Let's do the Bethel Baptist Polka!

Hier ist Festhaus-Musikanten. I don't know who they are, but they look like they have fun. Prosit! Photo credit and homepage >

Many years ago, when I was perhaps 11 or 12 years old, I went to a Christian day camp with some Bethel Baptist Church friends (probably a Young People's group). I don't remember anything about that day, except the ride home, at night, in the back of a van, with Mr Geiger driving. There were four of us at least in the back of that van - myself, brother Tom, Lee Geiger, and another or more whom I've forgotten.

As we were becoming tuned in to popular music, we asked Mr Geiger to find some rock 'n roll on the van's radio. He declined to do this, instead settling on a religious channel (which in those days was only hymns and hellfire).

Well, we finally got him to look for something else, anything else, and he landed on a station playing polkas, and wouldn't you know, we laughed and sang polkas for miles, all about beer and dancing and things good Baptists generally didn't sing about.

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We also begged for ice cream, and wouldn't you know, after some perfunctory objections, Mr Geiger stopped and bought us all ice cream.

I'm sure that day would forever be lost in some gray matter nook or cranny if we hadn't been treated to polkas and ice cream.

Thank you, Mr Geiger. A little ice cream and silliness go a long way.

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Mr Geiger is probably retired now, but at that time he ran Geiger & Sons Memorials in Erie, PA. I suspect his son Lee runs it now. Brother Tom told me once that Lee brought in a sheet of rubber to speech class at Bethel Christian School and explained how the gravestone letters are cut out of the rubber, which is then laid over the stone and sand blasted. He passed out little pieces for them to keep, and they looked for all the world like sticks of gum. I had a fascination even then for gravestones, last words, the afterlife and similar things, and wished that I could have heard Lee's speech, but Lee and Tom were a year younger than me and I wasn't in that class.

This is the front of Geiger & Sons Memorials in Erie, PA. They're located at 2976 W Lake Rd. They've been a family business for years.

[2014-09-11]

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