Footloose in America: Dixie to New England by Bud Kenny

Author:Bud Kenny [Kenny, Bud]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781511570954
Amazon: 1511570954
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2015-07-11T05:00:00+00:00

Because all the shops and tourist traps were closed on Sunday, the highway had very little motorized traffic. Most it was horse drawn, and we met lots of Amish people that afternoon.

One was a lanky twenty-year-old man, named Eli. He was clean shaven, wore a straw hat and suspenders, and he was riding a twenty-one speed mountain bicycle with wire baskets on the back. Eli was on his way to hit a few balls at the batting cages west of Winesburg. After I answered his questions about us, Eli started talking about what it was like to be Amish at his age.

“There’s a lot of pressure to go out and run around. Nearly everyone I know, who’s my age, wants to go out and party. You know, get a car, drink and do drugs–the whole bit. But I’m just not into it. I was just a little kid when my brothers were in rumspringa, but I remember it. And it didn’t seem to me that they were very happy then.”

Rumspringa is a period of Amish adolescence, beginning at the age of sixteen, that worldly behavior is tolerated. They’re allowed to own cars, be a part of modern society and still live on the farm. But then comes a time, usually by the mid-twenties, when they have to decide between their family or the rest of the world. If they don’t choose the Amish faith, they are shunned by the family and the rest of the community.

“Both of my brothers had cars, but my father wouldn’t let them keep them at the farm. They rented a parking space behind a gas station that had hitching-rails. That way they could leave the horse and buggy there when they were out partying.”

Coasting beside me on his bike, Eli had a bit of a chuckle in his voice. “I remember when they’d come racing into the yard with the buggy in the middle of the night whooping and hollering, you’d thought they was having the best time. But the next morning they’d be hurting. I mean, in real pain. Sometimes, it’d be so bad they couldn’t get up and do chores. My father would say, ‘If you want to burn the candle at both ends, that’s your business. But don’t be burning my end up!’ Then he’d pull them out of bed and make them go to work–whether they wanted to or not.”

I stopped Della on the highway shoulder, and Eli held her lead rope as I took the lid off her water bucket. While she drank he said, “My oldest brother got into drugs.”

“What kind?”

“I’m not sure what all he took. I know he was on Meth when he wrecked his car. They found some on him when they took him to the hospital. He went to jail for that one.”

I snapped the lid back onto the water bucket. “So what became of him?”

“When he got out of jail, he came back to the family, repented and got baptized. Both of my brothers did.

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