- My name's Jake, and when I was a teenager, I bought a used accordion at a thrift shop.

It changed my life forever.

Today, making music with The Chardon Polka Band is my job.

There's Mike, Mitch, two Bobs, and a Brian.

You never know what's gonna happen next.

You never know who you might run into because this is "The World According to Polka."

(cheerful polka music) (motor revving) (tires squealing) The Chardon Polka Band gets to play at big events all around the country in front of tens and thousands of people, and we love it.

But there's also something to be said for smaller, much more intimate gatherings.

And that's the kind of get-together we're going to be discussing on the program today.

The kind of event not happening out on the road on some big stage, but in our own backyards.

♪ My back door - We're gonna share some experiences, offer some grilling tips, and enjoy some music from The Chardon Polka Band and some of our friends.

Now, this first tune comes to us from a backyard party the Chardon Polka Band plays every year.

And here is the hostess of that backyard party, Peggy, describing the ingredients she likes to include for the perfect gathering.

- Good people, drinks.

- Okay.

- [Peggy] Good food and live music.

- [Jake] Peggy also likes to throw in an occasional surprise or two, like a giant guitar behind the band.

We've been playing Peggy's for so many years, and it's always a ton of fun.

(lively polka music) ♪ I was a painter ♪ I lived in the city ♪ I hired a model ♪ Boy, she was pretty ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la, la ♪ Hey ♪ She modeled for me in winter and summer ♪ ♪ But that's not what I wanted from her ♪ ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la, la (lively polka music) (lively polka music continues) (lively polka music continues) (cheerful polka music) (cheerful polka music continues) (cheerful polka music continues) ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la, la ♪ Oh, la, la, la, la, la - Nobody has more fun with what they do than my friend Mitch Lawrence.

Whether he's out on some big stage or he's in your backyard, Mitch Lawrence knows how to bring it!

And we're hoping to bring it today with some good food as well as good polka.

And if we wanna have good food, we gotta have an expert.

And that's why we brought our friends here from The Pierogi Lady, and this is... - Marcus.

My name is Marcus Walker.

I'm from Akron, Ohio, and I own the, I guess the other half of The Pierogi Lady, if you will.

I'm the pierogi guy.

- Aren't you the, you're the grillmaster, right?

- (laughs) Yeah.

- Oh my goodness.

So you guys might remember, we've met Autumn and our friends from The Pierogi Lady before, which is why we thought they could grill us up something today.

And what are we gonna be grilling today, Marcus?

- So I got some smoked Polish sausage for you.

- [Jake] Ooh!

- Along with some red and green bell peppers and onions that I put on top, and we're just gonna have some fun.

- It sounds like we're gonna have a tasty time.

And we're also gonna get y'all started with some tasty music right now.

Now, this tune doesn't come from The Chardon Polka Band.

This is our friend, Gunhild Carling.

Now, she is a very talented Swedish jazz musician, multi-instrumentalist.

I can't believe she returned our messages and is gonna appear on the show today.

(energetic jazz music) ♪ Yeah, I scream, you scream, everybody wants ice cream ♪ ♪ Rock, come on, rock my baby, roll ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ I scream, you scream, everybody wants ice cream ♪ ♪ Rock, come on, rock my baby, roll ♪ ♪ I see Ola, Pepsi Cola ♪ Everybody wants your Coca-Cola ♪ ♪ I scream, you scream, everybody wants ice cream ♪ ♪ Rock, come on, rock my baby, roll ♪ (bombastic jazz music) (energetic jazz music) (energetic jazz music continues) (lively jazz music) (lively jazz music continues) (easygoing jazz music) (lively jazz music) (group cheers) (Gunhild laughs) - Unbelievable!

Gunhild Carling and her family band, and they were singing about ice cream from their backyard to ours.

But you know what, we're gonna be proper here.

You can't have ice cream before you have the main dish, right, Marcus?

- Exactly.

No dessert before you eat your meat.

- Yeah, so we gotta get started with our meat.

I don't know the first thing about this so tell me what's going on with the meat.

- All right, so we got our smoked Polish sausage here.

- Yeah?

- We got our grill getting nice and hot.

We wanna put some oil on it.

And we just wanna put the sausages down and let 'em brown a little bit.

We're not trying to cook 'em through.

- Let 'em brown.

(oil sizzling) Tell me about this grill.

This doesn't look anything like my grill.

My grill is in pieces on my front porch.

It's all burned up and all that.

What kind of grill is this?

- So this is just a Blackstone flattop.

It's a little tabletop version.

- Yeah.

- [Marcus] It's really nice.

Works really great for parties.

- So would you say if you're gonna grill, you gotta have the proper equipment?

- Yeah, for sure.

You have to.

- [Jake] That's why you brought your own grill.

- Exactly, exactly.

(laughs) - That's why when Jake called him he's like, "I'll bring my own grill."

- Yeah, you asked me and I said, "No, I got it, bro.

You don't worry about it.

I'll take care of it."

- [Jake] We're browning our sausage.

How long does this take?

- [Marcus] So it's about five, six minutes per side.

- So Marcus, what you're telling me about browning the meat is we gotta be a little patient?

- Yep.

We gotta let it sit and do its thing.

It's gonna brown and crisp up.

It's called the Maillard reaction.

It was invented by a French scientist, Louis Maillard.

It's the process of the fats and amino acids reacting to the heat, and it's creating a crust on the outside of it and sealing those juices in and making for a flavorful dish, so.

- You just hit us with some science.

(Marcus laughing) You know you're on PBS.

We love education.

Ladies and gentlemen, you're talking about being patient.

I am not a patient person, so I gotta give myself something to do, while we wait five to 10 minutes and flip these.

I'm gonna go play some music with our cameraman, Jeff.

At least I think I can get him to join us, and we'll be right back to check on this meat.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, for this little musical interlude, we've got Jeff Grau.

He is our cameraman, our videographer on this show.

And we've got his buddy, Rick Welder.

So when we showed up this morning, we said, "We're gonna make you play a number," and it's gonna be a song called "Dead Flowers."

This is originally a Rolling Stones tune, and you guys play it in your band, The Big North Band.

Let's hit it!

(country rock music) (country rock music continues) ♪ Now, when you're sitting there ♪ ♪ In your silk upholstered chair ♪ ♪ And you're talking to those rich folk that you know ♪ ♪ Well, I hope you won't see me in this ragged company ♪ ♪ Well, you know I could never be alone ♪ ♪ Take me down, little Susie, take me down ♪ ♪ I know you think you're the queen of the underground ♪ ♪ You can send me dead flowers every morning ♪ ♪ You can send me dead flowers by the mail ♪ - [Jake] Oh yeah!

Sing it, Jeff.

♪ You can send me dead flowers to my wedding ♪ ♪ And I won't forget to put roses on your grave ♪ - Play it!

(lively country rock music) (country rock music continues) (country rock music continues) Oh yeah!

♪ Take me down, little Susie, take me down ♪ - Whoa!

♪ I know you think you're the queen of the underground ♪ - I love it!

♪ You can send me dead flowers every morning ♪ ♪ You can send me dead flowers by the US Mail ♪ ♪ You can send me dead flowers to my wedding ♪ ♪ And I won't forget to put roses on your grave ♪ (both clapping) - So that seems like it took a few minutes.

So now I'm here to check in with the brilliant, no, strike that, the grill-iant Marcus.

Marcus, how's the browning going?

What's going on?

- It's going good.

I'm about to pull these right now.

They've been going about five, six minutes.

- Okay.

- Per side.

Just to not cook them through again.

Just to get a little bit of brown and some little color.

- Okay.

- Smells pretty good, I think - [Jake] It does smell good.

I'm ready to eat it now!

- Don't you agree?

(laughs) - Oh my goodness!

- So I'm gonna pull these off and then I'm gonna get some vegetables on 'cause you can't have sausage without vegetables on top.

You gotta eat your veggies, so we have some- - All right, this is fantastic.

Look how good these look!

We got our green peppers, our yellow peppers, our red peppers in there, onion.

- So you like to have a mixture of peppers.

- [Jake] Okay.

- Because the different colors is because of the different various degrees of ripeness in the peppers.

So the green peppers are picked the earliest.

- Okay.

- They haven't had a chance to really ripen that much yet, so they're the least sweet out of all the peppers.

And then as you go up, they get sweeter and sweeter so you got a little balance of the bitter with the sweet.

And then of course, you need onions 'cause they're onions.

Who doesn't like onions, right?

- (laughs) You gotta have the onion!

The flavors I'm smelling, folks, is just fantastic.

- So you wanna season.

You always wanna season your veggies.

A little salt, pepper, garlic.

Just a little bit, not much.

And then I'm just gonna put my sausages back on top, spread 'em out a little bit.

- Wait.

They're gonna go on the veggies?

- Yep.

- Why are we doing that?

- Give the sausages a chance to cook all the way through.

And it's going to steam the sausages as they sit on top of the veggies.

That'll help the veggies get done quick plus they'll pull the flavor from the sausages and make the veggies taste even better.

A lot less like veggies, I guess, is what some people would say.

- This is fantastic!

This is why you bring in an expert.

You really know what you're doing.

- And then you wanna just... - And then we cover 'em up?

- Cover 'em up and just let 'em do their thing for a little while.

(oil sizzling) (bold rock music) - All right, Marcus, I'm getting hungry.

Where are we at with these things?

Show me.

- So we could check 'em out.

- Okay.

- They're starting to do their thing.

The vegetables are starting to soften up.

I think we need to let 'em go a little bit longer.

- Wait, are you telling me I gotta be patient again?

- (laughs) I'm sorry.

It's all about patience.

Grilling is about patience.

If you want good food, you sometimes have to wait.

- All right, folks, well, while we're trying to be patient, we'll play a little bit more music.

This one's not from The Chardon Polka Band.

It's from a wonderful group called the Rainbow Girls.

- [All] Hi!

- We're Rainbow Girls.

- We're coming at you live from our hotel.

- Beautiful!

- Home sweet home.

- Isn't it gorgeous?

- We love it.

- We really hope you enjoy the video that we submitted for y'all, "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" featuring our very dearest Cheyenne Skye.

- Chenanda!

- And a cat!

- Yes, of course.

- Don't forget.

- And don't worry, we are in a backyard.

Anyhoo, we hope you enjoy it and... (blows kiss) - Bye!

- Look at his tail!

- You wanna go, go.

(lively rock music) ♪ It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe ♪ ♪ If'n you don't know by now ♪ It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe ♪ ♪ It don't matter anyhow ♪ When your rooster crows at the break of dawn ♪ ♪ Look out your window and I'll be gone ♪ ♪ You're the reason I'm a-traveling on ♪ ♪ Don't think twice, it's all right ♪ (lively rock music) (shoes tapping rhythmically) (group laughing) (Erin cheers) - [Onlooker] Nice!

♪ It ain't no use a-turning on your light, babe ♪ ♪ The light I never knowed ♪ It ain't no use a-turning on your light, babe ♪ ♪ I'm on the dark side of the road ♪ ♪ Still, I wish there was something you would do or say ♪ ♪ To try to make me change my mind and stay ♪ ♪ We never did too much talking anyway ♪ ♪ Don't think twice, it's all right ♪ - Get it, girls!

(shoes tapping) (folksy harmonica music) - You get it, girls!

(laughs) (Erin cheers) (lively folk rock music) ♪ Still, I wish there was something you would do or say ♪ ♪ Try to make me change my mind and stay ♪ ♪ We never did too much talking anyway ♪ ♪ Don't think twice, it's all right ♪ ♪ Don't think twice, it's all right ♪ - Well, hopefully y'all have been enjoying the music.

It's been helping me be patient, but I can't take it anymore.

Marcus, what's going on on the grill?

- All right, so it's time.

The sausages are good.

- Okay.

- We're gonna pull 'em.

Good.

- What's your favorite part?

- It's up to temp.

The eating part of it.

(laughs) - And we're gonna get to that.

- Yeah, we're gonna get to that.

So we're gonna pull all these sausages off.

We're going to- - Move the veggies.

- So we'll move the veggies.

We want to kinda stir them up- - I haven't got my hands dirty yet.

Can I try it?

- (laughs) Go ahead.

- All right, we're gonna- - Knock yourself out.

- You tell me what to do.

I gotta get... This is "The World According to Polka."

I gotta- - All right.

So you're just gonna kinda get 'em, stir 'em up, mix 'em all up in there.

- All right.

- [Marcus] Just so they get a little bit of color.

- [Jake] Like this.

- [Marcus] Get these ones over here.

- Oh yeah.

No veggies left behind.

- Exactly.

- Oh, what do you got there?

- So we have the buns.

- Yep.

- We're going to put the buns- - You're covering up my veggies!

- Over in the vegetables.

We're gonna cover 'em up.

- [Jake] The buns go on the veggies, folks.

Why?

- We're gonna let the steam from the vegetables steam up our buns so we got some nice, soft buns.

We're gonna do that.

- Look at that.

- I'll cover it up.

- All right.

- And then so our sausage- - We're always covering stuff.

- (laughs) That's where the magic happens.

Put a little lubricant on there.

- Oh my goodness!

- Sound of summer, and we're gonna let it sit.

- [Jake] It wouldn't be a polka party if beer wasn't involved somehow.

- [Marcus] And they'll stay nice and juicy.

- All right.

- In that beer.

- So Marcus, this food is almost ready to eat, right?

- We're almost done.

- Oh my goodness.

It's almost done.

We're gonna be patient just a little while longer and we're gonna listen to another tune from The Chardon Polka Band.

(lively polka music) ♪ Just got home from Illinois ♪ Lock the front door, oh boy ♪ Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch ♪ ♪ Imagination sets in ♪ Pretty soon I'm singin' ♪ Doot, doot, doo, lookin' out my back door ♪ ♪ There's a giant doin' cartwheels ♪ ♪ Statue wearin' high heels ♪ Look at all them happy creatures dancin' on the lawn ♪ ♪ A dinosaur Victrola, listen to Buck Owens ♪ ♪ Doot, doot, doo, lookin' out my back door ♪ ♪ Tambourines and elephants are playin' in the band ♪ ♪ Won't you take a ride on the flyin' spoon ♪ ♪ Doot, doo-doo ♪ Wondrous apparitions provided by magicians ♪ ♪ Doot, doot, doo, lookin' out my back door ♪ (lively polka music) (lively polka music continues) ♪ Tambourines and elephants are playin' in the band ♪ ♪ Won't you take a ride on the flyin' spoon ♪ ♪ Doot, doo-doo ♪ Bother me tomorrow ♪ Today I'll buy no sorrows ♪ Doot, doot, doo, lookin' out my back door ♪ (lively polka music) (lively polka music continues) ♪ Forward troubles Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy ♪ ♪ Look at all them happy creatures dancin' on the lawn ♪ ♪ Bother me tomorrow ♪ Today I'll buy no sorrows ♪ Doot, doot, doo, lookin' out my back door ♪ (lively polka music) (audience clapping) - That was an aptly-titled tune, "Lookin' Out My Back Door," originally put together by CCR.

Now, if you looked out our backdoor today, you'd see these fine folks.

We got Dean and Jen Carlo.

They just celebrated 25 years in the ministry in Chardon, Ohio, and now you're out to celebrate with us on our patio.

- Love it.

- Yes.

- [Jake] How are you guys doing?

- Doing fantastic.

Looking forward to sharing the story of Mother's Day in 2003.

- That's right, that's right.

So we had an event not unlike this one.

Can you guys tell us about this?

'Cause I was a young lad.

I was 15 years old in this story.

- Baby.

(laughs) - Tell us what happened.

- Great story.

We knew Jacob through youth ministry and knew that he played the accordion.

And just like, "Jake, Mother's Day's coming up.

How about you coming to the mobile home park for Mother's Day for mine and Jen's mom and playing some great polka music?

What do you think about that?"

- Well, I gotta put this in context.

As a young Jake, 15 years old, this was the gig of a lifetime!

We got our big break!

And so I told my dad, I said, "Dad, I got a gig!"

My dad would play bass guitar and I'd play the accordion.

So I said, "Dad, we got this gig and it's on Mother's Day."

He's like, "What about your mom?"

I'm like, "We'll see her after the gig.

We got a big gig, Dad."

And then we went over.

Now, why did you even want polka music at this thing?

- Yeah, so yeah, we live in the mobile home, and my mom's Slovenian, so we were having this cookout, and we're like, "Nothing says more than Mother's Day than, you know, cookout and polka music between two mobile homes."

- Yeah, so we had me on accordion, my dad, you guys.

I know there was dancing, there was a grill.

- Yeah.

Yes, yeah.

- Cooking, yep.

- Oh my goodness.

And to me, how this story fits into what we're talking about today is, this is 21 years ago.

- Yes.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's 21 years ago, and we're still talking about it because we had fun.

This was a family thing for y'all.

- Yep, every year.

- Yes.

- And for me and my dad, that was like our core bonding experience in my teenage years was playing music together.

So even though there were only how many people?

- Eight people.

- And it was this small event at a small venue, it still means a lot.

- Yeah.

- And folks, that's what the show is about today.

You don't need a giant stage.

You don't even need metal forks.

You can just use plastic.

That's what this program is about today.

You don't need a big venue to have big memories and good times.

Well, thank you guys for sharing this story today.

Now, I hope you share some food with us 'cause I think Marcus has got the main dishes all plated up.

Have a seat, everybody.

Oh my gosh, look at this!

This is phenomenal!

Thank you, Marcus!

You have blessed us with your time and you are about to bless us with this delicious food.

My friends and neighbors at home, I hope this goes to show you that you don't need some kind of big venue to have a good time and make big memories.

You've got everything you need right in your own backyard.

Friends and neighbors, that is "The World According to Polka."

(upbeat instrumental music) ♪ I've been gone for so long ♪ It feels good just to be back home ♪ ♪ Back to the familiar places and people I wanna see ♪ ♪ It's like a rainbow that's in the sky ♪ ♪ A certain twinkle in everybody's eye ♪ ♪ Tellin' me they believe in what I am and what I wanna be ♪ ♪ Don't it make you wanna dance ♪ ♪ Don't it make you wanna smile ♪ ♪ When you're down, down, down in the country ♪ ♪ Pick and sing a while - Take it, Mitch!

(upbeat saxophone music) (upbeat instrumental music continues) (upbeat instrumental music continues) (upbeat instrumental music continues) (upbeat instrumental music continues) (upbeat instrumental music continues) ♪ Don't it make you wanna dance ♪ ♪ And don't it make you wanna smile ♪ ♪ When you're down, down, down in the country ♪ ♪ Pick and sing a while ♪ Don't it make you wanna dance ♪ ♪ Don't it make you wanna smile ♪ ♪ When you're down, down, down in the country ♪ ♪ Down, down, down in the country ♪ ♪ When you're down, down, down (upbeat music fades)