Hello! My Johnny and I absolutely LOVE Polka music and are lucky enough to be dear friends with the singer and accordionist from the Chardon Polka Band, Jake. For those of you who are not hip, the Chardon Polka Band is one of the best touring Polka parties all across America. Johnny used to play shows with them way back in the day and I have known them through work for the past decade. It is so exciting to watch them live out their Polka dreams and we just adore them!

The Chardon Polka Band has a phenomenal show that airs nationally on PBS called The World According To Polka and its third season premiere was this past Friday. Over one year ago, Jake contacted us asking if Johnny might play some tunes on their very first episode that revolves around trains. We were thrilled and took a drive to a historic village in Burton, Ohio to record his part of the episode. Take a look and be sure to peep my TikTok for some snippets:

As it has been a phat minute since then we honestly kind of forgot about it lol. Until we received an email inviting us to the season premiere party at the PBS station in Kent, Ohio. The festivities were this past Thursday and it was a blast!! Johnny and I went out for a celebratory dinner at a super cool restaurant down the road from the station called Mike’s Place. We enjoyed every bite of our meals and rolled into the shindig both stuffed with food AND feelings!

At the party, we got to mingle with all of our friends from the Chardon Polka Band, PBS employees, musicians, and diehard Polka enthusiasts. There were pretzels and pierogies, dancers, and Dyngus Day Festival character actors and the station was radiating with pure joy. After we got settled into the auditorium, it was time for the show to begin. It started with some clips of all of the great work that PBS does in our local community and then Jake took the stage to speak about what the Chardon Polka Band has been up to and presented a larger than life trailer of The World According To Polka. We were then treated to a viewing of the first episode of their new music education show on PBS and the season premiere of The World According To Polka with my Johnny.

The Polka Train episode was so wonderful from start to finish. The Chardon Polka Band visited several train related locations in Northeast Ohio. This included a model train museum, a one eighth scale train ride in a Metro Park, the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, and the last stop in Burton where we filmed. Seeing Johnny on screen was simply amazing and I was so incredibly proud of him. He gave extensive knowledge to the two songs they were performing together and why the train motif was so popular in music upon its invention. Johnny played guitar and sang in both songs and when each of them were over the whole audience went wild. Everyone sitting by us acted like they were sitting by a celebrity and it was just so freaking cool! ❤

Being able to take part in this season premiere party was such a gift. The Chardon Polka Band does so much good everywhere they go and we are so thankful that Johnny got to share in that. Be sure to tune into The World According To Polka every Friday on PBS and give the Chardon Polka Band a listen. You will love them as much as we do!

Has something exciting happened to you recently? What is your favorite show on PBS? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah