Lingering Impressions

Sing-A-long

Sing-a-long

I have known my Amish friend for over 2 years now.  There is seldom a work day that doesn’t start with us meeting in front of his house to decide who needs who’s help and talk farmer talk, you know, weather, crops, livestock, all the important things of life.

Some time ago, my brother asked me if I had ever heard my friend and his family sing.  It seems that he had pulled up as they were milking their herd of cows and he heard them singing, harmonizing in German.  He informed me that it was beautiful.  When the Amish in my area have church, they conduct the service in German.

My friend and I are on a trip hauling produce to a market.  I asked my friend if the songs they sang were any that I might know.  He informed me that they were in German and he didn’t know.

As we talked, he asked me if I could sing and I informed him that sometimes I had sang for handicapped and rest home residents. 

We continued to talk and I asked him if he might know ‘Amazing Grace’ , a  common song of the churches I have attended.  He asked if I knew the words.  I explained that sometimes I couldn’t remember common songs I had sang for a hundred times without my Karoake screen in front of me.  As I tried to remember, I began to sing and in a few words, he was singing along with me!

Picture this if you can.

A 67 year old man with long hair tied up with a band like an Indian sitting in a van with an Amish man, beard, black hat and attire, singing together! ! !

Then, tell me that the world can’t live together, no matter their background.

My First Encounter

Chapter one of No Pictures, Please!

Some ten years ago, while visiting my dad in a rural community, he wanted to take me on a trip in the country.  Along with my mother, he took me out toward the old homestead where I lived as my dad made our living on a farm.  We passed one farm after another where a large house had been erected and usually, an even larger barn.  On the road and in front of many of the houses were horse and buggies.  Our neighbor hood had become a place for a community of Amish farmers.

One day, sitting on the front porch with my dad, a buggy pulled into his front yard.

“Would you like to sell that sixty?”

My father replied that he wouldn’t and besides it was in a government set aside program.

As the years passed, my father many times took me on a ride to see the new houses and barns springing up as more Amish moved into the area.  Later, I would find that they called their neighbors a “community”.  I would also learn that each community had a Bishop who helped determine the rules for that community.

Near the end of my father’s life, he mentioned to me that he sometimes wished he could live like the Amish.  I guess that it brought back memories of his youth.  Many of the Amish had tools that my father didn’t have when he was farming with horses.  As you follow the rest of this blog, you will see how I came to understand the meanings behind his words.

My mother passed when she was 88 after 65 years of marriage.  While visiting my father a few months later, he said,

“I worked hard all my life. Why can’t I just fly away?”

I had no answer. 

My father passed on a few months after my mother.