Friday, May 9, 2008

Amish Country






Either Kim's estrogen is infusing my body from spending every minute of every day with her or I really need to get back to some good ol' macho blue collar work. I am sitting here bawling at the Regis and Kathy Lee show after a good dose of crying to the Good Morning America show. It's the Mother's Day specials you see, a bunch of teary-eyed women including my own have got to me and I'm a little verklempt over here.
We spent the day yesterday doing too much...oh here I go again...Collin Raye is singing to a mother that lost her son and chose to donate his organs..I'm verklempt..here's the topic, the New Deal it was neither new nor a deal, discuss. My tear ducts are dry over here.
Anyhoo, we spent the day yesterday in Amish Country and it didn't disappoint. There were many buggies with big orange caution reflectors on the back. Kim decided to forgo breakfast in the R.V. for the hopes of coming across an Amish bakery by a reasonable hour. This didn't happen and let me tell you Miss Chipper got a little peeved. I had a full belly and I couldn't help but chuckle as we passed by small town after small town without Amish. Kim got pretty pissed at me and I could see that priority one was to feed the girl or the Amish were going to see something they aren't used to. We finally found a nice Deli and Bakery type place in Intercourse, PA. We failed to get a t-shirt or a picture by the city sign in Intercourse and I regret that. The pretzel factory there had a hat that asked the question "hard or soft?" Intercourse, PA, but it was too rednecky of a style of hat. We passed many tidy farms with Amish men guiding horse drawn implements. There were at least three incidents of Amish families playing baseball in the front yard. We stopped at an Amish bicycle store and sure enough they had the parts I needed for my bike, something that six other bike stores couldn't provide. I said "Wow! That's awesome! I have been to six other stores and you guys are the first! Thanks man!" The response, a very unhumored "We keep a lot of old parts around. Anything else?" The Amish are all about work and gettin' 'er done, but not necessarily about humour I guess.
Upon Bill's recommendation we stopped at Cornwall, a small township started in the mid 1700's by a man named Grubb for the purpose of running an iron furnace to make cast iron from iron ore. I learned that a collier is someone that makes charcoal from trees for use in the blast furnace. I did not know what a collier was. There again, I don't read enough. While watching the edumacational film there was an Amish family seated in front of us with about six children. Not a peep! Not a look away from the screen! The older kids kept the younger kids in line and mom kept the baby quiet with silent techniques and dad watched the film intently as if to memorize questions to ask the children later. Wow! It was awesome! After tourist attraction upon tourist attraction with nothing but brats running around us for the last year I have to celebrate the Amish. Hey, I don't care what goes on inside their four walls that makes these kids so obedient, all I know is I don't have to suffer the consequences of what doesn't go on inside their four walls. Very cool buildings and amazing amount of work and forsight that goes into someone saying "Hey, this place looks like it has a lot of iron in the soil. I think I will build a furnace and turn an acre a day of trees into charcoal to melt some metal out of tons of dirt." They got iron out of that streak of dirt until the mid 1970's.
We ended the day in Hershey. That's right, Hershey, PA where all the chocolate is made. We did the free stuff. We did get some souvenirs or as I call it "paying for the privilege to advertise for a large corporation." Donna, I hope that the little M.E. is a youth medium or I am going to cry into this high dollar t-shirt. We ended the day at a restaurant that kinda fooled us. It looked like a Denny's type place attached to a motel and I said "Let's stop there, I just want a salad." We walked in and there was a very dapper black man in a dark suit standing behind a mahogany reception podium. "Good evening sir and madam." I was looking for the green apron clad white trash girl saying "Howdy folks, smokin' or non." I felt a little under dressed in my shorts and "Life's Good" t-shirt. "Err.. uh.. yeah. Table for two please." We had an excellent meal and probably the best staff of the whole year, even if I did stand out against the mahogany, crystal, semi-circle high backed booth and jazz music atmosphere.
Off to Ohiopyle to soak in the Youghigeny River.
photos 1. Amish plumber hauling a shower stall 2. interesting lost and found of the old days-i don't condone slavery, but I thought some of the language was humorous. Let the old dude go, he has had a rough life. 3. old farm house 4.Cornwall furnace 5. Kim entering the chocolate world

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I like what this vacation is doing to you Jim, I hope this mushy feeling side doesnt fade when you get back to the hvac grind. I am most certain that I have lost a fair amount myself, I feel , well, just real sereous all the time.( how the heck do you spell serious? oh, thats it, isnt it?)any way I think your safe with a youth medium, she is a 7 or 8 right now in kids clothes, Donna may know what the heck a youth medium really is. Love Tuna, who has way too many cats/kittens..oh oh.. purrrfect opertunity. ANY OF YOUR READERS NEED A REALLY CUTE KITTEN??

Anonymous said...

I don’t know what a youth medium is exactly buy I’m sure it will be fine. M.E. is a youth who is not too big or too small, so medium it would be. Thanks Uncle James & Aunt Kim.