Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [75]
They were very relaxed, talked openly about their faith, prayed before meals as if talking to a friend, and laughed a lot. But they were born Mennonite. They didn’t know any better. So maybe they could be Christians even though they weren’t Amish. I couldn’t. For me, it wouldn’t work. The only way I could ever make it to heaven was through the Amish church. That’s what I had been taught all my life, and that’s what I believed.
I hung out with the Wagler clan, and the days flowed on. Bloomfield and all the trauma that had transpired there still bubbled inside me, always there in my head. I needed to be busy, so I immersed myself in work and then partied hard on weekends to fend off the guilt and the incessant memories. It was a hard and desperate time.
Even though a lot of my uncles and aunts were living in Daviess, I never made the slightest effort to look them up, or any of my cousins. And that was my loss. I could have learned so much from them. Listened to their stories, discovered who my parents really were, and so much more. All I had to do was ask. The chance was there, and I let it slip through my hands. I didn’t want to see any relatives. Not on my mother’s side or on Dad’s side. I wanted nothing to do with them, especially the Amish relatives. They would have heard the rumblings of what I’d done, how I’d left Bloomfield. I didn’t want to face them, not in that condition. So I stayed away.
During that first month, I worked construction. It was okay. But inside, the restlessness stirred like silent demons, lurking in my mind, keeping me on edge. Daviess would not hold me long. I wanted to keep moving on, to new countries, new faces, and new lands.
The opportunity came soon enough. Dean, one of the Wagler boys, planned to leave in July for the wheat harvest out west. He invited me to go along. To me, it seemed ideal—travel, work, save up a few bucks. Dean was a laid-back guy, extremely calm, and a couple of years older than me. We got along well and would make an excellent travel team.
And so we left one fine day in early July, driving west in Dean’s souped-up Oldsmobile Cutlass, our meager luggage packed in the trunk. A classic eighties car, it could flat out move. We took turns driving, west through St. Louis, then on into Kansas, where Dean knew some people. He said we would hang out there for the weekend, and I agreed, mildly dubious. It was his car and his trip, but I wasn’t keen on mingling with a bunch of clean-cut Mennonite kids. I wouldn’t fit in. Oh well. At least I would be a stranger to them. They would know nothing of me.
29
Dean and I cruised into Hutchinson, Kansas, on Saturday afternoon, and when we arrived, a great fuss ensued—mostly from the girls gushing over Dean. His reputation as a dashing, eligible bachelor was widely known in his circles of the Mennonite world. Mine, not so much. Dean coolly greeted them all and introduced me. The Mennonite kids were all polite, although mildly patronizing, to this long-haired, uncouth, jeans-clad bumpkin who had suddenly materialized with one of their eastern friends. I smiled at them and lurked around the perimeter of things, listening to the keening clamor of their talk.
They were different, the Kansas kids. Certainly different from any I’d ever met, even in Daviess. They were friendly, but dead serious. I saw and heard it as I walked among them. They spoke in muted voices about cultural events—politics, mostly. And they leaned left. To me, much of their talk was gibberish, but some of it was fascinating. Earnest and solemn questions like “What do you see yourself doing in five years?” startled me. Such discussions, entirely nonexistent in my past, were new to me. I was lucky to think or plan ahead five weeks. Five years might as well have been