Last Wednesday I drove up to Loysville, Pennsylvania to visit my Amish friend.
The parents take turns bringing lunch to the school. It was Linda’s turn, and she wanted me to bring up my bag of Colonial “stuff” to show the students. No problem – I’m always up for a chance to show off.
It started bucketing rain about halfway up. I found her road but could not find the house. I stopped at another house – one I recognized as being Amish – and asked two very nice young ladies if they knew where Linda lived. As it happened, they were members of the same congregation, so she was able to give me directions with no problem. (This area is House Amish, rather than Church Amish, and they had met in Linda’s home.)
Things went downhill from there.
When I got out of the car, I had slammed the door. When I ran back to the car, it was locked. With my purse, my phone, and my car keys inside. One of my hostesses, Laura, had a smart phone, and she googled Triple A for me, and between asking Laura and Roselynn where I was and explaining why I couldn’t give the agent my membership number, we got that straight. And then I had to wait about 45 minutes. The sisters were kind enough to let me use their phones to call The Squire and Linda to tell them what was going on, so that was a help.
Laura and Roselynn are sisters, and Roselynn had just had a baby boy on Sunday, so Laura had come over to lend a hand. We sat and talked about new babies, and life in general. Bless them, they fed me lunch; it was obvious that they had stretched a meal for two to feed me, too. I’ve never met two nicer, kinder people.
Once Triple A came, I went on my merry way. I went directly to the school. There were maybe twenty students, from first grade to seventh, and they were absolutely silent while the teacher was speaking. One class went up and gathered around her for a reading lesson, and the rest of the kids either eavesdropped or quietly did their own work. No passing notes, no chit-chat. After that, she announced the class would sing for me, and they all stood up and filed to the front of the room, got into two rows, and opened their books, all without a word being spoken. They sang three delightful hymns and then filed back to their seats. I did my “Colonial thing”, Linda passed out sandwiches for lunch, and then we collected her three younger children and left.
I had to use the “facilities” while we were at the school, and that was a bit of an adventure. There are two outhouses, one for the boys and another for the girls, each a two-seater. Because they are for schoolkids, they are VERY low. I thought I’d never make contact! This is made even worse by the fact that the condo has handicapped toilets, which are higher than normal, so I was expecting to “hit bottom” much sooner. As it was, I was beginning to feel as if I’d contact another bottom – one much less pleasant.
We stopped at a farm to buy milk and eggs, and on the way home one of her boys threw up in the back of my car! Linda asked me if I was ever coming back again after such a day. I told her that as long as I kept my cell phone in my pocket instead of my purse, I’d be fine.
Ah, my cell phone! When we got to Linda’s house, I couldn’t get any service. I figured we were so far out in the boonies there simply wasn’t service, but that didn’t make sense because Linda and the girls both had service. I kept trying all the way home, but no luck. Turned out I had gotten it wet in my dashing back and forth in the rain. It finally started working day before yesterday.
thisendoftheswamp 