Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

by Christopher McDougall

That request opened my eyes to a terrific little loophole in local Amish code of conduct. Every Amish community sets its own laws: some allow foot scooters but not bicycles; others allow cars but only if they’re gray or black. Down in the Southern End, the Amish are mostly Old Order, which means they can’t drive cars but they can be driven. Way before Uber was a gleam in Garrett Camp’s eye, our non-Amish neighbors had created a nice little cash economy by hiring themselves out as taxi drivers for Old Order families who needed a lift to places they couldn’t reach by horse and buggy.

Movement is big medicine; it’s the signal to every cell in our bodies that no matter what kind of damage we’ve suffered, we’re ready to rebuild and move away from death and back toward life. Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise.

how come one of my neighbors was shunned for using a tractor, yet the community turned out in force to support a pair of Amish teens who’d been arrested for what had to be the grand enchilada of all Old Order sins: they’d been arrested for dealing crack to other Amish teens, after narcotics officers began wondering why two young guys with soup-bowl haircuts were driving in and out of Southwest Philly to visit the Pagans motorcycle gang. How was that fair?

The Amish don’t go hungry, homeless, or broke, because they’ve quietly created their own little semi-socialist Scandinavian paradise right in the heart of red-state America.

The Amish rarely harm themselves, or anyone else. Their suicide rate is 70 percent lower than ours, and there has been exactly one Amish murder in all of American history, and that by a delusional psychotic.