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National Features

It's Friday night at Twister's. Tina launches the evening with a tallboy of Sparks. Customers eyeball her white bonnet and shin-grazing dress as she sips from her can of malt liquor and caffeine. She's used to the gawking. Impolite scrutiny comes with being Amish.

"Everyone stares at you," she says. "It's not very fun, but I just ignore it."

Besides, Tina's on a mission to get tanked. No amount of rubbernecking can stop her.

The DJ approaches. Rodger Locher, a clean-cut city boy, is what's known as a "Yank," the all-encompassing term for not being Amish. Since he became Twister's resident DJ, Tina's become a regular, obsessed with listening to Beyoncé, the Killers, and Korn over rounds of neon cocktails.

"Remember the last time you were here?" he asks her.

"Sorta," Tina laughs.

"Yeah, probably not at all. You were wasted! Got any requests?"

Tina asks for "Smack That" by Akon, then orders a Sex on the Beach.

Martha sits down with a Bud and bums a cigarette. Her cherub face is framed by a starched bonnet, her squat figure submerged in a dowdy dress. As Akon sings about slapping gyrating butts, Tina and Martha lip-synch, bouncing their bonnets to the beat.

Tyrna, hold my woody back through my drawers, they demurely mouth in unison.

A drunk lady with a crunchy perm dances toward Martha. She grabs Martha's hands, trying to drag her onto the dance floor, which is little more than a space between tables. Martha resists. "Oh, c'mon!" the lady shouts.

Martha shyly shakes her head no.

"Why not?" asks another Yank.

"If we dance, people will really start staring," Tina says.

The drunk perm dances back to her friends and knocks down a quick shot before playfully grinding her hips along a man's thigh. The smirk on Tina's face is a mixture of amusement and disgust. "I just like watching people," she says.

The way she climbs up and down them poles, lookin' like one of them Pretty Cat Dolls, she lip-synchs.

Twister's is Tina's favorite hangout. It's hidden on an unlit, tree-lined road, tucked inside the Dutch Country Restaurant in Middlefield. To get to the bar, you're whisked through a maze of families polishing off platters of gravy and dumplings under intense fluorescent lighting.

But the shoe-box tavern is a different world. Twentysomethings gulp beers and shots with names like "Redheaded Slut." For young and restless Yanks, Twister's is a reprieve from the farms and factories of Middlefield, a place where the guys shoot pool and gussied-up girls mimic the moves of rap videos. For Tina, who comes here almost every weekend, Twister's is everything her life isn't.

Though her house looks like any other vinyl-sided suburban home, inside there's no internet, no flat-screen, no electricity. She lives by gas lamp, sewing her own dresses and hitching buggies in the snow.

For the first several years of her life, Tina, the youngest of seven children, spoke only Pennsylvania Dutch, a slow, lilting language that sounds more like an ancient Norse dialect than modern German. She didn't learn English until she entered school, graduating by the eighth grade -- as all Amish do -- to begin working as a babysitter.

When she turned 17, she started her rumspringa -- the Amish rite of passage in which young adults are allowed to dabble in the indiscretions of our world before officially joining the church. "It just means you can do whatever Yanks do," Tina says. "Not everyone drinks alcohol. Some people just drink Coke and play volleyball."

At her first party, she didn't drink. She was already intoxicated by the chatter, the shiny silver kegs, the smoke of the bonfire and cigarettes, the dizzy dancing.

It was her first real encounter with Yanks. She found them fascinating. Their lives appeared woven of a more breathable fabric, free from the constraints of overbearing parents and ankle-length dresses. "It's just easier," she says. "Especially with parents. No one bothering them about where they're going."

She quickly grew a tiny collection of T-shirts and eye shadow, learning to drink by the six-pack until dawn and memorizing Eminem's entire discography. She even bought a cell phone, which her parents still don't know about.

Though the rules of rumspringa allow Tina to indulge in all of this, her parents still don't want these things around the house.

This was made infinitely clear when her mom caught her sneaking in after a late night of partying. "I saw you with jeans on last night," Mom said.

"So?"

"Don't ever do it again."

But there was little her mother could do. As long as Tina was still in rumspringa, she couldn't be shunned for breaking the rules -- a consequence saved for those who have already joined the church. "They get upset about it, but there's not much they can do about it."

For a while Tina dated a Yank. She cared for him so much, she thought about leaving the Amish. But if she did, her parents warned, the family would never speak to her again. Tina called off the relationship. "It would be hard not to talk to my sisters," she says.

When Tina was 20, she considered joining the church, but quickly realized it wasn't for her. "I had to promise in front of the whole church that I'd never go to parties again," she says. "And I was like, uh, I'm 20 years old -- I'm still going to go to parties. I like going to parties. I just like being around people and talking with them."

Tina decided to stretch out her rumspringa for as long as she could. Since there is no cutoff age, she plans to join the church when she's either sick of partying or tired of being nagged by her parents. "I'm sure I'll be done with parties before I'm 30."

Write Your Comment show comments (22)

  1. For Heaven's sake--we non-Amish are called (the) "English," not "Yanks." Geez.

    Comment by Gill Avila — March 15, 2007 @ 05:11PM

  2. How would you know what we're called? Don't just go by what you learned watching "Kingpin" and "The Witness" jerkoff. Oops, I mean, yank.

    Comment by RoBotkin — March 15, 2007 @ 10:59PM

  3. Thank you for writing this article on the Amish youth. Too many people living outside of Middlefield really don't understand the reality of young Amish folks. Let the truth be told. Thanks!

    Comment by Ron Duncan — March 16, 2007 @ 12:02PM

  4. People like Gill Avila and RoBotkin should really finish their "Hooked on Phonics" classes before they comment! The term "Yank" is what the Amish call the non-Amish. Not what everyone else refers to us as. And the writer of this article clearly states she actually got her facts from hanging out with these Amish women. Not by watching movies as RoBotkin would like to assume. Maybe before you two would like to act like you have a clue as to what you are talking about, you should actually learn to read!
    P.S. If any of these words were too big for you, please consult your dictionary. You know, the really big book on your bookshelves that is collecting dust.

    Comment by RJ — March 16, 2007 @ 02:29PM

  5. I can see that "Robotkin" is an uneducated moron who's never read a book that didn't require crayons, otherwise I'd recommend that he/she/it read Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish by Tom Shachtman. Maybe someone can read it to him/her/it.

    Comment by Gill Avila — March 16, 2007 @ 05:18PM

  6. Its sad that people ridicule and treat the Amish as weird. There life is quiet and peaceful with little stress. When a member of the Amish community needs a house or barn built the whole community, some from hundreds of miles away, come together and build it. If father becomes sicks and can't farm the community takes care of them. Not many "Yanks" will do that even for there own family!

    Comment by Dave Mohn — March 16, 2007 @ 08:55PM

  7. Interesting article. I don't know anything about the Amish, I think it's good to have a counter to the ever accelerating technological world we live in. It's horrible though, that her family force her to choose between either the Amish life or the "Yank" life using her family as bullying tactic. I find this to be quite a common theme amongst the, admittedly few, religious families I know..

    Comment by Tom Houston — March 18, 2007 @ 04:05PM

  8. Hmm. The amish practice of shunning is exactly what Jehovah's Witnesses do. It's too bad that there are such intolerant people in the world today, but it was nice to read that one of the pastors did not shun his son just because he decided he didn't want to be amish.

    Comment by Regina — March 20, 2007 @ 06:26PM

  9. My friend sent me this article. It's an amazing piece of work, actually; really engrossing. Awesome job.

    Comment by Sam — March 20, 2007 @ 07:21PM

  10. Whomever wrote this article obviously has aspirations of becoming a porn fiction best selling author. Although I found it humorous, it is obvious that the author knows nothing about the amish. Yanks? All non amish are referred to as "English". There are to many other discrepancies in this story to bother with, so I will just have to leave this loser author to his own devices.

    Comment by slowride — March 20, 2007 @ 10:38PM

  11. If you folks reading this don't know an early April Fool's joke of a story... then you are a bunch of 'dumb English.' This dumb dutchman knows a joke when he reads one.

    Comment by padoogle2001 — March 20, 2007 @ 11:34PM

  12. I read this article and found it very interesting as I sit here in my office at Camp Anaconda, Iraq. I don't agree with the comment about the Amish being intolerant because they choose to live a different life style; see the world and you'll learn that everyone chooses their "own" lifestyle. That comment is blatantly disrepectful because who is this person to judge? Come over to the Middle East and you'll experience things you never thought possible, but it is good for a person to do this if they make such comments. When I get home in November, I am going to do a 3 to 4 day road trip and visit this bar and meet some Amish women, buy them some beers, and get to know them because I find them interesting and mysterious. We have them in Michigan but I'll need a vacation when I get home.

    Comment by Scott — March 25, 2007 @ 07:07AM

  13. This has to be the dumbest article Scene has ever published. So what if Amish girls like to go out and have a beer? Who cares except the Amish?????

    Comment by Gail — April 2, 2007 @ 02:16PM

  14. in regards to article in firstpunch "beer:the miracle cure" if in fact Miss Michelle Arthur currently is prescribed an anxiety remedy, the persons responsible for firing her owe her an apoligy and in my opinion; her job back. unless you understand anxiety/panic attacks, they may seem to be some what shocking and bizzar to the ignorant. but in fact, panic attacks are a common affliction to millions. certain people handle individual attacks differently. her actions are identical to substituting a chocolate bar for insulin if the circumstances call for it. would you fire that person? aside from a petty misdomeaner,the actions may have saved a trip in an ambulance and another stress scar on the nerves of miss Arthur. this is an affliction that we cannot control. we can only hope to contain it. miss Arthurs rights and dignity have been violated. i hope this letter shames someone into making this situation right. with my most sincere conviction,

    timmy shmotz

    Comment by timmy shmotz — May 14, 2007 @ 04:33PM

  15. Seriously, this is a pretty accurate article, I live in Middlefield and I've been to the bars around here including Twisters. And yes, we are referred to as Yanks around here.

    He does pretty much make it sound like fiction the way he writes it, though.

    Comment by Kyle Cavanaugh — June 16, 2007 @ 04:34PM

  16. all you people are old, aren't you?
    i've seen an amish boy about my age once at niagara falls with his family and whatnot.
    he and i made eye connection and it looked like he wanted to say "please, take me away!"
    he was really cute though, id love to hook up with a cute amish guy in suspenders and stuff. heck yes.

    Comment by Lauren — August 13, 2007 @ 07:56PM

  17. I grew up near Middlefield, in N. Bloomfield. I went to school with Amish kids, they definitely call us "Yanks" I never heard the term "English".

    Comment by Todd Gill — August 16, 2007 @ 09:16PM

  18. It's very sad, that some young girls or guys, feel like they have to stay in the amish community, or they loose their family. It's like your family is taken as hostage. "Stay or you'll never see your family". What kind of bullshit is that? Religious people have to respect if a family member, isn't interested anymore, in the religion. They don't show that respect, by disconnecting the former member to his/her's family.
    And in those family, where they bend the amish rules, when the former member come for a visit, should wear whatever clothes he/she choose.
    It's not about a choice between electricity or family. I mean, there a ordinary families out there, who are together, and with electricity.
    Not to sound disrespectful, but I'm a 100% atteist (and don't see myself as evil, as many religious people think of), but simply a guy, who don't believe in a God. Nothing more than that. Life is on the planets in the universe, and will be there under the right circumstitions. A sun (star) with the right distance to a planet with atmosphere, water, and earth.
    I live in modern society, and I think, it is natural to use what modern technology can enrich our daily lifes. If you get sick, you can pick up the phone to call a doctor,and he can drive his car to you fast, in order to quickly get you up and running again. At night, you can turn on a lamp, if you wants to read a book, so you don't get bad sight reading in poor light. A.S.O.
    I hope one day, people will realize, that religion is superstition. And you can still be able to love, without being religious.
    Sorry for my bad english

    Comment by Krusty — August 22, 2007 @ 10:03PM

  19. I live in Johnstown, NY and we have quite a large Amish population within 15 minutes of our small city. I often see Amish in their buggys going up my street on their way to sell their baked goods and other things they make on the busy main street corner. They are also often seen in the local grocery stores etc. Anyway, every now and then I stop and buy a pie from them to bring in to work (because they are absolutely awesome)and they are extremely pleasant and willing to chat with us. Here in upstate NY they do refer to us outsiders as 'English'. I believe its just a regional thing if they refer to us as 'English' or 'Yanks' and obviously there is no difference and it is not meant with any distain or spite. I did know about rumpringa but I have yet to see any Amish youths in any of the local bars that me and my friends frequent, but who knows, maybe they are just 'blending in'...I doubt it though...must be another regional thing, how much their particular family or congregation will tolerate....just my 2 cents...their lives are very interesting to me and I have the greatest respect for how they choose to live, I know I couldnt do it....

    Comment by Jdub27 — October 7, 2007 @ 11:21AM

  20. BTW if anyone is actually still following this thread or commenting, after doing a little bit of research I found that our Amish population is actually considerably small, only about 100 families in the area, but we still interact with them almost daily. I can imagine it must be alot different in the middlefield, ohio area where there are thousands of Amish....

    Comment by Jdub27 — October 7, 2007 @ 12:00PM

  21. I've lived in the town over from Middlefield all my life and worked in Middlefield. The Amish really are like this - I developed pictures of their "barn parties" and bar visits for 3 years. I went to school and grew up with Amish kids. In fact, one of my best friends, who just graduated from college, used to be Amish. Her Mom, who turned Amish to marry an Amish man, decided she didn't want her and kids to be Amish anymore and they converted back. However, they still live with their Amish father and all their Amish relatives come to visit them. It's not as strict as you think. Also, if they decide not to be Amish anymore it's called "yanking over", not "yanking off". I have no idea where you would've gotten that term. Other than that, the story is fairly accurate.

    Comment by Anna — October 31, 2007 @ 09:22AM

  22. Something "piques" one's interest. It is not "peaked." No editor?

    Comment by Dan Syzlak — January 3, 2008 @ 09:28AM

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