My Heritage

 

My Heritage

 I was born in he 1930’s, and was raised in a little hill town in Western Massachusetts.  My heritage is Polish.  My mother and paternal grandfather were born in Poland.

 I, myself, am as American as “Yankee doodle dandy”.  Unlike many people originally from New England, my politics are not liberal or “progressive”.

 I lost my original Catholicism, that I inherited from my “polska matka”, and am now a Methodist. (long story).

 The one thing that I never lost was the love of Polish culture.  I like Polish food, Polish music, Polish dance, Polish weddings and all the other things Polish, that abound in Polish-Americana.

 I am still an afficionado of specially made kielbasa. (Labuda’s in Ludlow, MA, and Winski’s in Brooklyn are the best kielbasas that I’ve had).  Originally my mother’s, and now my sister’s (and mine) pierogi, kapusta and golumpki, are the best.  There are no commercial equivalents.

 When I was kid, in about the mid 1940’s, my parents’ occasional Sunday afternoon visits to extended family would sometimes include my second cousin, Eddie Antone, who learned to play the accordion in the Navy, and Steve Wojcik, who played the violin, or fiddle. These two guys, playing Polish polkas, obereks and waltzes, made memorable music that would get my young Polish DNA blood flowing. 

 I had the same reaction in later years, when I returned from college in Boston on a weekend, and attended the Polish weddings of former high school mates.  Polish music, Polish food, - and now enhanced with beer, alcohol and girls.

 My old, overly educated, somewhat jaded psyche still stirs when I hear the old-style Polish music played by Frank Wojnarowski or Eddie Blazonczyk or Lennie Gomulka, and you can poke around Youtube, and find the old songs, like “Goral”, “Matka”, and others.  I still eat the original Southern Polish cuisine, when I visit Massachusetts, New York State and Vermont, because my sister, and other younger members of the extended family still cook it.

 J visited Southern Poland and Zakopane, in 2013, and found that area to be very similar to the Berkshires where I grew up.  It is small wonder that my family, and many others who immigrated from this area and chose the Berkshires in which to settle.

 Ray Gruszecki

October 25, 2021