of Upstate New York
The Plain People
The first time I met the Amish wasn’t in the countryside but in the heart of the city. I ran into a family of six in Times Square, stopping to watch a group of Ruff Ryders performing wheelies down Broadway, bringing traffic to a standstill.
In the middle of the commotion, we started talking. “Very impressive, but flashy,” the father said when I asked what he thought of the bikes and ATVs. They were in town for business, taking a moment to see the famous square they had heard so much about.
“As long as we’re not posing, it’s okay,” he said when I asked to take a photo. The children wore sunglasses, which struck me as odd so late at night. Their father said his wife wanted to shield their eyes from the bright lights and giant screens. I watched the children sitting on the sidewalk, plopping down on the pavement whenever they grew restless.
It wasn’t until later, after spending time with them upstate, that those habits made sense. On their sprawling rural properties, chairs are scarce, and they’re used to resting wherever they can—often right on the grass.
We got to know Lizzie, a balding woman with six children, through the chickens we bought from her farm. Unlike most Amish we’d met, she had access to a phone, which she used to arrange pick-ups for the chicken feet we ordered. The last time we saw her, she was selling a puppy named Tiny—a Pomeranian–Jack Russell mix. She told us to call if we knew anyone in the city who might want Tiny for fifty bucks.
Not long after, we met Levi, twenty-two, with large hands and a woodshop he shared with his father-in-law. He was building me a set of picture frames, and his non-Amish neighbor let him use a phone once a week to check on our project. One morning, when I didn’t answer, he left ten missed calls and four voicemails. The last one ended:
“Hey Mark, this is Levi again. I can’t get a hold of you, but it’s not a big deal. I’ll call back Monday—or Tuesday—to see about the mirror frames. Oh and also, when are you coming? Alright, thank you. Bye.”
We once saw a young Amish boy holding a rifle. As we pulled out of their property after stopping to buy eggs from their farm stand, he leaned against the barn door and stared us down, the gun resting casually in one arm. The photographer in me wanted to raise my camera, but I fought the urge easily enough, with Jess and the dogs in the car. I worried about what might follow, but I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d been alone.
We drove away confused, knowing their reputation for pacifism. Later I learned from a book that the Amish keep guns to hunt pheasants or raccoons and to put down their animals when the occasion calls for it.
