Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [29]
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