Once a year, the citizens of DuBois get together to celebrate their Polish heritage. The results are interesting, to say the least

DUBOIS - The kids leap against the wire fence, hooting and screaming like they're at a baseball game. As for the cow, a one-year-old milking shorthorn named Cleo, she's passive about the day's events.

In fact, she probably doesn't give a crap what's going on at all.

However, her crap will be a deciding factor for the rest of them.

There are 500 squares, each sold for $5. In the end, she will soil at least one of them, possibly more, in this game affectionately called "cow pie bingo." Of the about 250 citizens of the small town of DuBois, north on Route 51, somewhere around 30 are gathered in the shivering cold to observe and commentate.

Five-hundred dollars will go to the one who bought the winning square.

There is something at stake here for all of them.

"I don't know who came up with this," said George Nadolski, an Ashley native and owner of Nadolski Milking Shorthorns who brought Cleo for the game, on the origins of the event. "It's like a special attraction. It can be a minute or it can be four hours."

Nadolski's son analyzes it one step further.

"It's a chance, like a lottery," Gerald said. "Polish people get amused easily."

Perhaps so, but if the festivities last Sunday for the town's 9th annual Casimir Pulaski Day Polishfest are any indication, it takes a lot to keep them amused. Like any town in mid-America, DuBois has its town festival, regardless of its size. Polishfest and its rather eclectic events have become a yearly tradition for the citizens here, and through it residents of DuBois and nearby Ashley say they get a sense of both community and a common heritage.

"It's a Polish community," said Betz Nowakowski, who served as DuBois' mayor from 1993 to 1997, on the town's predominant cultural origin. "If they're not Polish, they want to be."

There's a statement not heard all that often. However, in DuBois, the opportunity to celebrate comes around each year at Casimir Pulaski Day, the only holiday that really reaches out to the Polish community. Forget the widespread stories about Pulaski, a Revolutionary War commander, that say he was nothing more than Ben Franklin's mercenary; here, it doesn't matter.

All that does matter is eating some Polish food, drinking a lot of beer and just having a good time.

"It's a pretty good time," said non-Polish Pinckneyville native Gary Porter, who regularly comes to the festival. "I come over every year. It's just fun."

The day's events begin with a "polka mass" at the town's St. Charles Church at 10 a.m. Afterward, the warm smells of Polish sausage and sauerkraut can be caught wafting from the open doors of the church's parish center, where folks can get lunch before going to the 1 p.m. parade.

At the parade, the day comes colorfully to life. The rumble of fire trucks and the hollers of children are a sharp contrast to the snow murmuring from the sky; it's cold, but no one seems to care. A half dozen Polish veterans march in step under flags dangling from light poles; children rush for candy thrown from ambulances.

For the citizens of DuBois, it all amounts to a good time.

From there, the celebration passes to the bar at the end of town or to an otherwise featureless picnic shelter. There, Cleo is pacing slowly. She's deliberately munching her gums, moping along quietly and looking her spectators calmly in the eye. In the past, this has been known to go on for hours. One year, it had long grown dark and cold before the awaited movement of bowels finally came.

This year, though, it was a quick win.

Nineteen minutes from the start, a steaming mass worked its way out into the middle of two squares.

A quorum of onlookers, one of whom poked at the bulk with his boot checking for texture, agreed that the win went to square 301. The winner wasn't present at the time, but the prize was still hers.

And, with that, the Nadolskis turn to the rest of the spectators, put their hands in their pockets and talk about the weather.