Veterans from the Polka Club of Colorado
Dorothy and Ed Pugh
Dee and Tom Hayes
Erich Selent and Dorothy Price
Hal and Jean Mund
November 11th – Remember our Veterans
by Joyce Kropewnicki
Each year on November 11th we have a reminder to take an opportunity to thank a Veteran for their military service. At the Polka Lovers Klub we have a chance to mingle with some of those individuals who served our country. When Jim Erlich plays the circle dance he often uses the military theme songs between the waltzes. These are more than just filler tunes and have deep meaning to men and women who have served.
I wanted to take a few minutes to offer my thanks to all who served in the military and kept our country free. The following are but a few of the people I briefly visited with about their service and their affection for dancing. The time they spent in the military had such an impact on their lives. Many know the exact day month and year they served with details to match, some so private and some indicated below. To other Polka Lovers Klub members, who I didn’t have a chance to visit with, we thank you also for your service.
Tom Hayes – Army from 2/66 to 2/68. He started in Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri then Ft. Eustis, Norfolk, Virginia and finally Ft. Riley, Kansas. He served in Vietnam for thirteen months unloading ships in Saigon. He worked fourteen-hour days with one day off every eleven days.
Tom could dance to western music, but didn’t take up the polka until he and Dee had been married about eight years. They went to a polka fest and got up and gave it a try. Every since that first try they have enjoyed dancing polkas and waltzes together for the past 30 years.
Hal Mund – Air Force 5/13/1952 to 5/13/1984. He was career military, retiring as a full bird colonel after 32 years and saw combat as a fighter pilot in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He flew 198 missions in Vietnam and flew many kinds of planes with an F86 the most notable.
Hal has been dancing since he was a young man of 14 when his mom taught him. She gave him this great advice that carried through to today; 1) Take the strong lead, 2) Be smooth with your steps and 3) Never leave a woman on the floor, take her back to her seat when the dance ends. Hal and his wife Jean have so much energy; they are up dancing every dance.
Ed Pugh – Navy 1943 to 1946. He served as an officer in World War II on a destroyer for three years. He was a deck officer in the deck division making sure maintenance was in top shape on the USS Wainright DD419. This was during the occupation in Japan of the north invasion force which lasted two to three months. After his ship sailed out of Pearl Harbor, he saw a near-by ship hit by a kamikaze bomb.
Ed learned the polka and other ballroom dances when he mother took him to dance lessons as a young man. His wife Dee (Delores), of 30 years, and Ed are serious about dancing and try not to miss a week to dance together on Sunday.
Chuck Johnston – Navy 1943 to 1945. He was land based in Norman, Oklahoma for ten months and then Miami Beach, Florida as a turret gunner on a torpedo bomber. Chuck learned to dance long before he was married and often visited the Tracadero Ballroom at the old Elitches Gardens which was in north Denver around 38th and Tennyson. He loved the waltzes the most. His son played the accordian in a band and Chuck surely enjoyed hearing him play. Even though his son has passed on, Chuck still enjoys sitting close to the band on the side by the accordian.
Erich Selent – Army 1962 – 1965. He started his basic training in Ft. Knox, Kentucky, trained in finance in Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis Indiana then stationed in Ft. Carson, Colorado for the remainder of his duty working in finance. This was during the Vietnam War and Erich’s name came up three different times on the list to go over. Each time his Captain kept him working at Ft. Carson.
Erich learned folk dancing as a young man in Chicago Heights, Illinois at a polka club that played German music. His mother and aunts danced with him so he could learn. In the service he danced at the USO clubs to juke box music. It was mostly rock and roll at that time. One of his dance partners exchanged lessons. She taught him to do some western line dancing to the Alley Cat and he taught her the polka.
Les Muller – Army 11/1940 to 11/1945. He started his training in Ft. Crook, Nebraska then on to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. He was in the infantry and taught auto mechanics to other soldier for two years. During World War II the Air Force was connected to the Army as the Air Corp. They asked for volunteers to become pilots. Les accepted the challenge and had trained for six month to become a pilot when the war ended.
Les grew up in Nebraska. In high school he would go about ten miles to Wilber, Nebraska to the polka dance every Saturday night. The music is similar to what we dance to each week. Les has enjoyed dancing since he was 16. He and his wife Marie of 63 years enjoy Sunday dancing at the Polka Lovers Klub. They have been dancing together for over 65 years starting with square dancing at Peony Park in Omaha.
George Johnson – Army 1953 to 1956. He was stationed in Frankfort, Germany, and assigned to the security division as a cryptographer. Before the service he was a carpenter and appreciated the interesting details of carvings in the buildings, architectural designs and European culture.
George always loved music and played tenor saxophone in the marching band and orchestra. He was not brought up dancing, coming from a southern Baptist background in Birmingham, Alabama. His first wife was what they called a German war bride and she taught him to dance when they returned to the states. Three or four of their couple friends got together and took dance classes. George took a liking to ballroom dancing especially the waltz and started teaching dancing.
Rudy Okoren – U.S. Merchant Marine 10/1943 to 10/1946. As a young man of 19 he was responsible for steering six different ships in and out of the ports and at sea along with other duties with the deck crew. He was on tour for six or seven months at a time. He danced with Lorraine during the war when he came for brief visits during his 2 or 3 day leaves.
Rudy and Lorraine have been married for 58 years and dancing together for over 60 years. Rudy taught her to dance while they were still in high school. On leave they learned to polka in the Slovenia Tavern in Globeville, Colorado which is around I25 and I70. Lorraine went off to college near Long Beach, California and would see Rudy when his ship was cold docked in the area.
During World War II everyone helped. Men joined the service and women joined the work force in droves. At that time, Lorraine’s’ mom worked in a factory making tents and she knew of other women who manufactured bullets. Materials were in short supply at the time and everything went toward the war effort. Cars, trucks and tractors not used in the war effort drove on bald tires with rationed gasoline. Leather was used for soldiers first. Shoes that couldn’t be resoled by the family using that old iron cobbler’s kit due to the leather shortage were filled with cardboard to fill in the holes. Socks were always darned and never thrown out as long as a little more thread could fix them up.
Stan Kropewnicki – Army National Guard 1963 to 1969. He had basic and advanced infantry training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. When he moved to Colorado he was reassigned to the 157th artillery for the Colorado Army National Guard.
Stan started dancing as a teenager at family and neighborhood parties in Maspeth, New York. He remembers his dad was in the Navy in the early 40’s during WWII while his mom worked packing C-rations at the American Chicle Company which had diverted making Chiclets gum for assisting in the war effort. He is happy he found the Polka Lovers Klub for Sunday afternoon fun.
Sundays dancing the polka and waltzes are always a delight. One afternoon while chatting with Dick Piekarski between polkas, he found out that they had both graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School, an all boy’s school, in New York; Stan in 1958 and Dick in 1960. What a small world.
Dick Piekarski – Army 1960 to 1970. After graduating from West Point, Dick was stationed in Okinawa, Japan as an artillery battery commander. He also served in Vietnam on an air base as an infantry adviser to the South Vietnamese Army. Dick felt service to his country is very important. Vietnam was a tough war all around. There were a lot of resources; money and service people’s lives put on the line in chaotic circumstances.
Dick always had rhythm and picked up dances easily. At West Point he was taught those refined ballroom dances and other skills to use in social occasions. Ann and Dick always bounce up and dance the “Beer Barrel Polka’ in honor of his parents who passed their love for the polka to their children.