Growing Up Amish (15 page)

I stood there, gaping at him. Speechless. What had gotten into the man? He was asking me if I was going to leave or stay home to help with the farmwork.

In retrospect, I think, it was the first time ever that he spoke to me as a man. Man to man. And that's why I was so surprised. Sad to say, I did not rise to the occasion. I stuttered a bit, hedging. I knew I was leaving. Our plans were firming up every day. It was just a matter of weeks now.

Finally I spoke. “I don't know,” I mumbled. It was a lie. Of course I knew. And he knew I knew. I just wasn't brave enough to tell him straight out. I wasn't used to being treated as if I had a thought of my own. Or choices. But he let it go.

“Well, it would be nice if we knew whether or not we'll need to hire some help this spring,” he said. Then he turned back to his paper. Still stunned, I went off to bed.

* * *

We left a month or so after that, in January 1981. Again. The third time for me in as many years. My deeds and choices were rapidly cementing my reputation as a hard-core rebel. And yet, through it all, I can honestly say that I harbored little anger in my heart. Some, sure. But mostly sadness. And increasing desperation. Each time I left made it that much harder to imagine ever returning for good.

We left, this time, in the full light of day. No sneaking out at night. No notes under the pillow. And no disappearing during the day without any word or warning. I still remember the heaviness in the house that day. Mom flitted about, not saying a lot, making sure I had some clean clothes packed. I didn't have the heart to tell her that there wasn't much sense packing Amish clothes because where I was going, I wouldn't need them. So I let her pack some in my suitcase. Dad didn't formally say good-bye; instead, he disappeared into his little office to write. Rhoda, my younger sister, chatted amiably, but I could see she was tense and sad. She told me to be careful and gave me a candy bar, a precious treat, to eat on the road. Nathan lurked about somewhere, out of sight. Silent. Watching.

I wasn't particularly joyous; all I wanted was to be out of there. Away from this oppressive place. To new experiences in new lands.

After lunch, one of my English friends drove in with his car. I picked up my bags and walked out. Marvin had found his own way to town. We met in Bloomfield, boarded the bus, and headed south. Our destination, Florida, seemed like a good place, especially during the middle of an Iowa winter.

We traveled to Sarasota, Florida, and the little suburb of Pinecraft, which for decades has been a winter hot spot for vacationing Amish and Mennonite people—and for wild Amish youth. We knew few people when we got there. Even so, we soon found a room and jobs.

Our money was tight, as always. And the first few weeks were tough. During the day, we toiled in the hot Florida sun, mixing mud and slinging heavy concrete blocks on a mason crew. And gradually, as the days and weeks passed, we settled in.

We pooled our funds that summer and bought an old 1971 Mercury Cougar, an old-style powerhouse with a 351 Cleveland engine. Being Amish farm boys, we had no clue what a 351 Cleveland was, but everyone seemed impressed when we bragged about it.

With our own wheels, we were as free as we'd ever been. We worked shirtless in the sun all that summer. Hard, lean, tanned to a deep, deep brown, and impossibly fit, we were in the prime and passion of young adulthood.

And life was pretty good. We lived in a tiny one-room shack, a converted garage behind someone's house. It was truly small, probably twelve by fifteen feet, with a tiny bathroom and shower, a bed in one corner, and a pullout couch. But it was our own. We made friends among Amish youth from other settlements across the land and found they were a good deal like us. On weekends, we partied hard. (This was back when the legal drinking age was still eighteen.) We hung out in bars on Saturday nights until they closed, then drove home, solidly impaired, yet always arriving unscathed. In those bars I imbibed and enjoyed shots of Wild Turkey whiskey for the first time and marveled at the way it made me feel.

One Saturday night that fall, in the Flamingo Bar, located in some faceless strip mall in suburban Sarasota, someone tutored me on the intricacies of the game of football. I'd never understood it before, but that night I saw for the first time what a great and brilliant game it was. On an old color TV on the wall, the New York Jets were playing some other team I don't remember. It was preseason, and the Jets were engineering a furious but futile comeback in the closing minutes. And on the spot I rashly declared myself a Jets fan. It has been a long and mostly dreary journey since that night. But hope springs eternal.

As the weeks trickled by, we did the things that young men did back in those days, and while we didn't necessarily prosper, we survived.

Of course, our survival did not include much thought about the future. Not in any coherent sense. Vaguely, we figured we'd return to Bloomfield. And the Amish church. Someday. And make it work, as we had seen so many others do. As some of our buddies had already done. But there was no set date; in close to the purest sense, we lived from day to day and from week to week. Nothing more than that. It was as if we existed in a mental fog.

I still smoked. Ever since my Nebraska days I had been hooked on tobacco. I couldn't imagine starting a day without that first delicious cigarette. No, it wasn't healthy. But at that age, youth believes it will live forever.

* * *

It was a strange thing, and I don't quite understand it, even today, but when we were out there, living and working in normal society, thoughts of home, the good things— the security, the family, the comforts—somehow always crept in and drew us back. And so it was that year in Florida.

Sometime that fall, probably in September, we both knew that we would be back home in Bloomfield by winter. It didn't seem like a bad thing. We'd been gone for the better part of a year, and we longed for our old haunts, our old friends.

By late October, both of us had returned. This time, we were determined to make it work. This time, we would do it.
This time
, we really meant it.

That vague and distant future, never more than two weeks out, was now upon us. The time had come for us to do what we had seen so many others around us do, including wild youth we had met and befriended in Pinecraft. (A good many of them are settled and married today, with families. Amish.) Now we, too, would walk that path. It was time.

In my head I figured I could make it work. I knew I could. Somehow. But in my heart, well, those were days when promptings from the heart were quashed. Ignored. Buried, somewhere, out there on the edges of my consciousness, where they belonged. So I trudged doggedly onward, determined to endure whatever it took to settle down and remain Amish.

* * *

The preachers greeted us kindly enough when we made known our plans to join church the next spring. As rigid and unbending as the Amish might appear, one thing is true: Any wayward son (or daughter) who returns to the fold of the Amish church is always welcomed, regardless of what he has done in the past. He might be viewed a bit warily, and sure, he has some things to prove. But he is still welcomed, and genuinely so.

Marvin lived in the east district, so we didn't get to join together. Instead, he followed church with a little group of slightly younger youth. By now, my district had ordained its own bishop, our neighbor Henry Hochstedler, who had been a preacher for years. In my district, I took the baptismal instructions with one other young man, Chris Hochstedler. Bishop Henry's son.

Bishop Henry was originally from Arthur, Illinois. He was a kind man, mostly, but pretty set in his ways. A plodding, methodical worker, he kept his little farm impeccably tidy. All his animals were well cared for, his horses fat and gleaming. He milked a few cows and raised a flock of sheep, struggling bravely to pay his bills.

He preached the same way he worked: slowly, methodically, the words rolling effortlessly from his tongue in a rhythmic, lulling flow. As a bishop, he was unexceptional but steady. Under this man, then, I began my second try at joining the Amish church.

For me, the summer was one of deep, quiet desperation. I seemed to be walking down a long, dark hallway with no light at the end. And no end, for that matter. But I was determined this time to stick it out. To go all the way. It would not be an easy road.

From a distance, or from outside, my decision makes no sense. But it made all the sense in the world to me in that moment, to keep slogging on, to walk the road that equated eternal life with earthly misery. Besides, I figured, if others could do it, so could I. And why wouldn't I have thought that?

I managed to kick cigarettes, at least temporarily, but only because I used smokeless tobacco instead. It was odorless, and much easier to hide. Then one day someone saw me buying a tin of Skoal at Chuck's Café in West Grove and told the preachers. The next Sunday, as the instructional conference was winding down, Bishop Henry momentarily deserted his usual impersonal comments and confronted me.

“Ira,” he said in a firm tone. I jolted, fully alert. I'd never been addressed by name in any previous instruction class. Panicked thoughts flashed through my mind. This could not possibly be a good thing.

He continued. “An English neighbor stopped in and told me that he saw you buying tobacco at Chuck's Café. I, of course, hoped it was not true. But I wanted to ask you here.”

Sadness, or what he figured passed for it, lined his face. He looked right at me. The other preachers sat there, mostly looking at the floor.

“Is it true?” Bishop Henry asked simply, still gazing at me intently.

I sat there, almost frozen with shock and surprise. Fear and desperation rippled through me in waves. Hot denials sprang to my lips. Who in the world could have seen and tattled? Which English neighbor would be so idiotic, so stupid, as to go to my bishop and tell him what he saw? But, after a few eternally long seconds, during which a thousand scenarios flashed through my mind, I looked right back at him. In the eyes.

“Yeah, I guess it is true,” I admitted ruefully.

He arched his eyebrows and looked officially and properly grieved. Still, he smiled a sad smile.

“I'm very glad you were honest. If you had lied, it would have made things a lot worse,” he said kindly. “But,” he added somberly, “this will, of course, delay the date of baptism until we can see true fruits in your life.”

I nodded, still stunned. And then, mercifully, Chris and I were dismissed. I stumbled from the room, my mind in turmoil.

And that's the way it went. Over the summer, I stiffened in resistance. Fretted inside, vehemently. What did they think I was, some lame-brained weakling? And by late July, I was traveling on the same path as the last time I had tried to join. With each passing week, I became more convinced that I couldn't make it. It was just too hard. I didn't want it that badly.

Then came August.

20

My brother Titus was working the home farm that summer. A tall, lanky young man of twenty-three, he was in a serious relationship with Ruth Yutzy, Marvin's older sister. The two of them had dated a few years earlier, broken up for a couple of years, and now had gotten back together. And when that happens, it usually doesn't take long—any astute observer could see that their wedding was not too far off. Probably the next spring.

On August 3, 1982, a warm, muggy summer evening, Titus hitched up his powerful stallion and headed out the drive. He was going to Ruth's place for supper. Some of the Yutzy clan was gathering for a wiener roast. I remember seeing the open buggy, hitched to the stallion, as they clattered away. He arrived at Ruth's house, and they all had a loud, jolly time, laughing and feasting on hot dogs. After supper, the boys, my friends Marvin and Rudy among them, decided to go swimming in the pond out in the field west of the house. They splashed and swam. Frolicked and laughed. Since there was no diving board, they took turns pitching one another into the air and out across the water.

Then it was Titus's turn. A boy stood on each side, cupping his hands. Titus stepped into their hands, balanced himself by placing his hands on their shoulders, and shouted, “Go!” They launched him up and out. He sliced cleanly through the air, then bent and dove straight down into the water. So clean was his dive that he created hardly a ripple on the water's surface.

The others stood about. “What a beaut!” they said. A perfect dive. Seconds passed, but Titus did not resurface. Then more time passed, and the boys grew restless. One of them, wading out from shore, suddenly bumped into Titus just below the surface. He had drifted back in. Marvin and Rudy grabbed him and pulled him onto shore, where he coughed and sputtered. He had almost drowned.

On his beautiful dive, Titus had hit the bottom headfirst, crushing his fifth vertebra.

When the news reached us at home, it was dark, and I had already gone to bed, although I was not asleep. A vehicle came barreling into our lane. Through the open window I could hear the engine roar and tires crunching on the gravel. Shadows bounced and pitched on my bedroom walls. Then the vehicle slid to a halt in our driveway. I heard a truck door slam, followed by a staccato of footsteps up the walks and a great clattering up the steps.

I was annoyed.
Doesn't whoever it is know that it's bedtime? People are trying to sleep here.
Then I heard my sister Rachel's voice, speaking a rush of words so fast I could not grasp what she was saying. “A terrible accident . . . Titus . . . dive . . . pond . . . hospital . . . bad . . . can't feel anything.” Then came my dad's voice, calm and disbelieving. Then hurrying steps in the house as he and Mom prepared to leave with Dick Hutchins, the English man who had brought Rachel to our house. I got up and was quickly told what had happened. After they left, I returned to bed, but I did not sleep that night.

The next morning we learned that Titus had been flown to Iowa City in a helicopter.
A helicopter?
I thought.
It must be bad.