendar, people always are asking: "Is Easter early or late this year?"

Here is how you always can tell the exact date of Easter in any year: Easter always is the Sunday before Dyngus Day. Now the students know. Lest the bishop have another tizzy about goings on at Notre Dame, let me add quickly that students are indeed smart enough to know that Dyngus Day jokes are not a challenge to church doctrine. They can safely contemplate the customs of Dyngus. And Dyngus Day, an event popularized in Polish-American neighborhoods in South Bend and observed in some form in such other cities as Buffalo, actually has roots going back to when Christianity was embraced in Poland in 966.

Mass christenings then are said by Polish historians to have a link to the later custom of dousing maidens with water on the Monday after Easter. That tradition was carried from the old country and was practiced in Polish-American neighborhoods around here in decades past. So, too, was the practice of switching girls' legs with willow branches. Some of the young ladies in my class didn't seem too positive about the switching bit.

"It apparently was not to hurt anybody. It probably was actually flirting," I explained. "Some way to flirt," said a student, shaking her head in disapproval. While I didn't warn that celebrants sometimes went a little too far, a bishop -- not the one here but the bishop of Poznan in Poland in 1420 -- issued a "Dingus Prohibetur," forbidding conduct that would "pester or plague" others on Dyngus Day, spelled with an "i" back then.

Dousing, it seems, had expanded from tossing buckets of water to tossing some girls into icy ponds in Poznan, a health danger. Nothing like that awaits those who will go Dyngusing tomorrow at the many celebration sites around here. Although the West Side Democratic and Civic Club on South Bend's West Side remains the center of Dyngusing, the celebration has spread from Polish-American neighborhoods to Irish bars, Italian restaurants and just about any other type of establishment that can offer kielbasa. That's Polish for Polish sausage.

Dyngus Day now is observed at places in Mishawaka, Elkhart and other communities near South Bend. Former area residents have carried the tradition to far-off cities as well, even way up north to Alaska. While South Bend would seem to have clear title to the Dyngus Day capital of the nation, folks from Buffalo sometimes reject that claim.

Sure, Buffalo has polkas, sausage and liquid refreshments, too, but it doesn't seem to have attracted the political attention that has marked the South Bend event. National attention was focused on the 1968 South Bend celebration when Bobby Kennedy, campaigning in the Indiana presidential primary, a very important primary back then, came to the West Side Club and attracted the largest, wildest crowd ever. The club was packed. So were the streets along his route. He won the Indiana Democratic presidential primary just a month before he was slain in California.

Partygoers Just Want to Have Fun  
By JAMES WENSITS 
South Bend Tribune
3/29/2005

Dyngus Day 2005 dawned bright, cool and somewhat confrontational Monday as Social Security supporters sought to turn attention to their issue. They weren't entirely successful. Politics still ruled the day at the various Dyngus Day and Solidarity Day celebrations, and kielbasa and barbecue and rockin' music held people's attention. Decorations at the West Side Democratic and Civic Club seemed evenly divided among those touting candidates, wishing attendees a "Happy Dyngus Day" and advertising various brands of beer. In short, it was a typical Dyngus Day, with revelers eating, drinking and in general just trying to have fun. Members of the Indiana Alliance for Retired Americans held a "truth truck" rally Monday morning at the UAW Local 5 hall, 1426 S. Main St., seeking support for "Don't Privatize Social Security" petitions that are to be delivered to members of Congress. They then moved over to the West Side Democratic & Civic Club, where they displayed placards and tried to get the attention of 2nd District Rep. Chris Chocola, R-Bristol. Among those who actually talked to Chocola was Elmer Blankenship, of Indianapolis, president of the Indiana Alliance for Retired Americans.

"Indiana seniors simply can't trust anyone who says their benefits are safe under privatization," Blankenship said in a statement released before the morning rally. Saying that Social Security is broke is "nonsense," said Tony Flora, a representative of the North Central Indiana AFL-CIO Council and a participant in the morning event who then attended the Dyngus Day celebration. Chocola, who had stopped by the West Side club as he normally does on Dyngus Day, said he was not surprised by the efforts to talk to him about Social Security.

"I talk about it every day," the 2nd District congressman said. "The facts really matter in this debate. When the politics get into it, we lose sight of the facts." Although the Democrats originated Dyngus Day 75 years ago, the first major event of the day was sponsored by area Republicans.

More than 200 of the party faithful turned out Monday morning at Republican Headquarters in South Bend for pancakes and breakfast sausage. No kielbasa there. Chocola, R-Bristol, was on hand to meet and greet supporters. "I suppose we all become a little Polish on Dyngus Day," mused Chocola, who sometimes on Dyngus Day refers to himself as "Chocolski," just to get into the mood.

"I'm almost Polish," Chocola declared, noting that his heritage is Czech, and therefore eastern European. "If you asked my grandparents, they'd say Bohemian."

Chocola's visit to the West Side club coincided with that of Joe Donnelly, his once and, perhaps, future Democratic opponent for the 2nd District congressional seat. Donnelly, who lost to Chocola last year, is contemplating another run against the Republican incumbent next year but hasn't made up his mind just yet.

Donnelly said he has talked to national Democrats about providing funding for a future campaign and will make a decision "within a month or so." Indiana Democratic Chairman Dan Parker, who was attending his first Dyngus Day celebration in that role, said he is also willing to discuss candidate funding for Donnelly with national Democratic Party members.

Parker said he will make a "strong case" that if Donnelly had been targeted for funding last year, the race would have been closer. Donnelly, who did not receive any financial aid from the national party, lost decidedly to Chocola, falling short in both votes and campaign cash.

Parker said his top priority at the state level is to win back control of the Indiana House for Democrats and "to make sure Pat Bauer becomes speaker again." State Rep. Bauer, a South Bend Democrat, held the speaker's post until Republicans took control of the House last year.

Parker, who has attended Dyngus Day celebrations in the past while serving as state director for U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, was thoroughly enjoying himself Monday. "It's a unique celebration this community should be proud of," Parker said of Dyngus Day. "I wish we had something like this in Indianapolis. The closest we have is St. Patrick's Day." Mark Tarner and his South Bend Chocolate Company were singled out for the West Side club's "business of the year" award.

West Side club President Tim Hudak praised Tarner for growing his West Side business, helping to revitalize the downtown and for his policy of hiring ex-convicts and giving people a second chance in life. "I hope other businesses will follow in his footsteps," Hudak said.

The Solidarity Day celebration centered on Elks Lodge 298, 1001 Western Ave., but also carried over to the AmVets Post 66, 1606 Western Ave. Democratic candidates were introduced at the West Side club, both Solidarity Day celebrations and other locations, including the BK Club in Mishawaka and the Clay Township Civic & Democratic Club in Roseland.

James Evans, exalted ruler at the South Bend Elks Club, said Democrats have a major job to do "to get back to where we need to be." "These people are killing us," Evans said in an apparent reference to state Republicans. Evans said the state is in trouble when the governor's chief topic is Daylight Savings Time instead of taxes and jobs. "I'm trying to figure how Daylight Savings Time creates jobs," Evans said. "I have no idea how that's going to transpire."

Dyngus Day No. 75 Ready to Roll  
By JAMES WENSITS 
South Bend Tribune
3/28/2005

Seventy-five years of tradition will be honored Monday. That's when area Democrats and Republicans will celebrate the 75th edition of Dyngus Day. As usual, the hub of activities for the Democrats will be the West Side Democratic & Civic Club at Ford and Warren streets, the ancestral home for a celebration that merges religious history with politics and entertainment, then mixes in generous amounts of food and refreshing beverages.

"We're the original," proclaimed Tim Hudak, president of the West Side club. Hats, shirts and jackets will be on sale to commemorate the event. Dyngus Day events are also scheduled for other locations, including the BK Club at 721 S. West St., Mishawaka, American Legion Post 357, 5414 W. Sample St., and American Legion Post 284, 23571 Grant Road.

Hudak said the West Side club has ordered 620 pounds of kielbasa, the Polish sausages that will be served with kluski noodles and kapusta, the Polish name for sweet and sour cabbage. Doors will open at 9 a.m., with the main program set to begin at noon. Democratic congressional candidate past -- and possibly future -- Joe Donnelly is expected to be at the West Side club Monday along with Indiana Democratic Chairman Dan Parker, South Bend Mayor Steve Luecke, Prosecutor Michael Dvorak and Sheriff Frank Canarecci.

Candidates will also be introduced at two Solidarity Day events. Solidarity Day was begun in 1971 as the black community's response to Dyngus Day and has since developed its own tradition. Food choices tend to lean more toward barbecue than kielbasa at the Solidarity Day events, but politics are still the main course and visitors are always welcome. The main Solidarity Day event this year will be at South Bend Elks Lodge 298, 1001 Western Ave., where candidates will be introduced between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. Monday, according to County Democratic Chairman Owen "Butch" Morgan.

Morgan said candidates will also be introduced for Solidarity Day between 5 and 6 p.m. at AmVets Post 66, 1606 Western Ave. In another long-standing tradition, Luecke will oversee the changing of two South Bend street signs Monday. A sign recognizing Solidarity Day will be installed at 10 a.m. Monday at Western Avenue and Laurel Street, while a sign recognizing Dyngus Day will be installed a half-hour later at Ford and Warren streets.

Dyngus Day is always celebrated on the Monday after Easter. For the devout, it is a religious holiday that recalls the coming of Christianity to Poland more than 1,000 years ago. Three-quarters of a century ago, Dyngus Day became a political event that in most years signifies the beginning of local political campaigns. There are no elections this year, although campaigners are already beginning to look ahead to 2006, when several major offices will be on the ballot.

Although most of the focus has been on local campaigns, few candidates for governor and other state offices -- Republican and Democrat alike -- have ignored the opportunities afforded by Dyngus Day. The highlight for West Side club old-timers was 1968, when Bobby Kennedy appeared as part of his quest for that year's Democratic presidential nomination. Many still believe Kennedy would have won that nomination had he not been killed a few months later.

Last year, Dyngus Day drew local appearances by then-Gov. Joe Kernan and Republican challenger Mitch Daniels, as well as U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and 2nd District Rep. Chris Chocola, R-Bristol. Kernan has been invited again this year, but Bayh has sent regrets. Chocola plans to show up as an uninvited guest at the West Side club. According to Hudak, everyone is welcome to attend the club's Dyngus Day celebration, but Republicans aren't allowed to put up signs or speak on stage at the Democratic club. "That's where our hospitality ends," he said.

Chocola will be the guest of honor earlier Monday when Republicans start the day with a pancake and sausage breakfast at GOP headquarters, 4133 S. Main St. That event is scheduled to run from 6 to 9:30 a.m. and is the only official GOP celebration. Republican County Chairman Chris Faulkner said many local Republican officials are expected to be on hand, including Mishawaka Mayor Jeff Rea, County Commissioner Mark Dobson, state Rep. Jackie Walorski of Lakeville, and state Sen. Joseph Zakas of Granger. Several council members from the Mishawaka, South Bend and St. Joseph County councils will also attend.