Polish Regatta, Part 1

The regatta is held annually in August at my favorite bar. It's called the Polish Regatta because the bar, restaurant and resort where it is held were built in the 1920s by a Polish immigrant couple. The place has never been out of family hands, and is now owned by third generation members of the founding family.

There are land events by which teams score the points necessary to give their boat a good starting position for the regatta. The land games change every year and are announced only seconds before competition begins so that none of the teams can practice before the event. There is a theme every year; this year's theme was "Cops and Robbers".


The first land event was called "Butt Darts". The object is to take a quarter off of a chair at one end of the playing field...

....then insert it between one's butt cheeks, run down the field without losing it and drop it into a bucket at the other end. The team with the most quarters in the bucket at the end of three minutes is the winner.

Running while keeping the quarter inserted caused some interesting gaits.....

Some teams were crowd favorites...

This is Wisconsin where drinks are a food group. The regatta special was a bucket of Bloody Marys, known as "vegetable salad" because of its contents. Buckets were everywhere.

The second event was "Polish Bowling". Teams of two were joined together by shrink wrap, and a pair of queen-sized panty hose was stretched over their heads. There was a softball in each foot of the pantyhose.

The object was to walk quickly down field swinging the balls to knock over beer bottles, all the while maintaining one foot on a center line to avoid penalty.

Some teams figured out the teamwork part of the game.....

.....and others didn't.

The third land event was the "Polish Rodeo." The object was for a team of three to ride their bucking broncos down the field, around a barrel and back to the starting line is as little time as possible.


The bucking broncos were actually bouncy balls, the center cowboy had his legs shrink-wrapped to the cowboy's legs on the left and right, and each contestant had to wear (and not lose) swimming goggles, a too-small hat and a bandana.


On your mark, get set, go!

A few bounces later......

The fourth and final land event was "Polish Baseball." The players had to begin by drinking a sixteen ounce beer through a straw...

And then spin around ten times with one's head on a baseball bat...

....then run down to the other end of the field, around a barrel and back to the beer table. No straight lines were run, and the audience often became the barrier that pushed stumbling, errant contestants back onto the playing field.

The land games ended! Let the water games begin!  (See Part 2)