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Feb 19, 2025

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Polka Power At Sonoma Moose

sonoma_moose_009forwebThe Sonoma Moose stage a polka dance every Sunday from 4pm to 8pm and on July 27 Polka Power performed. The Sonoma-Napa area is famous for its wines and those grapes love the hot days and cool nights. The lodge is not air conditioned, but a cross draft helps to make the hall tolerable for dancing taking the bite out of the 90 degree heat. This is standard fare and we’re used to it. But the weather has been unusually muggy – gulf coast muggy – which we’re not used to. So, we all melted in the moist heat, especially Danny Fitterer, the accordionist with Polka Power who lives in the hot and dry clime of Las Vegas.

In photo: Horst & Sandy who maintains dance schedule for Northern California

Polka Power (Danny Fitterer, Donna Seibert Clay, and Mark Seibert) served up the expected Cleveland-style Slovenian music with Gary Seibert’s styling and surprised us with a couple of original Danny Fitterer tunes which he says are “works in progress.” One tune has a distinctive beat which invites one to twerk intermittently, breaking up the polka, and so we dub it the “Twerk Polka.” Because of the age group, the improvised twerk assumes a geriatric styling providing a great deal of amusement. The band always performs a Beatles tune, which draws everyone to the front of the stage. The audience sways to the beat of the music and individuals often feel compelled to strut their stuff, improvising unique dance moves either solo on in pairs. I offered my version of the geriatric worm.

After the dance we reconnoitered with the band and its groupies to the Black Bear Diner in Sonoma for a late night dinner. The delay was long enough for the traffic to dissipate at the nearby Sonoma Raceway, which had a weekend long race schedule that drew tons of people. So it was smooth sailing home after dinner.

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Polka Power