"You lot. You spend all your time thinking about dying. Like you’re going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible- that maybe you’d survive." -The Ninth Doctor
So I guess that'll be the last time I wander in at 1 in the morning after being with a couple of college guys.
"That" being the car trip home and "couple of college guys" being my cousins, of course. What did you think I was talking about?
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On the way home it occurred to me that I might make fun of America mainly because I am under the impression that it is cool to do so. And I actually rather like America despite its abundance of flaws, so I apologize to you, USA, and I shall go back to mocking you and your constituents tomorrow (in the figurative sense).
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There's an Amish community not terribly far from my grandma's house, and we drove over there last week. (This was mainly to visit their grocery store, because they have amazing bread and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.) It was very interesting.
Unlike the popular assumption, they (at least this group) do use electricity- just from solar panels and windmills. The labels on the food were printed, they had an electronic cash register, and there was artificial lighting inside the store. I don't know how much of that was for the sake of running a business and how much they also use inside their homes, but there you have it.
Then yesterday on the way home we saw an Amish couple inside Walmart, and I have no rationalization for that.
A) I suspect that if you head to college that this will indeed not be the last time, it is hard to end a good conversation and head to bed (at least, it is hard for me...)
ReplyDeleteB) I went dancing with an ex-Mennonite a few months ago and she mentioned how amusing she found the Romanticism we have for the Amish/Mennonites, noting that the ingredients for the Amish bread they sell often come from the same supermarket that the ingredients for modern bread would.
A) Yes, of course. It was a joke, as I'm sure you know. :)
ReplyDeleteB) Every time my sister started raving about how good the bread was, my grandma would say something about how she makes her own "Amish" bread fairly often. My sister also conveniently forgot that WE make it at home too.
As a former Amish person myself, I know that a lot of Amish shop at Wal-Mart. Some use a horse and buggy, while others pay somebody to drive them. My theory is that, due to the rapidly expanding Amish population, some Amish are driven to enter occupations other than farming and immediate local community. However, they are usually only found in construction and various professional manufacturing companies, as high school education is loosely prohibited, and exceedingly rare. ) Holding these more "public " jobs generally pays more than the average Amish farmers' net income, thus giving these workers more discretionary income, commonly used to buy groceries, and believe it or not sometimes even entertainment at Wal-Mart.
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