The People of State College Part Nine: The Amish

Well...  I guess no Amish actually live in State College.  They come into town for the farmer's market which I went to for the first time this afternoon.  I wanted fresh fruit and also Amish baked goods.

I was very excited when I saw them.  The women were wearing bonnets.  The men had long orange beards.  Only there faces remained uncovered by clothing. I headed straight to the first table of baked goods.  I bought two pumpkin whoopie pies with the intention of bringing one back to the undergrad in our lab.  I ate them both.  The girl I bought them from was probably twelve or thirteen.  Instead of saying "Can I help you,"  she said, "Can I help somebody."  She was talking straight to me. Her pitch rose quickly on "somebody", strongly emphasizing her question.  She tried to undercharge me by a quarter.  She also couldn't remember whether I had given her a ten or a twenty and had to ask me when giving back the change (I only gave her a ten).  While I was at the market I also bought strawberries (I ate two) and a blueberry turnover(which I ate).

The Amish were not the only vendors at the farmer's market.  I felt bad for the others.  Given the choice between an Amish baked good and an English (what the Amish call us, according to wikipedia) baked good nine out of ten people will choose Amish (according to the made up statistics department of this blog).  

Actually the Amish baked goods weren't that terrific.  I've concluded that the goods were sold by impostors.  People who understand the market value of a good disguise but who lack basic baking skills.  I would do it too if I didn't hate having a beard.

The vendor who sold me the turnover shared a laugh with me.  I think this may have been to be polite.  I made a joke about having to do laundry (after she gave me several quarters change) but the Amish don't have laundromats, so it may have gone over her head.

There were lots of Amish children there.  I wonder what their life is like.  They are only educated through the eighth grade (wikipedia, again) and they live an isolated existence.   They all seemed friendly though.    I caught a little Amish boy staring at me.  I think he was more curious about me than I was about him.  Interestingly, none of the Amish children were playing.  They either worked along side their parents or laid silently in the grass.  Contrast this with my migrant worker blueberry picking excursion last Summer.  The hispanic children played all throughout the fields.  But maybe it was too hot today.