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True story from back in the late ‘60’s. My older brother was driving home from Philadelphia to where we lived outside of Harrisburg and being that it was such a beautiful spring day, he took a bunch of back roads. His car broke down on one of those rural roads, breaking down in an area with nothing but Amish farms all around.

This was long before the days of cell phones and there was little traffic and those few cars that did pass him, none stopped. Before long an Amish man and his son who had been working their fields came over to see if they could help, my brother thinking - “what are these guys going to do?” The old man looked under the hood of my brother’s car and quickly ascertained that he had a broken hose (the Amish may not own or drive cars themselves but they are very mechanical).

The Amish man told my brother that he had probably a hose that would fit back at his workshop so my brother climbed in the back of their horse drawn wagon. Sure enough the farmer’s workshop was full of all sorts of things, hoses, belts, engine parts. Turns out he made repairs on farm tractors (for the local non-Amish farmers) as well as having a blacksmith shop. The farmer had a very, very old rotary telephone in the workshop that worked and told my brother that perhaps he might like to call home in case his parents were worried. The man’s wife came out and brought my brother some “coldish” tea and some cookies.

The man found a similar hose, gathered some tools and he, his son and my brother got back in the wagon to my brother’s car where the Amish farmer made quick work of the repair, of course telling my brother he should take it to a “real” mechanic as soon as he could but that it should be good enough to get him home.

When my brother offered to give the Amish man some money for the hose and for his time and trouble, he Amish man refused. He said something in German that my brother supposed was from the Bible. He and his son shook my brother’s hand and wished him a safe trip home.

If anyone wants to know who the Amish are, you aren’t going to find it these fake and trashy so called “reality” shows (and I know they are fake, the TV producers of Breaking Amish and Amish Mafia ran ads in the local newspapers around here for “actors” and “extras”).

If you want to know a little about the Amish, read up on the Nickel Mines School shooting and how the Amish not only forgave the murderer of those sweet little girls, but reached out to his family and embraced them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAmeJHXcw4w