Broken Roads

by Ira Wagler

  I looked at the slip of paper and shrugged. This was about the last thing I needed, some Amish guy tracking me down. I had just broken away a few short years back. I knew plenty of Amish people, even a few I still considered my friends. Why would I want to get to know any more? I pitched the number. Didn’t return Elmer’s call. He’d go away if I ignored him, I figured. Another nosy Amish man with all kinds of invasive questions. No way, I wasn’t playing that game. He probably wanted to admonish me for leaving. Tell me to go back, to “straighten up and settle down” where I should be, back in Bloomfield, Iowa, where my family was. The place I had fled. I didn’t want to hear it. Not this time. That song had been played too many times. No more, I would listen to it no more.

  And a week or so later, another message. Emma smiled almost apologetically and told me as I walked in, exhausted, from a hard day’s work. Elmer had called again. Insisted that he wanted to see me. Again, I shrugged. Who was this wacko Amish man? So persistent. Well, I could be persistent, too. And again, I pitched the phone-shack number. Ignored the man.

  And then Elmer unlimbered the big guns. He didn’t call Emma again. Oh, no. He waited, craftily, until evening the next time he called, about a week later. I don’t remember who answered the phone. But it was for me. It was Elmer. The Amish guy.

  I gave up right then. Any man that persistent at least deserved an answer directly from me. So I walked into the front room, kind of a parlor. Took the phone. “Hello.”

  And a calm, pleasant voice spoke. Precisely stating the words. “Good evening. This is Elmer. Is this Ira?”

  “Yes, it is.” A few brief polite pleasantries.

  “Hey, would you stop by some Saturday soon? We would love to meet you, my wife and I.”

  And there I stood, stuck. No. I don’t want to meet you. No. I don’t need to be admonished by any new Amish “friends.” But I couldn’t just say that. Too rude. So I hedged. “Yeah, that might work. What did you have in mind?” Of course, the following Saturday afternoon suited Elmer just fine. And, of course, I had nothing else planned. So, reluctantly, I agreed. “Where do you live?”

  “It’s simple,” Elmer claimed. “We live just off the highway.” And he gave me specific directions.

  “OK,” I promised. “I’ll be there this Saturday afternoon.”

  “I look forward to meeting you,” he said.

  I mumbled something incoherent in response. We hung up.

  That Saturday afternoon, I headed out shortly after one. In my old T-Bird. It’s hard to describe just how ugly that car was. Not the shape, necessarily. But the color. Tan gold. It was just gag-me awful. I haven’t owned that many vehicles in my lifetime, but I have owned two of the ugliest colors in the spectrum. The old avocado-green Dodge. And that awful tan-gold T-Bird. Other than the color, though, the T-Bird was a decent car. It got me to where I was going, for a good many years. As a destitute student. So I guess I should honor it a little more.

  I drove down the crowded two-lane highway toward Lancaster. Turned right onto Elmer’s road. A mile or two in, then I turned into his drive. Nice place. Clean as a whistle, like most Amish places in Lancaster County. Not even a wayward leaf on the ground anywhere. Neat freaks, like all Lancaster Amish people. I parked. Got out and walked toward the house. Strangely, I wasn’t particularly nervous. This meeting was coming down, and it would be what it would be.

  Elmer met me at the door. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. Then he welcomed me into his home. I walked in. Met his smiling wife, Naomi, and their clan of quiet children. All of them milled about. I scanned the room, amazed. Stacks of books were strewn about everywhere. Not fluff books, either. Literature. Theology. Bestsellers. I was instantly impressed. And as I looked into their faces, I suddenly knew that they were genuinely happy that I was there, in their home. It wasn’t just their smiles. It was their eyes. There was no hint of judgment in them. None. Nothing but pure honest joyful welcome. I didn’t know such a thing even existed in the Amish world.

  And that was my first taste of how it can be, and how it could have been so much earlier in my world. To be accepted as I was, for who I was, by someone from my background, my culture. Truly accepted. And truly welcomed. There was not a shade of a cloud of any reservation. None. I don’t think I could quite grasp, quite wrap my head around what that meant to me in that moment.

  I won’t claim that I was suddenly magically relieved of my resentment toward the Amish in general right then. I wasn’t. I won’t claim that I decided right then that Lancaster County would be my future home. I didn’t. I was a rolling stone. Heading off to Bob Jones University in South Carolina that fall. I had no idea where I’d end up. I didn’t think ahead that much. I was focused only on working summers to earn enough to survive another year of college without loading up on too much crushing debt. I’d settle where I’d settle, when the time came.

  I will say that when I met Elmer and his family, that was my first real taste of people from my culture who embraced me, even though I had chosen to walk away. And that was a profound and startling thing to me. A minor miracle. To realize that such people could exist. I thought I knew the Amish as a group, and all their mind-sets. I didn’t. Because I had never been exposed to certain elements of the Lancaster County Amish before.

  The blue bloods came through. That’s all I can say. They fully deserve the status they claim for themselves. They are the real thing. What the Amish could be and should be.

  That said, they’re not all like Elmer and his family, the Lancaster Amish. Not nearly all. Even here, most are more like the type of Amish I knew growing up. Especially down south. South-enders, we call them. They tend to be a little more hard-core, a little more Plain. I can usually tell when I meet them. Who they are and what they are. By how they look. I can sense their spirit. And tell who they are from certain shadows in their eyes.

  That was many years ago, when Elmer finagled me into coming to his home. After that first time, the place became a regular Saturday-afternoon stop for me. I soon developed a deep, quiet friendship with the whole family. Off and on, I’ve been there, a character in their lives as the children grew into adults. Married now, almost all of them, with children of their own. There were a few stretches through the years when I lost contact for a while, but I always circled back. Back to a zone of comfort that welcomed me, that offered shelter from the storms. Back to real true friends.

  And in time, my mind relaxed as well. My journey looped back, back to my roots. And I settled in where there was comfort and support. I will never be accepted as a true Lancastrian. No one not born here is. But I’m settled, in my head. This is my home. Today, some of my closest friends are Old Order Amish. Right here around me in Lancaster County.

  It might make sense, or it might make no sense, to those who have broken away from restrictive religious backgrounds. That I hang so close to the culture that caused so much pain. It might be mostly an Amish thing, I don’t know. Years ago, my oldest brother, Joseph, was traveling by bus somewhere through Texas. At the bus station in some big city, a guy walked up to him. Completely English. Spoke to him in broken Pennsylvania Dutch. He had left the culture decades before. Lost pretty much all contact with his roots. And sometimes he randomly drove over to the bus station just to see if some Amish people might be passing through. And that day, Joseph was. They visited for a while, and the guy left. Still then, years later, he could not deny his longing for some connection to his culture. Something in his heart moved him to do what he did. There is no way to really disconnect, however much one might want to.

  I chose to circle back, to live among them, the Amish. I could have chosen not to, and that would have been perfectly OK as well. I certainly don’t live like them or follow their lifestyle. Couldn’t do that if I tried. And I have no desire to. When I go “home” to visit, I stay in a motel. Because after spending the day in what used to be my world, I’m always quite ready to return to modern conveniences.

  My people and my culture will a
lways be a part of my identity. Will always be a part of who I am, how I react, how I see things. And nothing will ever change that fact. I can deny it. Or accept it. Either way, it’s still true.

  It’s important to face and make peace with the past. And all it ever was, good or bad. Whatever the flaws of those in that world, to accept them. Whatever the hurts, to forgive those who inflicted them. Whatever the wounds, to seek healing. Which can be no small thing, sometimes, I know well enough. It wasn’t a small thing for me, and my journey was a walk in the park compared to that of those who have endured and survived every imaginable form of abuse. But it can be done, and it must be done. For a whole lot of good reasons. But mostly, for the sake of your own heart.

  Because a heart that refuses to be healed will never be truly free.

  Bob Jones University

  In 1991, I packed up all my earthly possessions, which consisted of a fairly meager little pile. A sparse assortment of clothes, including a few dress pants, jeans, a few dress shirts, and a couple of suits. And a couple of boxes holding a decent collection of books. And many boxes of odds and ends, the dust of living. More than enough to fill a car. And I loaded all my stuff into my ugly tan-gold T-Bird. I felt it in my head and heart, the loss of leaving the familiar. But I had accomplished all I could here. It was time to leave the land that had been my home for the past three years, aside from summers. Daviess.

  I sensed it would be for good. And I felt it, the fleeting sadness of knowing the great things that had happened in my time here were over. Here I had conquered the odds and emerged victorious and confident. And now I would leave behind the friendships and relationships that I feared would fade into nothingness with distance and time. “Sure,” you tell your friends, “we’ll stay in touch, and I’ll be back.” But you know it will never be the same. And it never is.

  I left Daviess that spring for Lancaster County. And when August came again, I set off in my sagging T-Bird. Stuffed so full there was barely room for the driver, the car lumbered down the highway. I turned to the south and headed out. My destination: Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

  Bob Jones University. The place that almost rivals the Amish when it comes to legends and myths. Even back then, I was told, “If you tell someone you went to BJU, get ready to duck or pucker. Because you’ll either get slugged or get kissed.” It hasn’t been quite that bad, but there’s something to the saying. Over the years, I’ve heard just about every rumor there is about how things really are on campus. And always, when I hear the stories, I just laugh and shake my head. “Where did you hear a thing like that? Are you sure it’s true? Well, let me tell you how it was when I went there, back in 1991–93.”

  And people kind of draw back, astounded. “You attended there? But you seem so, well, nice. How could a guy like you have come from a place like that?”

  Maybe because the “place like that” isn’t quite the ignorant dump you think it is, I think. But I usually just bite my tongue.

  “It’s a racist school,” some people have snarled contemptuously. “It’s militaristic,” my leftist friends have gasped in horror. But the most persistent myth I’ve run into is “Oh, yeah, that’s the place where they have separate sidewalks for guys and girls.” Countless people know that without the slightest doubt. Even when I tell them I was there and never saw such a thing, it’s still true in their minds. It’s all a bit strange. It’s like facts don’t matter.

  I will always be proud to be a BJU grad, and I look back on those years with a lot of fond memories. A few negative things cropped up here and there, sure, but those will come at you in any setting. I walked into BJU mostly intimidated. I’d heard how tough it was academically. And how it had, like, a thousand rules of conduct. But still, I chose to go. Because at that moment, it seemed like the best choice. Or at least the choice I was most comfortable with.

  And looking back, it was almost lackadaisical, how it all worked out that I ended up at Bob Jones. It could have been just about anywhere else. Notre Dame, even, if Dr. Pierpont had gotten his way. Somehow, though, a few figures I admired in my Plain Mennonite world steered me there. Sang the praises of the place. So I sent for an application during my second year at Vincennes. Filled it out and mailed it in. I was, of course, accepted. Right on, I thought. This will be the place for me.

  The rule book they sent made me a little uneasy. Dress codes, infinite specific rules of conduct, restrictions on how long your hair may be, and on and on. I had just emerged from a world of infinite rules, there with the Amish. But I was comfortable in a structured setting, I think. However tough the rules, I could take it if I set my mind to it. That was what I figured. Besides, a few other things drew me there.

  The first and primary thing: I had family in the area. My older sister Magdalena and my older brother Jesse and their families lived over close to Abbeville. And my youngest brother, Nathan, lived and worked in Seneca. All points within an hour’s drive or so of Greenville. I’d hang out on weekends. And that strong pull of family settled it in my head. But there was still more.

  I arrived at BJU a few days before my thirtieth birthday. Students have to live on campus until age twenty-five. After that, they can live off campus and work. Basically have a normal life. And that was what I planned on doing. And with my head swimming with vague, great dreams, I pulled into Greenville. Eagerly. I was here, whatever might come. And, of course, a few snags lunged up instantly. My planned lodging didn’t work out, and the IHOP restaurant manager who had promised me a waiter job reneged when I walked in. Eventually, though, I found another waiter job at Swensen’s Ice Cream Gazebo, and lodging in a little trailer park near the campus.

  Some kindly, simple guy named Jim had a spare bedroom in his trailer. He’d prayed about it, he told me later, and decided he would rent it out. Everyone around BJU always seemed to be praying about every little thing. I guess that way, they could blame God if things didn’t work out. Anyway, my simple friend Jim claimed he felt good about it. And I just happened to show up through a friend of a friend. Randomly. We had little in common, which I’ve found makes for the best roommates. In our daily interactions, we talked and got a glimpse of each other’s world. But otherwise, no expectations.

  It was late August, and it was hot. I timidly walked about the campus, trying to get my bearings. Lots of clean-cut people swarmed about. Students, teachers, administrators, and more students. Everyone seemed positive and upbeat. At least they smiled as if they were. I signed up for my classes and got ready for the first day.

  It’s a beautiful place, the university. Impeccably groomed grounds. Whatever was done there was done right. That attitude permeated the place. BJU is a Fundamentalist Baptist school where everything is done for the Lord. It’s pretty much a self-sufficient campus, complete with a hospital, a large modern auditorium, the greatest collection of old religious art in the world (or one of them), its own security, complete with its own version of cop cars, dorms, and classrooms. And I realized on the first day that I wasn’t in Vincennes anymore. Not in any sense, including the quality of the education. Not knocking Vincennes, here. Just saying, a private four-year university is going to be much tougher slogging.

  During my second year at Vincennes, I took twenty-one hours of classes both semesters. And easily breezed right through. At BJU, I bravely signed up for eighteen hours the first semester. Surely I could handle that much. But before the first week ended, I did what I never thought I’d do. I dropped a class, reducing my load to fifteen hours. And even that seemed overwhelming. These people smiled and smiled. And then they piled on the workload and upped the expectations. They demanded the very best efforts from all their students. You won’t sail through any classes at BJU. I can guarantee you that.

  And I uneasily settled into my routine. This was a new place, an entirely new culture. Everyone looked and dressed the same, pretty much. Skirts and blouses for the women, suits and ties and wing tips or tasseled loafers for the guys, at least until noon. Y
ou had to dress up in the morning. This was a serious problem for me. I had never really learned to “dress up,” so my wardrobe was quite limited. A half dozen shirts. Four or five dress pants. But mostly, I dreaded the mornings because I was different. And being “different” was a big part of the reason I could not abide with the Amish.

  Back at Mount Olive Mennonite Church in Daviess, the women wore coverings. And the men wore those detestable straight-cut suit coats with no tie. When I entered BJU, I had never worn a tie. Never, in all my life. I came from a place where sermons were preached about how a tie can be only a symbol of pride. And to their credit, the BJU people made a rare exception in their rigid rules for Mennonites like me. I was allowed to wear the detestable straight-cut suit coat with no tie. Because my church had a rule. The people at Bob Jones knew all about rules.

  But my detestable suit coat was so different and I was so painfully aware of that difference that it almost ruined my first semester. Everyone was staring at me. I could feel it wherever I went. In class. Walking about. And at chapel. As the weeks crept by, I actually nursed in my heart the vague hope that some mild misfortune would befall me, so I could get out of this place with some dignity. Something, anything, that’s what I wished for. Maybe an accident, like a broken arm or leg. That would do it. I could leave and never look back. But no such misfortune ever showed up. There was nothing else to do but stay. So I slogged on, day after dreary, dreadful day.

  In the meantime, though, I faithfully trudged to classes every day, too. Kind of found the rhythm of the place. Go to class, find your seat in the back. The professor takes roll call. And then we bow our heads to pray. The professor speaks to God for ten or twenty seconds. And then it was down to the business of learning.