What I Saw Under the Table Last Night

Last night I attended a dinner hosted by a group that promotes discussion and understanding among the Abrahamic religions (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, all of whom claim the blessing God supposedly gave to the descendants of Abraham.) I went primarily to support my brother, the Humble Philosopher/Carpenter/Farmer who gave the initial presentation about a document called A Common Word Between Us and You, prepared by a group of Muslim scholars and religious leaders to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders following a speech by the Pope in which he appeared to denigrade Muslims (once again.) A rabbi, the head of a local Christian seminary and a Muslim leader spoke in response to the letter. The food was good, the discussion was interesting and I really was not looking under the tables because I was bored. Honest. Nor because I have a shoe fetish.

It was purely accidental that I happened to glance under a table and saw some very sexy-looking very high heeled shoes being worn by a Muslim woman in full hijab. She had everything covered from top to bottom except her face and her shoes. She looked good. Actually, to this old man, she looked better than Britney Spears climbing out of a limousine with a very short skirt hiked up to her waist and not wearing underwear. But, then, that's probably because I grew up Amish where the most daring footwear a young woman could put on were sneakers.

Ask Aunt Tillie: How Can Amish Be So Cruel?

Blogger's Note: Since this blog is somewhat Amishcentric, I get questions from time to time from readers about Amish life and culture, which I refer to my Aunt Tillie, an opinionated, but humble Amish woman. Here is a recent question and answer. Please leave a comment or email me if you have questions you want me to refer to her in the future.

Dear Aunt Tillie:

I used to admire Amish for their quiet simplicity and peacefulness. But now I am hearing about the two Amish brothers in Pennsylvania who were running puppy mills, and shot 80 dogs after state officials ordered veterinarian examinations of some of the dogs who appeared to be in bad shape. (Blogger's note: See story here.) How can a pacifistic people be so cruel? Will those puppy killers be expelled from the church?

(Signed) Horrified

Dear Horrified:

I hate to be the first to tell you this, but stupidity and cruelty are no respecter of religions. Not all Amish operate puppy mills, and not all of them would rather shoot 80 dogs than have them inspected by a veterinarian. I don't know if their church will excommunicate those brothers, but it should.

This is not an excuse, but Amish do not have the same attitude towards animals that the English do. (Blogger's note: When Aunt Tillie refers to "English" she does not mean people from England. In the Amish world, everyone who is not Amish is "English.") We use animals -- horses to pull our buggies and with which to farm; cows to produce milk and meat; hogs for meat. We rarely make emotional attachments with our animals. Generally, we do not allow dogs and cats into our houses. We have dogs and cats around the farm, but the cats are there to keep the rodent population in check and the dogs are to let us know about any prowlers. I doubt that there has ever been an Amish person who has dressed up a dog in a cute little outfit or calls herself the dog's "Mommie" like I've heard some English people do.

So, for an Amish person, shooting a dog rather than taking him to a veterinarian would be like killing a sick chicken or putting down a horse that broke a leg. I think, however, that shooting 80 dogs just because you might be in trouble with the state for not taking care of them properly is beyond what most Amish would consider acceptable. I certainly don't think it's proper, and I hope those brothers go to jail and stay there for a long time. And the church should excommunicate them, but I doubt that will happen.

I have a great-nephew who raises dogs and sells them. I don't know if he runs what you would call a puppy mill, but he keeps 7 or 8 dogs in pens in the barn, and I have seen them and felt like opening the pen and turning them loose. Even though I would never call myself our Rover's "Mommie," it isn't right to treat a dog cruelly. So, I hope you don't hold it against all of us what those two brothers did in Pennsylvania. But I think our bishops are going to have to get together and talk about whether allowing members of our churches to have puppy mills isn't more sinful than allowing them to have colorful clothing.

(Signed) Aunt Tillie

Ask Aunt Tillie: Can Amish Have Bicycles?

Blogger's Note: Since this blog is somewhat Amishcentric, I get questions from time to time from readers about Amish life and culture, which I refer to my Aunt Tillie, an opinionated, but humble Amish woman. Here is a recent question and answer. Please leave a comment or email me if you have questions you want me to refer to her in the future.

Dear Aunt Tillie:

Driving through the Amish community the other day, I saw lots of Amish people out riding bicycles. Is that really allowed, or were the bicycle riders doing their rumspringa, like I saw an ABC?

(Signed) Curious

Dear Curious:

I don't know what ABC said about "rumspringa" (we Amish don't have television.) "Rumspringa" literally means "running around," in Pennsylvania Dutch, so the bicycle riders might have been running around doing errands. But they usually don't have television shows about Amish doing errands (or at least so I assume, not being an expert on television shows.) So, you're probably asking about the other type of rumspringa which is when teenagers who are not yet church members have a little of what they consider fun by drinking beer, and dancing and smoking (and maybe engage in a little premarital sex.) But I digress, as I tend to do so often these days, you want to know whether it is allowed for Amish to ride bicycles. Well, of course we can ride bicycles. The Bible does not say, "Thou shalt not ride a bicycle." (Ha, ha, that's a joke, we Amish don't believe that everything we can't do is literally forbidden by the Bible. It would take a lot bigger book than the Bible to include everything we can't do.)

I've never ridden a bicycle, although I tried once many years ago when Ezra and the children were away. Our youngest daughter, Sovilla, had a bicycle that she stored in the barn and riding it didn't look that hard, so I got it out and tried to make it go, but it fell over and I got one foot caught underneath and one foot was waving around up in the air rather immodestly, so I just figured if God had wanted me to learn to ride a bicycle, he would have taught me long before then. That was about 40 years ago, and I've never had the urge to ride again.

So why are bicycles allowed but cars forbidden? I don't know the answer to that one. That's just the way it has always been. Maybe it's because cars go faster and you can drive further in a car than on a bicycle, so there's more of a temptation to use a car to get out of the Amish community and go see what the English are doing. But some of these modern bicycles can go pretty fast and far. Some of the Amish boys have been taking road trips on their bicycles, all the way over to the Mississippi River, and they're just doing that for fun, so I don't know. Idleness is the devil's work shop, they say, and maybe there's some devilment those boys could get into in a car that they couldn't on a bicycle, but I've never heard that as an explanation for why bicycles are allowed but cars aren't. I just hope those Amish boys don't start wearing that Velcro clothing, or whatever they call, that the English stuff their bodies into that shows all their bulges. That looks pretty awful, but somehow the English think you have to look funny to ride a bicycle, I guess. We Amish probably look funny enough already without having to start wearing Velcro pants, but to each his own.

(Signed) Aunt Tillie

Movie Report: Juno

If you haven't heard yet of the quirky little movie, Juno, you soon will. I predict it will be the sleeper hit of the year. The plot sounds sappy. Juno is the name of a 16-year-old girl who gets pregnant by a befuddled nerd ("It was my idea," she says. "It was?" he replies looking puzzled.) She decides to have an abortion but is dissuaded by a single picketer, a young Asian girl who yells at her, "It has fingernails." She finds a yuppie couple to adopt the baby. In the end she finds love and happiness with the nerd.

Although the plot sounds like a recipe for sap, the movie takes unexpected turns and has such a unique outlook, that the poignancy is disguised by the originality and authenticity. I have never met a 16-year-old girl like Juno, but she is absolutely believable. As regular readers of this blog know, the "suspension of disbelief" is important to me in watching a movie, and I was absolutely engaged in this one.

Juno reminds me a lot of another favorite of mine, Napoleon Dynamite in its ordinary strangeness. I have seen the movie described as a "dark comedy," but I fail to see the dark side. It is better described as a "serious comedy," in my view. It does not have the feel of Hollywood, like for instance another recent unplanned pregnancy movie, Knocked Up, which was not a bad movie, but felt contrived, the way mainstream movies do. Juno feels real.

Despite the PG-13 rating, this is not a movie that a fundamentalist church will send its youth group to see for its anti-abortion message. Juno is very hip, very smart and very earthy. I'm not sure that even I, with my liberal values, would want Juno for a daughter, but I surely would love to sit down and listen to her talk.

When I asked Son Number One whether he and his wife would like to go see the movie with us (I liked it so much I was ready to go see it again the next day,) he asked who is in it, and I told him that it was no one he has ever heard of. (Actually that statement stands a good chance of being wrong as SNO is a walking encyclopedia of arcane movie knowledge, but most people have never heard of any of the people connected with the movie.) The director is Jason Reitman, who is semi-well known for the movie Thank You For Smoking from 2005. Other than directing some of The Office television episodes,that's about it for Reitman's previous directing work.

But the writer, oh the writer! The heart and soul of the movie is clearly the work of the writer, who calls herself Diablo Cody. She grew up in the Village of Lemont, Illinois, a small town between Aurora and Chicago. She was working as a writer in an advertising agency in Minneapolis and hating it when she had an epiphany one day. She told herself she would rather be naked than do that job, so she quit and got a job as a striper. She wrote the movie while she was working as a striper. She also wrote a book around the same time, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Striper which had modest success but got her on the David Letterman show for this hilarious interview.



And, get this: There's an Amish connection! (Everything has to have an Amish connection on this blog.) Cody writes, or until recently did, a blog called. . . well, never mind what it's called, but you can visit it here. In the blog (scroll way down) she says she used to date a guy from Pennsylvania "a million years ago" (a little bit of an exaggeration since she's only 29) who taught her "weird Amish expressions" like "rootchi," meaning squirmy, a word which she still uses. So, who in Pennsylvania is going to teach Cody Amish expressions except an Amishman? Easy, are you reading? Find out for me who the Amishman is that used to date Cody.

This movie gets my highest rating, five stars. Go see it.

Ask Aunt Tillie: Do You Love New York?

Blogger's Note: Since this blog is somewhat Amishcentric, I get questions from time to time from readers about Amish life and culture, which I refer to my Aunt Tillie, an opinionated, but humble Amish woman. Here is a recent question and answer. Please leave a comment or email me if you have questions you want me to refer to her in the future.

Dear Aunt Tillie:

As you know I went to New York City a few weeks ago to see my son perform at Carnegie Hall. One of my readers thought I should offer to take you along. But, since we were flying instead of taking a van, I knew you couldn't be talked into it. But I do think I remember you telling about visiting New York once. Have you ever been to New York City? What did you think of it?

Signed, Amishlaw

Dear Nephew:

You're right, I did visit New York City once, a long time ago, before I was married. I went to see my sister, your aunt, Emma, who worked in New York City as a registered nurse. Emma always had a wanderlust, going off to pick cotton in Oklahoma several summers before finally leaving home for good to go to nursing school. I still don't know exactly how she wound up in New York City, of all places, but I guess she probably wanted to prove she could make it in the big city and they don't make cities any bigger than New York, at least not in this country.

Emma would come home with her clickety little high heels and tight skirts and flirty little comments when any man was around, which some of my sisters didn't appreciate, but I didn't mind because I knew she wasn't after any of the slow-talking men in our community. She used to tell me that I should come visit her, so one fall after we had the corn shucked, I told my father, your grandfather, Obed, that I was going to take off a week and go to New York City.

Surprisingly enough, Obed didn't say too much against it; I guess probably because when he was a young man, his father let him visit New York City and it sure didn't corrupt him. Obed's father, Andrew, gave him $2,000, which was a lot of money in 1915, to go to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to look for a wife. He decided he was going to see New York while he was out east, so he took the train in and got off in Grand Central Station. He walked out of the station, looked around at the big buildings, said, "There's nothing here that I want to see," and went back and got the next train out, on to Lancaster.

(Obed wound up corrupting the Amish young people of Lancaster County, as it turned out. After he returned to Illinois, the bishops in Lancaster sent a letter to the bishops in Illinois, asking them not to send any more of their young men to Lancaster. They were upset because he had taught their young people how to dance.)

Anyway, I spent a little more time in New York City and had way more fun there than Obed, probably because I had Emma as a guide. She met me at the station and took me to her house in Queens, and then took me to see all the sights. We went up on top of the Empire State Building, where I bought a little commemorative medallion that I still have somewhere around here, and we took a boat ride and saw the Statute of Liberty, although we didn't climb up inside.

Emma wanted to take me dancing, but I was afraid that I would look foolish because I really didn't know how to do ballroom dancing. The dancing the Amish young people did was more what you would call "square dancing." Emma got to be pretty good at ballroom dancing,and would enter and win dance contests. (Dancing turned out to be Emma's downfall, but that's a story for another time.)

Even though I wouldn't go dancing, Emma and I had a good time in New York. She took me out to eat in an Italian restaurant and a Chinese restaurant. We didn't have those kinds of restaurants when I was growing up, and even if there had been any in our little Midwestern town, there would be no reason to eat at a restaurant when we had plenty of food at home, and besides who had money to pay for restaurant food.

I could see why Obed didn't think much of the place, with all those tall buildings, you didn't see the sun until about 10 o'clock in the morning, and with all the cars honking their horns and people shouting and running around like ants in an anthill that a cow just stepped on, it was pretty nerve-wracking. But it was interesting to look at the strange people, and I guess they thought I was strange too because they were looking at me, just like I was looking at them. I wouldn't mind going back some day if my health holds up and you can find a train that goes there, but I don't think I'm ready to be squeezed into a van for 10 or 12 hours, or however long it takes to drive there and I know I wouldn't go up in an airplane. But if your son goes back out there to play his fiddle again, you let me know. I might just figure out a way to go listen to him.

Aunt Tillie

Ask Aunt Tillie: What About My Seester's Picture?

Blogger's Note: Since this blog is somewhat Amishcentric, I get questions from time to time from readers about Amish life and culture, which I refer to my Aunt Tillie, an opinionated, but humble Amish woman. Here is a recent question and answer. Please leave a comment or email me if you have questions you want me to refer to her in the future.

Dear Aunt Tillie:

My sister wonders what you would say about borrowing her picture from a school publication and publishing it on my blog. What is it about Amish and pictures anyway? Have you ever had your picture taken? Could you give me a copy to put on my blog so I can convince readers you really do exist?

Signed: Amishlaw

Dear Nephew:

So many questions; so little time. First of all, I have never read your blog, so I don't know how appropriate it was to publish your sister's picture. I hope you didn't show her face, not that there's anything wrong with her face, but we Amish prefer to be photographed from the rear. I think your sister's rear would have been just as nice to show your readers as her face, and it would have been less embarrassing for her.

What it is about Amish and pictures is kind of puzzling to me, too. Our preachers tell us that one of the Ten Commandments is that we are not to have any graven images, and that is why we don't have our pictures taken. The problem with that explanation is that we do have graven images of landscapes, animals and other things on calendars which we have all over our houses, so I don't think it's really the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments don't say don't make graven images of people, but maybe that's what they mean. I try not to do too much interpreting of the Bible, but just go by what it says. We don't like tourists taking our pictures, but who does? Even the Hollywood people, I'm told, get mad when tourists stick cameras in their faces and those are people who make their livings getting their pictures taken.

I did have my picture taken once, before I joined the church, and I gave it to Abner when he was courting me, but when I joined the church, I tore it up. It wasn't the sin so much that made me get rid of it as the feeling that if I kept looking at that thing, I would want to start improving my face and then could lipstick, liposuction and Botox be far behind? Since then I've only been photographed from the rear (and I have to confess that I start thinking about liposuction again when I see those ample shots) when some photographer showed up when I was in town buying groceries or some worldly nephew showed up at a funeral and wanted to take some souvenirs to show his friends.

As far as getting a picture of me to prove that I exist, I'm afraid I can't go along with that. What would a picture prove other than I'm getting a little old and wrinkled. The skeptical would think you just found a picture of some other Amish woman and the believers don't need pictures. I guess if God doesn't have to produce a picture to prove he exists, I shouldn't have to either.

Ask Aunt Tillie: Does Amishlaw Watch Too Many Movies and Read Too Many Books?

Blogger's Note: Since this blog is somewhat Amishcentric, I get questions from time to time from readers about Amish life and culture, which I refer to my Aunt Tillie, an opinionated, but humble Amish woman. Here is a recent question and answer. Please leave a comment or email me if you have questions you want me to refer to her in the future.

Dear Aunt Tillie:

One of my faithful readers, Lauren, has called me a "city boy" and accused me of spending too much time reporting on "fancy pants" books and movies. She asked me what I have "done" with you. Do you think I spend too much time reading books and watching movies and reporting on them?
(Signed) Amishlaw

Dear Nephew:

Is that the same Lauren you were telling me about who was going to have a birthday party with the children wearing their underwear on their heads, and worrying about what kind of underwear to furnish to the lone girl invited to the party? Something about a Captain Underpants television show? Does she have some kind of "pants" fixation? Maybe she should read a book or go to a movie.

Anyway, I don't know if you spend too much time reading books and going to movies. I suppose you have to have something to occupy your time since you don't raise chickens or milk cows or have a garden. I have to wonder about some of the books you tell me about. Maybe it would be better, if you have to read something, to spend your time reading the Bible. But, knowing you, I am afraid you would be picking out some of the parts of the Bible that are just better left unread, and then you would write about that on your blog. Would you really be better off getting people upset because you pointed out that the Bible clearly says that handicapped people are not supposed to enter the temple of the Lord? I just don't know that you have good enough judgment to ignore the parts of the Bible that need to be ignored, if you were spending all your time reading and writing about the Bible.

And, as far as going to the movies, it's been 60 years since I last saw a movie. I think it was called "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy," or maybe it was the Three Stooges, I don't remember, but as a 16-year-old girl I thought the movie was pretty funny until I stopped to think, "What if Jesus returned right now and caught me in here and I would have to spend the rest of eternity in hell, I wouldn't think this movie was so funny then, that's for sure." So, I stopped going to movies, even though Jesus didn't return during "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy." There have probably been a lot of good movies that I've missed over the last 60 years but even though Jesus stood me up, why take a chance?

So, I guess we all waste time, one way or another, I spend too much time looking through seed catalogs this time of year, but in the end we have to do what we have to do to keep our sanity. As for you being a city boy, you might as well admit to Lauren that's what you are, but you've probably shoveled more cow manure than she has over your lifetime, but then again, she'll soon get caught up -- didn't she just apply to get into an MFA program?

(Signed) Aunt Tillie

Ask Aunt Tillie: Do Amish Celebrate Christmas?

Blogger's Note: Since this blog is somewhat Amishcentric, I get questions from time to time from readers about Amish life and culture, which I refer to my Aunt Tillie, an opinionated, but humble Amish woman. Here is a recent question and answer. Please leave a comment or email me if you have questions you want me to refer to her in the future.

Dear Aunt Tillie:

The readers of your nephew's blog haven't read much about you lately, and I was just wondering how you're doing? Did you have a Merry Christmas? Do Amish even celebrate Christmas?

(signed) A Friend

Dear Friend:

I had a very nice Christmas; thanks for asking. All 14 of the children and 57 of the grandchildren were at our house for dinner on Christmas Day. I would say we "observe" Christmas more than "celebrate" it. From what I've read and heard from neighbors, our Christmas observances are quite a bit different from the way the English celebrate Christmas.
For one thing, we don't have Christmas lights, since we don't have electricity and it wouldn't make much sense to string lights around that don't light up. Actually, we don't put up Christmas decorations at all and we don't have Christmas trees and don't try to fool our children into believing they get presents from Santa Claus. When I hear people talk about having an "old-fashioned" Christmas, I have to laugh because in the olden days even the English didn't put as much time and trouble into celebrating Christmas as they do now days.
But we are not too Scrooge-like. We give presents to the younger children, although the idea of children making lists and demanding that we give them what's on the lists is unheard of among our people. We don't give presents to our married children, but when we had children at home, we might give the boys each a pair of gloves and the girls a scarf or something pretty, like a scriptural saying to hang on their wall. Abner will usually give a half dollar to each of the grandchildren, although the way inflation is going, I keep telling him he should get silver dollars to hand out. (I don't know if you can even get silver dollars anymore, that tells you how often I get to town.)
From what I've read, Christmas really doesn't have much to do with Jesus's birth, which no one even knows when it happened. Christmas started as a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, which the Catholics appropriated into a Christian celebration. It has pretty much returned to its pagan roots, from what I hear, with just a big buying and charging binge that the stores have promoted in order to sell more. I hear there are people on television and radio trying to get people stirred up about the "assault on Christmas," claiming that the ACLU is trying to ruin this country by making it illegal to say, "Merry Christmas." I like Christmas but I don't get too pushed out of shape about what someone might be trying to do or not do about saying "Merry Christmas." I figure that Christians who want to celebrate Jesus's birth are going to be able to do it without worrying too much about whether someone at the store said, "Merry Christmas," to them.
I hope, Friend, that you have a Happy New Year, and before you ask, no, I'm not planning on staying up until midnight; I don't have a television so I won't be watching the big ball come down at Times Square and I won't be drinking any champagne. If our throats feel scratchy, (or might be getting ready to feel scratchy,) Abner and I might just have a little nip of Kentucky bourbon before we go off to bed on New Year's Eve, but one nip is it. You don't want to be in bed with a drunken Amishman at my age, believe you me!

(Signed) Aunt Tillie