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.”
But these days, she expresses little interest in relationships and rarely dresses like a Yank — unless she’s going to a concert or an amusement park, where the ogling is infinitely worse.
Her interest in Yank ways, however, has expanded beyond keggers and midriffs. She’d like to go to college and become a nurse. She knows of one Amish woman who did just that, but when she finally joined the church, she gave it up. “I don’t know if I could be a nurse and still be Amish,” Tina says. “No one has done it.”
Her life’s path is based entirely on such precedents. She does things, she often says, because “that’s just how it’s done.”
When asked why she doesn’t leave the Amish — what they refer to as “Yanking off” — Tina shrugs. “Don’t really see the point.”
On a rainy winter evening, Tina sucks down Smirnoff Ice in an empty diner on the outskirts of Middlefield. She’s joined by Locher and her friend June.
June is Tina’s partner in crime — a ruddy-cheeked 21-year-old with a devilish giggle. She is lapping everyone by at least two Buds, not including the one she spilled on Locher’s lap. “You gotta watch out for this one,” Locher says, pointing at June. “I’ll put this girl up against pretty much any Yank I know.”
June started her rumspringa when she was 17. “But I went to my first party at 15,” she says, bursting into laughter.
She has already joined the church. But that hasn’t kept her from closing down the bar on Saturday nights. She doesn’t fear being shunned over a couple of Miller Lights. “It’s really not as strict as people think,” June says.
The women make clear that their church is not as puritanical as outsiders perceive. Tina’s is simply a group of about 15 families who take turns hosting Sunday services — a community of sustained tradition, uncluttered by modern conveniences. Their isolation has more to do with preserving the old ways than any real disdain for Yanks.
In Middlefield, there are dozens of these churches. Each has its own pastor and its own views. In June’s church, it’s up to each family to decide how to deal with disobedience.
Locher is one of the few Yanks who understand the subtle variances of their world. He dated an Amish girl — a stunningly slender blonde from a family of eight children. She was sincere and grounded — so different from the other girls Locher had dated.
She peaked his interest in the ways of the Amish. So Locher paid a visit to her pastor, hoping to sort out fact from fiction. “They’re nothing like Amish in the City,” Locher says. “Their focus is on family and helping each other out. Nothing else matters. I really respect that.”
The pastor revealed that his oldest son had left the church to marry a Yank. He decided not to shun his son. His only rule is that his son must dress Amish when he comes to visit. “I realized they were a lot more open than many people perceive them to be,” Locher says.
Though he stopped seeing the girl, Locher still toys with the idea of becoming Amish. “Sometimes it would be nice to get away from the city and live off the land,” he says. “But I still have too many questions.”
A few Yanks have joined the Amish, but it’s rare. “It’s so hard,” Tina says. “You have to give up your radio. No TV. No car.”
On the other hand, many Amish have left their communities, seduced by a Yankee soul mate or the chance to own a car. Some are shunned forever. Others return like prodigal sons. And there are those capable of navigating both worlds, like June’s uncle, who left the Amish long ago. “I still love my uncle,” she says. “He drives my dad to work almost every day.”
Like many Amish teens, June thought about following her uncle. “It was when I was 16 and I wasn’t getting along with my family,” she says. “But now I love my family, so it doesn’t make sense to leave.”
Her family is smitten with the choice, even if it means she still bends the rules a bit. “I just don’t tell them that I go to bars,” she says. “But even if they found out, they wouldn’t do anything about it.”
The waitress interrupts, asking if anyone needs anything. June mischievously eyes Tina. “I’ll have one more,” she says.
As forgiving as June’s family may be, the law is not.
While police elsewhere in rural Ohio focus on meth labs and wife-beaters, Middlefield’s cops have a curious fetish for busting the Amish.
June was first pinched at 17. She and her friends had killed a six-pack before hopping in a buggy to buy more. They noticed a cop trailing them and stuffed their mouths with Listerine strips just before they were pulled over. It was no use. Everyone was forced to take a field sobriety test. June failed miserably. The cop delivered her home.
Tina was once cruising around town with her cousins when one accidentally dropped a 12 of Bud into the street. They were instantly pulled over. “They’d been trailing us for a while,” Tina says. “I wasn’t even drunk, but they’re always following buggies around.”
Locher wags his head in agreement. “You’ll never see a buggy parked in front of a bar,” he says. “They’re instant targets.”
Former Chardon Municipal Court Judge Craig Albert admits as much, but cites safety as the reason. “The car will go right into a ditch,” Albert says. “But the horses will go right through an intersection. These kids will get in their buggies and pass out and just let the horses head home on their own.”
After four years of dealing with the law, Tina and June are now well practiced in deceiving it.
The last time Tina was pulled over, she was riding shotgun, alcohol wafting off her porcelain skin. Though she wasn’t driving, she was forced to take a field test. When she failed to walk a straight line, she invoked her diabetes. “I told him my sugar was low,” she says. “I really do have diabetes, so I got out my stuff and started testing my sugar, and they let me go.”
Then there was the time she passed out on the side of the road. Next thing she knew, she was waking up in a patch of grass to an officer’s flashlight. “I showed him my ID, and he was like, ‘You’re Amish?!?” she says. “He just let me go.”
Others aren’t so lucky.
In 2000, Geauga County Amish leaders asked police to help curb public drinking. Albert, now a Geauga County Commissioner, was happy to take the job. “He’d always cuss out the Amish when they were caught drinking,” Tina says.
If an Amish kid walked into Albert’s courtroom, he or she could be sure to spend a weekend in jail. Albert says he was simply honoring elders’ wishes. “It was usually enough just to give them a weekend in jail,” he says. “After that, they’d never come before you again.”
Albert’s tactics have proven effective. These days, you’ll find few Amish driving buggies home drunk — and even fewer at the bars. “It’s been quite some time since we’ve had any negative run-ins with the Amish community,” says Middlefield Sergeant Michael Fabian. “When we see them leaving bars, they usually catch rides. But, for the most part, they’re not out at the bars much anymore.”
It’s around 1 a.m. and Twister’s has filled out nicely.
Amish guys in straw hats and bowl cuts keep to themselves, playing a video scavenger-hunt game. The rest of the room talks loudly over the Pussycat Dolls and Fergie. Tina and Martha are the only Amish girls to be found.
Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me, they sing.
After several hours of drinking, they are the color of fleshy nectarines, ready to mingle. A glassy-eyed Yank approaches. “You got a cell phone?” he asks a blushing Tina. “Can I call you some — I mean, what’s your number?”
As Tina recites it, he drunkenly punches in the digits while struggling to keep his balance. He flashes the phone at a friend before turning back to Tina. “They bet me 20 bucks I couldn’t get your number,” he says.
Then he erases it, making clear that she’s nothing more than the punch line. “Thanks,” he says, oblivious to the embarrassment he’s planted on Tina’s face.
She doesn’t say anything as he walks away. She’s used to the rudeness of shit-faced Yanks.
Just the week before, a group of middle-aged men sat next to her, going on about having sex with Amish girls. “They were talking about Amish pussy and if I wanted to have a threesome,” she remembers.
Tina kept her cool until a bartender told the guys to shut the hell up. “They apologized after that,” she says. “I figured I’d just be nice. I’m not gonna be like them.”
A few minutes later, another Yank approaches. She knows this one. You can’t miss Jason Byler. “He’s, like, the only black guy in Middlefield — and he can speak Amish!”
Byler was adopted by a family with Amish ties. “I picked up the language just by listening to it,” he says.
Tina asks him whether he’d ever consider being Amish. “No way. It’s boring — no Playstation, no TV, no computer. And I love my cars. Forget hitching buggies in the snow.”
Tina gets a bit testy. “I know we’re weird. The Amish are weird,” she says. “I’ll admit that. I mean, I wouldn’t mind having electricity.”
Byler knows where this is going. “Yeah, but if she left her family, she couldn’t even sit at the same table with them anymore. That’s hard.”
Tina nods. “And if it’s between family and electricity, I’ll chose family. I would never not talk to my family again.”
Byler shrugs before heading for another drink. “Just glad I’m not Amish,” he says.
As the bartender announces last call, people close out their tabs and sort out rides. It’s a lucrative moment for the Yanks. The dozen or so Amish sitting at the bar need rides home, and they’re all willing to pay.
Byler walks up to a Yank and makes her an offer — there’s a group of Amish guys who all need rides; they’re willing to pay $40 a head. “I’d give them a ride myself,” he says, “but I’m still pretty drunk and the Amish are serious cop magnets.”
The girl turns him down as she heads out the door with Tina and Martha in tow.
Rain pounds against the windshield, complementing the hard cadence of the girls conversing in Pennsylvania Dutch. The car pulls up to Tina’s house, where a rainbow of plastic toys is piled neatly on the back porch.
As they walk toward the door, the headlights catch the gleam of Tina’s cell phone.
She turns it off and then carefully hides it in her bag before walking inside.
This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2007.
For Heaven’s sake–we non-Amish are called (the) “English,” not “Yanks.” Geez.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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..
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.
My friend sent me this article. It’s an amazing piece of work, actually; really engrossing. Awesome job.
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.
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.
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.
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?????
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
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.
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.
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”.
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
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….
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….
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.
Something “piques” one’s interest. It is not “peaked.” No editor?
I grew up in middlefield until I was 17. The amish are some of the greatest people I have ever met. It just shows that people can’t judge a book by it’s cover. I’ve gotten to go to an Amish Party, and it was absolutely insane. I”m a pretty big partier and it made any party i’ve ever been to look soo lame. Oh and yes, were not called english to the amish were “yanks” accept it.
Grew up in Amish territory. Never heard “Yanks.” We were “English” and they were Ivans or brush hogs.