A couple of times on this board I’ve seen people mention that they have had issues or problems with their Amish neighbors. Now, I live in CA, and my knowledge of the Amish comes almost entirely from the few books I’ve read, which invariably seem to idealize them somewhat. It’s always a fairly romanticized image, where the people are serene, love the land and their families, and find fulfillment in living in 19th-century style–and it always makes me kinda suspicious. Nobody’s life is that romantic and serene.
I have plenty of respect for the belief system–heck, I belong to what many people consider an oddball religion myself–but I’m curious as to what real-life Amish culture/interaction with the Amish is like. Can anyone give me a non-soft-focus image?
and Almish, as Scylla called them when he was new. His nick wasn’t Scylla, either, so don’t go by username.
I live in Iowa, and there is a small Amish population. They make the papers every once in a while, for various things. Horse & Buggy vs. Car is a popular one, and you can guess the outcome. There’s also occasional bits about drugs, including but not limited to alcohol.
As for the mennonite, my best friend in high school was the son of a mennonite pastor, and we got along really well. It took us a couple years to calm him down, but we never once got into any fights about me and George (another firend) being atheists. Lunch hour discussions were certainly interesting at times. He and his family were lapsed or banned or outside the church for political reasons or something like that, so he may not have been representative of the general mennonite population.
Haven’t talked to him in a long while… I should hunt down an address.
I’m originally from an area about 45 minutes from Lancaster County, PA, which of course has quite a sizeable Amish population. Now, not having lived immediately in their midst, I can’t really offer any insight into what they’re like on a daily basis. However, I’ll give you a few of the bigger gripes I’ve heard:
They are godawfully annoying on the roads. I once saw one of their %$% buggies on a 4-LANE DIVIDED HIGHWAY in Eastern PA. You know, a highway - with exit ramps, speed limit 55, etc. The buggy was not doing 55. Incredibly hazardous. And on the regular streets, very often you can’t get past them. My father, who drives a tractor trailer through the area several times a week, just loves 'em.
Their farming practices are outdated and environmentally unfriendly. Amish farmers get those horses out and turn up the ground with a big ol’ plowshare every spring, rather than using a disc or toothed harrow like modern farmers do. They do not, in general, plow along the contour of the land. And, they fertilize with animal manure. The result is that plenty of Lancaster County’s rich topsoil has eroded over the years, and it has taken with it lots of feces. All of that winds up in the Chesapeake Bay eventually, which has HUGE environmental problems with sedimentation and dangerous bacteria, which is destroying habitats for the edible sea creatures that are the backbone of the Eastern Maryland economy - to the point where a couple of years back there was a warning not to eat shellfish in Baltimore, because of bacterial contamination. (To be fair, the bacterial problems have equally as much to do with human overpopulation and poor sanitation of upstream areas. But sedimentation, that’s almost entirely the Amish at this point.)
Their kids can be out of control. They actually have to elect to be Amish as they enter adulthood - as teenagers, they get to have cars, stereos, whatever. Often they use the time to experiment and/or raise a little hell, much to the consternation of the neighbors.
Wow! In Southern Maryland we have a large Mennonite popoulation. They are nothing but gracious. When a local house burned down, many of the Mennonite community volunteered their time to rebuild the house.
With the recent tornado in La Plata, Maryland, many of the volunteer workers are Mennonite.
Sure they drive their buggies and their horses leave “biscuits” on the side of the road, but I sure can’t fault them for their religious beliefs.
Okay, now I’m intrigued – whereabouts are you originally from? I’m an ex-Reading-ite myself.
Apart from occasionally encountering their buggies on back roads (I haven’t seen any on the highways, personally), my experience with the Amish is limited. I get far more annoyed by the people who’ve turned them into little more than cartoon characters for their own exploitation (Come to Lancaster County! Amishland! Buy shoddily-made pseudo-Amish tourist crap!").
My sister has had some furniture made by a local Amish craftsman. I can’t say much about their farming, but the Amish carpentry work I’ve seen (from this guy and others) has been stunning.
Although not all Amish people subscribe to that whole non-violence thing. I mean, what about that “Amish Enrico” guy who killed all those people in Japan in the subway a few years ago? What was up with that? Couldn’t get his horse and buggy down the stairs?
I’ve worked alongside them when I was younger, and I live near them now. They’re just people. Some better, some worse. OK, so they drive buggies, so what? In general, if you’re obeying the traffic laws, the buggies are no big deal. Now and again, you’ll see a buggy do somthing stupid, but then, who ever said us automobile drivers were all that safe of sane, either? In general, when you hear about car vs. buggy, it 's the car driver’s fault. Generally for doing something illegal or stupid (not always, but usually).
Annoying? No more than other people, and often less so.
I’m sorry, but I live in Toronto and I just have to laugh at anyone who complains about Amish buggies. I’m nearly killed ten times a week by shitwits in Civics and Canyoneros who weave randomly, speed through red lights, run trough pedestrian crosswalks, cut you off on the freeway and just generally drive like maniacs. Drunk drivers kill 400 people a year in Ontario; how many are slain by drunk buggy drivers? Send me the Amish, as many as you can, as long as I get to send you those idiots with spoilers on their pickup trucks who do 100km/h down residential streets.
Leave them alone, they’re just people. No better and no worse than anyone else. They have a right to live the way they please.
[hijack]If you apply for a change in username, the board seems to change your old posts to your current name, so searching in that way should work.[/hijack]
Scylla is probably gone today, as he’s moving. This probably means an end to his Amish rants, too.
The issue with Amish buggies is simply their speed, RickJay. I’m all for allowing people to live as they please, but slow-moving vehicles can be extremely dangerous in certain areas. Yes, we know that people in cars cause many accidents, but that’s the fault of the driver more than the mode of transportation. An Amish buggy that isn’t well-lit, and travelling 15 mph in a 45 zone, is certainly a hazard.
Other than that, I have no real beefs with the Amish. I think it’s fairly interesting that such a sect exists in modern-day America.
Yep, they can fly on planes, travel by train, ride in cars…as long as someone else is driving/piloting. They are not allowed to operate such equipment themselves. As mentioned, there are different degrees of strictness too. I recently spent a week among the Amish in Shipshewana, In., and that was my first exposure to the Amish…I had a million questions. I looked up some websites to get more info on the Amish, here’s a FAQ.
The area I was in had nice wide shoulders on the roads, so I never got annoyed. The buggies could get far enough off the road, no worse than bikers or joggers anyways.
In addition to their antiquated farming methods, the Amish in Pennsylvania were recently indicated as being particularly active in puppy milling. If they cleaned up their acts in these two regards, I can’t imagine that anyone would have a problem with them.
I’m probably setting myself up for a “whoosh” here, but you do know that Shoko Asahara’s group that carried out those terrorist attacks was called Aum Shinrikyo (aka Supreme Truth) not Amish Enrico and has nothing to do with the Pennsylvania Amish?
Crazy. I was reading through old threads a few weeks ago and his posts were still under his old username. Someone must have noticed recently and changed it.
“Puppy mills” are dog breeding businesses, often run as a one-man company by a farmer to earn extra income. Think bad conditions for the animals, overbreeding, and sickly puppies that get sold to unscrupulous pet stores. They are now illegal in many places, including Pennsylvania.
I grew up in Lancaster County and my parents and some other relatives still live there. I don’t get annoyed with “the Amish” (though certain individuals, such as those who run puppy mills, or don’t show common courtesy when driving their buggies, annoy me, just as a non-Amish person being cruel to animals or driving inconsiderately annoys me), but I get annoyed with the romantic notions some people have of “the Amish”. They’re not greener-than-Greenpeace, for one thing; they believe God gave mankind dominion over the animals, which is quite a different thing. And yes, I do believe there’s a connection between that religious doctrine and the puppy mill problem. Last time I was there, however, the puppy mills were being closed down - sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not, but they were being closed.
I’m kind of thinking along the lines of comparing with myself and others. I belong to a church which does in fact require some strict obedience and a certain lifestyle, and some sacrifice. Strong family values, and so on. All the same, though we do believe we’re doing the right thing, that doesn’t mean that we’re always happy and fulfilled and serene in presiding over our laughter-filled homes. Some of us want to get married and can’t. Some want children and can’t have them. Many struggle to feed their families. Some would really kind of prefer not to have as many kids as others do, but feel that they should. We don’t always wanna do all the stuff that our religion requires, like spending lots of time on service or visiting people we don’t really like or spending our Saturday helping people move (last night, mr. genie got home at 10.30pm from work, only to get a message that a family needs to be moved tomorrow–24 hours notice for a holiday weekend. Thanks, guys! And we’re not even allowed to cuss about it…).
So, from the soft-focus things I’ve read, I feel like I’m getting a false image. Don’t any Amish women ever feel like we do? Aren’t there any Amish men who secretly want to be computer progammers, but feel that it would be wrong and so sacrifice that ambition to their religion, and usually are OK with that, except sometimes when it’s really hot and they hate farming and don’t care if they never see another horse again?
Maybe this was the wrong place to come to, but I don’t know of any others.
