Names

My almost-daily walks are always interesting.  As I high-stepped up the Zuercher Rd hill this afternoon it was chilly and breezy.  Quite a bit different than the hot days of summer when I’d wait until evening before heading out.  Often the wind comes from a westerly direction and the wooded area beside the road blocks it until I reach the open fields just past Amish Hershberger’s lane.  Today the wind was coming out of the south east, so it was cold all the way.  Near the top of the hill is simple one-room Amish schoolhouse followed by a corn field that was still being put up in shocks today by some of the same Amish youth who just last Sunday made my day interesting with their boom boxes.   

Cresting the hill I quickened my pace and soon reached Amish driveways on both sides of the road with mailboxes for the Stutzman and Hershberger families.  The Stutzman's house is close to the road, and they often have the laundry hanging on the porch and another couple lines out close to the road.  Today the clothes flapped ecstatically in the breeze.  Towels, wash rags, shirts, dresses, barn-door pants, socks and sheets.  It suddenly hit me that, as often as I’ve seen clothes hanging there, I’ve never seen underwear.  Hmmm.  Not that it matters to me, but it makes me wonder.

The mailboxes stirred some thoughts about other long German and Swiss names we have around our little home town.  I think Neuenschwander is perhaps the lengthiest.  First time I heard it, I thought someone was kidding.  Back where I come from in Elida, Ohio, Mennonites have names like Bear, Brunk, Bucher, Crisenbery, Good, Heatwole, Hartman, Ross, Smith and Stemen, with the occasional Troyer or Yoder who had wandered in from other places.  Come to think of it, all the Mennonites around Elida wandered in from other places.  Most of them have roots in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, leaving there during and following the Civil war.  Elida has good land - black fertile soil that my agrarian ancestors loved to farm.   

I don’t regret being born at Elida.  It’s a good place to be from, but sometimes a better place to leave, and that’s what my family did when I was twelve years old.  We headed east to Wayne County when Dad was called into the ministry.  And that’s when I began hearing these strange-to-me names - names like Neuenschwander.  Fourteen letters.   More of a sentence than a name, I thought.  

Within a few years one of the pretty Neuenschwander girls from the south end of Kidron caught my eye.  We were Seniors at Central Christian High School.  It was 1970.  We were married two-and-half years later.  But I’ve always been slightly uneasy about Juanita’s motives for marrying me.  She was able to cut 10 letters from her last name.  This is more important than you might think at first glance.  This has saved her so much time signing her name that she’s been able to piece several additional quilt tops.  And she’s avoided hand-writer’s cramps and carpal tunnel.  (You’re welcome, my love.)

With the wind to my back, and 3 more miles under my belt, I returned to our cozy home on Jericho Rd, where my patient wife, and my children and grand-children from Michigan and North Carolina were filling the house with love and laughter.

It would be difficult to think of any place I’d rather be right now than Kidron, Ohio, where the men are homely, but steadily improving, the women are beautiful for the most part, and nearly all of the children come back home - at least for the holidays.

Amish Day of Jubilee

We've long ago gotten used to Amish buggies with boom boxes loudly playing anything from country to rock-a-billy, hip hop, and acid rock.  It most often occurs very late at night and wakes us from our deep sleep as they go clippity clopping past our house.  It’s the youth, of course, and they’re enjoying rumspringa.  

Today took it to a new level.  Must be the Amish Day of Jubilee, or maybe today they just get a Mulligan.  I was trying to have a Sunday afternoon nap, but alas what seemed like a continual stream of buggies and boom boom booms with boisterous youth singing along to the music, brought me from my fitful slumber.

Ah well, too nice a day to waste anyway.  Weather-wise, such a nice mild reprieve from the cold wintry weather of the last few days.  A brisk 3-mile walk was in order.  Headed east on Jericho, rounded the corner onto Zuercher south, and began hiking up the long slope past Augspurgers at a fast pace, hoping to clear the plaque out of these aging arteries.  Walking is good for that.  Have been doing that almost daily since spring, and the hill isn't nearly as steep as it used to be.

Presently, I hear this loud music coming up the hill behind me.  Country it was - Shania Twain I believe - and singing along were a couple young ladies of the Swartzentruber variety.  Sorta surprised me to hear the young ladies, as it’s usually the young men who raise their voices with great abandon and a complete lack of inhibition.   

Now, to add to the charm of the moment, coming towards me from the other direction was another Swartzentruber buggy with an older couple behind the wheel.. er... horse.  The occupants looked rather grim it seemed, as they passed me.  This should be interesting, I thought.  Will the girls cut the music until the old folks are past?  Nope!  Contrary to my own youthful ways of hiding contraband, they cranked that boom box to a wild new level.   Shania Twain sang at the top of her lungs as the buggies passed one another… “The best thing about being a woman, is the prerogative to have a little fun, oh oh oh, go totally crazy, forget I’m a lady,men’s shirts, short skirts, oh oh oh, really go wild, yeah”.   The Amish girls were obviously relishing their moment of freedom as they continued singing their way past me, grinning blissfully and shamelessly. And then the buggy with the boom box disappeared over the hill, and I am left with a memory and a smile.

I continued on then, and by the time I reached Western Rd, the sounds were coming towards me from due east.  Couldn't even see the source.  But it wasn't long until they appeared.  This time it was a buggy full of teen-age boys, and as they passed me, they leaned out and waved crazily.  Probably under the influence of something that they were too young to consume.  But the strangest part is that they all had their faces painted completely black.  Jet black.

I’m afraid there’s gonna be some wild partying tonight.  And probably a lot of bundling to go along with it.   That’s the way of the Swartzies, as we call them.  Sunday night is date night, and young men don’t go home until morning.  

Ah yes, this is the life and times in Kidron Ohio, where all the men are homely, all the women are beautiful, and most of the children will come back home.