Friday, September 17, 1999
The pinnacle of polkas
Blue Ash man's Orange Barrel parody just had a 'good feeling'
BY JOHN JOHNSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Road construction chaos has caused many Tristate residents to sing the orange-barrel blues. John Bunyan, however, is prepared to polka.
Mr. Bunyan, a 44-year-old certified public accountant from Blue Ash, is the winner of Tempo's Orange Barrel Polka contest. In all, 78 people participated by rewriting the lyrics to “The Beer Barrel Polka.” The contest is our salute to Oktoberfest, which begins Saturday downtown.
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AND THE WINNER IS ...
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THE ORANGE BARREL POLKA
Lyrics by John Bunyan
There is road rage, on the highways
When it's orange barrel season
First through three lanes you'll be breezin'
Then to one lane, you'll be squeezin'
Cars are swerving, cars are merging
Drivers' blood pressure is surging
Amidst the litter and the road kill
The orange barrels sprout
Every time they see construction zones
Drivers feel a pain in their tailbones
And where the lanes go they can't tell
It's one of Dante's rings of hell (holly-jolly-hell)
Three weeks later they are finally freed
A sign says (HA HA HA HA) “resume your legal speed”
Then all at once their gas runs out
(Not a thing can be done about it
because the exits are closed)
So in their road rage they all shout:
Chorus:
Throw out the barrels
We won't wait 'til construction is done
Throw out the barrels
Set free I-71
It's an orange reign of terror
The barrels have just got to go
Now it's time to throw the barrels
In the O-hi-o
(Spoken: Take them away, boys!)
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Rather than roll out the barrels, Mr. Bunyan's lyrics would have us “throw out the barrels” and their accompanying “orange reign of terror.”
“Song parodies are right up my alley,” says Mr. Bunyan, who in his spare time writes for WLW funnyman Gary Burbank. “And I have experience with orange barrels.”
That comes from motoring up and down congested Interstate 71 between Blue Ash and Lucas Sumitomo Brakes in Lebanon, where Mr. Bunyan is controller. Putting his feelings into song lyrics, he says, is one way to maintain his sanity.
Erich Kunzel, conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, deemed Mr. Bunyan's entry the best. The maestro once lived in Greenwich, Conn., and had as a neighbor Lew Brown, who penned the lyrics to “The Beer Barrel Polka.”
“It had good poetry, good rhyme,” Mr. Kunzel said of Mr. Bunyan's entry. “It just had a good feeling to it.”
But the maestro doesn't have a good feeling about orange barrels. As he presented Mr. Bunyan with his prize — a brand-new orange barrel — Mr. Kunzel recounted difficulties he'd had the night before with local road closings.
As for those orange barrels, “I felt like knocking them all in the Ohio River.”
Mr. Bunyan, a married father of one, hasn't decided what to do with his barrel. It's hollow, so it could be turned upside down and filled with beer, he notes. Or, “I can reserve parking spaces with it,” he says. Then again, “I might have to set it up for my neighbors to take out their revenge on orange barrels.”
Indeed, if this contest proved anything, it's that construction delays have peeved plenty of people.
Steve Fagaly, 38, of Fairfield, wrote:
Run down the barrels, we'll have a barrel of fun.
Run down the barrels, knock over ever last one.
Paul Anson, 48, of Hyde Park, titled his entry “The Demon Barrel Polka.” It begins:
Mow down the barrels, a pleasure that's second to none!
Mow down the barrels, troopers should join in the fun!
Crash Boom I Gotcha!
Oh, NO! Here comes the police!
“Now it's time to pull your car over ...
"Cause my name's Si Leis!”
Barrel-bashing was a popular theme. Gary Sogar's chorus takes a slightly different tack:
Burn all the barrels! Then they'd be barrels of fun!
If we don't burn them, they'll stay till 2001.
All you officials, come down and drive with us here.
Then you would be sure to finish by this time next year.
Mr. Sogar, 46, works in Norwood. Driving home to Florence each day on Fort Washington Way is “a headache that is beyond description,” he says. Had he won our orange-barrel prize, he would have “put it in a place where it deserves to be: by the curb on garbage pick-up day.”
Keith Stichtenoth, 41, of Forest Park, says he's had plenty of orange-barrel encounters over the years on I-75.
Crawl past the barrels, I feel my mood turning sour
Crawl past the barrels, I'm doing 10 miles an hour
Drive at your peril
It is much worse than you fear
Curse the day they made orange barrels
I may die right here
(spoken: Tow me away, boys!)
Kathy Derischebourg, 41, of Loveland, endures orange barrels on I-71.
Drive 'round the barrel, try to keep track where you are
Drive 'round the barrel, bump it and you'll scratch your car
Left, right, you're cruising
Pretending you're Unser (or not)
Now it's time to drive 'round the barrel
As they fix the pot
(spoken: holes in the ground, folks)
Joe Roberdeau, 47, of Delhi Township took some literary license with his polka. He hasn't really been rear-ended, but wrote:
Roll out the barrels, we'll have a barrel of grief.
Roll out the barrels, commutes no longer are brief.
Crash Boom Kablooie
My car just got hit in the rear
Now's the time to call the tow truck
Can't get it in gear.
(spoken: Tow it away boys!)
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