photo by Cara Wilwerding
photos by Cam Penner & Cara Wilwerding | review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer & Michael Todd
They say they couldn't fit a piano in a covered wagon, so the prairie became home to the next best thing: the accordion. Or so the story goes.
This past weekend, accordions of all stripes populated the town of Wilber, Nebraska. Accordions in green and red, gold and blue, with white buttons and silver buttons, ornate metal engravings and masterfully carved wood.
The occasion? None other than the 52nd annual Czech Festival. A quartet of Hear Nebraskans arrived to take in the "oom" and the "pah," the smell of kraut and the uniquely embroidered vests, which rivaled the number of bellows-powered instruments.
We crossed railroad tracks and morning rain puddles to reach to the Wilber main drag where Czech Days booths, tents and food trucks made a symmetrical plus sign across four city blocks. The announcement immediately came over the loudspeakers that only the local Lutheran church still had kolaches left: a sign of how successful the weekend of celebrating had been for Wilber and how much people like to eat sugar dough ovals full of jelly.
It was only 10:50 a.m., but nearly a dozen members of Accordion Jamboree had already packed into a wooden bandstand at the intersection of all things Czech Days. This was the day’s first polka, the first sounds of accordions exhaling their bulbous melodies. It would not be the last. The town-wide PA system struggled against the morning moisture, adding some crackling percussion to the accordion jam. But Sunday’s emcee gave a surprisingly accurate minute-by-minute countdown to sunshine, which appeared almost on the 11:30 dot for the Wilber Czech Dancers.
The young Czech Fest prince and princess led a line of kids and teenagers — with a few college students offering their helping hands and dancing shoes — to form a circle in front of the bandstand. As the group danced along to a few tunes on the boombox, the emcee sang along in what must have been Czech, revealing for certain this wasn't the first time he'd seen the Wilber Czech dancers.
Yes, this is a tradition that has for years repeated itself, but the greater part of the kids seemed to appreciate, or at least revel in, the cultural heritage of their hometown:
photos by Cara Wilwerding
photo by Cam Penner
In a town full of accordions, this was what scared us: the rows and rows of buttons on heavy squeezeboxes with grand, intricate designs. The accordion was an instrument that was the antithesis of the plain, delineated keys on a piano or the guitar’s fretboard divided into easily understandable sections.
Yet, when we learned a bit about how to play the instrument at Czech Days’ tutorial in Wilber’s Czech Cultural Center, it made more sense. Think of a harmonica, but with buttons that find the notes. Sure, we played only “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie,” which used just four of the 30 or so buttons. But thanks to the quick lesson, we better understood polka and Czech culture:
photos by Cara Wilwerding
After all willing participants had learned “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie,” we pulled aside Kelly Homolka, the master of ceremonies for the accordion lesson and the man aptly nicknamed Kelly “Polka” Homolka.
After lunch at Hotel Wilber, we learned that the townspeople of Wilber, Nebraska, and the most hardy out-of-town festivalgoers, are a patient bunch. Czech Fest's two-hour parade proved it.
From 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Czech queen hopefuls rode down Third Street in classic cars, marching bands played traditional songs — some bands with gusto, some without — a giant inflatable sower statue rolled by, bending at the knees, and a less impressive pizzaman hung off the back of Casey's General Store's float, skidding a bit on the street.
There was the haunted house float that came out of nowhere with zombies screaming through the iron bars locking them in. There was the flatbed with a pair of humongous teeter-totters, moving up and down as about a dozen people on each chanted military-like lines. Most humorously, there was the "car of people trying to get out of town," as announced by the emcee.
Who knows how long that car was stuck in between floats as it made it through Wilber:
photos by Cam Penner
Even if no one said it out loud, the Czech Days Sunday schedule essentially listed 4 p.m. as the appropriate time to start dancing and drinking. Three polka bands began playing in the space of three blocks and beer gardens and beer halls opened their doors. We observed the Bohemian Alps Boys from an open picnic table. The six-piece had rolled in all the way from Prague … Nebraska.
The band featured four horns (two trumpets, a euphonium and a baritone) and vocals completely in Czech. The long breaths of the accordion created the backdrop for the popcorn brass section and bouncy vocals that initially sounded like the hoots of an excited Slovak owl. Couples danced in the street. One prodigious blonde boy sashayed back and forth in front of the stage until he fell down.
photos by Cam Penner
We don’t know if attending Czech Days makes you want to be Czech so much as it sparks a desire to be part of something. It’s hard to say how many of the twirling and laughing townspeople wearing vests and billowing skirts have ever been to Central Europe. But buying into the culture of Wilber and of Czech Days appeared to be a two-sided way to embrace heritage and express individuality.
Musicians played polka music from the same tradition as their great-grandparents but they formed Bohemian bands with their own style and own names. Attendees wore identical black vests, but stitched their own personal passions on the back, inside a pink heart, as if to say, “I love Czech Days.” Or “I love football.” Or “I love cake.”
Next year, here’s hoping we come back with our own Czech vests that say “We love Nebraska music” inside of the embroidered heart.
Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska's managing editor, Chance Solem-Pfeifer is HN's staff writer, and Cara Wilwerding and Cam Penner are HN multimedia interns. They all had their fill of the Polish meal at Hotel Wilber. Reach them all through Michael at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.