Re: The asterisk

Everett:
> We weren't mean, snide, or snarky to them, but I think the Amish would
> have been better off if we could have gotten that family as far away
> from them as possible.   They were looking at people living their
> lives as if they were exhibits at a cheap roadside attraction, and
> they demanded that we (and the Amish)  perform for them.

I've been asked if Amish is the same as Quaker. I see it as a
teachable moment. In fact, at a wedding at my Meeting, an Amish friend
of the family sat in the back near my husband and me. An out-of-town
family member approached her and said that the family wanted more
members of the Meeting to sit up front. He assumed she was a member
because don't all Quakers wear bonnets?

In your case, it could have been a teachable moment too, because some
folks don't understand that the Amish are NOT re-enactors. Just
saying.

I agree, the Amish aren't roadside attractions, but they're not
saints, either. The history of domestic abuse among the Amish (and Old
Order Mennonites) is never really addressed, for example. No one wants
to think about it because it spoils the pretty picture. So does their
animal abuse, not just livestock, but many puppy mill owners are Amish
or OOM, at least around here.

They take care of themselves pretty well, actually. A lot of the kids
are expert at fleecing people who want to take their pictures. When
Walmart wanted to come in on Lincoln Highway E in an area with a lot
of Amish farms, there was much tooth-gnashing and pearl-clutching
about "What about the Amish?" After the Walmart was built, it was
found that on some days, you couldn't turn a corner without tripping
over an Amish family. As one Amishman put it "Amish women would go to
the moon if they could get a bargain there."

I stopped seeing Amish as sacred cows long ago, shortly after an
Amishwoman in the library who demanded to know where all the
Babysitter Club books were. It brought home to me that they were
people just visiting this planet, just like me.

When my sister's family lived in Lewisburg one summer, they said that
the best Chinese food in the area was at a market stall run by an
Amish family. I guess you could say that that was an Amish family with
a distinctive wok.

Wokka, wokka,
Donna

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You can call yourself whatever you want; it's what you do that matters.