Much has been written about the exposure to secondhand smoking and even more about the harmful effects of TV watching on children.  Nothing has been written about the effects of children being exposed to secondhand TV viewing – until now.

          It started innocently enough.  My uncle and aunt would visit our home regularly on Saturday night.  I loved my aunt because she was not bound by convention as evidenced by her marriage to my uncle – it was her third. My uncle was every little boy’s role model.  He gave me puffs off his Chesterfields and let me steer his new Buick down the highway.

          But they had a dark side.  They introduced my parents to watching Lawrence Welk. 

          Every Saturday night at 9:00 p.m.  I would hear “From Hollywood, it’s the Lawrence Welk Show!”  Following the pop of a champagne cork and the blast of orchestra music the announcer would proudly proclaim, “Brought to you by Geritol, America’s number one tonic.  Geritol, the high potency vitamin plus iron tonic that helps you feel better fast.  And by Excedrin analgesic tablets, the extra strength pain reliever.”

          I knew what the next hour would bring, and I would wish I could down a couple of Excedrins with a big swig of Geritol.

          Yes, there he was, that accordion maestro, the pride of Strasburg, North Dakota, with a smile showing more ivory than the keys of his accordion.  “Wunnerful, wunnerful,” he would proclaim after each wholesome number was played, sang or danced by his ensemble of performers.  There was Big Tiny Little, Jr., playing ragtime piano, his Champagne Lady, Norma Zimmer singing a hymn or Bobby Burgess and Barbara Boylan gliding across the floor.

            Everyone else my age was listening to their older sister’s records of Elvis singing Hound Dog or Heartbreak Hotel while I was being subjected to Irish tenor Joe Feeney’s Danny Boy or the deep bass voice of Larry Hooper’s This Old House.

          Other boys my age knew the first names of the Yankee infield by heart (Yogi, Bill, Bobby, Tony and Clete).  I was the only one at school who could rattle off the first names of the Lennon Sisters (Kathy, Janet, Peggy and Dianne).

          It made my survival on the playground very difficult.

          What no doubt scarred me for life was that moment in the show was when Mr. Welk would hand the baton off to Myron Floren and would go into the audience to dance the polka with one giggling middle-aged woman after another.  As accordion music filled the air ways thy pranced, spun and kicked up their heels across the floor.

          It was not a pretty sight.

          These painful memories had been suppressed until My Bride coerced me into taking dance lessons.  We were in class with James and his partner Big Fran.  She defied the laws of physics by being extremely nimble despite her very large, ah, well, largeness.  There was Scott and Jeffrey who were “bachelors” under the then small-town policy of “Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell – Don’t Get Caught.”   And then there was Steve and Cindi.  She thought she had a distinct advantage over the rest of the class because she had been a professional dancer.  She was disappointed to find out we would not be using a pole.

          I stepped on My Bride’s toes during the waltz lessons, miscounted through the Cha Cha Cha only to fall and hit my head during the Bossa Nova session.  The final week was the polka.  The dance instructor told us that the polka is a 19^th century Bohemian dance with three steps and a hop in fast duple time.  I had no idea what that meant.  But as the sound of the Beer Barrel Polka filled the room, suddenly I could dance the polka.  Around the room I stepped and hopped, kicking my heels.  My Bride had to stop to rest.  Big Fran cut in only to nearly collapse and gasping for breath a short while later.  Cindi next tried to keep up but had to sit down when she could not find a pole to hold onto.  Thankfully neither Scott nor Jeffrey cut in.   They knew their dancing limits.

          At first, I could not explain it.  My Bride wanted to “Blame it on the Bossa Nova” and the resulting fall.  But then it hit me.  After all that exposure to him and his “Musical Family” once the polka music began, I had channeled Lawrence Welk.

          It has taken years of therapy and several 12 Step (with no hop) programs in my efforts to bring this problem under control.  I still have to avoid German festivals.  And at the first sound of accordion music, I find myself saying, “And a one-a and two-a and-a . . . “

          I blame Lawrence Welk.