I’m all too aware. I got the virus years ago:
Thou hast just received the Amish Virus.
As we haveth no technology nor programming experience, this virus worketh on the honour system. Please delete all the files from thy hard drive and manually forward this virus to all on thy mailing list.
We thank thee for thy cooperation.
— The Amish Computer Engineering Dept.
I’m not Amish — and prefer cooking with cast iron skillets.
Being Amish means never having to Survival Prep.
Are we talking about Feral Amish or Amish Amish?
We get to interact with many of them at our local Dutch Country Market.
They come down on buses. One of the waitresses told us they’re allowed to ride in cars but not drive them. Another one told us when she got married last year that she and her husband spent their honeymoon in a nice Hampton Inn in the Poconos.
They use electricity at the market in all sorts of ways and the market has a website. I don’t know who maintains it.
Then there is Kate Stoltzfus.
I must say, some of their women are quite pretty.
Never heard of this guy before. I’m kind of leery of him. He posits himself as an expert of sorts, while primarily regurgitating information that is readily available on the internet. I guess I have seen too many of these self styled experts on the Amish. There’s also an entire subculture of Amish “posers” out there. They even change their online names to Amish names. It’s not just a game to them, they are dead serious about it. I have a fake facebook account that is devoted to keep an eye these people after one of them tried to scam some of my friends.
A Facebook group with real Amish, ex-Amish, those curious about Amish, and Amish groupies: https://www.facebook.com/groups/130816517082333/
I have a few funny Amish stories to tell.
The Amish population is growing. By some estimates there are 300,000 in the United States, and the birthrate is very high: the population doubles roughly every generation.
...
That’s something to think about, compared to the rest of American society.
I passed by an young amish man in a buggy by himself. I could tell by the phone in his hands, and his head down that he was texting.
It is my understanding that the bishop of each Amish group determines the extent of modernity, some being more liberal than others.
—Heard from someone I know that he bought a quilt at an Amish store and didn’t quite have all the cash needed. He was told they accepted credit cards. Wait, how would it be processed? With one of those old devices where you put the card in, put in a piece of carbon paper, and move it right to left and back.
—With a friend, I visited the Amish Door restaurant in Wilmot, OH (now part of a whole “village” I think). Two signs the buffet-style restaurant was Amish—no booze, and not open on The Lord’s Day, Sunday.
“One county in Ohio is poised to become the first majority Amish county in the US by 2020.”
Which one?
I wonder what an Amish county government would look like.