Growing Up Amish

by Ira Wagler

  It’s a law of human nature. The young will defy and test the previous generation’s boundaries and push them to the limits. It has always been so and will likely always be.

  This is particularly true in the Amish culture, with its austere lifestyle, where the rules prohibit all things modern and, therefore, sinful: cars, radios, and television.

  Very few young Amish kids with a spark of life and an ounce of willpower will simply accept their leaders’ admonitions not to touch “unclean things.” Most need to experiment, experience, and decide for themselves.

  My friends and I were no different.

  There were six of us.

  Marvin and Rudy Yutzy were my first and closest friends in Bloomfield. They were first cousins and had known each other all their lives. I was the new guy on their turf, but they gladly made room for me.

  Rudy, the youngest—and yet somehow the tallest—was the orator of the group. He could weave and stitch and thread the most fascinating, vivid tales from the most mundane, everyday events. No detail was too small. No comment too obscure. He included and expounded on everything in fantastic, colorful narratives that flowed in a continual rolling stream.

  Marvin was a bit more reserved. He was intelligent, thoughtful, and observant, with a keen, dry sense of humor. He could deadpan a joke and move on before the true incisive humor of his observation ever hit you.

  Then there were the Herschberger brothers—Willis and Vern—who moved to Bloomfield from the large, troubled settlement of Arthur, Illinois, about a year after we arrived. They were tough, cynical, talkative, friendly, and extremely knowledgeable in the ways of the world.

  Mervin Gingerich’s family had been one of the first to move to Bloomfield. Mervin was my age—a muscular hunk of a kid with a ready smile and a round, perpetually red face. His father was Bishop George Gingerich, so his family had excellent standing in the community.

  Me? Well, I’m not quite sure where I fit in. I was the one who brooded and mulled things over. Or perhaps overmulled is more accurate, if that’s a word. I was the one who spoke the occasional comment that made absolutely no sense to the others. Tall, skinny, a beanpole of a kid with a ready smile, I was intensely loyal to my friends.

  The six of us met in Bloomfield, and somehow we were drawn to one another. We were intelligent and hungry for knowledge. We read voraciously, mostly trashy bestsellers—picked up at yard sales and used-book stores—that we kept carefully stashed under our mattresses or in little nooks about the house.

  We were an exclusive group, a tight nucleus, huddled together and protecting one another from the storms that occasionally engulfed us.

  Looking back, I can’t remember any time in my life when I felt closer to a group of friends than I did to those five guys.

  Things were pretty calm at first. We were, for the most part, decent kids. Bloomfield had no wild youth.

  Sad to say, this placid state would not survive for long. It couldn’t. Because we harbored in our hearts the seeds of rebellion. Or maybe it was the seeds of life, of adventure, of freedom. Perhaps it was a little of both.

  We wanted to experience the things we saw around us, things outside our sheltered world. Things we’d read about and heard of, things we’d seen others do, things that happened in other communities.

  We were young and full of spirit.

  We were sixteen.

  * * *

  Sixteen.

  The gateway to manhood in Amish culture.

  And sixteen is a hard, bright line. One day you’re fifteen and a child. The next morning you’re sixteen and a man. Well, maybe not a man, but something more than a child, something more than you were the day before.

  And the six of us? Well, we were simply spirited youth. That doesn’t excuse a lot of the stuff we pulled off, but who can instruct a pack of youth who band together in revolt? At that age? No one.

  And no one did.

  We knew instinctively that there was so much more beyond our closed and structured world, so much just waiting for us to grasp and feel and taste and absorb.

  But it wasn’t only that the outside world drew us. We were also repelled by what we saw and heard around us every day. Most of the adults—those securely anchored in the faith—didn’t seem any too happy in their daily lives. In fact, they were mostly downright grumpy. There was little in our own world that attracted us, made us stop and think, That’s what I want. To live like that.

  We were stuck in a stifling, hostile culture consisting of myriad complex rules and restrictions. More things were forbidden than were allowed. And that’s not to mention the drama, the dictatorial decrees, the strife among so-called brothers, and the seemingly endless emotional turmoil that resulted. We had seen and lived it all.

  And even though it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for us to articulate, there burned inside each of us a spark of deep desire and longing not to be different from the outside world. From English society. Not to wear galluses and those awful homemade, barn-door pants. Not to have haircuts that looked as if someone had snipped around the edges of a bowl upended on our heads.

  We longed to drive a car or truck, not a horse and buggy. We hungered for freedom, real freedom, unrestricted by a host of arcane laws based on tradition.

  And we knew that when our fathers were young, they had done the very things they were now denying us. Not that they ever admitted any such thing. But we knew. And they should have known that we knew.

  Don’t do as I did is what we heard. Do as I say.

  There was no tolerance for anything less than that, no attempt to consider our perspectives. No respect, no communication, no honesty. And that simply could not work in the age-old conflict between fathers and sons. Not when the sons have a shred of spirit.

  And so, it was with that state of mind that I officially entered my Rumspringa years.

  12

  Rumspringa. That mispronounced word popularized by the 2002 documentary film Devil’s Playground, which, to be fair, was a pretty accurate depiction in many ways. The term Rumspringa simply means “running around.”

  All Amish youth run around. That’s what they do after turning sixteen, when they are considered adults. Run with the youth and attend singings and social gatherings.

  But if someone asked me what percentage of Amish youth “run wild” and touch and taste the unclean things of the outside world, either while they are at home or after leaving, my guess would be 20 to 25 percent. But that’s just a guess. It might be close; it might not. Rumspringa varies greatly from community to community. Some smaller communities have almost no wild youth. In larger communities, wild youth are much more common.

  Despite the fact that the producers of the documentary had unprecedented access to northern Indiana’s wild Amish youth, Devil’s Playground left viewers with a huge misconception: the belief that the Amish actually allow their youth a time to explore, to run wild, to live a mainstream lifestyle. To decide whether or not they really want to remain Amish.

  I’m not saying that never happens. It probably does, in some rare individual families. But church policy never approves it. It never has been that way and never will be. In fact, the Amish church does everything in its power to maintain its grip on the youth, including applying some of the most guilt-based pressure tactics in existence anywhere in the world. After all, there’s no sense encouraging young people to taste the outside world, because there’s a good chance they might not return—regardless of how good their intentions might have been when they left.

  The smaller communities keep a tight grip on their youth. Or try to. That’s why they’re smaller communities, because the people there usually fled the larger settlements to get away from the wild-youth practices.

  In Aylmer, if you looked sideways the wrong way, the leaders would whack you hard. Shave your beard? The deacon would be knocking on your door. Smoking, drinking, partying, or carousing? Absolutely unheard of in all its history.

  Bloomfield used to have
a similar iron grip on things, until six young men shattered the old molds and forged their own way.

  And things have never been quite the same since.

  * * *

  We didn’t consider ourselves “wild.” In fact, we scorned anyone who consciously tried to be. And we didn’t necessarily think we were cool. But we were, at least in our own restricted little world.

  We simply did the ordinary, acceptable things that all Amish kids do.

  Avid hunters, we tramped through cornfields and pastures in pursuit of pheasant and quail. And in season, we hunted deer from before dawn until dusk. Our successes were rare but greatly savored. The stories of our great feats were told and retold, and grew more fantastic with each telling.

  At night, full of the vigor and energy of youth, we crashed through fields and the thick underbrush on wooded lots, following the baying of our coonhounds. Waiting for the excited chop of the hounds after a coon was treed. Rushing up with our flashlights and rifles, the crack of the .22, and the plop of the body as the coon fell from the tree to be attacked by the ravenous hounds. Somehow it was fun. For us, those were good, clean activities, and we enjoyed them to the fullest.

  But acceptable activities like hunting and staying out late, while fun, simply weren’t enough, maybe precisely because they were acceptable. And so the battle lines were drawn: the six of us against the world. Or at least against our world.

  We were restless, driven by the pride and passions of youth, and unsure of what we really wanted, and we set out on a path of our own choosing. We weren’t particularly rough or rowdy, but we did like to party a bit and have a good time.

  On Sunday afternoons, we hung out at the park, sipping beer that we’d bought from Bea, the clerk at the little convenience store in Drakesville. And we smoked cigarettes, not necessarily because we enjoyed it, but just because we thought it looked cool to smoke.

  Among each other, hanging out, we told rowdy jokes. Mimicked the preachers with mock sermons while laughing uncontrollably. And, of course, dismembered our adversaries with bold talk. And that’s what it was, mostly. Brash, noisy, bold talk. Sometimes we even showed up a bit tipsy at the singings. Made all kinds of unfortunate scenes with our loud hilarity, much to the horror of the house father and other stodgy guests.

  Sometimes, when there was no opposing traffic on the road, we raced our buggies. The challenger would pull up close behind, then lurch out to pass, gradually releasing the reins until the horses opened up into full stride, side by side, at breakneck speed, the buggies rocking dangerously, the horses straining with every possible ounce of muscle and sweat, until one buggy or the other pulled ahead and the loser conceded.

  And, of course, we all harbored contraband—transistor radios and eight-track tape players. Getting caught with such contraband had definite and potentially severe consequences. At the very least, whatever was found would be confiscated, and the owner would receive a good stiff bawling out.

  One weeknight, after running around with my buddies, I got home very late, probably around two or three in the morning. I was tired, and I made the mistake of leaving my tape player in the buggy, along with our collection of tapes, which we kept stashed in a fifty-pound paper Nutrena Feeds bag.

  The next morning after breakfast, when I reached into the back of the buggy to retrieve the feed bag, it was gone. Dad must have been on the prowl bright and early. I figured he must have seized the bag and burned it in our water heater stove.

  He never said a word to me, just smiled a secret little smile. There were probably thirty or forty tapes in the bag, two or three hundred dollars’ worth—an accumulation of much furtive buying and trading, now reduced to ashes.

  I was highly irritated—furious, actually—but did not even bother to confront my father. Instead, the following week, I seized one of Dad’s old shotguns, a Savage pump-action 12-gauge with a tendency to misfire. I took it to Jim’s Auction House in town, sold it for $150. Kept the money. And smiled a secret smile. I figured Dad and I were about even.

  As our little group of six developed a rather tough, unsavory reputation throughout the Bloomfield settlement, we got bolder. We stepped over the lines, daring the preachers to come after us. Of course, we were careful never to step too far. We just kept nudging those lines, always applying pressure just over the acceptable boundaries.

  Every once in a while, the older youth tried to straighten us up. Lectured us and admonished us not to act so silly.

  “Stop trying to be so wild.”

  Their efforts were entirely fruitless. And it got so that most people just left us alone—except for our parents and the preachers. They never stopped lecturing, and they never stopped scolding. The problem was, they never told us why we needed to behave.

  Everything was preached from a solid foundation of what had always been. Amish this. Amish that. We live this way because that’s the way it is. We live this way because it’s the way our fathers lived. We live this way, and we walk this path because it’s the only way, the only path we’ve ever known.

  It was our birthright. We were special—the chosen ones who preserved and honored “the only true way.”

  With some prodding, there might be a reluctant admission that yes, others not of our particular faith might make it to heaven, but only because they were not born Amish and didn’t know any better. Those who were born in the faith had better stay, or they would surely face a terrible Judgment Day. That’s what we heard. What we were told by our parents and what we heard in the sermons at church.

  But they never explained why. Why we were special. Why we alone knew the only true path. Only that we were and we did.

  That sure made for some messed-up minds and messed-up lives. Not for the drones—those who accepted without question what they were told. But for anyone with a speck of spirit, it could get a little crazy.

  Think about it. You are in a box—a comfortable box, but a pretty confining one. You wonder what’s outside. You peek out a bit now and then, and peer around. But deep down, you know that if you step outside that box, you are speeding directly down the highway to hell and could arrive at any instant. Boom, just like that.

  That kind of pressure is a brutal thing, really, a severe mental strain. And it’s the reason that in most communities, when Amish kids run wild, they usually run hard and mean. Because once that line is crossed, there are no others. Nothing they can do, short of returning, can make any difference.

  Believe otherwise, as do the Mennonites and the Beachy Amish, who drive cars and prattle on about being saved, and the devil’s got you right where he wants you.

  That’s what we were taught and what we believed.

  * * *

  Compared to what goes on in many other communities, my friends and I were pretty harmless, really. We weren’t destructive. We didn’t terrorize people. But somehow, we managed to frequently trigger a great outpouring of dramatic groans and intonations from parent and preacher alike: “How could my son act so wickedly?”

  “Dee boova sind so loppich. So veesht.” (The boys are so naughty. So wicked.)

  “You know better. Why can’t you just be good and behave like other boys? Such decent boys, so nice, and such upstanding members of the church.”

  They were nice and upstanding, all right. And utterly dull.

  We gagged at such drama. Ignored the incessant scolding. Despised the pious boys. Hunkered down and persisted in our “wicked” ways. The more our parents and the preachers tried to crack down and suppress us, the harder we “kicked against the goads.” Whatever discipline they designed and threw at us, we resisted. They plugged a leak here; the water slipped through over there. They tried to separate and divide, and it drew us that much closer to one another.

  I’m not condoning—or bemoaning—what we did. It’s just the way it was. And history is not undone just because one pretends it didn’t happen or destroys the evidence.

  And yet somehow when I look back on those times, I can’t bring myself to
be too harsh on anyone involved on either side. Oh sure, on occasion I can still dredge up mild resentment at a few pious, nosy, long-bearded busybodies who made a mission of trying to straighten out other people’s kids. Who secretly harbored their own dark skeletons in their own closets. But overall, the years have tempered the rage and frustrations of our youth. And, I hope, softened the deep pain we inflicted on those closest to us at the time.

  Although far from perfect, our parents had given up a lot. They had uprooted their lives. Moved to this new settlement in hopes of establishing a community where the youth would be respectful and behave, not drag in all the bad stuff, the wicked habits practiced in other places. I couldn’t see that then. I can now.

  And looking back, not that far from the age my father was at the time, I remember the vast chasm that separated us. The harsh, hollow words that echoed in anger and sadness across the great divide. Words spoken but not heard. Words better left unsaid. I was a hothead, strong willed and filled with passion, rage, and desire. Stubborn. Driven. As was he. I was my father’s son.

  I misbehaved. He fumed and hollered.

  I seethed. He lectured and fussed.

  I sulked. He watched and worried.

  Mostly though, our communication was pretty much nonexistent.

  In reality, my father had reason to be concerned. He knew all too well the blood that ran through me—blood that could never be tamed by force, only by choice—and a will that would not bend.

  He knew. He wouldn’t have admitted it, or ever told me. But he knew.

  Perhaps he felt a slight chill inside, a silent premonition of what was to come. Or maybe he actually believed it would all work out now that we had moved away from Aylmer—that the sacrifices he’d made would be rewarded.

  If he did—he was wrong.

  Tensions flared and faded between us, as confrontation after confrontation surged and subsided. The mental strain escalated to an almost unbearable level.