It was not foreign to me. I had heard about it before. However, until I experienced Amish country first hand on a trip to Ohio, I never understood its simple beauties.
In the heart of Ashland County, time stands still. The Amish live without electricity or telephones, ride in horse-drawn buggies and wear plain clothes. Despite the perimeter of peaceful greenery, surrounded by modern cities, and crowded freeways, they maintain the lifestyle of their European ancestors who arrived in America during the 1700s.
We traveled the winding rural roads where a black-covered, horse drawn buggy approached us. We met eyes. The woman in the buggy, dressed in a simple white dress and bonnet, sat next to her husband who held the reigns in his black trousers, a buttoned down white shirt with suspenders and a straw hat. As we passed, the differences were apparent.
“Look,” I exclaimed, pointing to a sign. “It says they’re selling fresh strawberries.”
We stopped. An Amish man greeted us and led us inside his modest home. Lined across the front porch were several pairs of children’s shoes. Containers holding giant red berries filled a table. It was so quiet. There was no television blaring in the living room, no music pounding from an upstairs bedroom, and no computer games mesmerizing his children. For a moment, I pictured how lovely such basic silence would be. We paid for two pints of strawberries and left.
However, as we drove past more farmhouses lining the road on our way out, I spotted an Amish man standing with some customers and talking on a cell phone. A sign posted on a tree next to his driveway read “Horses For Sale.”
While seeing this puzzled me, I did not ask for an answer until I reached the hotel and asked the desk clerk while we were checking out, “Are the Amish allowed to have cell phones?”
To my surprise, she informed me that her husband worked in a cell phone store and the Amish made up a large part of his customer base. She said that certain members of the Amish community had accepted the use of cell phones to enhance their earnings.
On the drive back to Florida, I pondered how these people who shunned our materialistic lifestyle, had borrowed a sliver of our conveniences while remaining true to their beliefs. I wondered if, in turn, we should borrow a bit of their simplicity. Then, my daughter in the back seat interrupted my thoughts by calling out, “There’s a McDonald’s.”
Her sister had fallen asleep listening to music on her Ipod, and I pulled into the parking lot realizing my “what if” thinking would have to wait.
“Welcome to McDonald’s….may I take your order?”;