A bit of Poetry, followed by Prosit!
Apr. 5th, 2021 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogI don't see that I've done a post explaining this local phenomenon any time for the past several years. The last was just shy of four years ago, which was also my first direct general blog post to the Dreamwidth platform after LJ went all cray cray сумасшедший сумасшедший.
So let's do this in verse, same as the first!
Tis the day after Easter,
And in most of the landy,
The kids are still sleeping off
Comas from candy
The eggs have been hunted,
Bunny's back on the lam,
The housewives are packing up
Leftover ham
But in the Queen City
and in no other venue,
There's both babkas and vodka
To fill up the menu
For the day after Jesus
Left the tomb screaming, BRAINNNNNNNNNNS!,
Our Polish Americans
Go completely insane!
They're hardly alone, though-
We shall leave out no homeland-
For the day after Easter,
EVERYONE here's from Poland!
The girls spend the night before
Snug on their pillows
To awaken to whip boys
With cut pussy willows
The boys don't retaliate
With brambles or thistles
But instead shoot the girls back-
They use water pistols!
The color is red and the entree is stew,
And the average blood alcohol's around .32
The food and drink flows and the cheer never wavers-
Hell, for one day in April, we still like the Sabres!
Until 2020, when we fell to the germ,
We gathered at parties and the old Central Term,
But even with COVID locking each in their room,
We've still celebrated by Teams or on Zoom!
We'll make up for it next year,
When there's really a need-
We'll all be vaccinated
And have legalized weed!
Will the girls chase the guys
With some green stems aplenty?
They had better, for next year
It's the eve of 4/20!
So you hear me exclaim, as I head far away,
And wish prosit! to all on this year's Dyngus Day!
----
From the aforementioned 2017 piece:
[A]round Buffalo the Monday after Easter is a uniquely local piece of Polish heritage called Dyngus Day. I first heard of it while living on Long Island but listening to a faroff Buffalo AM station in the 70s; the tradition was much more muted when I got here for law school, and was not all that big a deal for our first decade back. But in recent years, it's become a Thing here, largely outshining Easter itself on the local calendar. Go into a local Wegmans for the past month and you'll find a decent display of candies and bunnies, but the vestibule is much fuller of DD merch:
In a sentence: the girls chase the guys and whip them with pussy willows, and the guys chase them back and shoot water pistols at them. Far more plausible than a crucifixion myth, and a lot more fun.
It is rare for anyone outside the 716 to have heard of this occasion, much less participated in it. Even Rochesterians will look at you funny despite them knowing the Bills' depth chart as well as any local. But then, we look at THEM funny over their regional delicacy being a "Garbage Plate™," so there:P A few other pockets of Dyngusdom exist in a few odd towns around the US, although there are few if any of them in Poland proper. Until the pandemic, the local organizers, supported by the adult beverage industry seeing one more national celebration to co-opt into a cinkhole de moneyo, had made inroads into getting the holiday known outside our region. This year's remains muted in comparison, as the mass gatherings remain off limits, but a year from now, we've got, dare I say it?,
High hopes.
So let's do this in verse, same as the first!
Tis the day after Easter,
And in most of the landy,
The kids are still sleeping off
Comas from candy
The eggs have been hunted,
Bunny's back on the lam,
The housewives are packing up
Leftover ham
But in the Queen City
and in no other venue,
There's both babkas and vodka
To fill up the menu
For the day after Jesus
Left the tomb screaming, BRAINNNNNNNNNNS!,
Our Polish Americans
Go completely insane!
They're hardly alone, though-
We shall leave out no homeland-
For the day after Easter,
EVERYONE here's from Poland!
The girls spend the night before
Snug on their pillows
To awaken to whip boys
With cut pussy willows
The boys don't retaliate
With brambles or thistles
But instead shoot the girls back-
They use water pistols!
The color is red and the entree is stew,
And the average blood alcohol's around .32
The food and drink flows and the cheer never wavers-
Hell, for one day in April, we still like the Sabres!
Until 2020, when we fell to the germ,
We gathered at parties and the old Central Term,
But even with COVID locking each in their room,
We've still celebrated by Teams or on Zoom!
We'll make up for it next year,
When there's really a need-
We'll all be vaccinated
And have legalized weed!
Will the girls chase the guys
With some green stems aplenty?
They had better, for next year
It's the eve of 4/20!
So you hear me exclaim, as I head far away,
And wish prosit! to all on this year's Dyngus Day!
----
From the aforementioned 2017 piece:
[A]round Buffalo the Monday after Easter is a uniquely local piece of Polish heritage called Dyngus Day. I first heard of it while living on Long Island but listening to a faroff Buffalo AM station in the 70s; the tradition was much more muted when I got here for law school, and was not all that big a deal for our first decade back. But in recent years, it's become a Thing here, largely outshining Easter itself on the local calendar. Go into a local Wegmans for the past month and you'll find a decent display of candies and bunnies, but the vestibule is much fuller of DD merch:
In a sentence: the girls chase the guys and whip them with pussy willows, and the guys chase them back and shoot water pistols at them. Far more plausible than a crucifixion myth, and a lot more fun.
It is rare for anyone outside the 716 to have heard of this occasion, much less participated in it. Even Rochesterians will look at you funny despite them knowing the Bills' depth chart as well as any local. But then, we look at THEM funny over their regional delicacy being a "Garbage Plate™," so there:P A few other pockets of Dyngusdom exist in a few odd towns around the US, although there are few if any of them in Poland proper. Until the pandemic, the local organizers, supported by the adult beverage industry seeing one more national celebration to co-opt into a cinkhole de moneyo, had made inroads into getting the holiday known outside our region. This year's remains muted in comparison, as the mass gatherings remain off limits, but a year from now, we've got, dare I say it?,
High hopes.