Ira Wagler's Blog, page 11

Stranger on a Hard Road…

The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is

destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails.

Joel 1:10

__________

It’s like I wrote before, a few blogs back. It’s been a different kind of spring, this year. I had a whole lot of problems, with my heart running wild on different levels. I slogged through that. And then, right as that situation was stabilizing, Mom passed away. Seemed like it was one thing after another, rolling right on in, this spring. And I tried to speak it, tried to write it, as I was walking down that road.

I’ve settled down a good deal, lately. Just kind of settled into a new routine. You can’t change what happened. It all was what it was. And now, it all is what it is. I’m in a different place. And it just takes a while, for me to process new realities, I think. The reality that I am no longer young, and that I have issues with my heart. I used to say, when people asked me how old I was. I don’t feel my age. But now I do. I feel my age, older even, sometimes. And I do get through all that processing of new places, eventually. It just takes me a lot longer than it does most people. Maybe it’s because I insist on going all the way down to the bottom of things, insist on dredging out every last emotion, and explore the deepest and darkest crevices of every cave. That’s the only place the really intense writing comes from, I’ve claimed. A cave. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true for all writers, but I think it is for me.

And the strange spring moved right on into a very busy summer at work. June was one of our busiest months, ever, in the history of Graber Supply. We moved out a lot of product. It’s a job, to dispatch all that stuff. I scheduled and fretted and moved the loads about, to get them all delivered. It was a hectic month. It’s always good to be real busy in your life, when you’re coming out of a strange spring like the one I just came out of.

You’ll get yanked around, though, if you go feeling sorry for yourself about how tough your life is. You will. Something will come along to show you how good you have it. And something different came down earlier this week, something that gave me a whole new perspective on a whole lot of things. It was around mid-day, just after lunch time, and the office was pretty sparsely staffed. The phone call came in, and Rosita beeped me. “It’s someone from Maryland who wants a quote on a building,” she said. OK, I said. And she connected the call over. This is Ira. Can I help you?

And the caller’s voice was different, right from the first word. Kind of hesitant, kind of quiet and deflated. He was from southern Maryland. He wanted a quote on a new garage. Could I help him? Of course, I said. What size are you thinking of? And we talked it through, the size that he wanted. A pretty standard garage, with three Overhead doors on front. He wanted it to look good, the building. Overhangs. Wainscoting. A cupola with a weathervane. And after we had talked that through, I asked for his information. Name. Location. Is this a replacement garage?

And in a tired and heavy voice, he told me. He was burning brush last week, and went inside his house to cool off. It was windy out, and the burning brush blew over to his detached garage, and it started burning. The fire trucks arrived, four of them, but the firemen could get only one water hose to work. (I think he was pretty far back in the sticks, from the sound of that.) So the fire jumped over to his house and burned it to the ground. He lost everything, except his dog and a few pieces of this and that.

And right there, you have a choice, when you’re talking to a total stranger and he tells you a story like that. You can make small noises of sympathy. Tell him you’re sorry, and that you’ll get that quote right out to him. Or you can engage. I didn’t really feel like engaging. I was tired. I was busy. It was the early afternoon stretch, when you always feel like taking a nap. But still. Something made me pause. Talk to the man. He’s not in a good place. He’s on a hard road. I felt bad for him. That’s a given. But you can feel bad for a person, especially a total stranger, and just walk on. I decided not to. So I asked him.

I’m sorry about the fire. Did anyone get hurt? “No,” he said. “It was just me and my dog in the house. He sensed something was wrong, his hackles rose up. So I walked outside to check, and there the garage was on fire.” There was a lot of regret in his voice. He didn’t say it, but I could feel it in him. If only he’d kept a better eye on that fire. If only he hadn’t been so stupid…if only.

It felt so alone, his voice. I asked him. Do you have family? A slight pause. “I have one grown son in the area. I just got divorced last October.” One grown son, in the area. What does that mean? Is that son with you, around you? And you divorced just last October? I wonder who initiated that. I bet it wasn’t you. I think you’re still hurting pretty deeply from that. You’d have to be, it’s still so close. I didn’t ask those questions. Didn’t make those comments. But they pulsed through my mind as we talked. This guy was hurting, here. Real hurt. That’s what he was going through.

The man continued. “And last night I hit a deer with my car,” he said, tiredly. “I’m wondering when it’s all going to stop.”

I hunched back a bit. What can you even say to a guy going through all that? What can you ever say to a person walking a road like that, that won’t just sound trite? But the question came, I’m not sure from where inside me. Do you have support around you? I asked. “Yes,” he said. “From people I don’t even know, some of them are church people.” And it was about as I’d figured. He doesn’t have a lot of people around him. He doesn’t have much of a support structure. He’s pretty much alone.

I sure am sorry to hear all that, I said. “Well, the insurance company has been very good, so far, at least,” he said. “It’s not like I won’t get reimbursed. I’m staying in a real nice motel, and they’re paying for that.” But his voice was heavy. I figured he was probably a little older than me, from how he came across. I have no way of knowing that. But his house, his castle, and all the little details he had accumulated in his life, the record of who he was, all that was gone. And he kept on talking.

“I sure hope that one day God will let me understand why all this is happening,” he said. “Everything happens for a reason.” Yeah, I guess, I said. I didn’t tell him, because it wouldn’t have been right to tell him. Because of the hard road he was on. Struggling to make some sense of what all was going on. So I didn’t say it. But I don’t believe that everything that happens has to have a reason.

You can just be walking along all blithe and happy, like this guy was. He obviously loved his home and took pride in it. He was just out there, cleaning up a bit, and burning some brush. It was a hot day. So he walked inside to cool down in the air conditioning. And then he got clobbered. His garage caught fire. And then his house. And it all burned down to the ground, all that he treasured in his life. The material things, I mean. It all burned down. He lost pretty much everything he owned. And no insurance company’s ever gonna get his stuff back, I don’t care how much money they pay him. Totally random, I think, is what all that was. Just crap that comes at you in real life.

“You can’t take it with you when you go, anyway,” he said, as we were winding down. “I never saw a hearse pulling a U Haul trailer. Have you?” Nope, I said. I totally agree with that. You ain’t taking nothing with you when you go. None of us are. Well, hey, I’ll get that quote out to you in the next few days. “Great,” he said. “I just don’t know which way I’ll go. I just don’t know. I may just get a whole new place. The insurance people are telling me I have that option. But that spot where my home was is just so beautiful.” Yeah, I said. I’m sure it is. It was your home.

He had one more thing to tell me. Or ask of me. “If you think about it, say a prayer for me,” he said. Oh, I absolutely will do that, I said. I will do that. He thanked me. And we hung up.

I thought about the guy, later. Actually, I’ve been thinking about him a lot. I’ve seen some tough times in my life. I think most people have. But I’ve sure never been through anything like that, losing all you got, and not really having anyone there around you. I’ve been close to destitute a few times, way back in my wild running around days. But even then, I never lost everything I owned. And I always had a safe haven to return to, if the worst came to worst. Well, a safe haven with a lot of stringent conditions. But still. A safe place.

And a couple of things came to me, thinking about it all. Not that I got any explicit moral lessons, here. Just some loosely connected thoughts, and maybe a bunny trail or two. Like I said, I don’t believe everything has to happen for a reason. Not to where it’ll ever make any sense to you, anyway. Life is life, and a whole lot of it comes at you completely randomly. You walk through it the best you can, and when a tough road comes at you, you just slog on. You’ll get through it. You will, if you keep walking. I can tell you that, from where all I’ve been. And I’ve been down some real tough roads, of every imaginable type.

It’s a big mistake, too, to believe that just because you’re a Christian, bad things won’t come at you. If you actually believe that, you are severely deluded. I don’t know any better way to tell you. Bad things will come at you, even if you are a Christian. Maybe more than would come if you weren’t. Not saying that last point is always true. But it sure can be.

I’ve seen it so many times, in so many places. Where Christians are always acting so giddily happy and upbeat, and claiming to be so blessed, they can’t hardly stand it. The Lord is so good, they gush. Well, yes. He is. He absolutely is. And He’s always in control. Of everything. Everything that happens around you. Everything that happens to you.

But don’t pretend He protects you from bad stuff hitting you upside the head. Don’t pretend you don’t have your struggles. Don’t pretend you got victory in all areas of your life. Don’t pretend you are any better than the drunk, passed out in the gutter. You’re not. Your heart is just as depraved as you’re judging his to be. Maybe more. Don’t put that façade out, to your church world or to the world outside you. It won’t work. It’ll all catch up with you and blow up, at some point. It just will.

I’ve said it before. I guess I’ll say it again. Talking to Christians, here. We’ve all got our own idols. You got yours. I got mine. And in the end, those idols will be ripped from us, if we don’t get rid of them on our own. They will be. By death, finally, if by nothing else. You will stand alone, and you will stand with nothing that you bring to the table to prove how good you were, how good and holy a life you lived. You will stand with nothing. Nothing, but the pure and undeserved gift of being an adopted child of God, covered by Christ’s blood.

All that said, I will say this, too. The guy who called the other day was struggling along on a far tougher road than any I have ever walked. I’m thinking the next time I feel like grumbling about the hard road I’m on, I’m gonna look back and remember the one he’s walking right now.

And I will be grateful to be right where I am.

*******************************************

OK. A few things to close out with. I probably won’t be posting again for around four weeks or so. And no, it’s not because I’m all immersed in “serious writing,” or anything like that. I’m taking a little trip, leaving in right about two weeks. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long time.

It’s the second Bloomfield ex-Amish reunion (they call it the Bloomfield Amish Reunion, for some strange reason, but it’s not my job to argue semantics), and it’ll be held at a park just outside Bloomfield on Saturday, July 19th. An all-day affair, just hanging out. Anyone who was ever Amish in Bloomfield, doesn’t matter when, or if you still are Amish, is invited. They had the first such reunion back in 2010, right when I was in the trenches, getting my book cranked out. I told them then. There’s only one thing that could keep me from attending, and that one thing is the fact that I got a book to write. But I’ll get there next time. I promise. That next time is coming right up.

I’m looking forward to it a lot. I have, for a long time. Looking forward to connecting with a lot of old friends from way back, and also to making new friends. A lot of people grew up there after I left, and I don’t even know most of those that left after I did.

Four of the original “gang of six” plan to be there. I think so, anyway. Marvin, Rudy, Vern, and me. Of course, Mervin still lives around there. He’s the only one from the original gang that remains Amish. He’s married, with a slew of children. Thirteen, I think. And he was ordained a preacher some years ago. I don’t know if we’ll stop by to see him, the four of us. But I’m sure we’ll drive around and visit our old haunts together. And we’ll recall and rehash a lot of those old stories.

I won’t be hanging around the Bloomfield Amish much, I don’t think. Sure, I’ll stop by at Titus and Ruth’s home a few times. I’m always welcome there. Not saying I wouldn’t be welcome in at least a few other homes. But it’s not worth the hassle of figuring out which ones. And I’ll be stopping by in West Grove to see Mrs. C and any of her family that’s around. Her daughter, Linda, runs the café now, in West Grove. It’s just down around the bend from where the old original Chuck’s Café was. I’ll stop by there, to drink some coffee. And to see if anyone these days even recognizes me. I won’t be surprised, if no one does, not from the locals hanging out. It’s been a long time, since I’ve been a regular anywhere in that area. But those are always important, those old connection points. Those old friendships.

The following week, I’ll be heading south to Missouri to look up a few people. Just meandering, I guess. It’s been too long since I’ve meandered. So it’ll probably be the week after that, the week I get back home, before you’ll see any more writing from me on this blog. I’m looking forward to the journey, and to telling you all about it.

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“Wannabe” Amish…

“A wannabe really is clueless on the real deal, only seeing what he wants

to…But you can tell the wannabe what he needs to know; we don’t all have to

go through deep waters to learn that [if we do] we will get very, very wet.”

-Excerpt from an email message

___________________________

I don’t know what it is. I guess I’m just a magnet for certain things. And no, I’m not grumbling about the emails that still trickle in now and then from readers. I appreciate the time people take to write, and tell me they read my book. They had to be a little affected, or they wouldn’t have gone to all that bother. It’s when they take things a little further, as has happened a couple of times just lately, that I sigh and shake my head. It’s when they tell me. “I really feel like I want to join the Amish. I’m serious. Can you help me? Is there anyone you know that you could connect me with?” And I sigh a little bit more. Some of my closest friends around here are Amish. But I’m pretty protective of those relationships. I sure don’t like to bug my friends with a load of unnecessary baggage. So no, I think to myself. I don’t know of anyone who could help you become Amish. I don’t usually bother even responding to requests like that. It wouldn’t get anyone to any good place, anywhere.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad the Amish are as popular as they are, in the current publishing climate. That popularity is a big part of the reason that the Tyndale people ever gave me a shot at my book. Absent that, I don’t kid myself. The book would never have been written, because it never would have gotten anywhere. So I’m grateful that people like to read about the Amish, whether it’s fiction or memoir. (I think that whole market’s getting pretty saturated, though. I can’t see it holding on to such intensity for much longer. But maybe I’m wrong.) And I’m not going to scold anyone who takes it to the next level, and wants to join. But I’d like to have a little chat with such people, right here.

First off, I’ll tell you. You have no idea of what you’re asking. You really, really don’t. It’s not the kind of culture that adopts outsiders well. There is little mechanism for such a thing. And what about the language? How are you going to learn that? You have to be born into the culture. Yeah, I know. It all looks too good to be true, so idyllic and peaceful from the outside. You marvel, that people can even exist in today’s world, in such a setting. But they’re just people, too. Flawed, like the people in your own world are. You yearn for something more, something deeper, in your life. Which is fine, to yearn for a more peaceful place. But coming from where I came from, I can tell you that some of those “peaceful places” look a lot more peaceful from outside than they actually are when you’re in them. I mean, I just wrote a book about all that. And if you’re contacting me, you’ve probably read that book.

They’ve tried it by the dozens, people have, over the years. To join from the outside. I’ve always been fascinated that anyone would even want to. And I think it takes a certain type of personality, to get so far as to even try. I saw a good many of those people up in Aylmer, back when I was a child. Somehow, that community was a magnet for such seekers. It probably had something to do with Family Life, and those other magazines they were cranking out up there. Here we are, speaking grave noble proclamations. Here’s the shining city on a hill. Here we are, living right before God. And they came from all over, it seemed, the eager wannabes. They sure brought some color and flavor into our rather drab and provincial lives. We didn’t really treat them all that politely. But they were fun to hang around with and talk to. Bottom line is this, though. Of all those characters that came slogging through, all starry-eyed and eager, of all those seekers, not one of them made it. At least not that I know of.

Oh, except one man did. But he came around way early on, when I was pretty young. He wasn’t with the crowds of others, and he wasn’t that welcoming to those others. That one success was David Luthy, the eminent Amish historian. He set his roots, there in Aylmer. Married. Raised a family. And there he remains today. But he was a rare, rare, and I mean rare exception to the rule. I’ve always thought he made it because he came from a hard-core Catholic background. I’ve said it before. Amish guilt and Catholic guilt are pretty much twin models. He was (and is) highly educated, with a Master’s Degree from Notre Dame. And he was figuring to enter the priesthood, when he heard about the Amish. He decided to check them out. Their simple structured lifestyle appealed to something deep inside him. And he joined, up there in Aylmer. Or maybe it was northern Indiana, where he first touched base. He learned to speak the language, pretty fluently. He was a staff writer for Family Life, when Dad and Joseph Stoll launched that magazine. And he wrote all kinds of little moral stories. I remember one such story about the “little places,” in which he decried that the Amish were moving away from their legacy of farming. I guess he saw that happening in northern Indiana, where they work in factories a lot.

I think he grasped at a perfect concept of what he thought the Amish should be, should look like. They shouldn’t have little places. They should have farms. Like so many others who try to join from the outside, he was more Amish than the Amish. And in the end, despite all he wrote about the glories of working the land as s family, of seedtime and harvest and the beauty of it all, he never was a farmer. Which I completely understand. I’m not a farmer, either. He ended up on a “little place,” himself. And from that little place, the man produced an enormous body of first-class, historical writing.

Since those years, David Luthy has done some of the finest quality research about the history of the Amish. And he’s produced some of the finest writing ever done on that subject. It seemed like it was just destined to be, that a man like him would come along, and preserve much of the history of a culture he wasn’t born into. It’s kind of startling and surreal, when I think about it. I certainly respect the man a lot, and I respect all he got accomplished.

But I still don’t understand why he did what he did, in joining the Amish. And I’ll say it one more time. He was a rare exception. For every success story like his, there were a hundred wannabes that crashed and burned. And burned out.

Years and years ago, right about the time I was fixing to go to college, David Luthy said something to my father that Dad never forgot. “I always thought Ira might want to move here and help me with my writing and research,” he said. Or something along those lines. I don’t know if he actually meant it, but Dad latched right on. And he seriously asked me, the next time I came around. “Wouldn’t you consider taking up David’s offer? You’d be accomplishing something real and lasting, if you worked with him. He told me you’d be welcome.” I never even remotely considered the offer, although I was flattered that David thought highly enough of me to mention something. I’m not a research kind of guy, I told Dad. I’d get bored to death, trying to force myself into a role like that. Besides, I don’t want to be Amish. It took me years, to break away. Why would I ever want to walk right back into that mess? Dad never quite let it go, though. Pretty much every time he saw me after that, for years, he brought it up. “David Luthy wanted you to come and write for him. That was a real opportunity for you. I sure wish you would have gone” That’s fine, I’m honored, I always said. I don’t regret it, though. I guess that’s what’s going to have to count, in my life.

So David Luthy made it, to join the Amish for good. And Sam Johnson made it, too, there in northern Indiana, about the time I came wandering into his life, a desperate and despairing man. I’m really glad Sam stuck it out. He was there for me, right when I needed someone like that the most.

But I think of all those other poor souls who came wandering by, all those years ago. I can’t remember their names, and their faces are blurred, in my memory. But they came. They came and tried to follow their visions of living the peaceful Amish life. Poor lost souls, is what they were. I feel nothing but pity for them. They came from families, somewhere. And when it all blew up, when none of their dreams worked out, when they left, they went somewhere. I wonder sometimes where they are today. And how all their lives turned out. Here’s what I want to say about those people. They all spent a lot of effort, a lot of time and a lot of blood, sweat and tears, to follow their vision of joining the Amish. A lot. And eventually, they all drifted off, deeply disillusioned. Sure, you can chalk it up to “just having an experience.” They certainly had one that most people never get to see. But still. All those years, all that toil, and all for nothing, in the end.

And recently I heard from such a person, someone who had tried to join the Amish. She sent an intelligent and reflective email. She’d read my book, and wanted to tell me she nodded her head a lot while reading. The stuff I wrote was real. And she told me. She and her husband had joined the Amish in an eastern state. They never felt as if they were totally accepted. She didn’t go into a lot of detail, but I could see that happening, not being accepted. And then they spun over to the Eastern Mennonites. I don’t know much about Plain Mennonite groups, but the Easterns are among the strictest, at least around here. Nice people, don’t get me wrong. You just don’t want to try to join them. Anyway, that didn’t work, either, the woman wrote. At some point, then, they drifted back to the outside world. And that’s where they live today. And she told me, in conclusion. “Now we are back to being Christians.”

And so they looped around, this woman and her husband. I don’t know if they have children, she never said. And I’ve thought a lot about her statement, there. Now we are back to being Christians. Isn’t that what it’s all about, in the end? To be calm wherever you are, to follow Christ wherever you are? She did say they had some good experiences as well, among the Plain groups. And met some very nice people. I’m sure they did. But it seems to me there was a lot of wading through deep waters, too, and a lot of lost time. You don’t ever get that lost time back. It just seems like there was so much wasted effort. And for what, in the end? For what?

So if you are a “wannabe” Amish, let me tell you as frankly as I can. It won’t work, to join. It will not work. Well, I guess it could, because it has. But the odds are astronomical that it won’t. And it won’t be anything like what you’re envisioning, joining. It won’t be utopia. There is no utopia on this earth. It’s not the kind of culture that adopts outsiders well. If you come from the outside, you’ll always be an outsider. There is no mechanism for such a thing, to deal with people like you. That doesn’t make you a bad person, or anything like that. It just makes the path you are considering pretty much impossible. You have to be born into the culture. You have to be born into its ways. You have to be born into its language.

And there’s one more thing that bugs me just a little bit. I’d like to ask those who write me, looking for a connection to the Amish. Did you actually read my book? If you did, how did you not catch the part where I almost lost my mind, breaking away. It’s about as hard to break away as it is to join from the outside, at least for some of us it was. How did you miss all that turmoil, all that tortured anguish, all that frantic running, all that grief? And if you didn’t miss that, why in the world do you think a guy who went through all that would ever want to tell you how to get to where he came from?

And no, I’m not scolding. I’m just asking.

********************************************

A few closing thoughts on a few things. July 4th is coming right up. Flag waving, rah-rah, we’re-the-greatest-country-on-the-face-of-the-earth Day. I think most of you know how I feel about all that. I won’t be waving any flags. But I’ll be having fun with friends, cooking out and hanging out. And I probably won’t post that Friday. I’m thinking I won’t. Of course, when the pressure’s not on, something might just come on its own. If it does, I’ll post. If not, I won’t. We’ll see.

I haven’t gone off on a tangent like this for a while. Had to wait for a trigger, I guess. But here goes. The state does nothing but impede the free market. It’s a vile and evil entity, and it will always be vile and evil. The state has not one redeeming quality. Not one. It will always gorge itself on innocent blood until it implodes under its own weight. Then it starts the process all over, and repeats. That’s just how it’s been, through all of history.

And New York is a vile and evil state. I had a wide load to deliver in upstate New York, scheduled to leave this past Monday morning. We ordered the wide load permits last week. On the Friday afternoon before, around 4 o’clock, the permit service people we deal with called Rosita. There are two counties up there that demand special permits, to take wide loads through. And until those county permits are issued, the state permits will be held back.

It was all such a mess, over the weekend. I stressed about it a good deal. The two counties require 24-48 hours, to get their permits signed. So the load was backed off. On Tuesday morning, my driver headed out to a truck stop in New Jersey, as far as his permits would take him. And there he sat, waiting until the New York permits were faxed to him. He finally got to his drop point around mid afternoon, to unload. He got home real late that night. Meanwhile, the guys who planned to start the building on Monday had their schedule yanked back for two whole days. All because of the state. All because of a piece of paper you have to pay for, to get to where you’re going. It’s like paying thieving warlords, to cross their territories. No, it IS paying thieving warlords. And it’s all one big racket.

A while ago, I had some correspondence with a Facebook friend I’ve never met. She comes from a Plain Beachy Amish background out in the Midwest, from what I can tell. She’s broken totally away, like I have from my Amish past, as least in dress and lifestyle. I think she’s a little closer to her experience than I am to mine. She left more recently.

I forget what my post was about, on Facebook. But in her comments, my friend told me she had spoken recently with a cousin who still is with the Beachys, somewhere out in the Midwest. And that person told her. “We don’t like Ira Wagler, because he just writes what he wants. He doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.”

I’ve thought some about that comment since. And I gotta say. It’s probably the biggest compliment I’ve ever received about my writing. I can’t think of one that pleased me more. I mean, if some people choose not to like me because I don’t care what they think, how much freer can you get than that? Especially if I don’t even know who they are. I choose not to walk in “fear of man.” I never try to be deliberately offensive, of course. But I write what I want to write. I don’t much care what you think about it, one way or the other, as far as agreeing with me. I guess I care a little bit about whether or not you read my stuff. I want as many readers as I can get. But in the end, even that doesn’t matter much, not when it comes to writing what I have to say. I’ll write it anyway.

If I wrote all perturbed about what my readers will or won’t think, about whether or not they will like me, especially readers from Plain places, I wouldn’t get a whole lot of writing done. I never would have. I’d be too paralyzed.

It’s one of my biggest passions. Freedom. I will walk free, when it comes to speaking what I have to say. And it’s a beautiful thing, to write free like that.

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The Sons of Albert Stoll…

What is this strange and bitter miracle of life? Is it to feel…

the evening hush, the sorrow of lost, fading light, far sounds

and broken cries, and footsteps, voices, music, and all lost–

and something murmurous, immense, and mighty in the air?

—Thomas Wolfe

______________

The email came in last spring, a little more than a year ago. From a man in Texas who claimed to be my cousin. Elmer Stoll, better known as Garner. And he had some things to tell me.

We are passing close to your area next year, sometime in May, the email said. My brother Amos and me. And we’d like to connect with you, if you have the time. We’ve never met. We are the sons of your Uncle Albert and Aunt Mary. Absolutely, I wrote back. Just let me know when you’re in the area, and we’ll get together.

And I looked forward to it. He emailed me again, right over the time I was getting out of the hospital with my mended heart. And somehow, I let it slide. Didn’t think much about it. It was the Coumadin, messing with my head, I think. I was going to answer him. But the days just slid by, and I never got it done. I just flat out forgot. Then, the Friday before Memorial Day, I got a call at the office. A soft-voiced guy. Samuel Martin, a nephew to Garner and Amos. He was going to be in the area, too, the next Monday evening. Memorial Day evening. And they were all just wondering if I still wanted to meet. I slapped myself upside the head. Groaned aloud, on the phone. I’m so sorry, I told Samuel. Of course I want to meet. There’s been a bunch of crap going on in my life, lately. “Yeah, I’ve been following that on your blog,” he said. It totally slipped my mind, I said. I’m sorry. Let’s get together at Vinola’s around seven, in Leola. “All right,” he said. “I’ll let the others know. We’ll plan on it.” Great, I said. And we exchanged cell phone numbers.

Over the weekend, I hung out with old friends at the cabin in West Virginia. As I was getting close to home on Monday afternoon, my phone rang. Unfamiliar number. I answered. This is Ira. “This is Garner Stoll,” the man said. “We’re looking forward to meeting you tonight.” Great. Me too, I said. I found out the Vinola’s is closed, though. There’s a little pub just outside New Holland, Brady’s. Why don’t we meet there at 6:30? “We’ll be there,” he said. Me too, I said. And we hung up.

I was waiting for them at a table outside Brady’s just before 6:30. And right on time, they walked up. It had to be them. Two guys, a decade or so older than me. And a lithe young man, who looked to be a teenager. They waved as they walked up. And I got up and walked to meet them. They were lean and fit, and looked familiar. They had strong Stoll features, but I had never met them before. We shook hands, and introduced ourselves. Amos Stoll. Elmer Stoll. Elmer’s son, Evan. Ira Wagler. Immediately we hit it off, as if we’d known each other for years. They were totally open, friendly, smiling. And it struck me fully for the first time at that moment. These men, these strangers, were my first cousins. Blood of my blood. Flesh of my flesh. They were family. They had read my blog, sporadically, over the years, and maybe my book, too. And now they had made the effort to reach out, to come and meet me. They were Albert and Mary’s sons. Their mother was my father’s older sister, a woman I never knew. But I felt it, clear and strong, our connection. And something stirred deep inside me.

Albert and Mary Stoll. I can’t recall their faces in my mind, which means I can’t remember ever seeing them. My siblings claim I did, back when I was very young. So I won’t dispute that. But I have no recollection of their faces. I’ve heard their names, though, in countless stories. Uncle Albert has always been sort of an infamous legend in the family lore.

He was born in 1905, in Daviess, one of the many sons of his father, Victor. And his father’s wild strange Stoll blood coursed through him. Victor was a man who stirred always, and questioned everything. Challenged the preachers on all kinds of theological points. I won’t vouch that this is true, but I think it is, because I remember Mom telling it many times. It’s the only such story I’ve ever heard. Victor was estranged from the Amish church in Daviess when he died. I don’t know if he was excommunicated, but he sure wasn’t having much to do with anyone. And on his deathbed, he decreed that there should be no preaching at his funeral, because none of the preachers were good enough to preach over him. That’s what Mom always claimed. Victor was buried, there in Daviess. And there was no preaching at his funeral.

That’s the kind of setting Albert came from. I don’t know if it’s true of all the Stoll branches in Daviess, but of this particular branch, it is. They have wild, strange blood. And brilliant minds. (My Wagler blood is wild, but melancholy and brooding. You have to be in a cave, to get the real honest, gut-level writing out.) The Stolls are brilliant, on the math side of their brains. They can figure things out. Problem is, though, they use those brains of theirs, as often as not, to dispute and argue. About the tiniest little silly things. How can the church rules be tweaked, so we’re serving God better? What could we do, to suffer a bit more, so He’ll be pleased? Historically, they’ve fussed about the mustache a lot. They believe the Amish should have mustaches. It all seems so futile, all that fussing. If you’re part of a group, accept the rules or get out.

Albert grew up, and like his father, he questioned just about everything there was to question. And somewhere along the way, he married my father’s older sister, Mary. She was five years younger, but they seemed to get along well. And they started their family, there in Daviess. He never was happy there. I don’t know what the problems were, that far back. Maybe the Daviess youth drank and partied. I don’t know. Anyway, Albert had all kinds of issues, and he was always stirring about. And then, when he was still a young married man, they ordained a preacher, there in his district. And it was destined to be. The lot fell on Albert Stoll. The preacher lot always seems to hit the Stolls a lot, wherever they live. Somehow, it just does. It’s a strange thing. Now he was a preacher, a part of the group he had so many problems with. A part of the leadership of a church he felt was doomed.

He never fit in, as a preacher. Which is sure no surprise. There was no way he could conform. He was always his own man. Always questioning, always stirring. And somewhere right along about then, a man from the strange and shadowy “Sleeping Preacher” churches came wandering through Daviess. And somehow, he got to Albert’s ear. And Mary’s. He got them to listen to him. It probably wasn’t that hard, as they were both convinced the Amish church was sliding downhill fast. And they were both convicted. And they both adopted the Sleeping Preacher heresies. As an Amish preacher, there was no way Albert could stay for long in Daviess after that. And he didn’t.

In 1942, Albert and Mary moved out of Daviess. Along with a small group of families, they founded a little Amish community in Jerome, Michigan. I don’t know much about this place, except that Albert’s brother, Peter Stoll, and his family also moved up there. Peter, like Albert, had married one of my father’s older sisters. Anna. And there in the Jerome community is where their son, Elmo, was born. The man who, decades later, would stride through the Amish world like a giant, and then forsake it, preaching in his mesmerizing voice wherever he went.

I don’t know much about how it was in Jerome. Actually, I don’t know much about how it was in any community Albert and Mary lived in. I can only write from my perspective. And try to retell the tales as I heard them. Jerome was a small community, maybe half a dozen families, or so. Not all of them came from Daviess. It was a ragtag group. The community lasted for less than ten years. Then the people disbanded, and headed their separate ways. Who knows what the reasons were? Maybe there was dissension. Or maybe it was just time to move on. Peter and Anna Stoll moved over to Piketon, Ohio, to join my parents there in that new fledgling Amish settlement. And before many years had passed, Piketon was blowing up. They claimed at the time that it was the large nuclear plant being installed so close, that’s what made them move out. That’s not true. The place was blowing up, from dissension inside the church. The nuclear plant was just a convenient excuse. But Piketon really has nothing to do with Albert and Mary.

After the Piketon debacle, Peter Stoll and his family moved to Aylmer, to join my father’s group in settling in southern Ontario. Albert and Mary weren’t interested in that, though. They wanted something harder, something plainer. “Zurick und Nunna. Nett usht in ein Weg, ahva in allie Weg.” “Stand back, and be humble. Not in just one way, but in every way.” That had been their motto, their code of conduct, ever since the Sleeping Preacher man converted them. Zurick und Nunna, in allie Weg. They wanted to be plainer. More humble. More remote.

And so they moved, again. To Everton, Arkansas. A remote place. Rocky and hilly. A place where they figured they could live in peace. But “peace” is a fragile thing. You can see it, you can almost grasp it, but somehow it eludes you like the morning mists. They were hopeful, though, when they moved there. As you would have to be, to even attempt such a thing. They had sons and daughters now, sons and daughters who needed to be taught the right way. Eight sons. And three daughters. (And a few children who were stillborn.) All of them growing up, all of them looking around, the wild strange Stoll blood flowing through all of them. Albert had been taught, by his father. Question everything around you. He taught his sons what his father taught him. Question everything. And soon enough, they would. Soon enough, they would question the foundational bedrock of his own beliefs.

It was an odd little group of misfits, there in Arkansas. Rudy Wickey and his family moved in from somewhere. And John Martin came over from the Old Order Mennonites. And a few other families drifted in and out over the years. They were fringe people, all of them. Despite that, the Everton community managed to cling to its Amish identity. They were very plain, almost at Swartzentruber level. No running water in the house, no plumbing at all. Albert was the preacher. They had no bishop. Once in a great while, maybe every year or every other year, they managed to cajole some bishop from another community somewhere to come around and hold communion services. Otherwise, they were pretty much isolated. Maybe that’s how they wanted it. Seems odd, but maybe. Anyhow, that’s the way it went.

My parents and a bunch of my siblings traveled to Arkansas by train to visit Alberts when I was a little baby. I remember nothing of it, of course. But I was there. And the stories have come down. They claim that I wasn’t feeling well, and that I screamed and cried during the entire trip down on the train. All night long, I bawled lustily. Mom and my sisters could do nothing to quiet me. I’m sure I kept a lot of people from sleeping that night on the train. I’m sure many annoyed glances were stabbed at my family by the surrounding English. I’m sure my family was hugely mortified. Oh, well. What can I say at this point, to make it all better?

When I was growing up, Stephen, Titus, and I were known as “the three little boys.” Albert and Mary had their own three little boys. Amos. Alvin. And Elmer. My brothers and I ran wild and ragged and barefoot on the old home farm. I’m sure the other three little boys ran wild and ragged and barefoot through the rocky Arkansas hills. They grew up, tough and lithe. The thing is, they grew up, all of Albert’s children. And that’s when the foundations of his world began to shake a bit. That’s when things happened that would drive him and his wife deep into the remote hills in Central America, in the country of Belize.

It was a lonely place, that home in Arkansas. Albert’s children didn’t have a whole lot of peers around them. And as they grew into adulthood, they began drifting away from their home. To other places, where there was a more active social life. They came to Aylmer for long stays, when I was very young. I don’t remember them, but I’ve always heard the stories. In 1966, Alvin and Elmer came to stay with their Uncle Peter’s family for the whole summer. I think they were well accepted by the Aylmer youth. I know that my sister Magdalena and my brother Joseph befriended them. I know that because Elmer told me that. It was a fond memory for him.

I don’t know who left first, for good. But, in time, two of the older sons drifted off. Ervin joined the Holderman church, somewhere not that far away from Everton. I’m not sure if Holdermans consider themselves Mennonite, but they are pretty plain. They have very strict rules. And they consider themselves to be in sole possession of the knowledge of the path to salvation. If you ever join that group, you can never leave, not without getting excommunicated. It’s kind of like the Amish, I guess, at least like the Amish in certain areas.

Then their son Ira left. He didn’t stray too far from the faith of his father. He moved up to Aylmer and stayed with his uncle, Peter Stoll’s, family. He adopted that family as his own, and they adopted him. He worked at odd jobs around the community. He was working for my father on the old home farm the day I was born.

It was shocking, to Albert, to see his sons leave like that. Ira, not so much. Albert had always called down doom upon the Amish church. It was corrupt, the mainstream part of it. It was doomed. It would not last long, not the way it was going. Still, Ira’s departure to the Amish fold in Aylmer sent only small shock waves through Albert and Mary. Their son Ervin leaving for the Holdermans hit a lot harder. Those people drove cars. They were worldly. And all too soon, the oldest of the three little boys stepped out, too, from Albert’s home in Arkansas.

Amos. I don’t know if he was reserved or outgoing, growing up. I picture him as quiet. I don’t know that, though. He left, too. Followed his older brother, to the Holdermans. But he would not last long in that world. Maybe a year. Sometime in there, he went off to the big city, to serve in 1-W service. As a conscientious objector to the war. Albert had taught his sons right, that way. Amos wasn’t going to go off and kill or be killed, in senseless, bloody battles. So he served in a hospital, as an orderly, instead.

And there, working in that hospital, he saw a world he had never seen before. He saw how things were, outside his own confined upbringing. He could never go back. After serving, he quietly went and got his GED. And enrolled in college. His brilliant Stoll brain thrived, through it all. He pushed right on through college, right on through medical school. He was a stellar student. And the oldest of Albert’s “three little boys” went on to become a neurosurgeon. A guy who operated on people’s brains. He obviously drew deep from the Stoll side of his brain. No Wagler could ever accomplish such a thing.

It was highly unsettling to Albert and Mary, to see their sons leaving like that. Well, maybe unsettling is not quite strong enough a word. They fretted and fussed and grieved. How could they have failed so badly as parents? They had tried to teach their children the right path. The path the Sleeping Preacher people had showed them. Something wasn’t working. Maybe they could still keep their remaining sons with them, if only they moved to the right place. Zurick und Nunna. Stand back and be humble. And somehow, they got the idea that it would be a good thing to relocate again. To leave the hills and rocks and brambles of Arkansas, to leave that setting for a far more remote place.

There is no hiding place for any family, not after the sons start stirring about and leaving. Moving to a new place will not address the foundational issues. It’s a Band Aide. A quick change of scenery, so things will get better. They rarely do. Because the reasons the sons were leaving were never faced or dealt with. By that time, it’s usually too late, anyway. It’s futile, to move to try to hide the reasons you needed to move. My father found that out when he moved from Aylmer to Bloomfield, to try to salvage the Amish way for his sons. It didn’t work for Dad. It never had a chance to work. And it didn’t work for Albert.

In 1966, Albert’s little ragtag group moved to the west central area of Belize. Most of the families from his Arkansas church moved with him. It was known as the Pilgrimage Valley, the place they moved to. A fairly fertile land. And from that valley, their sons kept on leaving. Alvin left, when he was 20 years old. Went out, and wandered among the people of his father’s culture. Taught school, for a year, at some plain community. He saw what Amos was doing, going to college and all. And soon enough, he left it all behind, all that he grew up with. He got his GED, and went off to college, too.

The “three little boys” all left when they were around twenty years old, near as I can tell. Elmer (Garner) left right at that age. They all stepped out, from their restrictive world, into some sort of plain community. So it wouldn’t hurt their parents so much. And from that first step, they kept right on moving. Right on into college, and right on into a world of education. For their brilliant Stoll minds, the college world was not a problem. They all excelled, in all their studies. Alvin got his law degree, and worked as an attorney, then as an administrative judge in Texas. Garner got his degree, and ended up as the head city planner of Austin, Texas. I think they both retired recently, from their work. I look at that, I look at all the “three little boys” got accomplished in their lives, and I marvel. These guys are my cousins. My father’s sister’s sons.

And I think, too, how that must have been for them. They walked into a new world, and embraced it completely. I held on a little tighter to my roots, way back when I got my GED and went to college. My journey was a lot different from theirs. My parents lived in Bloomfield, Iowa. Their parents lived in a real remote section of Belize. What are the costs, to totally break away? I never did it. I always kept connected. I think Albert’s sons could tell me a whole lot about those costs. A whole lot of things I never knew or saw. Nathan and I went home to see our parents, every year at Christmas. That was not an option for Albert’s sons. Their parents were too far away, inaccessible, really. Zurick und Nunna, all the way. And my heart goes out to the three little boys. It had to be a tough slog, sometimes. It had to be a hard thing, sometimes. It just had to be.

They all got married, eventually. To totally English women. I think they all had families of their own. Elmer’s first marriage blew up in a pretty brutal way, kind of like my own did. We chatted about it. I can tell you all about how that is, I told him. And, of course, the people in the world he came from dramatically shook their heads. Poor Elmer. Look how it went for him. That’s a good lesson, for our children. That’s just how it goes, when you leave the path your parents taught you.

Uncle Albert had one more card to play. His sons were deserting. That must mean he wasn’t Zurick and Nunna enough. In 1972, he and his flock retreated even further into the hinterlands. To Barton’s Creek, a truly remote place in Belize. Here, they could be plain enough. Here, they could be humble enough. Here, they could live what the Sleeping Preacher people had taught them to be. And here is where they would die. Here. In a place so remote that few of the freundschaft would ever come to visit. Here, they were buried, Albert and Mary. Estranged from most of their sons.

They were very poor, the people in that community. They didn’t have much, and that’s the way they wanted it. They scrabbled out a living on the rough land. Kept a few head of lean cattle. Grew some truck crops, vegetables and such. In season, they hitched up a pair of very thin horses to an air-tired wagon and hauled what produce they had to the nearest town. And sold it on the streets. Zurick und Nunna. That’s how they lived, right to the core.

Aunt Mary was very close to her sister, Anna, Peter Stoll’s wife. And after Peter followed the call of his own strange wild Stoll blood and moved to Honduras, the two sisters connected. At least once, I’m told, Anna traveled to Belize to see Mary. And some of Mary’s siblings made the trek to Belize, too, to visit, at least once in their lifetimes. Bishop Pete Yoder and his wife Martha (Mary’s sister), went to see them. And Dad and Mom went too, I’m not sure of the date. It was probably in the late 1980s, after I had left Bloomfield. By this time, Albert was the classic picture of the aging patriarch, with a full white beard and a glorious white mustache. Dad came back with a funny little story. He took some flashlights along, to give to Albert and Mary as a gift. He figured flashlights might be hard to come by, in Belize. He offered his gifts. They were refused. The people of Barton’s Creek didn’t believe in having flashlights. Zurick und Nunna, that’s how they lived. All the way. So no flashlights. Dad brought his gifts back home.

You choose to live how you live. And you have every right to. It doesn’t have to make any sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you. Sure, you can make all kinds of judgments from a distance, especially about the past. You can wipe your forehead and think. What were those people thinking? You can do that. But still. I choose to believe that most people do the best they know to do, in the moment. And with all their flaws, Albert and Mary did the best they knew to do. I don’t judge them. And I don’t judge their sons. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see or know what anyone went through. I didn’t see or know what they felt, what they saw, what they lived. On either side of that father/son divide.

And in the end, none of that matters, I suppose, as long as you’re at peace with yourself and at peace with God. Death came calling, in Albert’s family, back in the early 1990s. First it came for him. He died in May, 1992. And then it came for his daughter, Sarah Ann. She had rheumatic fever, as a child. She was always sickly. But if I’m not wrong, she married and had children. She sank and passed away, in September, 1992. Those were two hard hits, for the family. That close together. And Aunt Mary could not last long after that.

She died in February, 1994. She could not long survive the passing of her daughter and her husband. Who knows, what griefs she bore? Who knows, what pain? I’m sure she kept it all to herself, as the Sleeping Preacher people had taught. Zurick und Nunna. Now the three of them are buried, in some remote graveyard in some remote area of Belize. And there they rest.

And I think, too, of how hard it must have been, for their children, the ones living here in the States. You get the word. Your father just passed away. The funeral is tomorrow. There’s no way you can get there. And then your sister passed. And then your mother. You can’t get there, to say good-bye. It’s not physically possible. My own mother just passed away, a little over a month ago. I know how that feels, that loss. We gathered, the clans did, because we could. Because there was time to. Because my parents lived in Aylmer, not in Belize. It had to be a tough thing for Albert and Mary’s children to face and absorb. How do you grieve the loss, how do you get closure, from such a distance?

We stood there, outside Brady’s Pub, just talking for a few minutes. Amos and Elmer and me. Elmer’s son, Evan, nineteen years old, stood by quietly. Elmer had written me, so I knew. They were hiking the Appalachian Trail. Every year, they hike for a few weeks. Then the next year, they take up right where they left off the year before. By 2016, I think, they figure to get it done. Tonight, they were staying in a local motel. Tomorrow, they’d take off, east. Evan had flown in that day to join his father and uncle for a week of hiking. And I thought to myself, looking at that. There were some good parents in Evan’s life, or that wouldn’t be happening. I can’t imagine ever wanting to hike any trail with my father, not at that age.

We went into the little pub and were seated at a large table. We just talked right along. A few minutes later, Samuel Martin walked in. We shook hands. He’s the son of Albert’s second oldest daughter, Loveda. She and her husband, David, live in Tennessee, somewhere, I think. They live plain, kind of like they were brought up. Samuel had broken away, too. He got his RN degree, and has worked in Austin, Texas, on a helicopter ambulance crew. He was on his way up to Aylmer, for some sort of Martin reunion. His uncle, John Martin, is the bishop who preached at Mom’s funeral. He was a quiet intelligent man, Samuel, bearded, with shoulder length hair. He smiled and listened to our talk. Now and then he spoke.

We ordered our food, and some beers. And just sat there, and talked and talked. It was like we had a lifetime of catching up to do. Then I got a quick idea. Got up and walked outside. Called my brother, Steve. I’m here, in New Holland, with two of our first cousins we’ve never met. Amos and Elmer Stoll. Albert’s sons. Steve was all enthusiastic. “We’re here at home. The children are all here, tonight. Bring them right over, after you’re done eating.”

We feasted on ribs and cole slaw and beer. And just talked nonstop. After wrapping that up, we headed out for Steve’s, except for Samuel. His family was back at the motel, he said. He’d better get back to them. I thanked him for coming. And the Stoll brothers and I hit the highway and headed west to where Steve lives.

We got there just as it was getting dark. They were sitting outside, around a fire. Steve welcomed his cousins to his home. And we sat around and swapped stories of our lives. It was almost surreal, looking back. These guys were of our blood. We never knew them. And yet, somehow, they had made the effort to stop by to see us.

Soon after dark, I was drooping. I’d had a long weekend, and a long road of traveling to West Virginia and back. I got up to leave. I shook Elmer’s hand. And his son’s. Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by. I’m honored. I really am. You have no idea, the stories I’ve always heard about your family. Thanks so much, for stopping by. Let’s connect again.

Amos stood off in the distance, talking on his phone. I started to my truck, then waited until he hung up. I walked over and shook his hand and thanked him. I’m really honored that you took the time to stop by, I said. He smiled, and we stood there and chatted for a minute. “I don’t get to all your blogs, but I thank you for writing,” he said. “That one you wrote years ago about traveling on the Greyhound bus, that one was my favorite. You described it exactly as it was. It brought back so many memories. That’s exactly how it was.” Thanks, I said. I appreciate the time anyone takes to read what I write. We shook hands. And I left.

And I’ve thought about it since. That’s really what did it, I think, that they ever came. The writing. They read a voice from their own blood. That’s what drew them to connect. That, and the fact that no one’s getting any younger these days.

I don’t write for the money. I never have. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll take all the money I can get for any of my stuff, if someone wants to pay me. And the book has brought in some very nice checks. It was a big deal, to get published by Tyndale. I’ll never downplay that. And I will always be grateful to the people who made it happen. I hope the book will keep right on bringing in many more checks for a long time.

But that’s not why I write. It never was a reason. I write because I want to tell my story, and the story of my people. Right from where I am, wherever that is. And I throw my stuff out on this blog for free. That’s just how it’s worked best for me, so far. If you want to read it, great. If you don’t want to read it, thanks anyway, for stopping by when you did.

Once in a while, though, the writing brings in some real returns. Like a blood connection I never knew before. Like meeting the sons of Uncle Albert and Aunt Mary, after we had lived all our lives as strangers. That’s a pretty powerful thing. Family is family, and blood is blood. And in the end, I think, that’s what real writing is all about.

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Coumadin and Me; Breaking the Chains…

The footsteps faded, vanished. He shouted, no one answered. And

suddenly he knew that he had taken the wrong path, that he was lost.

And in his heart there was an immense and quiet sadness, and the

dark night of the enormous wood was all around him…

—Thomas Wolfe

______________

It’s no secret that I do not fully trust modern medicine. Never have, for lot of years. I don’t run to the doctor for every little cold, or every little injury. And when I say I don’t trust those people, I’m not talking about when you break an arm or a leg, or get all whacked up in some accident. I trust them to heal bones. But I don’t trust them to heal diseases, or conditions of the heart.

And yeah, you can go right ahead and call me a nut. I don’t care. But I believe for every pharmaceutical drug that’s been developed for any particular symptom, there is a natural equivalent out there, if you do the research. A natural equivalent that’s much cheaper, and way better for you. And that’s why I was so depressed and devastated, all those weeks ago, when I got released from the hospital after my heart operation. Well, they call it an ablation. Whatever. They went in there and they poked around and seared muscles and stuff. And when I came back up out of it, and got ready to be released, the doctor told me. They were putting me on a serious blood thinner, to keep my blood from clotting and giving me a stroke. A serious thinner, for the first few days, where I poked myself in the stomach with a needle and pushed the stuff in. Stuff that made it impossible for my blood to clot. But after that, it was on to the pills. And the drug they prescribed was a vile one. Coumadin. I’d have to take it once a day, every day, and always at the same time of day.

I was pretty bleary-eyed and bleary-minded, when the doctor unloaded the news on me that last morning just before Ben released me. And I remember telling him. I don’t want to be on that stuff for long. And he asked. “How long?” Not more than a month, I said. He looked extremely dubuious. It was depressing. And he said. “Well, we’ll see. I think it’s going to be a good bit longer than that.” I was too tired to mouth back at him. So I said nothing. All I wanted to do was get out of that place.

Coumadin is bad, bad, vile, evil stuff. It’s poison. And it depressed me, right down in all the way deep, to be sentenced to taking it every day. Because I knew what it was. And I knew I didn’t need it. Because I’ve been taking some natural stuff, for the past four years, or so. And I knew that natural stuff was way better than anything pharmaceutical. I knew it, because I saw it working, and I saw firsthand what it was and what it does.

It all happened back in 2010, early in the year. February. To my co-worker, David Hurst. We’ve called him Big Dave, among other nicknames. He’s not that tall. But he has a serious weight problem, because of some metabulism issues. He’s tried every diet out there. And he’s lost a few pounds, here and there, over the years. But he could never seem to get a real handle on the weight. And at that time, he was losing out, health-wise. He was having serious issues with his heart. Right around Valentine’s Day, he went to the hospital for a stress test. And while taking that stress test, the man had a real heart attack.

They rushed him to intensive care, and they stuck a stint into his heart. To keep his valves open. And he was home within a few days. And back to work a few days afer that, in his wheelchair. The doctors prescribed Plavix. A blood thinner. Dave did not get along well with the drug at all. It made his legs swell. And he felt bad, just bad, overall. We all could tell, those working with him. He was in pain. So the man went on the internet and began a process of exhaustive research. Something natural, that’s what he was looking for. And within a week or so, he decided on a product. Cardio Cocktail, I think it was called back then. Since then, the name has morphed into Cardio for Life.

He told us all about it, as he started taking it. Actually, he wouldn’t stop talking about it. I listened. I believe in natural vitamins. I’ve taken Dr. Schueltz’s Superfood for more than ten years now. I give that stuff all the credit in the world, for keeping me half healthy back in 2007, when my own world blew up. Cardio for Life was all natural, Dave claimed. It’ll clean out your veins and regrow your heart. Some of my coworkers rolled their eyes. I didn’t. I just watched. And Dave took the Cardio Cocktail religiously, three times a day. And right before our eyes, over the next few months, we saw the man heal his own heart.

I remember it clearly. He was in a wheelchair. And he’d trundle down past the counter, now and then, to use the restroom, right outside the door leading to the warehouse. And then one day, he asked me. I could see the bathroom door. He asked me if it was open. I said yes. And the next thing I knew, the man was walking down the counter, leaning onto it, as he headed out. He needed some support, to walk. But he was walking. And he went to the bathroom. And walked back out.

He kept claiming his heart feels real good. It was growing stronger. And soon enough, he became a dealer for the product he was using. He got a little machine, where you attach a metal wash pin to your finger. The machine takes your heart rate, and other measurements, and spits out a piece of paper. Tells in detail exactly what shape your heart is in. I took the test. My heart was pretty good, had just a bit of an off beat. But it was strong. And I decided at that time that I would take the Cardio stuff every day, once a day, in the morning when I got up. Just for maintenance. And so I began that program, back in 2010.

Dave’s heart was healed completely. It worked as he claimed it would. The Cardio for Life rebuilds the heart. And not only that, it cleans your veins of all the plaque. In the past four years, I’ve seen a whole lot of people with serious heart problems stop by to see Dave. And if they follow his instructions, their hearts always either improve or get cleared up completely. Always. I’ve seen it too many times to have a shred of a doubt about it. Dave always tells them, when they start taking the stuff. “If you have blocked veins, you’ll get itchy. That’s the plaque breaking loose. Don’t stop taking it. If you do, and that loose plaque is floating around, you could easily have a stroke.”

The Cardio for Life really works. It really does. I’ve seen it happen so often, I can’t tell you how often. I strongly recommend it to anyone. Anyone, doesn’t matter if your heart is strong or not. I give it all the credit that I was in as good shape as I was, when they operated on my heart, which had been beating wild for years. The Cardio keeps your blood from clotting. And that’s the biggest danger, when you have a wild heart like I had. That the blood will clot, and you’ll have a stroke. Mine didn’t. And I knew it wouldn’t after the operation. But there was no way I was gonna convince any doctor of that. So I never bothered to mention the Cardio for Life. When I got home from the hospital, though, I tripled my daily intake. I took it morning, noon, and night. Three times a day. Right along with those shots of whatever drug it was that I stuck into my own stomach. And when those were done, I took the Cardio right along with the Coumadin.

I’ve grumbled pretty savagely about it before. They shut me off from my Superfood. Because that stuff is made of concentrated green plants. All kinds of vitamins. And you can’t have the dark leaf vitamins, when you’re on Coumadin. I was pretty much emotionally shot, when I got back home. From the operation, and from a few other things going on. But the thing that depressed me the most was the Coumadin. It lurked there in the back of my mind, always. Pressed in on me like a heavy weight. Day and night. I was trapped. Trapped, with no way out. So I just hunkered down, kept slogging on through, and took it. Took the Coumadin, and kept right on taking my Cardio for Life.

And, of course, it didn’t help my state of mind any that I had to go in and get my blood checked every few days, those first few weeks. To make sure I was taking enough Coumadin. The Lancaster Heart Group has a clinic not far from my office, about fifteen minutes away. So on the appointed days, I headed over on my lunch break. Walked in. They were always friendly. And I was always cheerful to the nurses. It wasn’t their fault I was there. And it took only a few minutes. Sit down. She pricks the end of one of your fingers. Then draws blood into a tiny little glass tube. Then she places the blood on a tiny little measuring machine. And about a minute later, it flashes on the screen. 2.1 one day. 2.5 the next. Between 200 and 300, that’s where you need to be, they had told me.

I barely hit the 200 level on time, after the last needle had been stabbed into my stomach at home. I had to hit 200. And the next day, I did. Just. Right at 200. And always, on the drive back to the office, my cell phone rang. A call from the main Heart Group place, in Lancaster. “We evaluated where you are. Increase your Coumadin dosage to such and such.” They were always real bossy, the people who called to tell me what to do. I’m not talking about the regular nurses, or any of the people I met. I’m talking about the ones who made the follow-up calls. They were like some kind of “Nurse Ratched.” Yanking me around. They talked like there wasn’t any way they could be wrong. And I never argued with them. Never. I always increased the dosages, just like I was told to. But inside, I seethed.

It was like being in a prison. I can’t find any better way to describe that whole experience. I was caught. Trapped. Roped in. Tied down. And told what to do. By controlling, clinical people, mostly women. And all the while, I knew better. I knew the Cardio for Life was cleaning me out, clearing my veins. And keeping my blood from clotting, better than Coumadin ever can or will. But I could never say such a thing. I didn’t even think to try to tell them. They would label me a crackpot.

The Coumadin was just vicious. They told me. You can’t eat any real greens, you can’t eat Vitamin K. It causes blood clots. I knew all of it was way wrong, right from the start. But I never said much. Just grumbled a bit. And my body almost went into shock, when I went off the Superfood. Went off, cold. Just stopped taking it. Almost immediately, I caught a savage head and chest cold. There was nothing I could do, to fight it. The Coumadin beat back all my natural defenses. And there I was, all sick and miserable, with no recourse. It was all so maddening, and it almost drove me to despair. But I had determined that I would listen to what the doctors told me, at least short term. And I did. I don’t know if I would, again. I guess you have to, or the insurance people would freak out on you. That’s what I figured, anyway. It was all so brutal, the whole thing. And in my heart and head, I plotted to escape these people.

The Heart Group doctors would never take me off, from taking Coumadin. They’d pretty well insinuated that much already. They wouldn’t do it. And one Nurse Ratched came right out and told me I’d be on it for the rest of my life. They didn’t want the liability, if something bad happened after they released me. So I figured I’d have to find a doctor who would. A real MD, but one who believed in both natural and pharmaceutical treatment. I’m not hostile at pharmaceuticals for short-term “crutch” treatment. But long term, I am. You take one drug to treat the original symptoms, then another drug to counter the effects of the first one, and another to counter the effects of the second one, and so on and on and on. I knew there were doctors out there who would listen to me, when I told them about Cardio for Life. I knew there were. But how to find them?

I did some sleuthing, some research online. There were two doctors up north a ways. And one, down in Jersey. I talked to Dave about it, at the office. Do you think they’ll recognize what Cardio for Life is? Do you think they’ll help me get off this evil Coumadin? He didn’t know. But he gave me some backup liturature. And I determined that I would walk forward, one way or the other. I would escape from this madhouse. Escape from these Nurse Ratchet people.

And then I heard from the wife of a good friend of mine. She had a real serious disease, stomach related. Ulcerative Colitis. And the doctors put her on pharmaceutical drugs. That didn’t work. Her face and her whole body swelled, and she was miserable. And she found a real MD, a “natural” doctor, right here in Lancaster County. In the city. He had a shabby office. She went in and told him what all was going on. And how miserable she was. She was sentenced to a lifetime of drugs, just to keep her going. And those drugs were most definitely not working. The doctor listened. And he took her on, as a patient. And over a very short period of time, he had her on a purely natural treatment. He took her off all her medications. Told her what and how to eat. Managed her diet. Today, she is happy and completely herself. Her face radiates her joy. She now lives completely free of all pharmaceutical drugs.

That’s the place I wanted to reach. A place like that. Where the Nurse Ratcheds of the world can never reach you, or boss you around. And I talked to her, my friend’s wife, a few weeks back. How do I get hold of this doctor? I’m going to go in and ask the Heart Group doctor to take me off Coumadin. You and I both know he never will. How do I get hold of your doctor? And she gave me his number, and told me. “You have to keep bugging them. They might not answer the phone. Leave a message. Tell them I told you to call them. They’ll get back to you. They’re way busy, and overbooked. But if you mention my name, I think they’ll take you in.” And right there it was. My backup plan, to get off Coumadin. Well, I just figured it was my up front plan. I knew I’d have to go that route.

And all the while, I humbly submitted to the Nurse Ratcheds. When they called to boss me around, I just took it. Increase your dosage. Two full pills, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. One and a half pills on all other days. It was all so very depressing, and there was no way to get out from under it. And I asked a Nurse Ratchet, when the first bottle of pills got close to empty. What do I do? “You have three refills, on that order,” she snapped. “Just go in to your pharmacy. They’ll refill it.”

It didn’t happen that way, though. When the bottle got right down close to empty, I called in to CVS in New Holland. An automated voice instructed me. Punch in the code. So I did. And the automated voice came right back. You’ve used up your presription way too fast. It cannot be refilled.

And I raged and seethed inside. What the heck was this? I’m only following orders, from the Nurse Ratcheds. And now, I can’t get a refill? This is BS. The next morning, I called the Coumadin people. I need a refill. The lady was all cold. Call the refill hotline. She gave me the number. I called it. An automated voice answered. “State your name, date of birth, and your pharmacy. The prescription will be filled in two days.” Well, I didn’t have two days. I was almost on empty, here. And if this drug was as important as they claimed it was, someone had better step up. I called a Nurse Ratched, direct. I’m out, empty here. And she assured me. “Stop by the CVS tonight, and the order will be ready.”

It wasn’t. The CVS people looked at me strangely. And I told them. The order was supposed to be called in, today. I have half a pill, here. I’m supposed to take that half and one more. The pharmicist lady was very kind. “By law, we can give you three pills, just to hold you over,” she said. I took those and thanked her. Walked out, feeling pretty depressed. This is bondage. You get ordered around, and you get yanked around, and they don’t follow through. How important, how life and death can this actually be, when they yank you around like that?

The next day, I went to have my blood level checked again, over lunch. It was right where it should have been, at 2.3 or so. And sure enough, I had barely started back to the office, when my cell phone rang. A Nurse Ratched. “We need you to keep your daily dose just like it is,” she said. And I launched into her. I’m out of Coumadin, here. And the CVS people gave me three pills last night, just to get me through. What in the world is going on, here? Someone had told me the prescription would be ready. It wasn’t. How important is this all, anyway? Nurse Ratched seemed a bit subdued. “I’ll call you right back,” she said. And she did. Someone had placed the prescription order at their main pharmacy in Lancaster. I sputtered. I’m not in Lancaster. I’m in New Holland. I pick up my stuff at the CVS there. And she assured me that my Coumadin prescription would be ready at that CVS that evening. I thanked her and hung up.

It’s downright depressing, to walk into a pharmacy to pick up drugs. The CVS in New Holland is a real nice place, nearly new. The people are very friendly. What’s depressing is that huge rack on the wall. Stacked clear full, every shelf, with drug orders ready to be picked up. All stapled up and tagged in little white paper bags. It’s like everyone is on some sort of prescription. I’ve never paid much attention to details like that before. But I’ll bet that 80% of people over forty are on some sort of drugs. Just a wild guess, I have absolutely no factual basis for that number. But there’s something seriously wrong with any society where drugs are prescribed like candy. It’s a racket, is what it is. And I want no part of that racket. It’s all about control, really. Control, and money, too, of course. It’s about worship, too, about “God” speaking, about what you better do or not do. About how humbly you must approach the altar, and submit. I’m not saying it’s always like this, and I’m most definitely not saying there aren’t a lot of good and decent doctors out there. But way too often, the patient just accepts the doctor’s proclamations and prescriptions on blind and unquestioning faith.

I kept ingesting my daily dose of poison. And soon enough, the first bruises appeared. A small one, on my wrist. It came out of nowhere. And then a large blotch showed up on my stomach. A big bruise, probably three inches across. And they came to stay. They would not fade, and they would not leave. It freaked me out pretty seriously. There’s no way something that does such a thing to your body can be good for you. I felt bloated, like a tick that’s about to get popped.

And that’s the state of mind I was in, when Mom left us a few weeks back. The state of mind I was in, when I gathered with my family to bury her. I talked to Janice about it, as we traveled up to Aylmer. She was pretty horrified. “You have got to get off that stuff,” she said. I know, I said. But there’s no way the Heart Group doctors will ever do that. I have an appointment in late May, for a checkup. Janice wasn’t impressed. “Make an appointment, the second you get back home,” she told me. “If you need me to come and go along in with you, I’ll do that.” I promised her I’d make that appointment. And I told her I’d be fine, going in by myself. Thanks for the offer, though.

And that’s what I did, the next Monday morning after I got to work. Called the Heart Group people. The lady was real nice. I’m not getting along with my Coumadin, I told her. I’m not feeling well, and it’s bruising me. I want to see a doctor, and I want to get taken off this stuff. She fit me in for that Wednesday, after lunch. And as that day approached, I felt all pensive. It wasn’t going to work. I was convinced of that. But I might as well try. I had my backup plan. After lunch, I drove to the big gloomy Heart Group facility in Lancaster. Dave wished me well as I left the office. Pray for me, I said. I’m gonna need it.

I walked in and signed in. The receptionist told me where to go. I sat in the waiting room. Figured I’d be there for a while. But amazingly, right on time, a nurse called my name. She smiled and greeted me. I smiled back nervously. God. Give me the right words, to speak, I thought. When the doctor comes. She led me to a small side room. I sat down. She took my blood pressure, temperature, all the stuff they do. And she asked me a bunch of questions. She left, then, but soon popped back in, dragging some sort of machine. The doctor wanted an EKG test done. I lay flat on my back on the couch. And she hooked up all the wires on my chest and ankles. “It takes much longer to hook you up than the test takes,” she said, apologetically. Not a problem, I said. And then she did the test, and left the room. “The doctor will be in soon,” she said. Thank you, I said.

I sat there, waiting. And I remembered the last time I sat in a doctor’s office, waiting for the results of an EKG test. Back when I had the bloody eye. I shivered. And then the door opened, and the doctor stepped in. A younger guy, probably my age. I hadn’t seen him before. He smiled cheerfully and greeted me. And we just talked.

He asked how I’ve been doing. Real good, I said. Except this Coumadin is real bad stuff. It’s giving me bruises, and I don’t feel well at all. And then I looked at him. I want to be taken off all pharmaceutical blood thinners, I said. There. It was out. Amazingly, the man didn’t seem all shocked. He kept smiling at me. It was a surprised smile, but real. And then he waved the paper that held the test results. And then he spoke.

“Well, according to these results, I have some very good news for you.” I pretty much gaped at him. It was a dreary day, outside. But that second, my world exploded into a beautiful place of blue skies and sunshine. He had good news for me. That could only mean one thing.

He was very surprised. He tried not to act like it, but he was. And he told me. “When we went down your throat with a camera during the operation, we looked very closely at your heart. There was no evidence of any clotting whatsoever. Your heart was very weak, from beating so fast for so long. It was at about 25% strength. But when you came in for your first checkup, two weeks later, we did that echo-gram. And at that time, your heart was pretty much back to full strength.” I gaped at him some more. No one had ever mentioned that little fact to me before. Seems like someone could have called, with good news like that. But I wasn’t fussing. He continued. “From what I’m seeing on these EKG results, I see no reason to keep you on any blood thinners.” And just like that, I was released from the gulag. And from all those bossy Nurse Ratcheds.

I laughed. Joyfully. And thanked him. Now, am I gonna have to wean myself off this stuff, or what? He smiled. “Just stop taking it.” How about vitamins? I asked. Can I take my Superfood? “They won’t do you any good, but you can take all the vitamins you want,” he said. “You can eat any food you want, too.” I couldn’t believe it. And I asked him. That’s worth a high five. Will you give me one? He laughed. “As long as you don’t hug or kiss me,” he said. And we high-fived, my doctor and me, right there in that little room. I was almost in a daze. I simply could not believe what was happening. This was the most joyful day I had seen in a long time, certainly in the last few months.

He got all stern, then. “How’s your alcohol intake these days? How much are you drinking?” He asked. Doctors always think they have to scold you about stuff like that. I’ve cut back a good deal, I told him. I’m going to bed earlier. I’m sleeping better. He kept right on scolding. So I told him.

Look, I said. I like scotch. I write. Writers drink. (At least most of the ones I’ve found worth reading do, I thought. I didn’t say that, though.) Those are choices, things like that. And yeah, I know I was drinking way too heavy, back when my eye got all bloody like it did. I’d just got yanked around, pretty bad, by a woman. And it threw me for a loop. It was a bad choice, to drink like that. But it was a choice. It’s all choices, what we do.

“Well,” he said, all professional. “Too much alcohol could make your heart fibrillate. If that happens, I’ll have to put you back on Coumadin.” That was quite a threat. Spoken to make me shrivel and promise to do better. I just looked at him. I didn’t say it, but I thought it. Think again, my friend. You’re threatening to put me on your brand of poison, if I don’t stop taking a poison you don’t like. And your poison hurt me pretty bad in six short weeks. No, thanks. No doctor will ever put me on Coumadin again. Not ever, not if I can help it.

We were winding down. I had brought along a copy of my book, just in case. I reached into my briefcase and pulled it out. I want to give you something, I said. I showed it to him. The doctor was very surprised. He had no idea. And he got very excited. If you hadn’t taken me off the Coumadin, I wouldn’t have given it to you, I told him. He laughed. “It’s a good thing you didn’t show me that before. It might have been a strong bribe.” And I laughed. I signed it for him and handed it over. He thanked me profusely.

We shook hands. “Come back and see me in six months,” he said. I smiled. Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t, I thought. But I didn’t say it. He walked out. And I walked out of the room behind him. Walked out the front door of that gulag into the beautiful cloudy day. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt it all the way down, felt so deeply what freedom is.

*************************************************************

A few closing thoughts on a few things. I’m not crowing that I’m all healed and heading on into a long and fruitful life. I don’t think that way. I’m intensely aware of my own mortality, and aware that my heart might give out at any time for any reason. Or that something else may go dreadfully wrong in a serious way. There is no promise of any tomorrow for any of us. I grasp that reality, way deeper than I ever have before. I am grateful every day, for for every breath of life. There is little doubt at all in my mind that Cardio for Life probably saved my life, these past few years. By keeping my blood from clotting. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Cardio for Life is what got me off the Coumadin. It strengthened my heart, almost back to full capacity. It kept my blood clean. The doctor tried not to act surprised, that day. But he was. I could have told him why. But I didn’t bother, because he wouldn’t have heard a word I said.

Dave is still selling Cardio for Life. He still has health issues. And he uses a wheelchair now, to get around, mostly because of pain in his legs. But his heart is strong. He moves a lot of that Cardio stuff. And he helps a lot of people. Here’s the link to his website, if you want to check it out. Look it over. Read the materials. I’m not telling anyone what to do. Make your own decisions. I’m not telling anyone to go off their meds unless it’s under the guidance of a real doctor. Most definitely, do not do that. But I’m telling you the stuff works.

Lately, I’ve done a little research on heart ablation, the procedure they did on me. And I am a little troubled by what I found. They didn’t sear just one muscle in my heart. They seared a whole bunch of them, like a jigsaw puzzle. And according to what I read, if you’ve had atrial flutter for as long as I had it, there’s a pretty decent chance it will return in some form, at some point down the road. I plan to keep a real close eye on things. And I can’t quite imagine that I’m ever gonna allow anyone to go in and sear any more of my heart muscles. There has to be a better way. There has to be a natural way. There simply has to be.

There is some artistic talent, scattered out there among my extended family. My sister Rhoda paints. Quite well. She’s totally self-taught. There’s some real musical talent, here and there. My nephew, Steven Marner, had his own grunge band for years. He’s as good with a guitar as anyone I’ve ever seen or heard. All that to say this. After Mom’s funeral, another nephew, Reuben Wagler, got a U Tube video together. The backdrop singing is an old Amish farewell song I often heard in church, growing up. These are real Amish people, singing at a real Amish church. Somehow, someone recorded it. It’s a beautiful and fitting tribute to Mom, from all the extended family. It always brings tears to my eyes, when I watch it. Thanks, Reuben, for creating a tribute for the ages.

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Strange Spring…

The years flow by like water, and one day it is spring again.

Shall we ever ride out of the gates of the East again, as we

did once at morning, and seek again, as we did then, new

lands…and glory, joy, and triumph, and a shining city?

—Thomas Wolfe

______________

It’s been an odd spring so far. Just different. Strange, actually. Part of it is just me, probably. And the way I’ve absorbed things this past month or so. Life, all of it, seems so much more intense. The color and flow and flavor of it. My grasp of how it’s all so fleeting. And all so real. That’s how it’s been, ever since that little incident with my heart.

It’s been a little odd at work, too. I mean, some of the people that wander through those doors, it’s just been different. Not calling the people odd. No paying customer is ever odd, not that you could tell from me. Just the things that come down sometimes are.

A few weeks back, I was sitting at my desk right at noon, getting ready to dig into my salad. I usually eat at my desk, and I’m usually alone in the office for a while. Everyone else heads to the lunch room, or out of there to their favorite spots. And someone’s got to keep the store open. That someone is usually me. And that day, just as I’d taken a few bites, the door bell jingled. A customer. I looked up, mildly irritated. Can’t I have a moment of peace, here? But I smiled at the man, and got up and met him at the counter.

He was slim, rather short, bearded, and dressed plain. But something about him was a little different. He had a very bright smile. “I’d like to talk to someone about a pole garage I need,” he said. Great, I said. I can help you, right here. The salad sat on my desk behind me, wilting in the air. And I kind of felt it out, what he was looking for. Or at least what he thought he needed. There was something just different about the man.

He smiled and smiled intensely. I gotta say, it was a little unnerving. But as usual, I got to chatting. Are you local? The way he was dressed, I figured he might not be. But he was. And I just couldn’t help myself. So I asked. What group are you with? You look a little different than most plain people here in Lancaster County.

He smiled very brightly again. “I’m with no group,” he said. I gaped. You’re with no church group, and you dress plain like that? “Yes,” he said. “It’s just me and my family. We have two children. We’ve been this way for years.” And then he settled in to tell me why.

They came from a non-plain background, him and his wife. He served in the military, way back. They have a child, a son, who is mentally challenged. Or mentally handicapped. Not sure what the accepted term is for that condition these days. The boy can walk and speak. And as he was growing into young adulthood, there were problems. The man and his wife tried to join a couple of different plain groups. Charity. Eastern. But their son caused issues, stirred things up. And the man didn’t make any excuses for that. His boy was a big boy, and as he got into his upper teens, he got into trouble a lot. It wasn’t specified exactly what that trouble was, and I didn’t ask. The law was involved a few times, from what I took from it.

And so it just didn’t work, to try to join those plain groups. Aside from his troubled behavior, the boy had a habit of standing around in crowds and just staring at people. Staring intently. In church, too, he did it. I can see where that would be a bit unnerving. And those plain groups just didn’t have a fit for them. For that man, and his family. I’m not criticizing any group, here. Just telling a story a man told me happened to him. And then only because I asked. There was no place for them, with those groups. So they slivered off, on their own. And today, they just live there, in their home, all alone.

I sensed no resentment in the man at all. Sure, he told of how it was, what the preachers said, some such details. He had some rage in him, back there at some point, I think, at what all happened. He just let it go, long term. And his smile was real, there was no denying that. Almost a little too bright. But you could see it in his eyes, that the man had seen and lived painful things. I stood there, fascinated, and just listened to him talk. The salad could wilt all it wanted to. Here was a guy unlike any I’d ever met before. And I asked him.

How can you live all alone, with no other families to hang with? I mean, doesn’t that just get lonely, a lot? I’d think it would have to. Is there no social structure, except you and your wife and your two children? It’s not like you don’t have neighbors. You’re living right there, among people. Any connection, much, to any of them?

“Well,” he said. “I’m a very social person. And my job is my social life. (He said what he did, but I won’t divulge that. Definitely a job where he interacts with people.) And my children are both grown. My daughter has a full time job that she loves. She’s a computer whiz.” I can understand a little bit about that, I said. I get a lot of social value out of my job right here, too. And I’m pretty much an introvert, outside of here. I mean, I can sit at home and do nothing all by myself and be totally content. But still, I just can’t imagine being an island, all alone, like that. I just can’t. You have to have a social structure, somewhere. You just have to.

They don’t though. He made that pretty clear. They worship by themselves, of a Sunday morning. And it became pretty clear, too, just from how he talked. It was for their son, that they did that. For his protection, for his growth. Somehow, they got the boy straightened out, from the troubles he got into years ago. He’s in his 30s, now. A full-fledged adult. And for his sake, the family lives, cut off from all others, all alone. It’s almost more than I can fathom, although I understand and respect the man’s right to make the best choices he knows to make.

And the man stood there, in front of the counter, and just talked and talked. The stories just rolled right out of him. He talked about a lot of other things, too. Why they dress plain, and why they dress a little different from most other groups out there. His wife wears a vest, over her cape dress. He had his reasons for that. And I just stood there, almost entranced, and listened to him speak. I never even thought of my salad.

Somehow, through it all, I got his quote together, for the little building he was interested in. I printed it out and handed it to him. Went over it, explained everything I had included. And he seemed very impressed by the price. “This looks doable,” he said. He seemed pleased. It was time to wind it down, then. I think we both sensed it. He smiled his too-bright smile and offered his hand across the counter. “It was an absolute delight to talk to you,” he said.

I shook his hand. And smiled at him. Same here, I said. He turned and walked out. And I turned back to my salad.

There have been a few other odd conversations, lately at work. None worth telling, not right this moment, I don’t think. But the other day, I got one of the stranger phone calls I’ve had in quite a while.

We’re busy at work, right now. Real busy. Spring weather, or at least building weather, has finally busted loose. And now everybody wants everything yesterday. It’s about all I can do, to keep the trucks rolling out, loaded with heavy loads. We just hired a new driver last week, and boy, was it way past time. I’m pretty much all set, now, except for the odd day when I just can’t get everything to where it needs to go.

So it’s busy. And when the phone rings, sometimes the guys have to answer, because Rosita’s on another line. And that happened the other day, earlier this week. It rang. I answered. It was an Amish guy. Often, but not always, you can tell just from hearing them talk.

And he told me. He’d just bought a place, and moved in. The garage had an overhead door in it, with a Graber sticker stuck to it. That’s where he got the number. But he was just wondering. There was an electric opener for the door. And he didn’t have electric. Did I think Graber would be interested in buying that old opener back?

I didn’t think I was hearing right, at first. What? I asked. Do I want to buy back an old opener that’s been installed for years? Nah, I got no interest in that. Take it to a mud sale, and get what you can for it. “Oh, so you don’t think it’s worth much?” He asked. I can’t imagine that it would be, no, I said. And then we hung up.

And I just got to thinking. How asinine was that? I mean, if you move into a house, and it’s got an old dishwasher, would you call the dealer and ask if he wants to buy it back? Apply that little formula to just about anything. I thought the whole incident was just silly. Sometimes people just don’t think, I guess, before doing something so stupid. But I couldn’t help but laugh about it.

And then there’s another little milestone that came along this spring. I mentioned it before, I think. Dad’s working on his memoirs. And just real recently, he came out with the first little sliver of a volume. Hardcover. Self-published, of course. The First 20 Years. That’s the title. My signed copy just got here earlier this week.

Dad is ninety-two years old. I don’t expect to ever get anywhere close to that age. I don’t even want to. But, here, at that age, he’s publishing a book. And I read it through, pretty much, that first night I had it. Like I said, it’s a slim little volume. 190 pages, I think. And to me, it’s fascinating and interesting. The stories of his childhood, things I’ve never heard before. Well, that’s probably not entirely true. I’m sure he told us some of those stories, back when we were growing up. We just weren’t listening, because that kind of thing wasn’t very important to us. Which was our loss.

I remember telling him, back when I visited him last June. He was working hard, to get it all together. And I told him. Don’t worry about the lessons. Just tell the story. Just tell it like it was, with all the faults and failures. And all the good things, too. I knew it wouldn’t be that way, though, after he got done. Bless the man’s heart, he just can’t help himself. Most of his stuff has always been laced with didacticism. The lessons that need to get through. In the book, almost every little tale has some sort of moral conclusion. But he sidestepped a whole lot of critical events, without really saying anything.

His grandfather, Christian Wagler, a deeply troubled man, shot himself in the head. That’s completely glossed over in the book, to where Christian was sick a lot and the children (including my father’s father) had to work in the fields a lot. They were told while working in the fields that their father had died. I mean, come on. Just tell the story. Christian was way more than just sick. He shot himself. And they buried him outside the graveyard. Why gloss that over? I don’t know how you can write any honest story of where you come from, if you can’t just tell it like it was. And let the readers make their own conclusions. He does include some decently touching scenes of how he met my Mom. And some details of their courtship.

And here, in his old age, Dad is still as strident as ever, about how right the Amish are. And how that is the only way to live, for sure at least for those who were born that way. And no, I’m not upset about that. I’m just saying how it is. He’ll never change from that way of thinking, I guess. It all just is what it is.

He has ambitious plans, to produce a five-volume set. The First 20 Years is just that, and the first volume. I’m hoping he’ll get the story written, at least to the point where I got here. After I was born, I could see for myself, how it was. I want to read all he’s got to say, however sparsely, about what all happened before I was born. And I hope he gets all five volumes done. He probably will. He’s a pretty tough old man.

So here it is. Dad’s latest book. I’m happy he’s producing. If you want to see the other side of my perspective, buy it. There’s always more than one perspective to any story. And here’s the opposite side of mine.

You can order your copy by sending $10.00 to:

Gospel Book Store, P.O. Box 320, Berlin, OH 44610.

Or order by phone: 330-893-2523.

Spring means the Amish around here are having Big Church. And here and there, as happens every spring and fall, they’re ordaining ministers. And the young married men are looking nervous. I got to talking about all that with an Amish friend earlier this week. And he got to telling me a few tales.

“Yep,” he said. “Over at my brother-in-law’s church, they’ve made preacher last week, last fall, and last spring. It’s a new district, and when they divided it, all the preachers happened to live on one side of the line. So that meant they had to ordain all new preachers.” And he told me. His brother-in-law was in the lot, all three times. And it never hit him. Man, that would be nerve-wracking, I said. I can’t even begin to grasp that kind of pressure.

“Oh, there’s crazier things that have happened around here,” my friend said. “Once in a while, they’ll put the little slip of paper on the wrong page. They go all around and open every book. And the slip’s not there, where it’s supposed to be, in any book. So they have to start all over again, and go through all the books again. Can you imagine? You think you’re off, free, and all of a sudden it’s all coming around again.” Nope, I can’t imagine that, I said. That would be pretty brutal, for anyone to go through.

Like I said, it’s been a real strange spring. And I can’t tell you this for sure. Or maybe I can. There’s some serious writing coming on, real soon. I’m not sure what it will all turn out to be. I’m not promising another book, or anything. And none of it is anything that anyone’s gonna see, not for a while, anyway. But there’s some serious writing coming on. That much I can say, because I can feel it stirring around down there, deep inside.

I don’t know how it will all come out. And I don’t know if any publisher will even be interested in it. But it’s coming. Oh, yeah. It’s coming. The hard stuff that I haven’t managed to face, so far. Because I couldn’t find a way to tell it. Father issues, big time. And relationship issues, big time, too, with a woman. All kinds of fires going on, in all kinds of “rooms.” It’s just so hard, to think of walking back through those rooms, and telling it like I felt it back then. But I’m ready pretty soon, I think. Ready to walk through those rooms. Ready to tell it like it all came down.

I don’t know if I can ever get it told like I think I need to, though. And that’s the scary part about even mentioning this much here. I know it’s coming, the telling of it. But I just don’t quite know if I’ll ever throw it out to the publishing world. Part of it is fear. Part of it is just a big mixture of a big jumble of things. There’s no way a second book will be anywhere near as successful as my first one was.

But I’ve found a place inside where none of that matters, as long as I’m satisfied with the writing that comes. And unless I am satisfied with what comes, no one’s ever gonna see any of it anyway. I guess I’ll worry about all that after the writing actually gets here. It’s right at my doorstep. I’m fixing to invite it all in real soon.

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Uncle Ezra…(Sketch #17)

I’ve had choices since the day that I was born,

There were voices that told me right from wrong.

If I had listened, no, I wouldn’t be here today,

Living and dying with the choices I’ve made.

George Jones, lyrics

_________________

I hadn’t thought about the man in years. There was no reason to, really. He had moved with his family from Daviess, I don’t know, probably sixty years ago. To a level of the Amish world way lower than ours. And we never got to see that much of him. In the few rare times when our families stopped by each other’s place to visit, we looked at him with a good deal of fascination. He was my father’s older brother. And we called him Uncle Ezra.

Well, we called him by other descriptive names, too. Everybody gets a nickname, that’s written in the Wagler code of laws somewhere. The one I remember for Uncle Ezra is “Cave Man.” He was a good-sized man, like my father. But it was his hair that we stared at. It waved in long oily coils. Waved way down his back, down almost to his shoulder blades. And he had that big bushy beard. He always wore a flat wide brimmed hat. I don’t remember ever seeing him smile much. Not saying he didn’t. Just that he always looked pretty grim, whether I saw him in his world or my own.

And there would be little reason to remember much of who he was, because he was pretty much a stranger to me. But that changed, a few weeks back. In rather dramatic fashion. Right there, when I was stretched out on the table in the LGH emergency room. When the doctor and his team were pretty convinced I was having a heart attack. They were swarming around, prodding and stabbing me with all sorts of needles. The doctor shot the questions, rat-a-tat. “Does your family have a history of heart problems?” No, not that I can think of, I said. Then I thought of it. Uncle Ezra. Yes, there was an uncle who died from a heart attack. “When?” I don’t know, back in the eighties sometime. “How old was he?” I don’t know, probably in his sixties. And from that little exchange, the memories stirred in me later. And I got to thinking. And then I got to writing.

He was born in Daviess in 1916, five years before my father came along. He wasn’t the oldest child, or even the oldest son. He was filled with all that Wagler **** and vinegar, and grew into quite the wild young man. Got into all sorts of mischief. He was a wild son. I’ve always found it hard to connect the stories of his youth with the grim bear of a man I saw when he came around. And, oh, yes, those stories were told, mostly in hushed tones, of who he was when he was young.

He didn’t listen very well to his parents. And I’m not being critical, here. Lord knows I didn’t listen very well to mine, either, when I was young. I’m not talking down at anyone. It’s just a story. He was pretty wild. He insisted on cutting his hair way short and shingled. They could never figure out where the boy was getting his hair cut. He never got to town much, and didn’t have money for such trifles when he did get there. And then one day someone walked into his bedroom. Somehow, he had forgotten to lock the door. And there sat Ezra, surrounded by mirrors, carefully snipping away, giving himself that verboten haircut. And thus he was caught. I don’t think that fazed him a bit, or that he quit cutting his hair the way he wanted it, even after that.

I don’t know how he looked, what his features were like in his youth. There are no pictures. He had the high-boned Wagler face, I think. Later you could never tell, because of his burly beard. And he ran wild, then, in Rumspringa. Back then, the youth didn’t tend to leave home, as me and my buddies did decades later. Daviess was a raggedy and uncouth place in those days. And their youth partied hard. And this story has trickled down through the years. Dad’s older brother, Noah, married Fannie Raber. I don’t know if Ezra didn’t particularly care for her, or what. But on the day of the wedding, he loudly made fun of Fannie’s dress. I can’t imagine what he was thinking, or why anyone would ever do such a thing. Fannie remembered that slight for the rest of her life. She muttered about it, way into her later years, when we’d come around. I guess she chose to hold onto that, and shouldn’t have. Ezra could have made it right, too. I don’t know if he ever did or didn’t, just that Fannie held on to that slight for as long as she lived. She died, just a year ago, or so. But back to Ezra. It’s always been a mystery to me, why anyone would make fun of the bride’s dress on her wedding day. He must have been dealing with some pretty deep emotional issues of some sort. That’s all I can figure out.

I don’t know when Ezra found the love of his life. It was there, in Daviess. A girl named Rosie. I have almost no memories of what she looked like. A buxom woman, as I recall. But that was after she had borne sons and daughters. And after they were married, the man truly settled down. At some point, then, he took a real hard turn to a real hard plainness, maybe to atone for all those sins of his wild youth. I’m not saying that had anything to do with it. But from here, I wonder.

Sons and daughters were born to them. Four sons, two daughters. And from what I’m told, it never was Ezra’s intention, to ever leave Daviess. He was pretty settled there, as he was. It was my Dad who was restless, and wanting to get out of there. And it was my Dad who wanted to go check out a rather plain community in Missouri. Bowling Green. So he bought a bus ticket, to go. And Ezra decided to go along, just for anyhow, and to keep my father company.

And the two of them headed out, to check the place out over a Sunday. Bowling Green is a fairly old settlement, for the Midwest. Not sure when it was founded, but at that time, it was rolling along pretty good. And I’m not saying anything disparaging about what the place is today. From what I hear, they’ve modernized a little bit. But back in those days, it was a cesspool, a hard-core lower end Amish settlement. Very plain. From when we visited when I was a child, I don’t recall that they had running water in the houses, even. I might be wrong about that. But it was hard-core, a place of low repute among the larger blue-blood settlements. Kind of like Daviess, maybe. But even worse.

Thankfully, Dad recoiled from the place. He was not impressed. I can never be grateful enough for that. Growing up in Bowling Green would have been a whole lot different than growing up in Aylmer and Bloomfield. I give Dad a lot of credit, for seeing what the place was. And for not moving there.

And strangely, Uncle Ezra, who only went along to keep Dad company, found himself drawn to the place. They traveled back home to Daviess. And in time, Dad moved his family to Piketon, Ohio. And Uncle Ezra and Rosie moved with theirs to Bowling Green. It boggles my mind, that he did such a thing. And again, I can’t help but wonder if the man was somehow trying to atone for his wild and wicked youth. He would suffer before God. Make life harder for himself. I may be off on a totally wild tangent, here. But something, some psychological pull, had to draw the man to such a plain and brutally austere place.

So they moved there, with their family. Eventually their sons took wives to themselves, good Bowling Green stock. And in time, Uncle Ezra was ordained as a deacon there, like his father was before him. It’s rare, for a Wagler of my direct lineage to be a preacher. My brother Joseph is pretty much an exception. But a deacon? That little job goes way back, generations.

The preachers are all to be feared, in any Amish settlement. But especially the deacon. He is the enforcer. When he comes knocking at your door, you can bet it’s not a social call. That kind of conditioning follows you all your life, if you come from the Amish. I still always have a brief, but intense rush of panic when my pastor, Mark Potter, suggests on a given Sunday that we get together for breakfast that following week. What did I do wrong, now? That’s the first, fleeting thought. And I always catch myself. He wants to get together for breakfast, not to chew you out, but because he just wants to get together for breakfast. It’s a pretty brutal thing, to come out of such a mindset. And from what little I’ve ever heard, Uncle Ezra fulfilled his role as deacon and enforcer quite efficiently. If people needed to be straightened out, brought back into line, or otherwise disciplined, he went and did it. That’s what he was ordained for.

And it’s kind of strange, in the Amish world. Well, I guess it’s that way in any setting. From an established settlement like Daviess, my father and a couple of his brothers emigrated to various places. And because of where they moved to and how they lived, their families rarely hung around each other. Ezra moved his family to a hard-core, plain Amish world. And I can’t say that I even know my first cousins. I wouldn’t know them if I met them. Because there was almost no crossing of boundaries, between their world and ours. And now Waglers are sprinkled throughout all kinds of really plain settlements in the Midwest. Ezra’s offspring. It’s still rare, that anyone from their world crosses over to the one I came from, or vice versa. Maybe for funerals, once in a while. But increasingly, not even for that. Not bemoaning anything, here. It’s just how it is.

Tragedy struck Ezra in 1973, when we still lived in Aylmer. He and his wife Rosie had traveled this state, to Snyder County, PA. And real early one morning, they got up to catch the bus in town. Ezra wanted to travel over here to Lancaster, to visit a few people he knew. And somehow, in the little town where they were to catch their bus ride, they had to cross the street. It was early and dark. Ezra looked, and the road was clear. He strode across, thinking Rosie was right behind him. And somehow, no one knows quite how it happened, she held back, and tried to cross back. She was struck by a car right on that spot. And killed instantly.

I remember hearing the news, there in Aylmer. And how my parents and others got ready and headed to Bowling Green for the funeral. Ezra was almost beyond consolation. A man of the hills, he had never trusted modern towns, or modern transportation. And now one of those modern places had claimed his wife. He wept and wept and grieved her.

Ezra never did have much use for my father’s writings. I don’t know if he allowed Family Life in his home or not. He wasn’t impressed by Dad’s fame at all. But the man got involved on a few little publishing ventures of his own. The main one that I remember was Die Botschaft. The Message. Ezra didn’t like The Budget, because a lot of people who wrote in that weekly paper came from car churches. He longed for something more pure, something where the car church people wouldn’t be allowed to participate. And somehow, he got it together, got all the principals lined up. I don’t know when exactly that happened. Late 70s, maybe. And Die Botschaft has been a success. It gets published every week, and no one from any car church writes for it. It’s totally for horse and buggy people. Ezra’s vision was a little different, from my father’s. But still, he had one, and followed through on it. You gotta respect that.

My father had a wanderlust. He moved from Daviess, to Piketon, to Aylmer, to Bloomfield. All in the span of about twenty-five years. Ezra didn’t wander quite that much. But still, he did move out of Bowling Green, to pursue one last vision that would fail. I guess he finally saw it, that Bowling Green was not a good place for any man to plant his roots. And he dreamed of starting a new community. Just him and his sons and daughters and their families. And a few hangers-on. And again, I’m not exactly sure of the exact date, when it happened. Late 70s, early 80s, near as I can tell without doing a whole lot of specific research.

And Uncle Ezra was the founding patriarch of a new little community in Prairie Home, Missouri. He and his sons bought farms there, and settled in. My sister Rachel recalls that some in our family traveled over to help for a few days, to build Ezra’s house. I don’t know what all the rules were, in Prairie Home. But it was an extremely plain settlement. From out of one frying pan, right into another, that’s where Ezra tumbled. I look at who he was, and what his hopes and dreams were, and my heart feels for the man.

Prairie Home was an unmitigated disaster, right from the start. The strong Wagler blood stirred in Ezra’s sons, and they took to squabbling with each other. The plainer the community, the sillier the squabbles, usually. I don’t know a whole lot of details, or a whole lot of specific stories. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t write them. They’re not important. The specifics rarely are. It’s the condition of people’s hearts that really matters.

And here we get to where I was always going, in this story. The thing that was triggered in me, there in that brutal emergency room at LGH. At some point right along in here, Uncle Ezra developed a serious heart condition. It was the plumbing. His veins were clogged up. He went and took all sorts of tests, and the doctor told him. “It’s serious, Ezra. You really need to let us go in and clean out those veins. If you walk out of here like this, you could easily keel over at any moment.”

And for whatever reason, Uncle Ezra just flat out rejected the doctor’s advice. I figure the man was just weary and half worn out and tired of life, missing his Rosie. He didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money, trying to hang on. And he chose to reject the doctor’s recommended treatments. I don’t know what he was thinking. I don’t know if he felt fear in his heart. Something tells me the man just made up his mind, and that was the way it was. If he lived, he lived. If he died, he died.

He did take some kind of natural treatment, to clear his veins. And it happened right while he was in Kansas City, taking those treatments. The stories claim that Ezra asked for a double doze of whatever it was they were shooting through him. And that double doze loosened the plaque in his veins. Might be hearsay. Might be true. But on December 16, 1983, the man went into a full blown heart attack in the clinic where he was taking treatments. And he died right there on the spot, there in Kansas City. He was sixty-seven years old.

I remember the day of the funeral. I didn’t go. I stayed home to be with Titus, and to do the chores, the milking and such. Eli Yutzy came over to help me. It was bitterly, bitterly cold. Snowing down, full blast. They took Ezra back to Bowling Green, and buried him beside his beloved Rosie. And those who were there still talk about how brutally cold it all was. How, at the graveside, the Bishop’s teeth were chattering so hard he could barely speak.

The little settlement he had founded in Prairie Home was in the process of blowing up when Ezra died. His sons all moved out soon after. A few other families hung on for another ten years or so. But the dissension that was rooted at the birth of the place would not go away. Today Prairie Home is an extinct settlement. As far as I know, no vestiges remain of Uncle Ezra’s little band of settlors. The people all scattered to the winds, moved to other places.

And so passed away the man who was my uncle, a man I barely knew. And yeah, from here, it might seem like he was a fool, to make the choices he did. He could have lived for another good ten to twenty years, had he just taken care of himself a bit. Made different choices. I don’t think he was a fool, though. I respect the right of any person to choose the conditions in which he will pass through this earth. Sure, I would have made different choices, from where I am. But he wasn’t where I am. And I’m not where he was.

That’s the blood I come from, right there. Stubborn, absolutely stubborn blood. Mildly unhinged, probably, with just a touch of madness. Waglers have held the reputation of being slightly mad for generations, at least the ones on the fringes. And I concur. We probably are. We live intensely. We feel things deeply. And mostly, it doesn’t matter much what anyone else says or thinks, we will always insist on walking our own paths. And we will live and die by the choices we make.

That’s who Uncle Ezra was, a man like that.

*******************************************

OK. A brief update on my heart situation. I don’t like the word “condition,” as in heart condition. So situation it is. After something like that comes down, it takes about a week to work out of freak-out mode. You’re all jumpy and touchy. I measured my pulse rate many times, just to make sure the heart was beating right. It always was. I went to work the first Monday morning, the Saturday after getting home. Sure, I was a bit tense and tired. But I figured I could sit home, all tense and tired. Or just go to work, and get done what I could. I haven’t missed a day of work since that two-day break at the hospital.

And it was really strange, that first week, to realize something. I used to get dog-tired by late afternoon into evening. Every day. It was that flutter heart, beating way out there. And I realized, during the afternoons, that I’m not nearly as tired as I was used to being. Not saying I’m not tired, in the afternoon at work. I am. But it’s not the dog-tiredness I was used to. I’m pretty happy about that.

The Coumadin and I are not getting along so well. And that’s by far the most depressing thing that came out of this whole ordeal. By far the most depressing. They got me penned in, taking that pharmaceutical rat poison. Right now, I’m on a pretty heavy daily dose, to get my body leveled out. The stuff makes me lethargic. I’m always cold. It hurts my stomach now and then. And it tends to make me drool, right out both sides of my mouth. And you don’t want to nick or bump into anything, because the cuts and bruises won’t go away. It’s pretty maddening. And no, I’m not pulling an “Uncle Ezra” and going off and ignoring the doctors. So don’t start squawking at me, all you medical people. I will have my first full checkup sometime next month. At that point, I figure I’ll tell the doctor exactly what I think of it all. There has to be a better, more natural way, without all those disastrous side effects. There has to be.

And, of course, since I can’t take my Superfood like my body’s been used to, I came down with a full fledged deep chest and head cold this week, complete with a savage hacking cough. With Superfood, I’d get maybe one cold a year. Sometimes not even that. Well, here’s the first one without it. I’m on Maximum Strength Mucinex 24 hours a day, or I wouldn’t be breathing at all. Again, it makes me crazy, how you can’t take natural things to help your body, because the Coumadin people tell you not to. And again. It’s maddening.

Last week, early, I texted my friend, Dwylin the plumber. Hey, think you can get over and get my softner system set up? He called right back. Yeah, he’d try to make it by late week. I knew he had good intentions. But the man is so overwhelmed with work that I half expected him not to show up. And last Friday morning, he texted me. He was there, in my basement, working. He never had time to be there, the first time, when I was in the hospital. But he took the time, because he’s my friend. And he came back as he’d promised, because he’s my friend. And he installed two new water heaters, one for me and one for the tenant. And the new softner system. The water heaters will pay for themselves in about a year or so, he told me. So now I won’t be heating any more water with all that expensive oil through my furnace.

It’s going to take a little chunk of change, to pay for all that. Funny thing is, the day before Dwylin showed up, my biannual royalty check arrived from Tyndale. I had planned on traveling a bit this summer, with some of that. And I still will. But a few of those planned trips just kind of went away, lately. They ain’t gonna happen. They never were gonna happen, they were always meant to be a mirage. It just took me way too long to figure that out. And now here’s the check. I figure after taxes, there should be just about enough to pay for the whole water system, and maybe I’ll have enough left over for a trip to Bloomfield this summer sometime.

I know I like to grumble now and then. But deep down, I also know this. The Lord provides, just as He always promised He would. And I am thankful.

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Wild Heart…

Cause and effect, chain of events,

All of the chaos makes perfect sense.

When you’re spinning round, things come undone,

Welcome to Earth, third rock from the Sun.

Joe Diffie, lyrics

______________

I’m sure stranger stuff has happened to me. Had to have, somewhere way back there. But right now, I just can’t remember when.

I’ve been going through some real crap, lately. Turned out to be pretty intense stuff. Mostly self-inflicted, of course, as is usually the case with me. Still, that doesn’t make it any easier to work out of a cave I chose to walk into. Anyway, that’s how it was the last few weeks. I went to work, as usual, every day. And wrote at night. Brooded in deep and intense shame. And wrote and drank and wrote.

And then, on Wednesday night last week, I don’t know where it happened. Soon after I left the gym, I think. Somehow, I hurt my eye. The left one. Or maybe it just happened on its own. I remember rubbing it and thinking how it itches. Otherwise, I thought little of it. That little moment right there was the trigger for the huge chain of events that would come roaring down over the next few days.

The next morning, I got up, as usual. Went to take my shower. Grabbed my good old battery shaver, and leaned in toward the mirror over the sink. And just gaped. Except for the pupil, my left eye was completely blood red. I’m talking completely. And I’m talking blood red. I could see, though, with it. If I hadn’t seen myself in the mirror, I would never have known. I recoiled, horrified. What in the world was this? Ah, come on. One more bit of crap to deal with. Had I only known. I hadn’t seen nothing yet.

From work, right at eight, I called the Wellness Center I use on those rare occasions when I need a doctor. Better go get this checked out. I told the nice lady what was going on. My left eye was bloody. She poked around on her computer and told me someone would see me at two.

And right here, I’ll just say this, because it applies a whole lot down the road. My heart flutters. Just goes off, on wild beating binges. It’s done that for years. And yes, I’ve had checkups from doctors over the years, and they never mentioned anything. So I never thought it was that big a deal. I’ve never felt a thing from the flutter. Never even felt it beating in my chest. No tightness, nothing. It’s like my blood eye I saw in the mirror. I would have never known about the heart thing, except once, years back, I just happened to check my own pulse. It was running crazy wild. And since then, that’s the only way I ever knew I had a fluttering heart. When I’d check my own pulse. Which I did, now and then, especially after I discovered how my heart acts. Sometimes it was calm, when I checked it. And sometimes it was wild. It was never smooth beating, though. It was always erratic, soft or wild. But it was always strong.

I walked into the Wellness Center and checked in. Sat and waited a while. Then the nurse called my name and led me to a room. Checked my blood pressure. Took my heart count. Blood pressure was just OK. My heart beat was a little high. 140. What’s normal? I asked. “60 to 100,” she said. She left then, and said the doctor would be in soon. I sat and waited. And yeah, I was a little tense. I had a bloody eye, here. And I wasn’t feeling all that good about life in general otherwise.

He walked in before long. A nice young man. I’d seen him once before, about a year ago. He’d taken good care of me. We talked as he examined my eye. Shone a little light in. I lay down on the table, and he had me do the whole eye coordination thing. Everything worked fine. “It just burst vessels,” he said. It’ll heal on its own. We talked a bit then, about things. I told him I’d been feeling down lately. He was a good guy. We just sat there and talked.

Then he mentioned my heart rate. He wanted to do an EKG test, or some such thing. Sure, I said. So the nurse came back in, and I lay down on the table. She stuck all kinds of sticky things on me, and attached some wires. Then she did the test, and a printout popped out of the machine. “Let me just go show these to the doctor, before I unwire you” she said. “To see if this is clear enough. I always check, in case he wants me to do them again.” She walked out. It was the last quiet moment I would see for the next forty-six hours or so.

The door burst open a minute later, and nurse and doctor rushed in. The nurse quietly but hastily started removing wires and sticky things from me. I sat there at the edge of the table as she did this. The doctor stood there and faced me. Looked at me. Looked down at his paper. I’ll never forget the expression on his face. And then he spoke. Concisely. Carefully.

“Mr. Wagler, from what I’m reading on this chart, you are about to go into a massive heart attack,” he said. I stared at him. What the heck was he talking about? He showed me the paper, a bunch of gibberish. “Your heart rate is exceeding 150 and accelerating,” he continued. “I strongly recommend that you be admitted to an emergency room immediately.”

I can’t remember exactly how I reacted. It was nothing dramatic. Probably just gaped at him. I was pretty exhausted emotionally already, from other things. And now I was having a heart attack? It was all just surreal, looking back. I finally asked him. And how am I going to get there? “I would like to call an ambulance,” he said. Meanwhile, the nurse rushed about and poured four aspirins into a little cup. “Take those aspirins,” the doctor said, looking at me strangely. “Are you feeling any pain in your chest at all? Any tightness? Any sweating?” No, I said. I don’t feel anything other than usual. No pain, no tightness. He wouldn’t believe me, though. “I strongly recommend that you get to an emergency room, right now, the closest one,” he repeated. “Do I have your permission to call an ambulance?”

Well, what are you going to do in a moment like that? I couldn’t think straight. I sure didn’t feel like any heart attack was coming on. But those charts wouldn’t lie. And the stress of it all made my heart flutter straight up. All right, I said. Call the ambulance. Someone rushed off to do that. I sat there. “Don’t move at all,” the doctor said. “Just stay sitting right there.” You mean I can’t even walk out? I asked in disbelief. “No, they’ll bring the stretcher in for you,” he answered. The doctor left the room, then. The nurse stayed right there, looking at me intently. I’m sure she was expecting me to collapse, clutching my chest, at any second.

Within minutes, you could hear the sirens. Coming closer and closer, then turning in. You always hear those in the distance, and wonder what poor soul is going down now. This time, it was me. The door opened down the hall, and I could hear them clumping in. It was all very surreal, but I’m trying to tell it just as I remember. And then two men appeared, a lady behind them. The men dragged a gurney. They clanked it around and set it up and jacked it up and moved it over to where I sat. I couldn’t believe this. I could just as well have walked out. They finally nudged it close, and I shifted over. They took to strapping me in. Of course, my heart was going crazy like a trip hammer, by now. Fluttering way out there, into the ether.

And then we trundled out. I sat there, totally alert, and totally not having a heart attack, as we approached the ambulance. “There will be a little bump, here, now,” one of the men said. And they yanked me up. They were really good at what they do, I’ll give them that. My left arm was immediately stabbed by a large needle of some sort. The man on my left hung some sort of little bag up on a hook. And connected the hose to the needle. And that started the continuous, ominous flow of drugs that would assault my body for the next two full days. He also clipped a little metal wash pin to one of my fingers. That took my heart count, and showed it on a screen above and to the front. The man on the right talked to me. Name. Address. Age. Birth date. I spoke to him clearly. I live just down the road, here. And then I told them, told it for the first time to anyone involved in this drama. It was the first time I thought of it.

I’m not having a heart attack. My heart does this all the time. It flutters. It’s done this for years. They absolutely did not believe me. “What’s the rate now?” one of the men asked. “180 and going up,” the other said. “We need to get it settled down.” I’m telling you, it’s not a heart attack, I said again. It was no use.

It took a long time, to get ready to go. Probably at least ten minutes or more. They had to make sure I wouldn’t pass out on their watch. Stabilize me. It was just crazy. At long last they had everything secured, and the woman went up front to drive. The ambulance backed up with a lot of beeping, and shifted around. And then pulled out and headed west for Lancaster General Hospital. The two guys stayed in back with me. They stayed busy, checking things. I sure admire people like that, for all the training they have. And as we bumped along, they tried to keep me talking, to keep me there, alert. That wasn’t any problem at all.

This is my first ambulance ride, ever, I said conversationally. And then we came up to a light. Sadly, the ambulance stopped, just like a normal vehicle. What’s up with that? I asked. Can’t we have sirens, and running red lights, and all? By this time, the guys were lightening up. They’d figured out that I wouldn’t pass out on them, at least not likely. We chatted. I asked what station they were from. I’m going to write this, I told them. I really am. They were from New Holland, of course. And we stopped at another light. I complained again, about there being no sirens and running red lights. The slim guy to the right chuckled. “Look,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to be in the shape you’d have to be for us to do that.” OK, I said. I’ll buy that.

In the meantime, I was making calls. Calling the office. Calling my boss. Calling my brother, Steve. By the time I got hold of Steve, I was pretty convinced of what was going on. They’re taking me in an ambulance, I told him. My heart was fluttering, and the doctor thought it was a heart attack. It’s not. My heart has fluttered like this for years. Steve seemed pretty shocked. I mean, who wouldn’t be, to get a call like that? He said he’d come in and see me as soon as he could.

Somewhere along the way, the slim guy on my right asked what I write. Oh, I wrote a book, I told him. A New York Times bestseller. And I spoke the title. Y’all need to go buy that, I said. “I think my wife might actually have that,” he said. “I’ll check when I get home.” And then we were in Lancaster, and at the hospital that would be my world for the next two days. They pulled up. Opened the doors. Apologized for the bump of unloading. And I was trundled right in. And into a little side room. A team of people waited there.

I wasn’t allowed to get up, or anything. Oh, no. They had to shift me over to the table, like I was a helpless invalid. The doctor stepped up. Nurses swarmed around and stuck in another needle or two, and hooked them to bags hanging from hooks. What in the heck were these people shooting into me? I’m not having a heart attack, I told the doctor. My heart has fluttered like this, off and on, for years. He chuckled. “It couldn’t be beating this fast for very long without being an attack,” he said. It’s done it for years, I said. Meanwhile the nurses were prodding and poking about. “Oh, I like your shoes,” one of them said from the far end of the table. They’re Borns, I said. I walked all over Europe with them last year.

And they took my temperature, blood pressure, the whole works. After a while, an Xray guy popped in. The place was like a zoo. He took Xrays of my chest, from front and back, I think. And soon everyone drifted out. I was all alone, pretty much strapped to a table in the LGH emergency room. Probably the last place I ever could have dreamed of being when I got up that morning. It was just surreal. All of it was. But still, I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was having a real heart attack. I couldn’t see it, though, the more time that passed.

About an hour later, a very distinguished man in suit and tie stepped in, followed by two interns. A real heart doctor. I forget his name. He had reviewed the Xrays. He shook my hand. And he told me what I already knew. “You’re not having a heart attack,” he said. “You have a very strong heart.” And then he pointed out the little details to his interns. This and this and that. You’ll notice such and such. I lay there quietly, like a piece of meat.

Meanwhile, Steve called. I had my cell phone on me. He had my IPad and he was coming in. Where was I? Still in the emergency room, I told him. I still sitting here, waiting on a room. If they move me before you come, I’ll call you. About an hour or so later, he showed up. I was still there, on that table. He gave me a hug, and sat down and we just talked. What in the world do you say to your brother, when you’re lying in the emergency room of a hospital like that? Hooked to all kinds of hoses with drugs shooting into you. And right while we were chatting, the orderlies came. A room had finally opened up.

And right here, I’ll say this. The people at LGH are fine, fine people. Courteous. Professional. Friendly. And totally competent. If you ever need your heart worked on, go there. I’ll vouch for them, all the way. I was trundled down the halls and here and there. In and out of elevators. I just laid back and half closed my eyes. By now, the shame of it all was diminishing. I was here. Didn’t want to be here. But I was. This was happening. Might as well try to drink it all in.

And I was settled into a private room at the 1200 level. Steve tagged along, with a little bag holding my IPad and keys. And a few other things. And soon enough, Ben, the nurse, came in to check me in. They were a little befuddled. I had no medical records, anywhere. No family doctor. No nothing. I do have a doctor that has my records. Problem was, I hadn’t been to see him for, oh, at least six, maybe seven years. So my mind just blanked on that. I don’t go to doctors, unless I need to, I told Ben. I try to stay as far away from them as I can. “That’s fine,” he replied. “But we’ll have to go through a few questions, here, to get some information on you.” Ah, good grief. Will it stay private? I asked. “Of course,” Ben said. But those records could still be hacked, I said. But he was patient. And quite humorous and good-natured. And we went right down through the list. It took a few minutes.

Steve decided to leave, soon. We shook hands, and he walked out. The next day, he and Wilma were planning on flying out to Kansas for a wedding. My sister Rachel’s daughter Ida Rose was marrying Jacob Nisly. I had planned to go, but decided not to. Good thing I didn’t, I guess. That would have been a wasted ticket. I told Steve to pass on my greetings to everyone and to congratulate the bride and groom for me. He said he would.

And I settled in for my first night at any hospital. I’ve never ever been admitted before. It’s a brutal place, like a prison. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s for your own good, at least if you really need to be there. But that doesn’t make it any less a prison. They brought me a tray of food. It was OK, but bland. Of course, I was hooked up to at least two bags of drugs with two different needles stuck into my right arm. That’s how you’re trapped, in a hospital. With those freakin’ intravenous feeding tubes of whatever it is they’re pumping into you. And don’t even pretend you know what all that is.

I settled in, with my IPad. A friend stopped by, for an hour or so. Attendants kept popping in and doing all kinds of things to me. Before anyone did anything, they’d always ask. “What’s your birthdate?” I always told them. And they took my blood pressure and temperature. Stuck the little metal wash pin on a finger, to take my heart rate. And a nice lady stopped by, strapped a long rubber band on my left arm, and stabbed me with a needle. They needed to test my blood. It just went on and on, stuff like this.

My friend left around nine, then. And I was alone. I leaned back on the bed (hospital beds are really cool, that’s one thing I can say. You can contort them to almost any configuration.) and tried to take stock of what the heck had happened and why I was where I was. I could hardly think straight, probably because of all the drugs they were shooting into me. That, and just flat out exhaustion.

Ben the nurse had told me. Tomorrow morning they’d come around. In a hospital, there are two kinds of healers for the heart. The plumbers and the electricians. Plumbers open up your veins. Electricians look to the wiring. Tomorrow they would both come, I was told. And they would consult with me, about what was going on inside me. And decide the best course of action to take. My problem was obviously electrical. I’m sure the plumbers figured I had plenty of problems for them, too.

I dozed off, now and then, as the night came and passed. It’s impossible to sleep in a hospital. Flat out impossible. If the monitor in my room wasn’t beeping wildly, there was another one beeping somewhere real close. And just when you’re finally dozing off, the door opens and someone comes in and does the whole blood pressure/heart rate/temperature thing again.

It wasn’t even fitful sleep. It was just intermittent dozing. The next morning, there was no food. And there had been no water, either, since midnight. Today they planned to probe up a vein in my groin to fix the problem in my heart. I couldn’t have anything in me. The whole morning is just a groggy memory. The electrical people showed up. A doctor and his assistant. Both totally professional and polite. The doctor chuckled a bit. “So you went to check out your red eye, and landed up in the emergency room. Heh, heh.” Yeah, I said ruefully. That’s exactly what happened. I kept trying to tell them. No one would believe me.

And he told me. I had what was called “atrial flutter.” Where the top part of the heart just ran wild, on its own. The bottom couldn’t keep up, which made a real good scenario for a blood clot stroke. And no, my blood-red left eye had nothing to do with any of that. They told me what they wanted to do. And they really felt there would be no problem, fixing my heart. It was a pretty simple procedure, I was assured. They would go up a vein in my groin, and do an ablation, whatever that is. Tweak what needed tweaking. And it would happen that afternoon. Maybe I’d be able to get out that evening. Strangely, no plumbers ever arrived. I guess they found very little to no plaque in my veins. So there was no need for them.

They needed some more inside data, so I was trundled off again, soon. An echo-gram, I think they call it. The guy bastes you with some sort of schmutz, and takes all kinds of detailed pics. All throughout, I hated to think of what all this was costing anyone. Sure, I have insurance. With a pretty high deductible, I forget how high. I’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. Anyway, this new scan was downstairs, close to the operating room. So after it was done, they rolled me over to the holding area. It was probably eleven o’clock. And the operation would come at two. So there were three hours to kill. And there I lay, on a stretcher table. Hooked to a monitor that kept beeping loud warnings, because my heart kept jumping way up beyond safe measures. I couldn’t eat anything. And I couldn’t even have a drop of water for my parched throat. There was no way to sleep. There was no way to do anything but just lay there.

I stirred, finally. Rang the bell. The nurse arrived promptly. I’m thinking I should make some phone calls before heading into surgery, I told her. Is there any way that someone could fetch my IPhone from my room? She never hesitated. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll go get it myself.” I hate to make you do that, I said. Can’t you just call up there and have someone bring it down? “No, it’s no problem,” she said. And off she went.

Meanwhile, the anaesthetist arrived, a nice friendly man. Everyone was nice and friendly. He needed information. Everyone needed information. He had a clipboard, and he told me of all the possible risks involved. It’s not near as dangerous as it used to be, to go under like that. But still. You never know. Once in a while, someone doesn’t come back. He was quite jocular and witty. And totally professional. All LGH people are, from what I can tell. He had me read through a form then, and sign off. I did so wearily.

The nurse returned soon, with my phone. Before I could call anyone, the phone rang. It was Titus. He’d heard. I told him what was going on, and we talked for a few minutes. We hung up. And Steve called, too, right then, to touch base. Then Marvin Yutzy called, from Kansas. And we talked. I told him what was coming, and he said his Dad had had the same thing done to him. The people were gathering at his place tonight, he said. The guests for the wedding tomorrow. He wished me well, said they’d be praying for me, and we hung up.

And it felt good, that they called. I hadn’t thought about it much. I don’t like to bother people, when I’m in a place like that. Never have. I never even bothered to call my pastor, Mark Potter. Not that I wouldn’t have. I just didn’t think of it. It’s always a serious thing, when your heart gets operated on, when any outside foreign object touches it. You never know what could go wrong. And I thought of it, of course, that I might not return. But the odds were pretty slim, and it didn’t bother me all that much. I’ve always been alone, all my life, in such situations. I don’t know any other way. And here I was, alone again, going into surgery. They had asked me. Will anyone be coming to be with you? And I told them. No.

Sure, there was a sliver of fear down there, way down deep. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t. I very much wanted to live. Still, if something happened, I was pretty calm, thinking about it. I knew who I was, and I knew I was my Father’s son. Nothing would ever take that bond away. Nothing. That comes out of my own experiences. And it comes right out of Pastor Mark Potter’s preaching. And it was a beautiful thing, in that moment, to hold on to. A strong and beautiful thing. Even so, I was just too exhausted to think about it much.

And just before two, just like she’d promised, the operating room nurse came to fetch me. She was all cheerful. As she pushed me out, she proclaimed, “I hear you’re a famous author.” Who told you that? I asked. I sure never told anyone in this place. It was another nurse, who happened to attend the same church as my brother, Steve. Somehow, that nurse had seen my name and told this nurse. Well, yeah, I wrote a bestseller, I said. But it was a miracle, the way it happened.

It wasn’t far, to the operating room. A big old cold place. A large team of people awaited me. They were all smiling and cheerful. They slid me over onto the table, and took to placing all kinds of pillows and cushions everywhere, to position my body the way they wanted it. “We hear you’re a famous author,” they said, smiling. “You wrote a bestseller.” Yeah, I grunted. I did. “He said it was a miracle,” the nurse told them. And then the anaesthetist’s assistant stepped up. Swabbed a spot on my right leg. Earlier, back in the holding area, the main man had told me I’d feel a slight sting. The assistant scrubbed around a bit, then she dropped something on the floor. They had to go over to their supplies and get the replacement of what she’d dropped. I lay there, just trying to be aware of everything. Then I saw her, holding the hose. And then I felt a slight sting on my leg. It happened just like I’d been told. My last memory was of her standing there, holding something to my leg. And feeling that little sting. There was no fading out. It just went dark. Instantly. There is no other way to describe that.

I woke up, I don’t know how long later, in the recovery room. I wasn’t startled, or anything, about where I was. All kinds of patches were taped to my chest, hooked by wires to a small pocket monitor beside me on the bed. They noticed soon enough that I was back, and came to return me to my room. As we trundled along, I reached over and felt my right pulse. For the first time in years, my heart was beating in steady, evenly-spaced thumps. They had done it. The electricians had done it.

Back in my room, they brought me food. And water. I drank and drank glass after glass. I was on strict bed rest for four hours, until 8:30. What if I need to use the bathroom? I asked the nurse. “We’ll bring you a bed pan,” she said. Then I’ll wait, I said. A friend stopped by for a while that evening. And right about then, I got a text from my tenant. He wondered if I was OK. He hadn’t seen me around, and the truck hadn’t moved in a few days. Drat, I thought. I forgot to let him know. So I called him right away.

I told him where I was and what had happened. He was all sympathetic. “Hate to tell you this, but you got problems with your water system again,” he said. “It’s all muddy, coming out from anywhere. I think your softener system is shot. I can’t tell for sure, because I can’t get into the basement. You better call your plumber buddy back.” I groaned. Then I said I would, thanked him, and hung up.

Come on, Lord, can’t you give me a break, here? I thought. What is this, my freakin’ “Job” moment? Haven’t I been through enough of those in my life already? Or is it just me, banging my head against the walls? But come on. I mean, I’m about shot here, in the hospital. I’ve had some real rough days, lately. I’m laid out here, flat on my back, all strung out and helpless on a hospital bed, with a heart that needed some tweaking, to get to working right. And now, right this moment, my water system goes bad? What’s next? Is my truck gonna collapse for no reason, too? Can’t you just see fit to not pour it on so strong? And no, I didn’t feel one bit guilty, either, talking to God like that. I mean, if you can’t be honest with Him, if you can’t tell Him when you’re all pissed off and hurting and scared, what kind of relationship is that?

And right there, from my hospital bed, I called my buddy, the plumber, Dwylin Flaud. Left a voicemail. He texted back that he was at his daughter’s softball game, and that he’d call me as soon as he could. An hour or so later, he did. And I told him where I was and what had happened with my heart. I know you’re totally busy tomorrow, but is there any way you could go out and at least patch things up so they work for now? I asked. He was all sympathetic that I was in the hospital like that. “Yeah, I’d promised someone else I’d stop by, but this is more important,” he said. “I’ll try to push that one back and stop by. I’ll get the tenant to help me.” I told him where the key was to get in, thanked him profusely and hung up. And the next day he did what he’d promised. Went out and bypassed the softener system. He called me when he was done. He’d had to go through the whole house and drain all the pipes from the dirty softener sediment. And he would stop by within a week or so, and replace the whole thing. I sagged with relief. Thank you so much, thank you, I said. Just send me the bill. And I thought to myself, as we hung up. He’s a good man. It pays to have good connections.

The second night was a little less stressful than the first. I was hooked up to only one bag of drugs, and I could move about the room pretty freely. Still, it was hard to get to sleep, because something was always beeping somewhere. Plus, I’d had a good two-plus hour nap that day, when they put me under. So I took my IPad and started writing this blog. And people popped in at all odd hours to poke and prod and take my blood pressure and draw more blood and such. Dawn finally arrived. Today I would get back home, one way or the other. If they wouldn’t release me, I would walk out. I was pretty determined about that.

My friend Gloria came by around 9:00. She would take me home. And I told her I wanted her to be there, when they explained the drugs they were giving me. Especially Coumadin. The blood thinner they claimed I needed. I understand little about such stuff, except I don’t like the sound of it. I was too groggy to grasp instructions. (All I know is I can’t take my Superfood. I’ve taken that stuff twice a day for ten years, and now I can’t, because it counteracts the Coumadin. And now my body’s screaming for it. It makes me crazy.) And soon enough, my buddy Ben the nurse popped in. The guy who had checked me in would check me out. I grumbled pretty savagely at him. This place is a freakin’ prison. He took it all good-naturedly enough. The doctor stopped by, and went over things with me.

At around ten, Ben released me from all intravenous tubes. I was free to get up and walk around. Can I go for a walk around the halls? I asked him. “Yes, I want you to,” he said. So I went, and just walked. And walked and walked. I never ever figured it could feel so free, to just walk around a hospital. Of course, I promptly got lost. After much meandering, I stopped at some station. I’m lost, I said. I don’t even remember my room number for sure, except it’s in the low 1200s. The ladies laughed and laughed, and made a few phone calls. One of them led me back to the general vicinity of my room, and pointed me the right way.

Around 11:30, Ben unhooked all the heart monitor valves from my chest, and tore off all the little tapes they connect to. I was free to change back to my real clothes. I wasted no time, doing that. And right at 12, Gloria and I walked from the hospital into a beautiful sunny day. I kept exclaiming as we drove along Rt. 23 toward home. It’s all so simple and all so beautiful. And then we pulled into my drive. I walked into my home. I have never been happier to walk through those doors. If they ever drag me back to any hospital again, I think I’ll have to be unconscious.

Maybe things happen for a reason. Maybe they don’t. From here, I think of a few things. My cousin, Elmo Stoll, a prolific Amish/Seeker writer and leader, passed away suddenly from a massive heart attack at age fifty-four. Just a couple of years older than me. Maybe I was living on borrowed time, with my flutter heart. Who knows? Maybe I needed all that drama to nudge me down the right path, to get my heart taken care of. At this point, it doesn’t do a whole lot of good, fretting about any of it. It all happened as it did. But still, I wonder.

What are the chances that it all was supposed to happen this way? That I would bust my eye, for whatever reason. And when I went to check it out, my flutter heart randomly shot up and way out of control. Thus the frantic call to the ambulance, the brutal two-day stay at LGH, and the people there who fixed my heart. There are a whole lot of other ways of looking at it all, sure. But that’s one way. Of course, my heart could give out tomorrow. There is no promise of any future on this earth. I have a better grasp of that than I’ve ever had before, believe me.

I’m in a new place, now. And not because I want to be. Seems like I always have to be dragged kicking and screaming through the next door. It’s a strange place I’ve never seen before, a world of little pink and blue and white pills. And yeah, it’s a little scary. More than a little. I’m just kind of moving around real slow, feeling my way through the fog, trying to get my bearings, trying to clear my head, to figure out where I am, who to believe, and what’s going on. Right now, I trust nothing that anyone tells me without first sifting it through some serious filters of my own.

But I’ll keep walking. I always have. All in all, I’m just grateful that my flutter heart held out for as long as it did on its own. And I am grateful for all of life. For the beauty and the madness and the pain of it. But especially for the beauty.

And today, I am grateful for my new heart.

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The Clans of Old Bloomfield…

Now this was lost, a fume of smoke, the moment’s image of a fading

memory, and he could not say it, speak it, find a word for it – but he

could see that boy of his lost youth…He seemed to be a witness of the

secret weavings of dark chance that threads our million lives into

strange purposes we do not know.

—Thomas Wolfe

______________

They saw it coming and had time to get ready for it, the family. He hadn’t been doing all that well lately. And then, a few weeks ago, the stroke hit, a hard one. And that’s what did him in. And the other Saturday afternoon, as I was meandering out there on the road, my brother Steve called me. And he told me that the man had died. “He passed on a few hours ago,” Steve said. And we talked a bit. About David G. Yutzy, one of the founding patriarchs of the Amish settlement in Bloomfield, Iowa. Steve’s father-in-law, Wilma’s Dad. And this week, a lot of memories stirred in me. Not only of “Dafe Yutzy,” as he was called in Amish-speak. But of all that was the world of Bloomfield as I knew it. Or Old Bloomfield, I guess you could call it now, since it was so long ago, and it’s no longer the same place it was back then.

I’ve mentioned it before, in one line in the book, I think. Bloomfield was founded in the early 1970s by Gideon Yutzy and his sons. David, Henry, and Norman. I’m not sure of their ages, who was oldest. It doesn’t matter. And their younger brother, Eli, eventually moved in, too, with the young English woman he had married. She became Amish for him. But I think it was just Gideon and the three older sons for the first while. And I’ve thought about it some, since. What kind of nerve or guts, or was it foolishness, they had, to just go off on their own like that, and settle in a new place. Or maybe it was just plain old faith. I don’t think any three of my brothers would ever have done that with my father, go off into a strange new land to settle, with no other Amish people around. I know I sure wouldn’t have. So it must have been some kind of special bond they had there, the father and his sons. That’s all I can figure out.

And just that close, it didn’t work. I’m writing from memory, here, so not all the details may be exactly accurate. But this is how I remember it being told. They lived there for a year or more, all hopeful that other families would move in. And none did. So they got a little discouraged, and got to talking. Maybe it was a mistake, this Bloomfield thing. Henry decided to pack up and move on over to Milton. He’d had enough. He wanted to live in a real settlement. And Milton was just south of there, all inviting. So he moved over. And the remaining few families huddled for a few more years. And they talked some more. They didn’t want to move to Milton. Maybe they should just give it up and go look at other more suitable settlements to move to. Settlements that were more established, and somewhere along their lines of thinking.

And Dave actually went to Milroy, Indiana, and bought a farm. That’s what they tell me today. But there’s a legend out there, too, that I somehow recall from way back. I don’t know if it’s true in every detail, but I know I heard it told. The men of Bloomfield headed to town, one day, to board the bus. Maybe they were heading to Milroy. I don’t know. But from the stories I heard, it was a close thing. They planned to board a bus to somewhere. And from that bus they planned to board, a young Amish man with a long red beard stepped off. He greeted them. He had come to check out what they believed, and how things were, here in this little fledging place. It was Dewey Gingerich from the now-extinct settlement of Fortuna, Missouri. He originally hailed from Kokomo, Indiana, where his father, Bishop George, still lived. They were having issues in Fortuna, I guess, right about then. Little Amish communities like that tend to explode sometimes from personality clashes. And Dewey decided to head on up north and check out Bloomfield. The Yutzy men welcomed him enthusiastically, and abruptly canceled their own trip to wherever they were going. They took Dewey out to their homes. Showed him around. The land was fertile, and, better yet, cheap. You could buy a pretty good-sized farm for a little bit of next to nothing, compared to a lot of other places.

And Dewey was impressed. At least with the land. Maybe not with the church rules, so much, but those could always be tweaked, he figured. And he went back home to Fortuna, all excited, and told of what he had seen. And eventually a lot of the Fortuna families moved up to Bloomfield. Dewey told his father, too, there in Kokomo. I suppose Bishop George made a foray soon after that, to see for himself. They both bought farms not far from where the Yutzys had settled. And so Bloomfield was saved from extinction. They had a Bishop, now. That’s a huge thing, for any new settlement. It signals stability and structure. And soon other families from other places started trickling in.

And by the time Dad and Mom took the bus to check out the place in the spring of 1976, Bloomfield was getting established. Dave Yutzy was The Budget scribe for the community. And he duly recorded that David and Ida Mae Wagler were there, visiting over a Sunday. And all those little intricate details count, looking back. Amish people from all over read The Budget. And a little later that summer, Dave triumphantly wrote that David Wagler had bought a farm there. Out just north of West Grove. He and his family were moving to Bloomfield. It was pretty big news, to be proclaiming from any Amish settlement. Especially from a young upstart settlement like that.

And in August of that year, I got to go along with Dad and Naomi and Titus, to help build our new dairy barn on the farm. Joseph went along, too. I’m not sure who all else went. It was so long ago. Charlie Newland took us in his capped pickup truck. Of course, Carl Sansburn had to get in on the action, too. We arrived at the farm, and it was all that Dad had claimed it would be. Big hills to the north. The little farm buildings nestled in, below. And the river bottoms to the south, bordered by the Fox River. Maybe I’d canoe that river, some day, I thought. (I never did get that done.) They had built the foundation for the barn, and were waiting for us. The Yutzy brothers, Dave and Norman, and their sons. Looking back, the Yutzys were good at three things, as I recall. They farmed. They worked at construction. And they liked to hang out at sale barns. That’s just who they were. And they had a lot of fun doing all of that. And they welcomed us quite raucously into their world.

I connected immediately with the Yutzy cousins, Marvin and Rudy, that summer as we built the barn. They were bright and intelligent, and said things that made me laugh. We got along real well. The barn sprouted, day after day, as we hammered hard at the wet rough lumber Dad had bought from Jake Beachy, who had a sawmill. It was tough slogging, but we stayed at it. There were frolics, too, that week. The men from the few families settled there came and helped us build, all for free. And there was another connection going on, in another dimension. My sister Naomi met Alvin Yutzy that week. Naomi cooked our noon meals. That’s why she came along. Not long after we moved to Bloomfield, Alvin asked to bring her home one Sunday night.

And we built that barn that week, the Waglers and the Yutzys and all the frolicers that came to help. I was excited and nervous. This place would be my new home. Still, I felt deep sadness. Aylmer was the only home I’d known. I remember how my little sister Rhoda asked Dad, as the day approached that we would leave. “If we don’t like it, can we move back here, to our home?” Dad chuckled. And he assured her, in some way. I don’t remember what he said. But there he was, and there was his little daughter, asking. He calmed Rhoda’s heart, even though he knew we would never return to Aylmer. That’s a pretty special memory.

And then we moved to Bloomfield, in October of that year. It was a new world. I reconnected with Marvin and Rudy. It was a strange time, leaving behind the only world I had known. And I got to know my new friends and their families. Another thing I remember about the Yutzys. They could sing. And they sang a lot, at the singings. In harmony. That was a sin, in Aylmer. I can still hear Alvin’s high clear tenor. And his brother Lester’s deep bass. It was just chillingly beautiful to us Aylmer folks. We joined the singing, of course, with our cracked and untrained voices.

And it seemed like if there were ever two families that were destined to mix and mingle their blood, it was the Waglers and the Yutzys, in that Bloomfield world of long ago. Alvin took the first shot at it. He courted Naomi. Brought her home, after the singings. And eventually, he asked for her hand. She said yes. And they were married. Then Lester courted my sister Rachel. And Steve asked Wilma if he could escort her home. And Titus courted Ruth, the daughter of Dave’s brother, Norman. And right along, then, as the years passed, Ruth’s brother and my best friend, Marvin, brought Rhoda home. And, in time, all of them got married. All of them. That’s pretty rare, I think, that so many siblings get married to so many partners that shared the same blood like that. And there was an empire, of sorts, sprouting to life in Old Bloomfield.

This has nothing to do with the story line, but I’ll just say it here. It’s kind of ironic, I think. I married into the Yutzys, too. Ellen’s father, Adin, is a brother to Dave and Norman and the others. He had left the Amish, though, and joined the Plain Mennonites before Ellen was born. Or maybe shortly after. I can’t keep track of small details like that. They’re not that important in a story. Anyway, we were one more Wagler/Yutzy couple. Or Yutzy/Wagler, take your pick. From all the courtships that happened between those two families, ours was the only one outside the Amish world. And we all know how that went. Our marriage was the only one that failed. You think about that, and it’s a little strange. But not really. The stress of our journeys, the stress of breaking free, had a little bit to do with it, I think. Who knows?

Moving on, then. There was a short golden age, there in Bloomfield. When all was going as it should have, when it came to what an extended Amish family is. And what it is to set down roots. But it could not last, that golden age, and it didn’t. Nathan was the first one to walk away from that world for good. I soon followed him. No sense going into detail how that all came down, it’s written in the book. And after fleeing, we sorted out our lives, licked our wounds. Picked ourselves up, and kept walking. And we were the only two from either of those clans that fled Bloomfield, at least for a few years.

We went back to see the family every year at Christmas. And it went pretty well, usually. Our siblings and in-laws treated us cordially enough. Once in a while someone felt led to give us a little talking to. It got agitated a time or two. And Dad always delivered his obligatory lecture at some point during morning devotions. We just shrugged it off, such fussing. And we went on about our lives.

There were fault lines, though, in the foundations of the budding empire. There in the Wagler and Yutzy clans. And soon enough, those fault lines shivered and gaped open. There was no one particular reason for them, I suppose. It was a mixture of things. One of the main reasons was that the leadership in Bloomfield took a hard core, conservative turn. Bishop George was greatly influenced by Dewey and Jerry, two of his more radical sons who also happened to be preachers. My brother Joseph walked among them, too, the preachers of Bloomfield at that time. But he never had much of a voice, other than being the most popular preacher around. The Gingerich men looked at him with grave suspicion. He was a Wagler. He had wild brothers. And later, he had wild sons.

They had a lot of power, that combo of Bishop George and his two preacher sons. I’ll give some credit to Bishop George. He said it as he saw it, in his high squeaky voice. And his sermons were always interesting, even if you didn’t agree. But his sons, well, let’s just say they weren’t public speakers. It all went to their heads a bit, the power they had. And they took to acting a little funny. They wanted to be more plain. And that just never works, in any Amish community. Never has, never will. I don’t know why that’s so hard for some people to grasp. If you start forbidding things that always were allowed, all of a sudden, it creates a lot of turmoil and unrest. And there was no way to stand against that power structure. If you spoke up in protest, you were marked. So you had a choice. You could stay quiet and go along with all the silliness. Or you could move out.

Some of that stuff went on, way back when I lived around there. But after I left, it got a lot worse. The farmers stirred and asked to use mechanical milkers to milk their cows. It was tough to make it, milking by hand. Oh, no, the Gingerich clan decreed. That would be a sin. That’s not who we are, here in Bloomfield. And the carpenters, too, looked on helplessly as more and more restrictions came at them. All power tools were abruptly forbidden. And the preachers grumbled that the builders were on the roads in pickup trucks every day, too. It all just got a little dark. I’m sure there were a host of other grievances that I never heard of, too. I wasn’t really all that tuned in to Bloomfield, anymore. Didn’t really want to hear much of all the problems going on.

The Yutzy men were particularly irritated at Bishop George and his sons. The rules in Bloomfield had been pretty firmly established, they felt, when they settled there. The way they had agreed among themselves how things would be. And now here came the Gingerich clan, and just arbitrarily changed things, decreed all kinds of onerous new laws. It didn’t go down well at all. And the children were stirring, those in the Wagler and Yutzy clans. And others. At some point soon, it was inevitable. There would be an exodus.

Dave Yutzy saw what the future held, I think. And to his credit, he made some tough decisions. In 1993, he and his wife Ella (or Ellie, as she was called) packed up and moved to Rexford, Montana, with a few of their younger children. It was a pretty big deal. I remember hearing the news, and wondering what in the world was going on. How could it be? One of the original founders of Bloomfield was packing up and moving out. Something must not be quite right.

And I’m not sure which of my married siblings broke first, but in time they all moved out of Bloomfield. Except Titus and Ruth. They’re the only ones who remain in Bloomfield today, of all my family. The others all trickled out, mostly over a period of a decade or so. And they all eventually left the Amish, too, except Joseph. But he didn’t move out until much later, over to May’s Lick, Kentucky. The others left for Plain churches. Like Beachy Amish, or even plainer. But where they could drive cars. Two of the once-powerful clans of Old Bloomfield now were no more. Dad did what he could, to persuade and convince his sons and daughters to stay and be content in Bloomfield. It was no use. I’ve always felt bad for Mom, that she had to endure one more burden, to see her children moving away from her like that. But, as it was with my own journey, all of us have to make our own choices. And all have to do the best they know, with what they have.

I’ve been a bit critical of Bloomfield, now and then, over the years. But they had one rule that was highly enlightened. Gideon Yutzy and his sons had insisted on this rule, when they settled there. And Bishop George must not have had much of a problem with it, because he and his sons never got it changed. And that rule was this. If you left Bloomfield and joined a “car church,” you would not be excommunicated. Not as long as it was a “Plain” church and not as long as you moved out of there and didn’t cause anyone any trouble. There aren’t a whole lot of Amish settlements where such a thing is true. Well, maybe there are more now than there used to be. The old Blue Bloods here in Lancaster County sure could learn a thing or two from their uncouth western cousins.

But Bloomfield has another strict rule, too, a rule that remains locked in today. An unbelievably harsh rule. And one that is pretty common in the Amish world. If a son or daughter leaves the Amish and joins a Plain “car church,” or just goes out and doesn’t attend any church at all, that child is pretty much cut off from any family ties in Bloomfield. Sure, he can go home to visit, like Nathan and I used to. But he can never be invited home. And the Bloomfield Amish can never go visit, can never go to the non-Amish weddings of their siblings or their offspring. I think they’re allowed to attend the funerals of such people, but what good does that do? By then it’s way too late. It’s all so brutal. It’s especially hard on a lot of mothers. It has to be, it can’t be any other way.

It’s just flat-out unnatural, to cut off a child for such a reason. And you can’t tell me any different. I remember a while back, I was talking to a good friend about it. He broke free from the Plain Mennonites, years ago. That’s a much harder place than where I come from. And I asked him. How can they do it? What possible motivation could there be, to treat any child like that? And my friend looked at me and told me. “It’s because they think they’re like Abraham in the Bible,” he said. “Where Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son on the stone altar, because God demanded it.” It made a lot of sense to me, what he said, and I told him so. I’d never thought of it that way. Yes. They think they’re like Abraham in the Bible. Sacrificing their children because God demands such sacrifice, and such obedience.

I didn’t think to say it right then, but just thought about it later. Yeah. They’re sacrificing their children on an altar, all right. Just like Abraham was willing to. Problem is, their sacrifice is not to the God of the Bible. He demands no such sacrifice today. It’s the altar of sacrifice to false idols, what they’re doing. And they’re willing to give up their children to that. Willing to sacrifice them to idols. It’s not right, any of it. But this is just my perspective, here, how I see it. The Amish, anywhere, are free to believe what they want to believe. And free to act on those beliefs. I will always defend their rights, I will always defend the right of my people to live as they see fit. But still. I’m just saying.

And Dave and Ellie Yutzy moved out of that Bloomfield world. Moved on out to Rexford, Montana. And from all I ever heard, which wasn’t that much, they really liked it out there. But after a decade or so, Rexford was having problems of some sort. I don’t know the details about another little Amish church blowing up, and don’t care to. But in 2005, they moved over to a new little settlement that was starting up, in St. Ignatius. Still in Montana. A New Order Amish place. And there they lived, until their passing.

And from there, they traveled out and visited their children, both Amish and non-Amish. The way it should have been. The way it could never have been, had they remained in Bloomfield. They were welcomed into the homes of their children, and honored as parents should be. They came through Lancaster County a few times, and stopped at Steve and Wilma’s home. The last time was a few years back, for my nephew Ira Lee’s wedding. I visited with them both, and there was no hint of judgment in their faces. Dave smiled and talked, and we sat around in a group and retold old stories. And laughed uproariously at the old jokes. Someone related The Pancake Story that afternoon. Even though everyone knew the punch line, it brought down the house. And late that night, a bunch of us sat around in Steve’s kitchen and sang the old songs of Old Bloomfield. It took me back to the singings of long ago, that night. Hearing those old familiar voices, cracked and faltering now, some of them. But still singing those old songs.

And you look back at what Old Bloomfield was, back in the day. A place my father chose, quite randomly, it seemed, as a suitable settlement to move to with his family. In hopes of a better Amish world. And you look at the extended families, the clans, as they interacted and moved forward into life. It was what it was, the drama of it all. Bishop George is gone, now. He passed on, a few years back. His sons remain. Three of them are preachers, including Mervin, my old buddy from the original gang of six. But Bloomfield today is no longer what it once was. It has exploded in size, and today it is the largest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi. Eight districts, going on nine. No one man, and no three brothers, can dictate, anymore, as to how things will be or won’t. And that’s a real good thing, right there.

Dave and Ellie Yutzy enjoyed their children in their old age, and their children enjoyed them. As is the natural course of things. Ellie took sick, back in the fall of 2011. I don’t remember what it was, some blood disease, I think. She sank fast, and died a few weeks later. Her shocked and grieving family assembled in St. Ignatius to bury her. All of the extended family attended. Every single one of her children and grandchildren went to mourn her passing. And to honor her.

And Dave never seemed to really get over it. He grieved the loss of his lifelong companion. Mourned her deeply. Longed to go be with her. He had health issues, anyway. Two open heart surgeries, somewhere along the way. And his body just gave out. He wintered in Phoenix, Arizona, like always, this year. And his children took turns, going out to be with him.

And a few weeks back, he suffered a severe stroke, there in Phoenix. A few days later, he passed away in a hospice, surrounded by some of his children and grandchildren. What better way is there to pass on than that? Released now, to go join his beloved Ellie. They buried him beside his wife in the little graveyard in St. Ignatius. And there the two of them now rest together.

The Wagler and Yutzy clans of Old Bloomfield are scattered to the winds these days. And it’s just as well, I think. It’s not good, to have so many restless souls concentrated in one place. Too many strong personalities. There would be clashes, as there sometimes were back then. There would be all kinds of conflicts, all kinds of power struggles, had we all stayed there in Bloomfield. It would never have worked out. It’s just as well that the Old Guard could not hold.

We were what we were, back when the clans called it home, Old Bloomfield. And it’s kind of strange, how I feel, looking back from here. Because I am grateful for all it was, the world I came from. Grateful for the good things, and the hard parts, too. Like all of life, there was a mixture of both, and it couldn’t have been any other way. I am proud of where I come from, and I am very proud of my heritage.

And today, I’m just grateful to be right where I am.

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Driving Dangerous…

How do you rate yourself as a driver?

No, that’s a stupid question. You rate yourself above average.

It’s a well-known fact that all humans consider themselves to

be above-average drivers, including primitive Amazonian mud

people who have not yet discovered the wheel.

—Dave Barry

_____________

I’ve grumped about it all before. Lancaster County is full of people, as least compared to the places I come from. A lot of people means there’s a lot of traffic, doesn’t matter where you go. On the main roads and the back roads. And you mix in those buggies and crazy wild horses they drive around here, and it’s a mess at any time of the year. But you mix that clogged mess with the winter we’ve been having, and it’s just downright an obstacle course out there. And there are a lot of idiot drivers out there, too. And maybe it’s all that cold and snow that’s freaking me out, but this winter I joined the ranks of local really stupid drivers. Because last Saturday I came as close as I’ve ever come to totaling my truck because of how I was driving.

The thing is, I have never had an accident. Never. Not even a fender bender. (Except a lady nudged and dented my bumper, once, but that wasn’t my fault. Her insurance company was all concerned about whether the air bags went off, and whether I felt any whiplash. I told them I was fine, because I was.) And I’m not a putzer, when it comes to driving, either. I mean, I move along. But I’m very careful. Always. I keep my eyes on the road. Drive defensively, that’s my motto. Pay attention. There are a lot of idiots out there. And you never know what the other guy’s gonna do.

And that’s why I’ve always had a reputation for being rude, when it came to waving at friends I meet on the road. They waved at me, they told me a hundred times. Some of them claimed to have leaned out the window as we passed, gesticulating wildly, because they wanted to see me wave back. And I never did wave back, because I didn’t see them. And I told them. I wasn’t ignoring you. I just didn’t see you. I was looking at the road in front of me. That’s what you do, when you’re driving. You don’t lollygag around, looking at the sights. You’re on the road, driving. You got to focus, when you’re doing that.

It’s been close, a few times through the years. I’ve done some stupid things, pulled out in front of people. Once, maybe ten years back, I didn’t see a stop sign. In my defense, it was obscured by some bushes, and I didn’t know it was there. And I pulled up and turned right. A little old 80s car swished right by. Missed me by maybe a foot. Talk about being startled. That was the close call that’s made me shiver, thinking about what might have happened, up until the thing that came down last Saturday.

We never saw a whole lot of car crashes, growing up. Our world was pretty restricted. And it was rare to hear of an accident in it. We read about such things in the paper, but rarely saw them. The one that I remember happened when I was very young, maybe four or five. A guy on a Harley crashed at the crossroads just west of our house, less than half a mile away. It happened around dusk. I think my brother Joseph heard the abrupt halt of the bike’s growl. The guy came up to the crossroad from the south, on the road leading to the print shop. Problem was, it was offset, the crossing, not straight. He never saw it. And he crashed into the ditch, and lay there all night. The next morning, I remember seeing the flashing lights of the ambulance when we got up. We all rushed up to see. The ambulance was gone, by then. And we heard the story, from people standing around. The Fehr boys were on their way to work, and were the first to see it. I think the guy survived. I remember seeing the motorcycle, there in the ditch. I think it was blue, although I can’t say for sure. What I remember clearly was the saddle seat. And we talked about that accident for many years, in my childhood world. It was a thing that stood out to us. And of course there was a lesson, down there, all buried in the talk. That’s what can happen, when you drive a thing with a motor on it.

I’ve never even been a passenger in an accident, except once. And that was way back in the eighties, back when I lived in Bloomfield. My old buddy Chuck Leonard (of Chuck’s Café) took a few of us up to Waterloo to see Titus in rehab, one Sunday morning. I don’t remember who all went, but I remember who all came back. It was Chuck and me and Dad and Ruth, heading home. Mom stayed with Titus when we left, late that afternoon. And it was snowing and sleeting, right on down. And it was getting dark. Chuck fussed about the road as we crept along in the slush on the four-lane highway. And then, just like that, his old boat of a car spun out. It turned completely at least once, and we slid down a long gradual embankment into the ditch. I think the bank was gradual, because we didn’t roll. But it sure seemed steep at that moment. I don’t remember anyone saying a whole lot of anything until the car settled to a stop. We took stock. No one was hurt. I don’t think our emotions exploded, or anything. We were pretty much in a state of disbelief and shock. Then Chuck broke that tension. He laughed and explained. The car just slid out. He couldn’t control it. Somehow a tow truck showed up an hour or so later and pulled us out. Other than one little turn signal light, nothing was damaged. We headed on home. I never forgot how helpless it felt as that car was spinning out on that ice, and spinning down into that ditch. I’ve never felt that helplessness as a driver, though. Except last Saturday, it came very close.

I’ve even had a cop tell me how good a driver I was. That happened a couple of summers ago, one fine sunny Saturday afternoon as I was heading over to a friend’s house for coffee. And just down the road a few miles, about six cars were lined up by the Turkey Hill, waiting for the first car in line to turn left. Problem was, there was a lot of traffic coming from the other way. And we just sat and sat, waiting. And more traffic came at us. And there we sat and sat. Why in the world weren’t those backed-up cars passing the first one, on the shoulder? I mean, that’s pretty simple. I looked the situation over carefully. Wide shoulder, six cars to pass. Should be no problem. I edged my way on by, and broke free out front. And just as I was breaking free, I saw him sitting way back off to the right, in a little lane. A local cop. That’s why those other cars weren’t moving. He instantly glided out and tailed me. About a quarter of a mile down the road, he pulled me over. Good grief. Now I’d get a ticket. I fumbled for my driver’s license and handed it through the window. I didn’t say anything, just handed it over. I don’t have a habit of talking to cops much.

He was a young guy, just a kid, really. Mid-twenties, probably. All puffed up in his big old uniform and official hat. But he was friendly enough. “Look,” he told me, as I sat there, silent. “It’s Saturday afternoon. There’s a lot of traffic out here. I don’t like accidents.” He handed me back my license, and I realized he wasn’t going to ticket me. “You had your eyes on the road, and you were driving very carefully,” he said. As he turned away, I broke my little rule and spoke to him. Obviously, I wouldn’t have passed those cars if I had seen you, I said. He chuckled. “Yeah, I know that,” he said. And just like that, I was free to move on. I was pretty astonished, that he didn’t ticket me. But that was as it should have been. I had done nothing wrong.

And that’s the way it’s been, with my driving. I’ve always been careful, and always felt relatively safe. Until this winter. It’s brutal out there. Half the time, it seems, there’s snow and ice on the roads, when you need to get to work. And with all that snow, they’ve piled up the banks everywhere. It’s not safe, to pull out in a lot of intersections. Because you can’t see what’s coming at you. Black ice, and frozen snow on the roads make it all that much more dangerous. The buggies rattle and clop along, right on the main drags. There’s no room for them to pull off on the shoulders. Too much snow piled up. And the traffic clogs up behind them. And sometimes, the road is so bad that it’s hard to even pass a buggy. It’s all enough to drive anyone a little nutty.

And last Saturday, I had a few errands to run, here and there. Light snow in the morning, that’s all they claimed we’d get. It didn’t start, though, until about midday. And the one place I was stopping at was right on the edge of Lancaster. A light snow was spitting down when I left the house. That should have been an omen, right there. This is a sign. Stay far away from all evil cities in weather like this. Nothing good will come of it. But I ignored the premonitions. The snow was light, and it might stop soon. So I drove right out into that mess, all blithe and confident. It wasn’t all that important to get to where I was going. I just felt like heading out.

I wasn’t quite sure how to get there, so I plugged in my GPS. It’s a few years old, and has been mostly good to me. It has an annoying habit of trying to drag me off main roads onto back roads, for the shortest distance. And when you don’t know where you’re going for sure, that gets a little tricky sometimes.

The snow kept spitting down. Not real bad, but steady. I had my pallet of pole pills on the back, and I could feel the solid weight. My truck was anchored. The GPS led me over toward the west side of the city, then guided me onto some real back roads. And again, it was OK. The thing that always irritates me during stressful driving is the pushy drivers that come up behind you. And sure enough, as soon as I turned off onto what should have been a deserted back road, an SUV got all uppity. Followed me way too close. I plugged along, and it finally turned off. Then another slid right in to take its place. And soon enough, I pulled up to the main highway, close to where I was going. I turned right. And the GPS claimed I was there.

But there was nothing “there” except a tiny little opening in the snow, off onto a tiny little side street. And a large sign that screamed ONE WAY. So what now? Irritated and nervous, I drove on down the highway, looking for a street to turn left onto. There was none, in the first half mile. I turned left into a business parking lot, to figure out what to do. Traffic was pretty light, for such a busy road. Snow was still spitting. Sideways, windswept. What to do? The GPS had clearly told me to go down that one way road. I thought about it. I’ll head on back and look it over. Maybe I can make that hard right turn. I’ll look it over. I was pretty tense.

And I pulled out to the right and drove on back. Approached the sign. No Right Turn. Well, I thought. You can ignore signs like that if no one’s watching. I looked around. No cops anywhere. No traffic coming at me. I approached the hard right turn. Glanced at my rear view mirror. No traffic coming from behind, either. I switched on my turn signal. Turning right, here. Swung way left, then turned for the hard right. Right across the right lane. And right there is where I almost lost my truck.

I was turning, edging slowly. The side street was narrow. Edging, edging, halfway across the right lane I’d come from. And just like that, a little white car whooshed past, on my right. The driver avoided me by hitting the snow piled along the side. It will always be frozen in my mind, that instant. Snow spitting down, snow spattering from the banks, and that little white car skedaddling from underfoot like a frightened rabbit. He missed me by less than an inch, I will always claim to my dying day. Had I turned half a second earlier, that car would have smashed into Big Blue’s right front side, by the tire. And at that speed, probably thirty-five miles an hour, there would have been some serious damage, not only to my truck and the car, but probably to the car’s driver. Who knows? About anything could have happened. It all still just makes me shiver.

You think about it, how close that was. This was my truck, my pride and joy. Big Blue. And I came just that close, to losing him. Not to mention all kinds of associated costs. The illegal right turn. I have no moral qualms about making such turns at all. But there are consequences, if something bad happens. There would have been tickets. Points against my license. Insurance costs would have shot straight up. And who knows what all kinds of litigation?

And it all would have happened because I was in idiot driver. That’s the real heart of it. I was a stupid idiot. Sure, my truck might get all smashed up next week. You really don’t have a whole lot of control over that, because something might happen that’s not your fault. That would be hard enough to take. But if you smash up your truck because you’re an idiot, that would make it so much harder to deal with.

And you look at such a thing, that happens in your life. A really stupid mistake, and you walk away unscratched. Not because you deserved to. But because that’s just how it all came down. It’s all so random, mathematically. And maybe it really is all random. But I’ll tell you what I did, right after it happened, right after I quit freaking out. And I’ll tell you what I’m still doing today.

I’m talking to God a lot, in my heart and in my mind. And with my voice, too, yeah, some. But mostly inside. And I’m thanking Him from the bottom of my heart for looking out for me.

***********************************************************

Yesterday, we were short in help at the office. Which means Rosita took a day off. So I was the main guy answering the phone. And it wasn’t all that busy, and we managed just fine. About midmorning, the phone rang, and I answered. It was my brother, Titus. I was surprised and pleased. He calls, oh, every few weeks or so, just to chat. But today, he was calling to tell me some news.

“Well, Sollie died,” he said, after we had greeted each other. I grasped at the name. And I asked. Sollie who? “Sollie Herrfort,” he answered. And it all flooded through me, the emotions that always come when I hear that name. Solomon Herrfort. The father of Nicholas in the book. Ah my, I said. When? Are you going to the funeral? “He died yesterday,” Titus said. “I would like to go, but it’s way up in Wisconsin, and it’ll just be too cold.” Yeah, I sure understand that, I told him. Do you think the Aylmer people will go? “Yes,” Titus said. “Yes, a lot of them will go.” And we talked a bit about who the man was. He was 92 years old, close to my father’s age. He had a hard life. And a lot of pain.

I haven’t seen anyone in that family since the mid-eighties, the last time I visited Aylmer as a young Amish man. I know almost nothing of the details of their lives, the Herrforts. I know they moved from Bland, Virginia, sometime after Nicholas died. Way up north, to another real plain community in Hillsboro, Wisconsin. I heard little snippets, now and then, through the years. Esther got real sick one time, got all delirious. They thought she was passing on. And in that delirium, from some deep well of loss and pain and sorrow, she cried out again and again the name of her firstborn. “Nicholas!” And then, somehow, she pulled out of it. Came back. She survives her husband. She had a hard life, too. And there they lived, in Hillsboro, for all these years.

I’ve heard, too, that Solomon got a pretty good price for his little farm when he moved out of Aylmer. He had it paid off. So maybe they weren’t quite as destitute as I remembered them as a child. I just don’t know quite what all is true and what isn’t.

Solomon had been blind for a good many years before he died, they tell me. I can’t even begin to imagine what his existence was like in that darkness. Or what it was like back when he could see, for that matter. Whatever it was, he lived his full range of years.

And now he is gone. And now he is reunited with his son.

He was ignored as a nobody like no other Amish man ever was, at least in the world I grew up in. There is no reason, really, that anyone outside the boundaries of his world would remember many details of his life. Or that anyone, anywhere, will long remember his name. But here, with my voice, I speak of who he was. And I speak of his passing.

Solomon Herrfort, Rest in Peace.

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Seventy-Two Years…

“….I have lived so long. I have seen so much. I could tell

you so many things”… His eyes were lusterless and dead,

he looked for a moment tired and old.

And all at once, a strange and perplexing vision,

which would return many times in the years that

followed, came to the boy…

—Thomas Wolfe

______________

I thought about it a few times, as January slipped on by and the day approached. A day we had prayed would never come. But it came, and there was nothing to do, really, but to celebrate it as the wonderful thing it was, even though it meant that Mom was still with us. Last Monday, Feb. 3rd, was my parent’s seventy-second wedding anniversary. Any way you look at it, and whatever the journey was, that’s a long time for two people to hang together in a marriage.

Seventy-two years. Threescore years and ten, plus two. A lot of people never even get that old, let alone stay married to the same person for that long. It’s a lifetime, all in and of itself. And I think back, to the stories I’ve heard told about how it all began. It was different, I think, even in that community at that time. Because there was a double wedding going on that day, on February 3rd, 1942. A double wedding. I’ve never seen one. Never even heard of such a thing happening as I was growing up. Or if I did, I forgot it. It’s rare, any way you look at it. A double wedding. Such an aberration could only come from Daviess.

They were very young, the two couples getting married that day. Dad would turn twenty-one and Mom would turn nineteen later that year. And Dad’s youngest sister, Rachel, was real young, too. She married Homer Graber. She was seventeen, if I remember right. I’ve wondered where the wedding service was held. It’s always at the bride’s home. But Mom and Rachel came from two different homes. So there was at least one bride who didn’t get to do things the way they’ve always been done.

And they had their reasons to get married that young, at least from what I remember being told. Because of what was going on right then in the world. The “Good War,” an oxymoron if there ever was one. As if any war could ever be good. But the historians have slapped that label on the destructive monstrosity that was World War II. The Amish, of course, never wanted any part of it. They want no part in any war, not even as noncombatants. Not in any supportive role at all. And at that time, the government had set up work camps here, in this country, for people like that. Conscientious Objectors, they were derisively called. You had to go serve there at those camps, if your name got called.

The thing was, once you were married, you were less likely to get drafted, or however you got called up back then. So that was the strategy, that the two couples got married so young, in a double wedding on the same day, seventy-two years ago. And they were all desperately hoping that they would be left alone in peace, to live their lives in the world they had always known, right there in the Amish community in Daivess County.

And I’m ashamed to say this, but it just was what it was. But I was ashamed of my legacy, way back when I broke free of the Amish. Ashamed of their absolutely immovable anti-war stand. I made excuses for my Dad, when the subject came up. Well, no, he didn’t serve in the war. He was a Conscientious Objector. Many would call him a coward. But he didn’t know any better, and it’s all so quaint, what he believes. I look back now, to what I said back then. And I’m ashamed all over again.

Because he was right, when it comes to war, when it comes to going off and fighting in other countries. He was absolutely right. There is no honorable way to take any part in it. There is no honorable way to kill for the state, no matter how much justification they throw at you, no matter how many Bible verses get thundered over the pulpit by weak and spineless preachers. I’m not judging anyone, here, who was brought up different. And I’m not denigrating anyone who served in that war. I’m just saying. That’s what I heard my father speak, how wrong it always is. There’s a whole lot of things he said that I never heard, never really absorbed. But now, from way out here, I hear him on this. I am pretty much right where he was, except I believe in defensive force. I’ll leave you alone, but if you come at me to hurt me, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect myself. But when it comes to what war is, I’m right there with him. It’s always a racket. I just came through a different door, to see it. And I would do what he did, to avoid shedding a drop of another’s blood just because the state told me to.

And their little plans half worked, getting married that young. Homer never got called to serve in any camp. He got to stay at home with his young bride. Dad didn’t. I’m not sure how that all shook out, but he got summoned to go and sign up. I don’t know that many details of how it happened. Or how hard he tried to fight it. There wasn’t much you could do, I figure. And I’m not sure exactly when it happened, probably within a year of their wedding. And he dutifully did what he was told to do by the state. Packed up and moved out here to Pennsylvania, to the work camp at Sidling Hill. From there, he and a large group of fellow Conscientious Objectors labored to landscape the roadsides of what is now the PA Turnpike. I’ve heard him tell his stories. The thing I’ve never quite grasped, as to how it was, because I’ve never been there, was that he had a young wife back home in Daviess. I’m not sure where Mom stayed during those years. I could ask Dad, I guess. He would remember all that stuff. And yeah, I know. Compared to what his English peers were going through, being shipped off to fight in bloody battles, murdering and maiming and getting murdered and maimed, his burden wasn’t all that hard. But still, it’s a thing I could never have imagined for myself.

My parents were young, seventy-two years ago, and I’m sure they had their hopes and dreams for the future. All based there in Davies, I’m sure, too. That’s where they were born and raised. That’s where they would live and raise their family. I think of Mom, especially, during that time. She was astonishingly beautiful, Dad always claimed. Photogenic. I don’t doubt that claim for a second. And there she was, living alone without her husband. And there she was, when their first child, my oldest sister, Rosemary, was born. While Dad was at Camp. They always told me. He was a stranger to his daughter when he came home on rare visits. She was terrified of this man who showed up out of nowhere, and stayed there in the home for a few days. It’s hard, to imagine such a thing. And I’m sure it was hard for them. They walked forward into life, though, because that was the only thing to do. They did what needed to be done.

I’ve wondered, now and then, over the years. Wondered if that’s where it happened, there at those work camps. If that’s where the seeds were planted for what would come down later when my father returned home. At those camps, he got to meet all kinds of other young men from all over the Amish and Mennonite world. I’m sure they talked a lot about where they came from and what they believed. Maybe that’s where Dad got the idea that he might leave Daviess someday. He certainly had some progressive beliefs for his time. I wonder if he would have ever left Daviess, had he not been called to work in those camps. Probably he would have, sooner or later. Still, who knows? Maybe he wouldn’t have, either.

And he served out his time, there in the work camps until his term was over, or the war was over. I’m not sure which came first. He was at Sidling Hill for the first year or two. Then he got moved down to Boonesboro, MD, to work on a farm. And after his release, he returned to his wife and children. Back to Daviess. Back to where home was. But he had seen things now, talked to people, and the ideas were sprouting in his head. He had issues with what Daviess was at that time. I can’t imagine it could have been all that bad, compared to some of the things I saw there decades later. But he had issues with where he came from. And his home, the place where he was born and raised, the place where he married and settled in to start his own family, that place had little chance of holding him for very long.

I’ve written it before, so there’s no sense in repeating all the details here. Before many years after Dad returned, he decided to leave Daviess. And off they went, to Piketon, Ohio, to check out a new little community that was struggling to life. Other like-minded men, radicals in the Amish world, were settling there. And Dad bought a farm. I’ve never been to Piketon, to check out what it looks like. They always said it was pretty remote and hilly. My older siblings returned with Dad a few years ago, and they found the old farm. And the old general store, too, although that had been boarded up long ago. They had memories of the place, the older ones who returned. And they went back to see that world again.

And so Dad moved his little family out of Daviess. Mom was very sad. Soon after they moved, my sister Naomi was born. Mom smiled again. She had a baby to take care of. Still, I can’t even fathom what all she went through during that period of her life. Sure, there is social life in any Amish community, and I’m sure there was in Piketon. But still. This is one of the biggest struggles I’ve had over the years with bitterness toward my father, because of what he decreed way back then. Mom was never allowed to reconnect with her close family ties back home. Never. The Yoders were bad, because they had left the Amish. She was forced to disown her family. That was a brutal thing, for anyone to ask or demand of anyone. And it was so very wrong.

But it was what it was. And they lived there in Piketon for a short time. A few years, exactly how many is not that important. And then that settlement disbanded, because a great big nuclear (or military, I don’t remember. But it was a big thing.) plant was going to be built, a few miles away. And so they left, the Amish. A lot of them moved to Aylmer. And ironically, whatever had scared them out of Piketon was never built. Just as well, those people could have stayed there, had they known the future. But they didn’t, and so they didn’t.

And for the next twenty-three years, my parents lived in Aylmer. There, in Aylmer, their family grew until it was done. All the children from Rachel on down were born there. And Dad, ever driven, grew to be the man he was in the Amish world. An intellectual, a writer, a man who spoke great and noble things of how it should be in a perfect world. His bold venture in launching and publishing Family Life cemented his reputation as a mover and a shaker. The man became a legend in his world. That’s simply how it was.

I think now of how it was for Mom during that time. Just quietly in the background, raising her children and not saying all that much. And feeding the flocks of pilgrims that flooded through the mecca that was Aylmer in those days. She had her own thoughts and feelings about a lot of things, I’m sure. She just never got heard much.

And through it all, Dad despised and detested her family. Mom’s older sister, Rachel, was married to Henry (surname nickname: Mealy) Wagler in Daviess. They were Block Church people, who had left the Amish and drove cars. And Rachel lost two of her adult sons in terrible accidents, just a couple of years apart. One got chewed up by a corn chopper, the other ran into a train. Both were killed instantly. Mom wept and wept and begged to attend the funerals. And Dad looked all dark and grim and flatly refused to let her go to her own sister’s sons’ funerals. Those are big wounds, right there, any way you look at them. Brutal wounds. And Mom endured them all.

And then her children started leaving. Not moving on, as in leaving to establish their own families in the Amish world. But leaving that world altogether. I can’t even begin to grasp how she endured all that. They hung together, my parents, through all that life was for them. For better or for worse. And a lot of it was for worse, in those years. No party is ever innocent, when a marriage is for worse. I can tell you that, from where I’ve been. And there’s no sense in pretending that Mom wasn’t flawed. She was. We all are. But still, I look at all she had to deal with, and I marvel at her strength, just to keep a half-even keel in her world. I don’t know how she did it.

And Dad plunged on to Bloomfield, then, because his way of doing things wasn’t working out in Aylmer. I give him all the credit in the world, for doing what he thought he needed to do to keep his family. I realize today what all it cost him, in more ways than one. But there were deeper things, way down there, that he never saw or considered. And Bloomfield, of course, is the core place I broke away from. Not a whole lot of need to recount any of all that here, either.

And I look at who my parents were, all the way through that journey. They had a tough road. They saw and lived a lot that I will never see or live. And there’s no way I can judge either of them for their flaws. I just can’t. But I can sure sympathize with both of them, especially Mom. She endured so much. And most of that, she endured in silence.

From here, from where I am today, the bottom line is this. Yeah, it’s true. She never had a voice. And she suffered a great deal. Not just from her husband dragging her around to new communities and new settlements. And not just from Dad roping her off from her family. Her children caused her a lot of pain, too, especially her wayward sons. We left, in the middle of the night, with no warning. Just like that, we were gone. And she had no idea of where we were, or if we were safe. And looking back, I try to imagine how my own journey must have made her feel through all those long years. I was seventeen the first time. That’s a child. And later, the whiplash, the back and forth and back and forth. Her mother’s heart tearing to shreds every time I left. And what joy she must have felt for me, when it seemed like it all would work out. All the way to the doorstep of getting married Amish. And then pulling back, for reasons she could never comprehend. And running once again, leaving all that wreckage behind. It must have been brutal for her. It just had to be.

You think about that, and you don’t judge Dad so harshly for doing what he did. Yeah, he could have done things a lot better. But so could I. And looking back from where I am today, it was all just one big flawed jumbled mess.

I don’t know how she kept her sanity. But I rarely remember her not smiling, not in her daily walk through life. Maybe that smile wasn’t real, sometimes. But we didn’t know that, back then. Mom was Mom. Just a rock, always there, and always loving and always welcoming. I don’t know how she did it. Except her heart was just full of love.

Despite all his flaws, and despite how he’d taken her for granted all those years, Dad couldn’t bear to see her leave him as the Alzheimer’s settled in. He got all gentle and protective, all of a sudden, when he realized what was going on. This late in life, for the first time ever, she just faded out, just left him. She couldn’t hear him speak about how things were, and how she couldn’t see her family. And when he saw what was actually happening, it was a hard thing for him to deal with.

He never faltered, though, not after he knew where she was going. She could not leave him. He was pretty determined about that. And he did all he could, to keep her there with him. As she gradually drifted from his world into the twilight that is Alzheimer’s, it was touching to see how hard he held on. This could not be happening. He had vitamins. Those will bring her back. He did all he could, to keep her with him. All to no avail, of course. She left, except she didn’t. He could still talk to her, even though she didn’t hear. He could still do the little things, to show her how much he cared. And he does those little things now, every day.

And that right there is the real tragedy of so much of their seventy-two years together. Those little things, to show how much he cared. Cared about who she was, and how much she meant to him. He could never speak those little things, never show them, not through all those years while she lived with him as an alert and beautiful woman. He could never do it. Maybe he just didn’t know how. I don’t judge that in the man. I’ve got my own flaws, believe me. I’m just saying. That was the real tragedy of the journey of their lives together.

Seventy-two years. At the end of such a long road, you look at that, and you marvel. And I look back at my own life, and my own failed marriage. Mine lasted a measly seven years before it just blew up. They held it together for more than ten times that long. That took some doing, any way you look at it. There was a price, to get there. There always is. There were huge costs. There were a lot of hard roads. And maybe it wouldn’t have held together, had they been in my world. But they weren’t. They were in theirs. They had little choice, really, but to slog on through, regardless of how it went sometimes. Because that’s the culture they lived in.

Those were yesterdays, all the stories of their lives back then. Today is today. And that’s all anyone has, including my parents. And there they live, in Aylmer, as Mom slowly wastes away. The pain of what she saw and lived and felt is gone, now. I like to think that she knows joy from where she is. No one can ever know that, because no one can ever return from such a world to tell us. She is where she is, cared for as tenderly as any person in her condition and at her age could ever hope to be cared for. And there is no question that she is deeply loved by the man she married seventy-two years ago.

And today, in the story of their lives, that’s all that really matters.

****************************************************

I guess I’ll cough politely here. And clear my throat. Ahem. How about that Super Bowl? For the second year in a row, I’m proud to have picked the winner. Right here on my blog, before the game was ever played. Last year I nailed it, right down to the points. This year, I’m a bit embarrassed that I was so far off. Seattle by three indeed. How about Seattle by thirty-five?

No one could have seen that coming. I’m just proud that I picked the winner. And like I said before, I got nothing against Peyton. I’ve always liked him. I felt kind of bad for him as his team got demolished in an old-style knockdown. It’s been a lot of years since we’ve seen such a lopsided Super Bowl. We’ve been spoiled, the last while, with real close nail-biters. This year, we saw that football is just a completely unpredictable game. You can “know” all you want, but no one knows until the game is played, how it will all turn out.

Seattle was just hungrier. Plus, they had a “real” coach. A guy who had built that team up from scratch, made it into an image of what he wanted it to be. You gotta respect Pete Carroll. John Fox is not a real coach. (And yes, I know he had that heart attack last season, and I’m all sympathetic about all that.) But he’s not a real coach. The last real coach Peyton ever played for was Tony Dungy.

Anyway, the game got a little boring, there toward the end. No real reason to watch it, except you knew it was the last football game you’ll see until August. That’s a long ways away. Congrats to the Seahawks. You earned it. You deserve it. Enjoy your moment in the sun, because in the NFL, it’s always only a moment, as the Ravens know all too well. Next year, some other hungry team will rise up.

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