I see Amish people....

This long weekend I went back out to Western PA (capital W because it's apparently quite important which airport you fly into) to visit Jeff and family.  We took a day and saw... AMISH PEOPLE (insert Sixth Sense music here).  In all seriousness, it was interesting.  I was torn between feeling like a tourist (LOOK!  BUGGIES!) and not wanting to treat a peaceful faith community like I was going to the zoo.

I'm not sure I landed on the right side of that argument... We traveled in Jeff's convertible Miata, top down, sunglasses on, and probably got sighs from the Amish adults, and definitely got stares from the Amish children.  One thing we also got were smiles, which was a pleasant surprise.  I've done a little Amish research since then, and will supply it here.  First stop, the phone shanty.

I was really excited to see a phone shanty.  Reasoning:  I'm really into thinking about why people do what they do, and about a decade ago I started watching a series on ABC called "A Brave New World" starring Ted Koppel and my favorite newscaster, Robert Krulwich about the pace of life (hence the name of that episode).  Why do we pursue speed?  Is it good for us?  What does time mean to us?  It's an amazing series... and on my Christmas list.  :)  Anyway, they talked about the Amish phone shanty.

According to Amish News, the phone shanty was created to keep bothersome phones out of the house, and is/was shared between several neighbors.  Technology is not necessarily forbidden, but carefully pondered to make sure it doesn't weaken family and community structure.  Phones take one away from face-to-face conversation, and promote individualism. According to www.padutchcountry.com,

The use of the "community phone" or "phone shanty" was permitted beginning in the 1950s, when more Amish were forced to go into businesses and hotels to use phones for emergency purposes and to contact doctors, dentists, veterinarians and food dealers. This community phone building, which often resembles an outhouse, is typically built at the end of a farm lane and shared by several neighboring families. The objective of this concept was to allow access, but maintain distance. Hence, the phone is not in the house and the number is unlisted, to be used essentially for necessary outgoing calls, not socializing.

Our next find was a buggy.  They were everywhere, actually- I was surprised.  They come to the markets quite a bit, it seems, and they're no longer typically made of wood.  Many are made of fiberglass.

Yep.  An Amish buggy.  At a gas station.

After tooling around town some, we went quilt hunting and found a farmstand instead.  I felt a little bad about the flashy car, but it was a great day for it.  The woman running the farmstand took one look at the 8 yr-old driving the draft horses and said in a German accent, "that's too much horse for that little boy."

So, I have no idea if the food we got was organic.  But those Amish grow some amazing veggies.  The summer squash was crayola yellow.  The cukes were huge.  The zucchini we got lasted 3 days.  We ate it raw, grilled, with dip... and it was all cheaper than the supermarket.  The woman was pleasant, but uncomfortable.  I had a lot of questions, and she didn't really seem much in the mood for an interview.  I stole a pic and we left to look at....

Wheat!!  We never did find the rugs, but wheat sheaves were awesome.  All tied by hand into little tee-pees to dry. Fields and fields of it.

 
If they allowed pride, they'd have entered a sheave into the Big Butler Fair for judging...or maybe a bale of hay.  But that's a whole other entry altogether.  ;-)

Learn more about the Amish here.  It was a really neat trip.