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Amish

The Source

So the little Amish girl looked at me across the Formica desktop and asked, “What color would you like the shingles?” I hadn’t thought about that. “Uh…what shades of green do you have?” She studied her chart then looked at me in all seriousness and said, “Green.” “Uh..okay. I’ll take green.” This was my first encounter with the Amish other than eating their cheese and sampling their schnitzel. I needed a storage shed and the local wags seem to point me in the direction of the carpenters who drove the plain, black vans and favored chin whiskers. Economy seemed to be their by-word. I’m sure that I paid the full price for my storage shed, but it was the economy of their movement, their speech and organization that impressed me. Green shingles. That was it. No “Forest Green,” no “Shades of Sherwood” or “Pasture Paradise.” You mean green, then say “Green.” Even the order form was an exercise in simplicity.. Name, address, type of building, and “special requirements.” The IRS could take a lesson from our brothers in black. I’d seen their carpentry crew in action when we hired them to shingle a very large roof at Green Pastures campground. The Amish roofers showed up in three black vans and one white vehicle (obviously an Amish-in-training), and with about three words introduction began to work. White shirts, black pants, suspenders, a hat on every head and chin whiskers on every chin old enough to sprout hair. Side note: I know that I’m lumping all the Amish into one general category. Perhaps there are a dozen varieties but my Presbyterian outlook can’t seem to discriminate between the various versions. When I traveled to White Hall to pick out a shed I found a neat little compound of buildings that obviously served as home, factory, and showroom for their enterprise. I’d just stepped out of my car when a spirit appeared beside me. Actually, I doubt that she was a real spirit, but it was a foggy morning, she was dressed in a white head cap and apron, and I hadn’t had coffee since leaving Arenzville. In a quiet, clipped tone she asked if she could help me, I indicated that she could indeed, and it was at that moment that his sixteen-year-old maid of the mist turned into a high-powered shed salesman. This girl was good. One of the reasons I seldom shop around for anything is that I’m a genuine pushover for any sales pitch. I paid a guy outside Buckingham Palace to take a picture of my students and I knowing full well that his camera was empty and I’d never see those photographs. I was just so fascinated by the guy’s sales schpeel that I wrote the two pounds off as an entertainment tax. The little Amish girl had me from the get-go and I came home the owner of a new storage shed. If she’d offered me a horse or a condo I’d probably have bought those as well. So…my shed arrived a week later. A new shed rolling down the streets of Arenzville gets a lot of attention so by the time the delivery truck arrived we had drawn a small crowd. (Actually, a strange dog has the same affect in Arenzville but the Amish don’t do dogs.) I was amazed that they’d sent only one man to unload the thing. I mean this is was rather large building, but the guy was a pro. A quiet pro. I think the sum total of his words was “Are you Mr. Bradbury?” then 30 minutes later, “I guess that’s it.” Economy. He unloaded the building in a pouring rain (first donning his black raincoat), unhitched a little shed hauling machine from his truck, lifted the structure clear and then carefully placed it in the designated spot, all the while humming to himself. Who hums in the rain? I was cold, I was getting soaked, and I was completely unnecessary to the process. When somebody’s delivering your new building you feel obligated to at least stand there and watch, so I did. In fact, I minored in “watching” in college. Since the weather was so moist that day I didn’t give my new shed a careful inspection. It was a day later when I discovered that a door had been damaged somewhere along the line. I wrote the boys in black a letter, citing the problems, and the day they got letter they phoned me…three times… telling me they’d be there the next morning to replace the door. The Amish door-fixer was more discreet than even the salesgirl and the deliveryman. I didn’t even see him. Despite what you learned from the old cartoons, some ghosts dress in black.