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I recall from my highschool days that Middlefield attempted to require the horses to wear diapers. The road apples were apparently clogging the storm sewers around the downtown area and every storm caused the intersection of 88 & Old State (downtown where the old train depot & Fritinger's feed mill were located).

Around that same time I was working as a clerk at Foodland and had my first encounter with young amish women coming in, changing into yankee clothing and going over to the saloon to get lit. I finally had that realization when I was mopping bathrooms one evening... I was waiting for two amish ladies to come out, but the only ones to come out were two "yanks" in Joe Camel t-shirts and jeans.

There are always "troubled" people no matter what religion or ethnicity. My folks were surrounded on 3 sides by amish neighbors and never had a problem with them... until one particular family moved in. They had built their house with materials they brought home a couple pieces at a time from a job-site. (I'm sure they were skimming off whatever project they were working on at the time) Then again, my first baby sitter was an older amish lady. If it wasn't for her, I probably would be another squeemish suburbanite... but while we were in her care, we had to help out around the farm. This included carrying bowls of hog blood (for blood sausage!) during a slaughter.

Were you there around 82-85? If so you would remember the new water tower they put up. Anyway I was a foreman at Phonotronics and worked in the evening at the Middlefield Tavern. The roughneck crew was staying at Rondini's motel and spent their evenings at the tavern. They did not get along with the young Amish guys that came into the bar. One night they were ragging the Amish pretty hard. When they went to leave they found their truck covered with horse manure. Couple of nights later they decided to do a payback. One of them went out and unhitched the boys buggy. The horse trotted off down 528. We had a new rookie cop that Chief Adams had just hired, we couldn't stand him as he was an overachiever when it came to writing tickets and hassling people. Anyway he seen the buggy run the red light and took off in hot pursuit, lights flashing and siren wailing and the scared horse just went faster. So, this bright rookie passes the horse and spins the cruiser to a stop sideways in the middle of the road. The horse never slowed down and ran right over the hood of the cruiser, the buggy which was still attached smashed into the side and disintegrated into kindling. The cruiser had over $8000 in damage and the local insurance company refused to pay off due to reckless negligence on the officers part. I probably didn't help that the rookie had issued a parking ticket to the owner just two weeks earlier.

After that anytime that rookie came into any of the businesses people would nicker & neigh and start laughing.