It takes a lot of energy to be a local polka legend, the star of the longest continually running cable TV program in the nation, a radio personality, bar proprietor, music store owner -- and now, a polka politico in Harrisburg. Even at age seventy, though, Jolly Joe Timmer has got what it takes.

“As he gets older, he seems to get more energy and pep,” says Timmer’s only sibling, sister Theresa Mindler. "He likes what he does. He’s happy all over the place. He’s happy on TV, he’s happy on radio because the people call and call. He’s Jolly Joe, and he’s always laughing.”

And what a laugh it is. It’s hearty and cacophonous and thrice repeats itself no matter how funny something is. Mindler says her brother’s laugh precedes his entry into a room. "You hear that laugh and know he’s coming,” she says.

“Who has more fun than people?” Timmer asks with the triple laugh while mixing drinks and watching over what he calls a "small crowd" one early spring Sunday at Jolly Joe Timmer’s Grove, the bar he has owned for thirty years in Point Phillips, Northampton County.

“I’m the bouncer,” one guest says. Then, pointing at Timmer, he adds, “Watch him. He’s the rowdiest.”

On Sunday, there are lots of Joes at the Grove. Timmer, a 1990 Polka Music Hall of Fame inductee, is quick to admit he has many imitators. "Guys who aren’t even named Joe take the name,” he says. "One guy I know uses the name [Jolly Joe], but his name is Al.”

TV AND RADIO HISTORY

Has he always been Jolly Joe? Timmer calls it a “show name,” one he has used for the last three decades or more on TV, radio, and before live crowds with his polka band, the Jolly Joe Timmer Orchestra.

The band has played Musikfest every year since 1984 -- except in 1995 when Timmer wasn't invited. Organizers claimed it was a scheduling mixup, but the crowd wasn’t happy. "They swamped the place,” Timmer says. When they found out Jolly Joe wasn’t playing, “they roared.” This year the band will perform on August 12, at noon and five o’clock.

As the longest running cable program in the nation, the Jolly Joe Timmer Show puts CNN and ESPN to shame. On the air, Joe sits behind a desk, “like Johnny Carson used to,” he says. He shows video clips of patrons dancing to live polka bands at the club. The show is ninety minutes long and airs Thursday at 7:30 on RCN4. Timmer says his dancers travel from as far away as New York and New Jersey, depending on who is playing. When Walter Ostanek played, for instance, many Slovenians from the coal region came to dance.

Timmer has also been on the radio since 1948, when he and a group of musicians asked for air time on WGPA (1100 AM), then owned by Bethlehem’s now defunct Globe-Times. The first time the band auditioned, executives sent them back home to practice. But they made a fast comeback. First they earned fifteen minutes on the air on a Saturday morning, then a half-hour, and finally an hour-long gig --until the band becamce regulars. Now Timmer owns the station itself, which he purchased in 1992. His show runs daily at 11 a.m. and Sundays at 9:30 a.m.

Last April, the radio program was streamed on the Internet. What pleases Jolly Joe most about it is the fact that it reaches shut-ins. "They’d love to be here, but they can’t get out,” he says, “We’re really providing them with a service.”

NATIVE SON

Born in Bethlehem, Timmer is a 1948 graduate of Bethlehem Catholic High School. He still lives in Bethlehem, above Jolly Joe Timmer’s House of Music. His record label is Rave Record Company. The only other job he ever had was shipping plumbing supplies for Sarco Manufacturing Company until 1965 when his father, Joe, died. Then he went full time with polka.

It was at a polka dance (where else?) at the Lincoln Hotel in Bethlehem Township that he met his wife, Dorothy, who is also seventy. The rest is a forty-six-year history. Better known as “Jolly Dottie,” she works the kitchen at the Grove and the cash register at the music store.

“It has been a busy life,” she says, without revealing much of anything else. "If I’m not in the store, I’m cooking food up here [at the Grove]. I iron his shirts for him when he’s on TV. I’d like to slow down a little bit, but he wants to keep going.”

Mindler shares the kitchen. Aged sixty-eight, Theresa is named after their mother, although Mrs. Timmer always went by Grace. Theresa and Joe would accompany their mother on trips to polka dance clubs around the Lehigh Valley in the early 1950s. "[Polka fever] was in the clubs; it was in the ethnicity,” Timmer recalls, “It was all around the Lehigh Valley.”

This was Timmer’s early education. He never had any formal training in music, broadcasting, television, or business, “Nothing.” Timmer says. "I was never a fancy drummer, but I could keep a good beat, and I kept the guys under control.”

These days, he lets a “kid,” Billy Yob, sit in for him with the rest of the band; Dick Doddy on saxophone, clarinet, and trumpet; Ronnie Porotsky on trumpet; Joey Chudyk on accordion; Fred Kitchen on accordion and keyboards; and Steve Doddy on bass. Timmer plays only if he needs to.

“People don’t say much, as long as I’m there,” he says. "Of course, I never thought I’d be doing all these things I’m doing at seventy; and I’m doing more and more. Everything has just fallen into place...This is what turned out...When I was young, there were other things I wanted to be.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“A masseuse,” Timmer says, with a triple laugh. "You get a lot of ideas when you’re young.”

And when you’ve been in the polka public’s eye as long as he has been, you get a lot of attention. This spring, the Pennsylvania Cable Network was at the station to tape a one-hour documentary on his life. Justine Stranz, a Penn State student, even chose Joe as the topic of a paper for a communications class. "I guess in some people’s minds I’m pretty big.” Timmer says.

But not in his own mind: “Oh no,” he confirms.

HOME AT THE GROVE

At the Grove, Timmer says he has seventy-five to one hundred regulars. The cover charge always depends on the band, so tonight patrons pay ten dollars to hear Joe Stanky and the Cadets.

Timmer fills fifteen tables tonight. Normally, he has three times that many guests. In all, there are seven hundred chairs. Timmer attributes poor attendance to the fact that the Lakeside Ballroom in Barnesville, on the outskirts of Tamaqua, is also hosting a polka dance.

“Last week was better,” he says, showing slight frustration. "We can’t be in the red every week. The gas prices are killing us, the DUIs hurt. But at least I don’t owe any money. It’s all paid for. Now, all I have to do is take care of the place.”

Years ago, he filled the hall. "All over the country dancing is down, but polka is never going to die,” he says with confidence. "Polka is happy music, everyone is a friend of a friend. You don’t see any fights or arguments here.” And any disputes that do arise are about who makes the best kielbasa or what makes a particula polka band popular.

THE POLKA VOTE

Jolly Joe is such a natural diplomat that once, against his will, he was coaxed into running for Bethlehem City Council. He did, but he didn’t spend a cent on the campaign and lost. "I told them I wasn’t a politician; I was a musician,” he says.

But these days he’s combining his love of music with politics, at the state level. He’s gunning for legislature that would designate polka music as the “official American folk music of the Commonwealth” (Senate bill number 419, introduced by Senator Lisa Boscola). He’s pushing lots of buttons, but thus far he hasn’t gotten an answer.

The problem is Senator Charles Lemmond, chairman of the State Government Committee, where the legislation has been on the shelf for a year. "I can’t get him to budge,” Timmer says about Lemmond. "He claims he won’t move it off the shelf and take it to the next level because it lacks interest. "Its polka music,” he says. That’s why he doesn’t want to touch it; it’sn ot the majority.”

Timmer has called Lemmond’s office at least seventy-five times. He has spoken to the senator’s wife and knows every office secretary by name. Still, he hasn’t spoken to Lemmond once. In fact, the only reason Lemmond returned a letter, Timmer says, is because Chuck Bednarik -- Bethlehem native, polka aficionado, and Pro Football Hall of Famer -- paid Lemmond a visit in Harrisburg.

All Jolly Joe can do is repeatedly announce Lemmond’s 800-number (800-722-2251) on TV, radio, and the mike at the Grove. “I have a lot of places to plug it,” he says. “I’d love to get that Senate bill passed. I’d love to get it to a vote.”

Lemmond’s term expires in two years, and that gets Joe grinning. He wonders if Lemmond will get the “polka vote” if he’s up for reelection. "They say men live to be seventy-four and women until they’re seventy-nine, so I have four years left. I’ll show him in two years,” he says.

“Everyone is working at it,” chimes in Allentown’s Amy Durgee, an ardent supporter who has circulated a petition. "We’re going to keep working at it. Even after I’m dead, I’ll be saying, ‘Go Joe’ from the coffin.”

On July 13 last year, the State Government Committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives approved a bill declaring the square dance as the state’s official American folk dance” and polka as Pennsylvania’s “official dance.” It has led to quite a dispute.

“Let the square dancers have the dance,” Timmer responds. "Let polka be the official music. Then everyone is happy. Case closed.”

Of course, when Joe opened Lemmond’s one letter, it said “confidential” on it. "I guess he didn’t want me to tell anyone about it,” Timmer says. “Well, GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

Then, he lets go one more hearty trip laugh. LVM

J.F. Pirro is a freelance writer whose work as has appeared in seventy-five magazines and dozens of newspapers.

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