From the Buffalo News: Dyngus Day a big hit in the heart of Polonia: Polish parade fills revelers, marchers with ethnic pride, hope for future

By 5 p. m. Monday, revelers stood six deep at Gibson and Sinkiewicz streets, which sounded and felt like a mini-Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

People in red T-shirts with white letters proclaiming —You bet your pierogis I’m Polish,— —Whip me, squirt me,— —Who stole the kiszka— and —I stole the kiszka——”many of them with a beer in one hand and a pussy willow sprig in the other —” whooped and cheered as Buffalo’s third annual Dyngus Day Parade rounded the corner on its way through the heart of Polonia.

Their enthusiasm was matched by the marchers and folks riding floats, flatbed trailers and cars, who danced the polka, tossed candy and occasionally a loaf of rye bread and sprayed the crowd with water blasters.

—This is the best day ever!— declared Christine Galey, 22, of Hamburg, who came to the Polish East Side not quite knowing what to expect, after reading online about this yearly celebration of a formerly obscure ethnic tradition.

—I think it’s better than St. Patrick’s Day,— opined Galey, who despite her Irish last name said she is of Polish and French- Canadian descent. —I knew it was a celebration, but I didn’t know it was one of the biggest Dyngus Day events anywhere.—

That it is —” and getting bigger by the year, said organizers Marty Biniasz and —Airborne Eddie— Dobosiewicz, who have turned what began in 1961 as a fundraiser for the Chopin Singing Society into a community-wide festival known as Dyngus Day Buffalo.

For the uninitiated, Dyngus Day is an unofficial Polish- American holiday, observed with pussy willows and squirt guns, marking the end of Lent, the solemn 40 days of prayer and self-denial leading up to Easter.

More than 75 units and hundreds of participants lined up outside Corpus Christi Catholic Church on Clark Street for the parade, which wound through the historic neighborhood at a deliberate pace, passing Broadway Market and the Adam Mickewicz Library and Dramatic Circle on Fillmore Avenue before turning back to Central Terminal, site of the largest Dyngus party.

—Never underestimate the power of the pussy willow,— Dobosiewicz quipped as he and Biniasz walked behind a float near the end of the parade route…

The biggest celebrations of Dyngus Day in the U.S. take place in Buffalo and in Sandusky, Ohio. For more on the original tradition see Smigus Dyngus and other Polish old Easter Traditions at Polishsite or the Wikipedia article on Easter Monday.