Transcript: Young Amish Male on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #607

I don’t know if, when it’s like boom, boom, boom.

THEO VON: Is it kind of darker? Do the artists not.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: You mean like the Suicide Boys or?

THEO VON: Oh, Suicide Boys.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It’s not the Suicide Boys. It’s more like David Guetta. Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Oh, like EDM house, that sort of stuff.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I never know what you call it. But yeah, if you turn that stuff all the way up, it really shakes something up. If you have the big stereo system in a building, that building starts shaking. So that’s pretty cool.

THEO VON: And the Amish, they really feel that. You can really feel your barn raised when you hear that, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, yeah, but that stuff we only do in the weekends. That stuff is kind of like, nah, that’s secret.

THEO VON: Hell yeah. So do the Amish listen to Morgan Wallen ever or no?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, dude. I have a buddy, actually, my coworker, Atlee, he loves Morgan Wallen and he’s in Rumspringa too, so he wants to go to his concert one time. So that would be fun. You know, I thought your concert was pretty cool too, the music that they played in the beginning.

Yeah, I’ve never really heard that music before, but I was jamming out to it and it was really, really fun.

THEO VON: Thank you, dude. Yeah, we play a lot of times at our shows. There I am right there with your hat you brought to me. That was in Seattle. In the beginning of the shows we play a band, it’s called New Orleans Jazz Vipers.

And it’s just some good kind of jazz, New Orleanian music. I think it puts people in a mode of like, they’re going to, you know, some type of artistic brain space instead of just some music you hear all the time, you know?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that’s like, I was kind of surprised, or not really surprised, but I never really heard that music before.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s great, man. That’s a great band. I happened upon them in New Orleans a while back, and ever since then I’ve just enjoyed listening to them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. So that’s their horns and stuff.

THEO VON: Yeah. Wow.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And that’s what makes all the great sounds.

Church and Community Structure

THEO VON: Yeah, they do a great job. Do you guys have instruments in your Amish village? Is it called a village?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So it’d be considered a district. A district would be different parts of church because there can be one big community, but there can be four to 12 different districts of the church where the rules are a little bit different here and there. But mostly we call a community a community.

THEO VON: So the areas you live in kind of delineates where you go to church at.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, kind of. Or, yeah.

THEO VON: Can you go to any church? Or if you live in a certain area, you kind of go to a certain church because it’s close?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So in the area you always, if Amish move somewhere, it’s usually for a certain church, a certain area. And we don’t have church houses and stuff. Not like some. I seen really big churches. They were almost up to the sky and stuff.

THEO VON: Yeah. They got some churches that are trying to do a lot. Like, do you need all that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, those things are really high. So all of our church happens at our homes. So we take turns taking church.

THEO VON: So different weekends, different families will take church.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Another thing that the Amish do is we have church every other weekend. So how it works is church here, and then that gives them enough time to, you know, move church to the next place. And you have to pick up all the books, pick up all the benches, and then move it over to your place. You also have to make all the food and then people come and help you.

THEO VON: I see. So it’s part of the culture. It’s kind of exciting when you get to have church at your place because everybody’s coming there.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, well, it can be, but also it’s a bit of, oh, man, church is at our place. We got to get ready.

THEO VON: Oh, we got to clean up.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, you got to clean up, get ready.

THEO VON: Be on our best behavior.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Trim the cat.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Trim the cat. Well, our cats actually stay in the barn because Amish don’t really have cats in the house. Dude. Our cats, they’re self-sufficient. They’re kind of Amish too, but we put dog food there. I think they might sneak a little bit of that.

THEO VON: I could see some of them sneaking a little.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: But sometimes I see cats coming up the pasture. They got a chipmunk or a bird. I don’t think they’re big enough or fast enough to catch a squirrel.

English People and Cultural Differences

THEO VON: I am alarmed at how many regular people. What do you call regular people? Non-Amish?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So if we’re talking English, we call regular people English people.

THEO VON: Okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: But if you’re talking in Pennsylvania Dutch, if you want a literal translation of it, we call them “ho hilet,” which a literal translation is “high people.” But what it means is people that are allowed to get high that are not Amish.

But we have a neighbor, that guy’s from Australia. I think it’s called Land Down Under. Stuff like, yeah, basically where all the kangaroos live.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, there’s kangaroos, sharks. There’s definitely, there’s just people that will drink beer. There’s a couple down syndrome guys down there who drink beer out of the oven.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s crazy. And I even saw some guys, they drink. They take off their shoe and they pour some stuff in their shoe and drink it right out of. Yeah, it must have special feet or something.

THEO VON: Yeah, I think they must have. Look at these guys right here. And they’re Australian.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, whoa. What are they doing? Look at this.

THEO VON: He pulls a hot beer right out of the oven.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Whoa. That’s pretty cool.

THEO VON: He starts chugging it at one point.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: He doesn’t care.

THEO VON: Oh, but these guys are Australian.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, wow. So they’re, you know, they’re a bit shorter too.

THEO VON: Yeah, a lot of rugby head to head. That’ll keep the spine down.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, especially if you’re like. I thought if you be upside down, like on the bottom side of the world, your spine would, like, go.

THEO VON: Not these guys.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Wow.

THEO VON: I think they missed a. They missed a column, dude. L5s none. Dude. These guys missed something.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, something like that.

THEO VON: So Non Amish people, you call them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: There you go. You’re almost Amish now.

THEO VON: Oh, welcome.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: You’re welcome.

THEO VON: It’s not offensive, though?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, no, no, not at all. That’s. It’s not like the Amish don’t see it as offensive. It’s just a term to describe something like our horses. You know, some are standard bred, you know, and then some are brown, some are black. We even have some like white horses with, like, black spots on them. Oh, yeah, we’re getting a lot of that.

THEO VON: Outside of Atlanta. We get a lot of that.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Where’s Atlanta?

THEO VON: Atlanta. Have you heard of it?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, Atlanta, like Georgia.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Okay. Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I’ve never been there. I heard they, like. That’s close to where, like, the Dukes of Hazzard were made, I think.

THEO VON: Yeah, I think it is, actually. I love the Dukes of Hazzard.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I do, too. Yeah. I used to have the DVD player. I don’t have it anymore. I used to have a little DVD player.

THEO VON: Really?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And then, yeah, I watched a little bit Dukes of Hazzard. But the only bad part was the DVD player before I had a battery and stuff, that I had to go charge it somewhere else, and just before I had a bat, like, all prepared, you know, that way I don’t run out of power.

Used to watch them a lot because us Amish, we have the ones that are in Rumspringa. We have, like. We have DVDs and stuff. My coworker, at least, he’s pretty. He’s pretty stacked when it comes to DVDs, because he’s got, like a drawer full of, like, all kinds of movies.

THEO VON: Is he allowed to have it or not?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Not really. But, like, his parents, I think they kind of know, but they don’t, like. They don’t bother.

THEO VON: Got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So.

THEO VON: But he had some different things. He had Dukes of Hazzard.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Well, I don’t know if he had Dukes of Hazzard, but he had, like, lots of different other different ones. Like Smokey and the Bandit, like, Grumpy Old Men.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Well, those are.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Those are really funny. I think he’s, like. He wants to get, like, Fast and Furious, too.

THEO VON: Oh, he’s trying to get wild, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, like, he’s pretty crazy.

THEO VON: It sounds like it. If he’s trying to do all that, that’s a lot. What about Little House on the Prairie? You guys ever watch that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I’ve seen a little bit on that.

THEO VON: Like, couple hotties on there?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, like the ones they almost. You mean like Laura.

THEO VON: I mean, that’s a child, but I mean. Yeah. I don’t even know the mom. I’m talking about the mom.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, the mom.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Caroline. Oh, yeah.

THEO VON: She’s cute.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, kind of. But isn’t she, like, really old now?

THEO VON: She’s getting older, probably, but who knows what could happen? You know, they’re doing a lot of, like, there’s a lot of biohacking and stuff now, but I’m just seeing a lot of beautiful ladies on here.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, definitely.

Little House on the Prairie and Amish Culture

THEO VON: And now with this. With this. Something in Amish culture, if you see these dames, is these young ladies, is that something you’re attracted to? Growing? That’s almost had. They almost have like a little bit of an Amish feel to them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. What do you mean? Like, like a settler vibe?

THEO VON: Like, would this be a girl? Like, if you’d have seen this when you were 12 or something and you look at Mary Ingalls right here, the older sister, you’d be like, oh, she’s cute.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, I would.

THEO VON: And that’s okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that’s okay.

THEO VON: Yeah. I’m just curious because we grew up watching this and it was great. They’re remaking this right now. They’re making a new season.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s pretty cool.

THEO VON: I know.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So, dude, that one guy has white hair on his beard. You must getting. Be getting old.

THEO VON: Yeah, that guy, he’s actually. I think that guy’s deceased. But you mentioned being on Rumspringa, right?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: So you’re on Rumspringa right now.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Right now, yep.

Understanding Rumspringa

THEO VON: Okay, how does Rumspringa start? How long does it last? Who gets to go on it?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Okay, so pretty much everyone goes on it. Now I’ve heard of where, like, families, like, didn’t let their kids go on it, but, like, that has happened. But like, they. When that. Sometimes when that happens, like the kid just leaves and like he becomes English and.

THEO VON: Oh, because they feel they can’t. They’re not allowed to. That the family’s not following the rules.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, everyone can go on Rumspringa. Everyone does it. Every single. Now every single, like every single community that does Rumspringa, like they usually go on. Because what happens is around 16, 16 and a half, you go, you join Rumspringa, which we call the Youngie. Yeah. Which basically means. What was it like? Young. Young people. Yeah, you. There you go. Okay. That’d be a better word for it. So you’re picking up the Youngie. Yep. Makes sense. Yep.

So that’s when you go to, like, singings after church. Now. I never really went to one because when I went on Rumspringa, the church was kind of already going down because our church kind of. It’s kind of split up now. Actually. Our bishop kind of. He kind of booked out. He kind of decked out.

THEO VON: So.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. So right now there’s. We still have church, but it’s like only like an hour, like, hour and a half. And so there’s a lot of Amish around us. They’re still Amish and then. But they’re not a member of the church anymore because when it opens in the Schwartzenruber Amish.

THEO VON: Wait, wait, wait. When what opens?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Like, so when the church doesn’t come to agreement for like a. For a while. And then it’s kind of. It’s kind of like a rule that they have to open the doors and then whoever wants to go can, you know, get out of the. No longer be a member of the church and doesn’t require to have to follow the rules. That’s only when you’re, like, joined the church already.

Church Disagreements and the Bishop

THEO VON: Okay. So members of the church, if the church is. If for some reason there’s diff. There’s some problem within that church where they’re not able to, like, maybe. Obviously there was a problem with the bishop, you’re saying.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Well, the, like the people in the community and the bishop and like, the, like, there was.

THEO VON: There’s an argument.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. They were not agreeing on the same things.

THEO VON: Okay, understood. So there was a disagreement.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: So the bishop left.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Well, that’s. Actually. This is a very rare thing to happen. The bishop just, like it was months. It was probably over a year of like, this stuff happening, but it was usually like the smallest things. And I think it, like, annoyed some of the people in the congregation. Yeah, like some of the members.

Because I know a guy, like, they came to his house because his. The curtains on his window were, like, not the right shade of blue or. Or even the reflectors on the buggies. Because some. Our buggies don’t have that many reflectors. Not compared to, like, buggies in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania because they got like that big reflector plate. Yeah, like that triangle thing.

THEO VON: Flashy, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it is flashy. And yeah, we don’t have. We don’t have that reflection actually. Go, go to the left. That buggy, that’s White Horse.

THEO VON: One more right there.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Right there, that’s yours. That’s how our buggies look like. And there were. There was. What was their reflector on the front or the back of a buggy? Like that. And they didn’t like that.

THEO VON: So the bishop had too many reflectors on his buggy.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, like, the members had too many reflectors on their buggy. And they got. They got after him for that.

THEO VON: Oh, the bishop got after him for it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Like, the bishop, though the bishop doesn’t even live in this community. He lives down there. Because our bishop before he actually died in a house fire. So.

THEO VON: No.

The House Fire Tragedy

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, like, the whole house burnt down.

THEO VON: And how. What happened? A candle?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I don’t know. I don’t think it was a candle. I think it was something with a stove in the wash house. And this was a hot fire. It was 20. It was 20 below. And this hot fire. I was told it was hot and it was. And maybe it wasn’t 20 below, but it was definitely 10 below or so.

THEO VON: And like, the fire just kept burning.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Fire just kept burning. And when the people came out to, like, the people in the red. The people, like. What do you call it? Like, firemen. Yeah, that they had to, like, keep the water on the hoses or the hoses wouldn’t freeze. It was really cold.

And his wife actually survived. And apparently when she came out, it was so hot. She just laid on the snow and like, she was fine for a little bit, but she had, like, actually a little bit of burns and stuff like that.

THEO VON: Do they think she started it or no?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, I don’t think so. I guess we don’t have insurance. Like, we don’t have life insurance and stuff. So I think it was. I think it was an accident. But that wouldn’t be too funny if she, like, thought she had life insurance. Yeah, that. That would be. Wouldn’t that be, like, illegal between the English?

THEO VON: That happens all the time. Yeah. People are always killing their spouses for insurance money.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s not very nice. That’s like that. Isn’t that murder?

THEO VON: Yep, it sure is. And not only is it murder. What? But it’s murdering for money. But I guess if you don’t have life insurance, you don’t have to worry about it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, kind of nice. Yeah.

THEO VON: And so go ahead, kill me. You won’t get anything.

Amish Pacifism

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that’s kind of the idea. Yeah. So. Yeah. The Amish, like, back in the wars, I think the government tried to force us, like, to go to wars, but we’re like pacifists and stuff. Like, yeah, we’ll, we’ll like, wrestle and stuff when we’re younger and, and then also sometimes maybe argue. But other than that, like, we don’t, like, kill each other.

THEO VON: The Amish are pretty peaceful.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. And then, yeah, because back in the wars and stuff, we just did all the cooking and the cleaning and then saving people too.

THEO VON: Is that true? Let me read that right here. World War, the Amish were subject to the military draft in US wars, but due to their religious beliefs as pacifists, they were usually classified as conscientious objectors and assigned to non-combatant or alternative service roles.

World War I and II, Amish men were drafted, but most received farm deferments or performed non-combatant services. Some were sent to army camps and suffered abuse when refusing military service entirely. And in rare cases, some were in prison for refusing all forms of service.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, the Amish, and where Amish came from, they went through a lot of stuff. There’s a book. Actually what Amish came from was the Anabaptist. Those were the OGs. They came all the way back from the Catholic Church.

THEO VON: Really? Like the OGs, you’re saying?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Did the Amish have to fight to establish themselves in America?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That I’m not actually very sure, but I know back, I think it was back in the seventies, I think that they had to fight in court and stuff. I think they went through a lot of court stuff. But the government also agreed because this is a free country and stuff.

THEO VON: And while not armed struggles, the Amish sometimes face legal and social battles, especially regarding education and their right to practice their faith freely. Notably in the 20th century, they opposed laws that would force their children into public high schools, sometimes resulting in imprisonment or property loss for Amish parents. Wow. So they’ve had to fight to maintain their way of life.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: So there must be a lot of pride. Is there a lot of pride in being Amish?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It varies from community to community. But yeah, there is pride in being Amish. We don’t believe in being prideful, but that’s something you feel good about.

THEO VON: Right. See, it’s a little bit different than being egotistical about it and just having some confidence in your group.

Amish Education

THEO VON: Do Amish people have to go to public school or do you go to your own school?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: We go to our own school.

THEO VON: Do you have a school house?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, we have a schoolhouse. I sent pictures of the schoolhouse to that white building. So the building in the front there, that’s where all the horses are kept. Now since there are more kids, we had to build another shelter for horses. So that was down there.

THEO VON: Oh, for the horses?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, for the horses.

THEO VON: I thought you meant the cheerleaders or something.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, dude, we don’t have cheerleaders because they barely wear clothes and stuff. It looks like they’re in their underwear.

THEO VON: That’s too much. Yeah. I’ve never loved a basketball game so much that I got in my underwear for it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that’s right. That’s a bit odd. And even when they go to the beach and stuff, they’re just in their underwear.

THEO VON: Some of them get dressed up more for the beach even.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it’s crazy. Yeah, they get more dressed down.

THEO VON: But so you go to school there, you put your horses in the front building.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep.

THEO VON: Okay. Does everybody have their own horse or sometimes people come in groups?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, one family usually has one horse. And then the way of building, one through eighth grade, we all sit in there. So that’s all in one room. And then there’s usually one teacher.

So one year we actually had 25 kids in one building. That was the most we ever had. And it varied from year to year. We started out with 10, and then as it went up, 14, 16, 20, and then 25, then it kind of slowed down, came down from there. But yeah, that’s where I went to school first through eighth grade. And everyone’s sitting in the same room. And then we have classes too.

THEO VON: Is it pretty cool?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It can be if you make it. But I didn’t really like school when I went to school, so.

A Day at Amish School

THEO VON: And when does the school day start?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So that’s usually, if I remember right, it was 8:30, I think. 8:30, school starts. We sing three, four hymns. And then that usually lasts 15, 20 minutes. And then we start reading classes.

And then it depends on the teacher. Some like to go from eighth grade down and others like to go from first grade up. And then after that it’s recess, 15 minutes. And then usually arithmetic classes. And we do arithmetic until lunch, which is around 11:30. And school goes out only for a little bit, for an hour.

THEO VON: Do you go home for lunch or?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, no, no. We pack our lunch. We eat at school. We sit at our desk and eat. And then usually that takes around 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes. And then we go out and play different games. We played a game that we call rabbit. It’s where, the animal rabbit.

THEO VON: Rabbit.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, rabbit. And then so what you do is there’s a person in the middle with a ball.

THEO VON: Like Easter, like that little, like an Easter?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, like a bunny. Oh, yeah, yeah. We call it hawasa. Yep, hawasa. That’s Amish word for rabbit.

THEO VON: Rabbit.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So we used to throw the ball up and if someone threw it, so it’s kind of like that. I got to better explain this.

THEO VON: But it’s kind of good.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So it’s kind of like dodgeball. You have two bases on each side. And then there’s a person in the middle. He’s got a ball. Sometimes we use a basketball. Sometimes we use a tennis ball. Tennis ball was my favorite because you could throw it better and it wouldn’t hurt as much if it hit you.

THEO VON: Okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Because you’re supposed to throw it up five times. And if you throw it up five times and no one runs through to the other base, then you can go on one base and count to, basically do a countdown. And then if no one goes off of that base and goes through before you’re done, you can just, even though they’re on base, go touch them and get them out.

THEO VON: Oh, they can actually physically catch them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, we catch them and take them down.

THEO VON: But would this be a game boys would play with boys?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Everyone. Everyone would play. The teacher would even help too. So yeah. It depends how rough. The harder you tried to get away, I guess you accepted the roughness and you were basically running through and trying not to get caught.

And then someone takes you down on the ground. You crawl for the base. It’s almost like Vietnam and stuff. I’ve never been there.

THEO VON: But no, but no, we’ve seen pictures. We all understand exactly what it was like.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: That’s unbelievable, dude. So that was a popular game.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Rabbit. Rabbit, like the Easter Bunny and rabbit. Yeah.

THEO VON: And then what did girls, do they play this game or what did girls who were definitely girls, some girls played this game. But what did the real girls do?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: The real girls always, we always were together. We always helped each other.

THEO VON: Oh, everybody played the same stuff.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. But when it was a rainy day or something, sometimes we play board games and then not as much, but most times we all played with each other because we didn’t know stuff yet.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Because we don’t get taught that stuff in school or anything.

THEO VON: What do you mean?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: About girls and we don’t really know too much about each other, I guess.

THEO VON: Oh, so everybody’s just kind of all the same.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, we’re all kids.

THEO VON: Oh, you’re all kids.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Yeah.

THEO VON: Are you allowed to flirt at school? At some point do people feel some attraction?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Maybe, maybe. But so the school I went to, I couldn’t really do that because pretty much everyone I went to school with was either the first or second cousin.

THEO VON: Oh, I feel that, brother.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. So, yeah, it’s a tough world.

THEO VON: It is, brother. And you know, that’s why we got to do some of this redistricting and rezoning.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. We got to rezone, move out, move in. That’s what a lot of Amish been doing around us and moving out to different communities. I guess it’s a good thing. Then you can spread the family tree. Because sometimes the tree becomes a bush.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: They are intertwined with each other.

Amish Genetics and Family Connections

THEO VON: The Amish population experiences a strong founder effect, meaning that their gene pool originates from a small number of original settlers. Most Amish people are distantly related because nearly all Amish in America descended from a small group of about 200 to 500 founders who immigrated from Germany and Switzerland in the 18th century.

The genetic closeness increases the likelihood of certain inherited conditions with some rare genetic disorders much more common among Amish in the general U.S. population. Do you guys have, oh, this says cousin marriage. Marriages between cousins do occur.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Not first cousin, second cousin does.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: But it’s not really frowned upon. Hey, you can marry a second. But it does happen.

THEO VON: But if it happens, it happens.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it happens. It happens.

THEO VON: You’re already close. You might as well be closer.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. I don’t know how, because we don’t have any family tree and stuff. No, no. But we do have a big book that tells us all Amish communities in certain states. Who, basically a dictionary for Amish people and who’s related to who.

THEO VON: Oh, you have that.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it’s basically like Google for the Amish when it comes to finding, oh, yeah, this person is related to this, or how old is this person? And it’s even got their addresses and stuff.

THEO VON: Nice.

Yeah, it’s like a book where you can go look and see who’s who and how old and how many kids they have and when the kids were born. So that’s pretty cool. That’s kind of how it is, but it’s a little bit different than that.

THEO VON: Okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Because they put like two different names on the front, like whoever put it together and stuff. Some Amish, they know who’s related to everyone. It’s almost like their hobby, I guess you could say. Not a hobby hobby, like third. It’s their…

THEO VON: Oh, it’s their hobby.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Like H-O-B-B-Y.

THEO VON: Like rap. Like, rapid. No, hobby.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, like hobby.

THEO VON: Like, it’s something they like to do in their spare time.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, yeah, that’s what it is.

THEO VON: Genealogy, put it together.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh yeah. You got somebody’s got to know who’s related or you got to be able to ask somebody. Could there be people in your school that are your cousin and you don’t even know it?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, because everyone in the school, they drive there with a horse buggy. So it’s fairly close because we have like, let me think, I think it’s like at least half a dozen schools in our community.

THEO VON: And how do you decide what school you go to?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Whichever you live closest to.

THEO VON: That’s it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep.

Genetic Concerns in Amish Communities

THEO VON: Do they have, like, they were talking about, obviously when cousins get together things can get crazy.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: You might get one of the Lord’s remixes out there, or disabled they call out here in America.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Mentally disabled.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Autism, Amishtism. I’m sure you guys are seeing it. Well, somebody will just raise a barn with their eyes, you know, just put a nail through a four by four with just a blink of an eye.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I don’t know. We have autism, but we have some with Down syndrome. Yeah. Because my great uncle, he has Down syndrome and stuff. He’s like, yeah, he’s like 57 years old and he’s awesome.

THEO VON: Yeah, he’s pretty awesome?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, he’s pretty awesome. Because me and him, I just remember that I carried wood with him. Like me and him carry wood into the wood box for a stove. And I don’t know why, but apparently I used to tease him a little bit too. I kind of feel bad for him now. I think it was like, I was like 6 or 7 years old. I was really young.

THEO VON: Oh, it’s okay. You were just a kid, man.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: You’re just joking around.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Because I thought I was having fun.

THEO VON: But he could carry a lot of wood.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh yeah, he could carry a lot of wood. Yeah, he was pretty cool. And he passed away. No, he hasn’t passed away yet. But I heard recently he’s not doing too good anymore. But he’s still surviving and stuff. But isn’t that really kind of old for a person with Down syndrome and stuff?

THEO VON: That’s a great question actually, Timothy. Let me look that up. How old do the, how old do the Down syndrome, if you don’t mind pulling up there.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it might be because he’s Amish that he’s…

THEO VON: That he’s clocking more time.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Because it’s probably harder, probably Down syndrome being out under the bright lights of regular life than it is out there just slurping in the moonlight.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: The average life expectancy for individuals with Down syndrome is now about 60 years with many living in their 60s and 70s thanks to advances in medical care and social inclusion.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s awesome. McDonald’s was not be getting to them anymore.

THEO VON: And McDonald’s, huh? Yeah, it was really hampering them. Well, there was a time when McDonald’s, a lot of their employees had Down syndrome.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh really?

THEO VON: Bring that up. And then so it caused a lot of people to take people there with Down syndrome. So then they were eating all this McDonald’s and it was not good for them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, it was backing them up.

THEO VON: Yeah. But McDonald’s was hiring a hell of Down. Wow.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: They had the whole, I never knew places like that hired.

THEO VON: Oh yeah. Especially now. Now there’s coffee shops in America and everybody that works there has Down syndrome. Shane Gillis owns one. He’s a comedian. Wow.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So yeah, I heard Shane Gillis was around Thomas too when he was younger.

THEO VON: Yep. He grew up around the Amish. He’s famous. Some people said he has Down syndrome, some people said he doesn’t.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, I don’t know.

THEO VON: We had a guy on who completed the Ironman which was one of the biggest physical challenges in the world. And he has Down syndrome. Chris Nikic, bring him up.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: What’s an Ironman?

THEO VON: It’s like the toughest competition ever. Oh, there he is right there.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Wow.

THEO VON: What are the conditions of an Ironman? Just so we’re clear on it. Is one of a series of long distance triathlon races organized by the World Triathlon Corporation. Consisting of a 2.4 mile swimming, 112 mile bicycle ride and 26 mile run completed in that order.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Wow.

THEO VON: Think you could do it?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, I’d have to build three barns in a day and run up and down to the house a couple times.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, you’d have to Jack and Jill a million gallons of water.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Dude.

THEO VON: Yeah. Even if I had Down syndrome, I don’t think I could do it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, it’d be really hard to do. Even though I’m, I think even be hard for Amish people. Because first we need to learn how to bike.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Because we can swim because of the rivers and stuff.

Amish Transportation Rules

THEO VON: Are you allowed to have bikes or?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, I wouldn’t sneak them, but.

THEO VON: Oh, you sneak them, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, but the Amish over in Indiana and Ohio and in Pennsylvania, they got scooters and stuff. Yeah, they do it. But they got the lowriders, the ones that are really close to the ground.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That you stand on and stuff. Not the ones that you sit on.

THEO VON: Oh, I do. You’re saying, yeah, not the motorized ones.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, not the motorized or the ones with pedals and stuff.

THEO VON: Yeah, they had one Amish dude farming on one of these, I think.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, was he doing it on the horse or the scooter?

THEO VON: I think the scooter. Oh, and they have a lot of Mexican Amish too, now. The Amish, they call them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, I saw there were a couple Mexican Amish. I was like, because I read a couple years ago, there’s this Mexican Amish guy. He popped up, he looked fully Mexican. He looked like he came from Mexico.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I think someone must have adopted him. It sounded like that. And he could speak the Mexican language. And then he also speak Pennsylvania Dutch too.

THEO VON: Hell yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: I love that, man. Yeah, dude. And that must be the craziest if you’re Mexican, because then you’re like, holy s*, I still have to do all this construction myself, you know, if you’re Amish. Mexican people expect you to build stuff.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Faster than anybody.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Because Mexicans and Amish, we go back and forth. We look who can build the fastest.

THEO VON: If you have both.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Now when it comes to sheetrocking, I have to say Mexicans are definitely faster because they got them long, those metal things that, I think they’re called stilts.

THEO VON: Oh, really? So they’re good at sheetrocking?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, they, I saw a video of them. They held their tape measure and then walked over. And the one guy, real tall looking guy, if he had long legs, he was on stilts and stuff. He was, head almost touched the ceiling.

Understanding Rumspringa

THEO VON: Tell me about this. When you go to Rumspringa, how do you go? Is there a day that you go, what happens? You hit what age and how does it start?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It’s kind of just, it’s kind of spontaneous when it happens. You’re roughly 16 and a half when it happens, and your parents are like, you can go. And then you kind of go.

THEO VON: Like one day, do they sit you down at dinner and tell you, is it like an announcement at school? Is it at church? How does it happen that they say, we’re going to allow you to go to Rumspringa?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It’s not really an announcement. It’s just kind of like, hey, you can go there. And you probably have a couple rules, you know, don’t do this, don’t do that, but you’re probably going to do it anyway.

THEO VON: Really?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: And so is there a moment that, an actual day that you leave, like, do you say goodbye?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, no, no. So when Rumspringa happens and you go to it, you still live at home and stuff, you’re still Amish. And then you just do stuff on the weekends that you’re not supposed to.

THEO VON: When do you go back to your Amish country, though? Like, when do you go back to your district, like, to your home?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So when you’re in Rumspringa, you’re always at home. So what happens if you want, you’re in Rumspringa for, it’s usually around four to five years. It always depends. And then when you get baptized is usually when you have a girlfriend and then you want to get married. So that’s the reason you get baptized, is to get married. And then at the same time, you’re also becoming a member of the church.

THEO VON: Okay. So you hit about 16 or something, and your parents say that you can go now.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep.

THEO VON: And that means on the weekend you can go do what you want.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, kind of. And if they don’t hear too much about it, you’re fine.

THEO VON: Then you’re doing fine.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Because sometimes you can be like, hey, you can’t go this time.

THEO VON: Okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: And now do some people choose to stay out in Rumspringa and not come back to the church? Do you have that option or that’s not?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Where people leave and become ex-Amish. Yeah.

THEO VON: And that can happen.

Rumspringa and Marriage

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yes. And then when Rome Spring ends, it’s roughly around 20 to 21. That’s usually when people get married or sometimes, you know, all of a sudden they realize they have a kid. And then, so that’s not really a good idea to have a kid before you’re married. So they either get quickly married or like my cousin, here’s my cousin Frank. He was Amish? No, his parents, they realized they had him when they were still on Rumspringa and Amish, so they just left.

THEO VON: Wow.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. So.

THEO VON: So your cousin, his parents were both on Rum Springer?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep.

THEO VON: Both Amish?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep.

THEO VON: One of them got pregnant. The woman.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That woman? Yeah.

THEO VON: And then they realized at that point that they had to leave. Would they have been welcomed back into the church or no?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So what happens if that happens? You leave or you almost become married right away. Because that has happened a couple times. Actually happened for my parents, so I had to quickly get married.

THEO VON: Okay, so you have to make that quick choice.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Leaving the Community and Shunning

THEO VON: Now if you decide to leave, are you shunned, are you allowed to come back? What is it like once you decide to leave?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So if you leave and you’re already a member of the church, you get shunned from it. And then if you’re not a member, like in Rumspringa, if you leave, it varies on the parents a lot. On my dad’s side, they wouldn’t really, for the longest time, they wouldn’t really be happy or wouldn’t really talk to their kids when they came and visited once that ex-Amish.

On my mom’s side, they were like that for a little bit too in the first. But my mom’s side now, when the ex-Amish kids come back, they’re like now 40 and stuff, 30, 40 and maybe even older. When they come back, they’re welcome, all that stuff. But on my dad’s side, they’re still a little bit iffy, but they’re way better than they were.

THEO VON: I see. So they’re coming around a little bit more than they used to. But probably in your grandfather’s generation, if somebody was shunned, they might not talk to them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep, that’s how it is when you get shunned. You’re not supposed to, you can talk to them, but you’re not supposed to help them out in any way. You can’t accept money from them and you can’t, you’re not supposed to get a ride from them. Let’s say they were driving, the ones that left. They were driving and stuff. You’re not supposed to ride with them.

THEO VON: If they can’t even stay on the path to heaven, how are they going to keep you on a path when they’re trying to take you somewhere?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, they’re going to take you off the road or something.

THEO VON: Yeah, they’re literally going to take you off the road.

Trying Celsius

THEO VON: Actually, you know what? I’m going to tap a little. I’m going to have a little sip of Celsius because I need to pick me up. Have you ever had this before?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, not this. No. Is it good?

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah, it’s great. I thought it’s grape, so it’s really good. I’m going to have to try this stuff.

THEO VON: Can you have a little bit?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: No alcohol.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Okay. So what does it have? It’s like water.

THEO VON: No, mine’s cherry cola flavored. It’s like spicy stuff. It’s like a little bit of ADD kind of.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, dude. This stuff actually tastes like the grapes that you squeeze out of the, not the grapes that you eat from the store, but the Amish grapes that you can buy. The ones that you squeeze out of the, how do you call that? The skin. Have you ever had those grapes where you just squeeze them out and you swallow them? Yeah, it tastes just like this.

THEO VON: Really?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Let’s get a look at those Amish purple grapes.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, they’re, yeah, that’s how they look. And those, you know how the stores, they have no seeds in them? These have a seed in them. You just squeeze them out and then you swallow them because you try to eat them, chew on them, you just bite into the seed and stuff.

THEO VON: Oh, you squeeze them out.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It actually tastes exactly like that. So it must be very natural.

THEO VON: Yes, sir. It’s the best man. That’ll definitely, oh, that’ll get you home, brother. That’ll get you home.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. So if this, I saw that this does have caffeine in it.

THEO VON: Yeah, it has a little bit of caffeine.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So I’ll be moving around.

THEO VON: Yeah, you’ll be feeling something.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Rumspringa Experiences

THEO VON: What is your Rum Springer experience been like?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It’s been crazy. I’ve done, the first year and a half, well, I didn’t do too much because I wasn’t 18 yet. But this summer I’ve done so many crazy things. Actually last summer I got to drive a Corvette. That was crazy. These two girls, they let me drive their Corvette. A lot of fun.

THEO VON: Where’d you meet them?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Through my uncle, my ex-Amish uncle Simon. I met him through them. And dude actually was at their wedding. The one with the black hair, I was at there, her and her husband’s wedding. It was pretty cool.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And yeah, so I got to drive a Corvette. That thing was really fast too. Step on the pedal a little bit. It was like a horse with some special oats or something. Put some Celsius in their water.

THEO VON: Oh yeah, that thing’s been eating. Yeah, Diesel dipped carrots right there. Homie, that horse has got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh yeah, they were, well, I think it was overcrowded because there’s only two seats and then, and then the, she’s sitting in the middle and stuff.

THEO VON: Hey, that’s fine though, dude. You got to have at least one chick hanging out of a Corvette, dude. Yeah, that’s Rum Springer.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that is Rum Springer. And then we, they wanted to get a couple videos because they thought this pretty cool.

THEO VON: Oh, it’s amazing, bro.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It’s great to see you out there.

THEO VON: Just trying some different things. Yeah, what other things did you try that you found that you liked and didn’t like out there?

Helicopter Ride

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh yeah. I also got, the other weekend I got to went to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. There was an air show where they had the blue angel airplanes, all kinds of airplanes. And then they also, you have to pay a little bit. Well, it was actually quite a bit. It was like $200 for one helicopter ride. And I was like, you know, this might be a week or two of wait, just of me working, but I want to go on a helicopter, right?

So I was kind of scared to hold my phone out because the helicopters open and stuff. What happens if you drop it and stuff. But it’s really smooth, too. And when we took off, we took off and stuff, it was really crazy. It felt like we were, I felt like I was on a piece of plywood, and I just started going up. It was crazy, and it felt really crazy. That’s actually Atley right there.

THEO VON: Oh, nice.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, he’s still Amish. At home, he busted, busted, cut his hair and stuff, so.

THEO VON: Wow. That’s exceptional, bro. You got out there. You just felt like a bird, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I did feel like a bird. And this guy, I think he gave a little bit of longer ride because we’re Amish and stuff, and he, we went sideways on the, we went sideways on the, above the lake and stuff. Because if you hit water really far off, it’s pretty much like concrete, I think. Yeah, that went sideways and almost felt like I was falling off, but I had my trusty seatbelt on and stuff, so we were pretty good.

So that was a crazy ride. But it was actually kind of smooth, you know, I was actually more scared when I was a couple weeks later. It’s probably a month later. It was right after I went to your concert. Your concert was really crazy.

Meeting at the Show

THEO VON: Oh, did you have fun? Could you understand a lot of the material?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I did, yeah. Some of it I didn’t understand. The bald guy was there. The guy that his parents are from the Middle East was there. They were pretty cool. And then you came out, and then I thought it was really funny. This was actually, you know, before the show, I was jamming out. I was with my cousin Frank, and he was, we were, I was just jamming out to the music. Yeah.

THEO VON: Because people don’t understand. This is where we met. We met after a show.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: And I was like, dude, we’ve been trying to have an Amish person on, and then here, God just put us right together, bro.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. God is great. He works in mysterious ways. It seems like.

THEO VON: He’s the magician, man.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. And I thought, you know, the, probably, I wanted to give you an Amish hat.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah. Did you give me that hat or not?

The Gift of an Amish Hat

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, I, that was, it was my hat. It didn’t really fit it on, actually. Have a little bit of a surprise for you. Hey, Frank, you want to bring that over? Dude, I got, so what I did over last week, me and your, me and your, some of your strong connections were talking, and I think they didn’t quite know what size your hat was, so it’s a bit of an odd thing to know and stuff, but.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s just odd thing to ask a man.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it is. But I wanted, we got an estimate size, and I wanted to give you this hat so now you can be, you can be part of Thomas Mafia.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s cool, dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Thank you so much. And a hat tie that’s just like the waist for your head, you know?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it is.

THEO VON: You don’t want to admit your little fat above the ears. You know, this has a band, and it was just the front of the back.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s the front. Yeah. So that way you always wear the hat right. Does it fit? Oh, it’s a bit loose. Is it a bit loose or?

THEO VON: Perfect, dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Perfect. I’m glad I got you the right size. Donkey. Welcome. That means you’re welcome.

THEO VON: Does danke mean thank you?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No. Dengue.

THEO VON: Dangi.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, the same thing in German. Thank you in German and Pennsylvania Dutch is the same thing.

THEO VON: Dengue?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Heck yeah, dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Now you’re part Amish. You just need the rest of the clothes.

THEO VON: I feel great, man. Do you think I would make a good Amish person or not? And be honest with me?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Well, do you break a lot of rules and stuff?

THEO VON: I don’t know. Really? I don’t think so.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. If you don’t really break any of the rules, you make a pretty good Amish. I could get my mom to get you some Amish clothes for you.

THEO VON: Maybe for Christmas I’ll exchange something with you, and I could send you something that would be, that your community would accept as well.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Are you allowed to accept gifts from people that are not Amish?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, I accept gifts from people that are not Amish.

THEO VON: Do your parents allow you to? Is that okay?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep. They, cause they sometimes, well, we had sometimes a guy from around Christmas time. Sometimes a guy brings some stuff, and then we, he’s done it for a couple years, and he gifts all the younger kids some presents and stuff.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s nice.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it’s very nice.

Rumspringa Rules and Parental Guidance

THEO VON: I know you had mentioned before that your parents said there’s some stuff not to do during Rumspringa. What was some of that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: They didn’t really say too much, but they tell me when I do something that they think, didn’t think was, how to say it was, probably not the best thing to do.

THEO VON: Appropriate.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, probably not. Because sometimes I do wild stuff, going to Walmart riding a scooter. Yeah, the site came around and…

THEO VON: But I mean, did they have advice against sex, drugs, things like that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, not any sex stuff that doesn’t get talked about. You just kind of have to do door to explore. You just kind of have to go out on the jungle and see what bites.

THEO VON: Damn.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So yeah, we went to Walmart.

THEO VON: Oh, something will bite at Walmart, dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, I was looking at the TVs. They’re a thousand dollars, crazy. That’s a third of a buggy. And a TV doesn’t even go anywhere. It just sits somewhere.

THEO VON: I’d rather just play charades as my buddy. You guys probably do a lot. Y’all play charades a lot.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I’m not even quite sure what that is.

THEO VON: Oh, it’s where someone, you write down some movies or TV. Oh, shoot. You don’t know a lot of movies and TV shows. Charade is somebody acts something out and you have to guess what they’re acting out. They impersonate something.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, you pretend. So let’s say I was pretending to be the bishop. I’d be down here and then big angry.

THEO VON: Look, maybe scratching your beard, maybe going.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that. No, I’ve never played that, but I kind of know what you mean.

Talking About Sex in the Amish Community

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah. But you guys don’t talk about sex within the Amish community much, at school and stuff.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: There’s not a class teaches you about, not in school. No.

THEO VON: So will a dad kind of take his son and have a birds and the bees talk? In that, it’s kind of the birds and the bees. The dad will take you and talk to you about how things work, you know?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, no, no. All of that stuff you actually have to figure out and stuff. Okay, but since you got phones and stuff, you can kind of, you know, you can figure it out.

THEO VON: But there’s some stuff. I mean, but you’re not allowed to look at pornography on your phone and stuff.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, you’re not supposed to know. Yeah, I stay away from that stuff. Yeah, it’s bad, it is very bad.

THEO VON: Yeah. Yeah. Since you got into Rome, can you get a girlfriend and stuff like that? Or what are you allowed to do?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, I can get a girlfriend, all that stuff.

THEO VON: But did she need to be Amish?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Preferably? Yeah, but if I were to get a girlfriend that was not Amish, you’d either have to become Amish or I would have to leave the Amish.

THEO VON: Do you think that there are a lot of women out there who are willing to become Amish? Does that happen a lot?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I know of one case where that is happening, and I don’t know how often it happens, but it’s rare where it actually goes through. I know a lot of people want to become Amish, but they’re not ready to make the final step towards it. So, but yeah.

THEO VON: What’s the thing that keeps them away from, that makes them…

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Makes…

THEO VON: Makes people afraid to take that final step, do you think?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I think it’s the loss of your phone, the lights on the ceiling, the fans on the ceiling, the vents and holes in the ceiling, all that stuff, I think. And then the couch, the TV, and then whatever else, whatever else high tech that use.

Amish Marriage and Gender Roles

THEO VON: If you have an Amish wife, does a wife have to provide food and sexuals and stuff for the husband? Or is it just, is it always negotiable, or does the wife have a responsibility for kind of food and sexuals and stuff?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, so the way it’s, everyone kind of accepts they’re, it’s just, how do I say this? It’s normal, and it’s where everyone has a mutual understanding of what they have to do. Right. Because the woman cooks, cleans, takes care of things around the house. And then if she needs help, she’ll ask the husband for help.

And then usually the husband’s gone most of the day working, either building houses, plowing the fields or cutting lumber or making cabinets or even polishing cabinets. Stuff like that. They help each other when they’re at home if it needs. But yeah, the wife does cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids.

THEO VON: Got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And then stuff in the garden, too.

THEO VON: Right here it says “Amish women mainly focus on housekeeping, child rearing, gardening, and food preparation. Many manage home finances, have their names on property deeds, and control the family checkbook. Women nurture the spiritual life of the children and are active in maintaining Amish cultural practices.”

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: So women have a pretty strong voice in the Amish community.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, well, I’d say so. Yeah.

Amish Cooking and Food

THEO VON: Yeah. Are Amish women good cooks? Do they make some cool stuff or what are some good Amish meals?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, yeah. Amish make, I’d say, make some of the best food. Especially Grandma. She had a lot of experience in the field stuff, or I mean, she has a lot of experience in the field of cooking and stuff. Her breadsticks, they’re out of this world.

THEO VON: Are they?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: They’re really good. And then my mom.

THEO VON: What do you put on them?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I’m not even quite sure.

THEO VON: Can you put butter on them or not?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, butter. Yeah, it looks exactly like that.

THEO VON: And can you put a little bit of salt on them? Do you have salt?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, we don’t put salt on. They’re garlic breadsticks.

THEO VON: Oh, they already have garlic on them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. And they’re just, they’re really good. And my favorite meal, let’s say we’re doing a lot of stuff, building something or a frolic where the whole community comes together and…

THEO VON: Frolic, it’s called.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that’s when the whole community comes together and built something. Like a barn.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And then they’ll make some either some chicken or some burgers with mashed potatoes, corn, and I think you would call it Mac and cheese.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And then you put some, so what we do, if our food’s hot, we put some applesauce on it, mix it up.

THEO VON: Really?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. And then it’s nice. Cool. And then pork can be.

THEO VON: Oh, if the food’s hot, you’ll put applesauce on it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. To cool it down and stuff. So that’s one of my favorite meals. And then even better, if you have steak and stuff. If you have steak, that’s really good.

THEO VON: Yeah. And do you have dessert, too?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, we have pretty good dessert, too. Pies.

THEO VON: Oh, I bet Amish pie is good.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: They have sugar, don’t you?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, they put sugar in them. I’m not sure what they all put in, because I know how to make scrambled eggs and that’s about it.

THEO VON: Same.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. And, yeah, they put, what is it?

THEO VON: What’s a popular pie that you have or a popular dessert?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: A popular pie is shoo fly pie is one of them. And then peanut butter pie.

THEO VON: Shoo fly pie. What is it?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that I’ve not had it. That’s not really, we don’t have it very often. But another pie that’s really good is mince pie, pumpkin pie. That’s really good. Apple pie. That’s really good.

THEO VON: God, that’s a good one. I want that.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That stuff is pretty good. Yeah. That’s my cousin right there.

THEO VON: Oh, really? I’ve seen this woman before. She’s Amish.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. No, she’s ex-Amish.

THEO VON: Oh, she’s ex-Amish.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: She used to be Amish.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So she’s my cousin, actually. Oh, wow. Yeah, so I got, I guess, famous cousins, too.

Dating Outside the Amish Community

THEO VON: What are the fears of having a girlfriend that’s not Amish? Just that they won’t understand the religion and the culture.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: The biggest fear would be that the church or the parents would find out. That’s definitely the biggest fear.

THEO VON: But is it okay if she decides to join the church? It’s okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it is okay. But for that, that rarely ever happens. It’s almost as rare as the bishop leaving the community.

THEO VON: Got it. Would she be welcome if that happened?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, if she was fully Amish. Yeah, she would be welcome. Now, she might get a little bit of looks in the beginning, but yeah, as long as she’s fully Amish, that would be good.

THEO VON: Dude, she deserves the looks, probably.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: You know what I’m saying? You can handle a little bit of…

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Looks out of the game.

THEO VON: Can Amish people tickle each other or not? Is that allowed or not?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. When we were little kids, we used to tickle each other.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. But I don’t really tickle anyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: I don’t think people should keep doing it, but I’m just making sure it’s allowed when you’re kids.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: And do they play hide and go seek? Like, what kind of stuff do people do to pass the time?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Like, either ride horses, the ponies, like pony cars, and then also hide and seek. That’s pretty fun. And then we play board games or just play with cars, play with blocks.

I used to play underneath the porch or in the garden. We used to have a lot of cars and stuff. I used to pretend there was like a whole world there in the garden. So mom didn’t really like when I played in the garden when it was all the corn was up, the potatoes.

I actually liked playing when it was corn, corn was up and then the potatoes. Because it was like there was way more possibilities for imagination you could have place here.

THEO VON: Just more creativity going on.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. But if the garden didn’t work out or either that or just play under the porch, like the porch was like three feet high. So the older I got, the more I hit my head on up on the porch.

THEO VON: That’s when it’s time to get out.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. That’s when I decided, you know, if I do play with cars and stuff and out in the dirt, the garden is the place to be.

THEO VON: Yeah, for sure.

Dating in the Amish Community

THEO VON: And do people start dating within the Amish culture at a certain age or is it kind of taboo or how does it work? Is there a dance at school where you can invite a girl to a dance? How does dating and that sort of adolescent attraction kind of stuff, where you’re trying to meet a girl or if you have a first kiss, what’s that? How’s that whole universe in the Amish culture?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So our school only goes until eighth grade, so we’re out of school at 13 or 14.

THEO VON: You’re done with school completely?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, completely done. And then you go to work. So we didn’t, I don’t even know what high school is or public school. I’ve never been there, never ever. I want to go one day.

THEO VON: High school is just doing drugs and trying not to die of driving while intoxicated.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: If that happened, it never happens for us. Our horse will just take us home, right?

THEO VON: That’s a Tesla. You basically have an original. You kind of have one of the self-driving cars.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Because if you fall asleep on your horse, you know, might not be the safest way because you might go a little bit over on the road. But as long as the people with steering wheels and stuff, they’ll be, if as long as they’re okay and stuff, the horse will go home.

So the way it works for dating, if you’re 16 and a half, it depends on the parents. My mom and dad, they weren’t really allowed to date, like official boyfriend, girlfriend until they were 18.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: But in our community right now, it basically happens whenever now. As soon as you join the Rumspringa, you can. And usually the way you meet and hang out is through singing after church or at weekend parties. That’s usually how it is.

Weekend Parties and Rumspringa

THEO VON: So weekend parties, do those happen in your district?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Those happen off of property. It varies where the Amish party is. Sometimes it happens when the parents aren’t home, we go to their place and party there.

THEO VON: So at Amish parties, will people just, are people drinking and stuff like that? It’s a little bit more freewheeling.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, drinking and then even the vape things popped up too.

THEO VON: Do Amish like to vape or not?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Some do. Yeah.

THEO VON: I knew it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, some do. But also cigarettes and then sometimes we go a pipe too.

THEO VON: Amish look like they would smoke a pipe.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: The older ones too, but the younger ones usually don’t. They usually stick to cigarettes and stuff like that. But sometimes we’ll go to an ex-Amish person’s house and party up there and it’s a lot of fun.

THEO VON: It is. And when do you, if you’re doing Rumspringa, when do you have to be back at home? Do you leave on Friday, have to be back on Sunday night? Or what are the rules kind of?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, it depends. It varies from family to family. Let’s say you have church tomorrow. You probably want to be home before the morning so you get a little bit of sleep. Or there’s not church, you can come home or you can just, it just depends. But usually when I do it, I usually don’t come home until later Sunday.

THEO VON: Okay.

THEO VON: And do they drug test you or whatever? If you’re Amish, do you have to get drug tested?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, no, we don’t have to do any drug tests.

THEO VON: Really?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, no tests and stuff.

THEO VON: Damn. Because y’all got y’all’s own year-long Halloween going on out there in the fields.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, sometimes in the woods, the field, just depends where the spot is. But now, all Amish that party and stuff, our number one way of talking to each other is through Snapchat.

THEO VON: They’ve really taken over Snapchat.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. If they’ve been Amish, a young Amish person that is roughly my age, if they have a phone, a smartphone, they have Snapchat.

First Encounters with Technology

THEO VON: So when was the first time you saw a phone or a screen? Do you remember?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I think it was one time, it was not the first time, but I remember this one time when one of my ex-Amish uncles was at our place with his girlfriend. And she let me look on her phone, and I was sitting right beside her, and she cropped out her phone. She started texting someone, and she was flying through the keyboard and stuff.

She was swiping little lines, and all of a sudden words popped up. It was pop, pop, pop, pop. The words, almost as fast as you can talk. And so I was really surprised. So that’s some of the first memories seeing a phone.

Rules and Restrictions

THEO VON: What things are forbidden in you guys’s culture kind of?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: A lot of things are, electricity, having a smartphone. We’re allowed to have phones for our businesses, phone shacks and stuff. And then TVs. What else? Pretty much anything that requires electricity and stuff.

And also certain color of shirts, dresses. If it’s too bright, it can also be, the bishop or deacon will talk to you about it.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: About it being the wrong color. Too flashy. And also if your haircut’s way short. So my haircut’s okay because my mom gives me a haircut every time.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. So I’ve never actually had a different kind of haircut.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Beautiful.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. So I almost have a mullet. You could probably have an Amish haircut too.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. I think I have a little bit.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. You just let that, just let the hair in front of the ear grow.

THEO VON: No, I could have been Amish.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Block a little bit off the sound to the ear.

THEO VON: I would have enjoyed being Amish, I think, man.

Differences Between Amish and Regular People

THEO VON: How are regular people and Amish people different from each other? Have you gathered? How do they seem different from each other?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So the main thing I’ve noticed is a lot of Amish are, when they’re in public it seems like they’re a bit more respectful, I guess.

Another thing that’s big, I guess, so if we did something that was big and wrong, one time my little brother, he stamped lots of corn down in our cornfield and he got a spanking from that. That’s, I guess that’s the difference because I see a lot of kids don’t, I guess they don’t get spankings anymore.

THEO VON: Yeah, they don’t do it anymore.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, they should.

THEO VON: I mean I don’t think kids should get abused, but sometimes a spanking is okay, I think.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Because there’s getting beat up and then, because we never got beat up or anything but if we did something bad we got three cracks. It was a belt or something. But we never got abused and stuff. So just, I guess discipline.

THEO VON: So discipline is something that seems stronger in the Amish community.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Taxes and Community Support

THEO VON: What are some crimes that they have? Are there any crimes that are popular in Amish land?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I’m not quite sure. Maybe taxes sometimes. Because I know some people don’t file taxes and stuff. Because the only tax that we get, that we’re free from that Amish don’t get taxed, it’s Social Security tax. So when we get old, the government doesn’t pay us and stuff.

THEO VON: Oh, they don’t. You don’t have to pay into that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No.

THEO VON: Wow. I wonder why not.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: When you join the church, you get, the bishop and the government, I guess work together to where you’re exempt from the Social Security tax. But that’s the only tax that I know of that you’re exempt from. Other than that, if, but if you don’t file taxes, because I know some don’t. But other than that we have to pay all the other taxes.

THEO VON: The Amish are exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes, FICA, if they formally reject benefits and file for exemption due to their belief in mutual community support. Wow. So you guys feel like you don’t need that, you support each other, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. A lot of Amish don’t have insurance for stuff too. And so when…

THEO VON: Hell no. I don’t think you could insure them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: You know, for business, I think for businesses they somehow do, I think. But for, let’s say you fall off a roof or something, you hurt yourself. Then let’s say you go to a hospital. Because I know the hospital, they charge quite a bit.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I don’t know where they come out with the crazy numbers, but they’ll take…

THEO VON: You through the Rumspringa. They will.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: They will drag, they were dragging.

THEO VON: Drag you, dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it’s like dragging behind the buggy.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Or horse runs away and you’re trying to hang on. You’re scraping across gravel and stuff. But yeah, all the community helps pay for that. If that would happen, I got it.

THEO VON: So there’s a lot of community support.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s a lot.

Community Support and Helping Neighbors

THEO VON: At any point in somebody’s life. So you guys might have a day where you’re like, “Mr. So and so needs help” or “Ms. So and so needs help. Let’s go help them.”

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep. That’s how it works.

THEO VON: That’s a big part of your life.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Like, for example, what are things you would go help a neighbor do?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Really with anything. Like putting away hay. We’ve done that lots of times. Or like building a barn. We’ve done that too. Or even a house too. If they need help, like a day or so, we’ll come together and help each other.

I know back in the day we used to help each other. Like someone does hay, and then everyone helps this person do hay. Then that person also, it’s just a group effort. This person, this person, this person, like all around the community.

But that doesn’t really happen anymore. Most Amish, they don’t, they still farm a little bit, but most of them do like construction or like building cabinets.

THEO VON: Oh, it’s changed.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

The Shift Away from Farming

THEO VON: So the Amish are farming less than they used to.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Because it’s not as sustainable anymore.

THEO VON: Right.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: When my dad was growing up, all they do is farm and milk cows. They milk a lot of cows.

THEO VON: So what are some popular products? Like you said, like cabinets and stuff. You see a lot of those. You see cabinets, you see furnaces sometimes.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: I don’t know if that’s a real thing or that’s just something that is made up and they claim that Amish do it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: You mean like wallet furnaces? I’m not sure quite where those come from, but like the furnaces, because there’s welding to it. They might get it from like a person that’s not Amish.

THEO VON: Got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Get them from there.

THEO VON: The biggest shift in Amish economic life in the last century has been from agriculture to non-farm businesses. In the early 1900s, nearly all Amish families depended on farming for their livelihood. Today only about 10% do, with the majority now involved in various trades, crafts, retail, and then for… Yeah, what are some of those? Construction and woodworking, carpentry, cabinet making, and now famous Amish furniture shops. That is a big thing now, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Quilt making, sewing related trades.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, like selling Amish food too, and quilts and a lot of stuff like that.

Amish Markets and Tourism

THEO VON: It’s a big part of the culture up there.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it is.

THEO VON: And how will you guys have like places on your property where people come and buy them or do you take them off property and people buy them there?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Usually, if you have a greenhouse or like a place where you can buy like food and stuff, that’s usually like a little building on the property.

THEO VON: So like a market?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yep, kind of like a market. Or there’s a farmer’s market where Amish go to like a town for a day and they bring all the baked goods and stuff like that.

And there’s also a lot of Amish places, like a lot of places where Amish are, with like tours. They offer tours and then they bring them around and then it’s kind of like Amish mall, but the stores are like really far apart from each other, like a couple miles. But yeah, they bring them around and they get to see an Amish farm. I think they’re called like Amish tours and like tourist stuff like that.

THEO VON: Okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And then you can like stop at the Amish place and like buy something from like the store and stuff.

THEO VON: Got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Yeah, we’ve been up there before and stopped at some places that I think were having cheese and ice cream, maybe even.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, I’m not sure. But usually we only make ice cream through the winter because you just scrape the snow out of the ground and put it in a bucket.

THEO VON: And could you make ice cream if you needed to?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, if we had ice or something cold that you put around the thing where you make ice cream. Because you got to crank the ice cream and the thing in the middle spins around the ice. So Amish ice cream is pretty good.

Music and Entertainment

THEO VON: What music do you guys listen to? I know you said in the beginning there’s some different scenarios where people sneak in some Def Leppard, but if not, do you guys just sing a lot? Is there a lot of Amish songs and dancing as well?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, in our community, there’s not really any dancing. The only music songs that are really allowed would be like German hymns, but then sometimes we sneak out on the weekends and stuff.

THEO VON: And listening to some Soulja Boy or something.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, a lot of Amish like rock and roll and then, I guess house EDM music, and then also a lot of country, like Garth Brooks, Morgan Wallen, people like that.

But I also listen to like little bit of rap stuff, like “Amish Paradise.” That’s a pretty good song.

THEO VON: Who sang that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Weird Al Yankovic.

THEO VON: Oh, that makes perfect sense.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s groovy. Yeah. “Amish Paradise.” That’s a pretty, I love that song.

THEO VON: That’s a banger, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: It is a banger. Yeah. He looks a little bit mad there, but it was a pretty good song.

THEO VON: He’s probably pissed his horse ran off or whatever.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, something like that. Because his horse was pretty good at backing all the way at the end. And then also, I like to listen a little bit of rap stuff, too.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Like Ghana. A little bit of Ghana.

THEO VON: Oh, you listen to some Ghana?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. I don’t really listen to what he says. I looked at the lyrics like a couple times, and there’s, the lyrics aren’t the best, but I like the way it sounds. Like the sounds like wind chimes, and then it just sounds very melodic.

THEO VON: He’s a vibe. Yeah. He’s got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Family Closeness and Leaving the Community

THEO VON: What else was I thinking about? Where else can we go from here? We’re almost done. Let me think about what else we can talk about what I’m going to do, Timmy. I’m going to take that down and keep this up here.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s pretty cool.

THEO VON: I’m just going to make sure that you’re always here in spirit, dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I appreciate that.

THEO VON: You bet, man. I want to ask you something. With the risk of people leaving the community and stuff, are families still very close, or do they only get closer after people join the church? Does that make any sense to you?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I think it does. So most of the time, the family is very close. Unless when the kids and the parents, they don’t agree on stuff and then they leave. That’s the time when they’re not as close anymore. It depends on the person, I guess. And the parents, too.

THEO VON: Is it pretty heartbreaking when that happens in the community?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it is. When I was younger, when someone left, it’s almost like someone died. Not quite, but it almost felt like that. But since I got older, I understand it a bit more, and it’s not as bad as it used to be.

THEO VON: Yeah. Wow. That’s you right there.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, I was really skinny when I was younger. I’m still kind of skinny.

THEO VON: You look like that guy in Kingpin, a little. You think?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No idea what that is.

THEO VON: It’s like an Amish movie. It’s like a historical Amish film or whatever.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh. Almost look like that dude. Yeah.

THEO VON: When he’s younger.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Not now. Oh, when he’s younger. But he’s classy guy. He’s a great guy.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, he looks like a great guy, too.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Randy Quaid.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: He’s got like a big beard now. Yeah.

THEO VON: Yeah, he’s doing okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Rumspringa and Future Decisions

THEO VON: I’m a fan of his. What have you decided about Rumspringa and what you’re going to do with your family and the church and stuff? Have you made any decisions yet?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Not yet. The final decision will probably be in, probably within like two years or so.

THEO VON: Okay.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And then it depends if I leave or join the church. Well, right now you actually can’t really join the church because there’s no bishop. You can join other churches that are little bit away in a different district, but yeah. Probably be like two years until I make my final decision, because it’s kind of a big decision.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: What would be the thing, you think, that would draw you out of the faith, that would draw you out of the church and out of the district?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I would think if I wanted to do something, something that would, something I’m doing right now, like this podcast, like some worldly. And they’d probably come down on me for doing something like that, I guess would drive me away a little bit because, I don’t know, it feels a little bit restrictive, but I guess that’s the only thing I would think.

THEO VON: But you don’t feel like doing this podcast will mess up your opportunity to go back or come or leave, huh?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, I don’t think it will.

THEO VON: Okay, good. I don’t want that to happen, man. I want you to be able to make the best choice for yourself, no matter what. It sounds like a really beautiful community. Is it?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it’s very beautiful. I’d say.

Sense of Purpose and Community

THEO VON: It sounds like you have a lot of community, a lot of sense of togetherness. Do you feel a strong sense of purpose being Amish?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. You kind of uphold honor. Work hard. The harder you work, the better because you stay in shape, and then the more you can help out is always better. Because I love helping out people and making people happy. That’s one of my favorite things to do. I like doing that. So yeah, a lot of fun.

THEO VON: Yeah, I think it’s important. I think that’s one way we really fill ourselves up is doing something for somebody else. Good.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: And you seem like you get to do a lot of that in your community, so there’s probably a strong sense of feeling of doing good.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, there is.

THEO VON: If you guys are helping each other out a lot.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Are siblings really close in your community, or is that kind of not?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: You mean the siblings? Yeah, usually the siblings are usually close. Not like we’re close, just like brother and brother.

THEO VON: Yeah. Legally closer.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, legally close. So usually the brothers and the sisters, they usually keep to the sisters are closer to themselves and their brothers are close to themselves.

THEO VON: For sure.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, for sure. Here’s my little brother. Oh, that’s him, right? Yeah. He doesn’t really care if I put his face up on social media and stuff, but I blurred it out. I put a thing over his eyes out of respect.

THEO VON: That is fun, though, you guys. So a lot of times when you’re Amish, you just driving around, hanging out, telling stories and stuff.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Making each other laugh a lot.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Allowed to laugh.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, you’re allowed to laugh. We laugh, we drink coffee and laugh. And at work, we’re laughing a lot of time. We talk and, because when you’re, I don’t know, non-Amish people, I don’t know what they do when they work. Do they talk to each other and laugh and stuff?

THEO VON: Yeah, they do, I think a decent amount at a lot of jobs.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Probably jobs that are more if you’re doing construction, things like that, contracting things where you’re building stuff, working together, where there’s team opportunity, there’s a lot of laughter, dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: If you’re just sitting at a desk by yourself, you’re probably just losing your mind.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, that would be kind of sad. Being inside all day and under the lights and stuff.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. I think it was something that’s kind of, it doesn’t feel very human about it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No.

Mental Health in Amish Communities

THEO VON: Are there a lot of people on antidepressants and stuff that are Amish or no?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Not that I know of. There might be here and maybe way over there, but not that I know of, no.

THEO VON: Do people seem depressed a lot or not really?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Most of them don’t. But then you also have sometimes people that are super depressed. Sometimes they’re super depressed. Oh, they’re almost like the water when it gets rough. They up and down a lot.

THEO VON: Oh, bipolar.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, bipolar. We sometimes, I don’t have a person that has sudden, it’s kind of crazy.

THEO VON: Some studies have found Amish depression rates to be one-fifth to one-tenth of mainstream society, with strong family ties and community support cited as protective factors. That’s unbelievable.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: One-fifth to one-tenth is insane, brother. That’s a huge, I mean, that’s a huge difference.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: Strong family ties, robust social networks, work ethic, and especially religious faith are seen as major mental health protective factors. Will you guys pray together a lot? Just with friends, if you see them somewhere. Is that a common practice?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, we only do it at the table.

THEO VON: Got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: But I know some families do pray more than we do. We should probably do it more. Yeah.

THEO VON: I think that’s how we all feel.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Valentine’s Day Traditions

THEO VON: Do you have Valentine’s Day?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, yeah, we have Valentine’s Day at school. So what happens on Valentine’s Day is at school, we put things on a paper and we put into a hat and then we mix it all up and someone walks around with it. And then you reach in and you pick out a name. And if you got that name, then that’s your Valentine. You got to switch lunch pails and then you also have to send a Valentine in with them.

THEO VON: And can it be a boy or a girl?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it can be either way.

THEO VON: Got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. So it’s nothing. It’s probably way different from non-Amish and public schools. Because I’m guessing non-Amish and public schools, you would have to be a boy and a girl, right?

THEO VON: Yeah. But in y’all culture, it’s just whatever.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, yeah. It’s crazy. And the way we do it is just, the main reason we do it is mainly your friends. You give your friends a Valentine and then you also switch lunch pails. And then the moms will usually put something special in there, an X or candy bar or, yeah, my mom used to buy those things from Walmart. Those big red hearts and then send that with.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, that’s nice. Yeah, do that. Yeah, that’s a nice thing.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Halloween and Other Holidays

THEO VON: What other holidays do you have? Halloween?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, we don’t have Halloween. But before I went to Rumspringa, the neighbors, our non-Amish neighbors, they picked me up and then they put me in a prison costume thing. I had black and white stripes all over me. And we went out and gathering candy. You just walk up to these people’s houses and they have candy for you.

THEO VON: I know.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. It’s crazy. Halloween’s really crazy. But a lot of Amish don’t celebrate because apparently that’s the occasion of Halloween is something to do with the devil. I’m not quite sure.

THEO VON: Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. It’s a pagan holiday.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Because they have some people, real scary stuff in the yard. They got snakes and then these dead people with skulls and stuff. Yeah.

THEO VON: Stuff hanging from trees. Deceased adults and children.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, they’re bones stuff. I don’t know where they get the bones. Do they dig them up or something?

THEO VON: It’s probably something they probably insider trading with some dog or something.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Common Misconceptions About the Amish

THEO VON: What is something that you want people to know about Amish people that are a view of them or you think that something that’s incorrect before we get out of here?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: A misconception. Yeah, yeah. So one of the biggest misconceptions I see all the time with me being online and stuff, it’s crazy. All stuff. People say I’m not Amish. I don’t do this way. There’s actually two misconceptions I can say.

Number one is a lot of Amish kids my age have phones. They hide it from their parents and stuff. They have some electronics and stuff where they, but they have to keep it on the low and stuff.

THEO VON: And what would they do, buried in a field somewhere where they hide it behind a hog or something?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: They hide it in the barn, the back of the buggy, sometimes in a culvert and hope it doesn’t rain. Yeah. So that’s one thing. A lot of Amish have phones. And pretty much every Amish that has a phone that’s my age, that’s not for business and stuff, they have Snapchat. That’s how we communicate. That’s our new messenger pitch.

THEO VON: It’s your underground railroad.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, it’s underground railroad. I was thinking about starting underground buggy races, but I first got to dig the tunnel and stuff.

But another misconception about the Amish is, what was it? Oh yeah. About me not being Amish because I have a phone. That’s because another thing that’s huge, really big. Because Amish in movies are always, always churning the butter.

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And basically living without electricity now. There’s so many different Amish because what you hear from me, from where I came from, will not be the same from an Amish in Indiana, Ohio or Pennsylvania. It’s, there’s so many different ones, little different ways.

THEO VON: Branches of it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, lots of different branches. And I would say there’s not a single community that’s exactly the same. There’s always a little bit of rules and there’s so many different branches of it where they wear bit different clothes, bit different hats, do things a bit differently.

Because I’ve had people say this is not Amish, and then they write a detailed description. But I guess they probably don’t know better that there’s lots of different ones because there’s Beachy, Swartzentruber, New Order, Old Order. There’s so many different branches.

THEO VON: It sounds like a bunch of people on the Warped Tour.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, yeah. It’s so when Anabaptist became a thing, they basically were a minority for a little bit.

Movie Talk

THEO VON: Have you ever seen Back to the Future?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No. What is that? What’s that?

THEO VON: I think you would like it, and I think it’s a, I think it’s something that is Amish appropriate. I don’t think it’s too crazy.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Okay.

THEO VON: I think you could handle it. Have you ever seen Family Man with Nicolas Cage?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No.

THEO VON: Do you know who Nicolas Cage is?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Not quite sure.

THEO VON: Wow.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Wow. So these are movies and stuff?

THEO VON: Yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, wow.

THEO VON: Family Man’s one of my favorites. Dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: So what’s that about?

THEO VON: It’s about this guy and he’s very rich and fancy and stuff.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: And then one day he kind of, something happens where he goes back into his life 20 years earlier.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: He makes a different decision to stay with a girl that he was in love with instead of leaving.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: He goes back in time?

THEO VON: Yeah, he goes back in time. He doesn’t realize. He falls asleep. It’s on Christmas. He falls asleep on Christmas Eve and he wakes up and he’s back in a different life he’d had. He would have had if he had made a different choice to stay in love instead of to go for the big job in the fancy apartment.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Oh, he went for the money over people.

THEO VON: He went for the money over people. And he had a choice and he goes back in time, and now suddenly he wakes up and he’s in a house with this lady that was in love with. But now they have two kids and they don’t live in, he was living in this fancy downtown place with a butler and somebody that would chew your gum for you and just tell you what it would taste like. You don’t have to chew it. Wow. That rich.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: That’s super rich.

THEO VON: That’s too much. Yeah, I’ll chew my own gum. You know what I’m saying?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I want to chew my own gum, you know, drink my own water. Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Stuff like that. Yeah, for sure. I want to at least do that. Let me do at least the low, low hanging fruit.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: But anyway, so then he gets that experience, and then one day he wakes back up and he’s back in his original life and he hates it, and so he drives off from his original life to go find the girl and see what’s going on and then you figure out what happens from there.

Comparing Life Choices

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Wow, that’s crazy. Almost sounds like that. Almost when he went back in time and stuff. Or like, what would have happened if he would have stayed with that girl? That’s almost like me deciding if I want to stay Amish or leave the Amish.

THEO VON: Yeah. It’s like a Rumspringa.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. It’s a really hard decision.

THEO VON: What factors do you think will go into you choosing? What do you think are good factors to help you decide, or do you think about that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I think it’s what I will all see from the outside world. I’ll probably compare the two and see which one I like. I like the Amish lifestyle of food and all that stuff is good. The only things right now that I don’t like too much are the rules a little bit.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: But that’s what Rumspringa is for. You get to break them.

THEO VON: Get out there and break them.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

First Time Skydiving

THEO VON: Do you have any plans to go to any special events coming up while you’re on Rumspringa or any football games, anything like that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: The only special event I have coming up is actually this weekend. I’m going to go on a plane for the first time. Yeah. And jump out of it.

THEO VON: No. Really?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. I’m going to… because let’s say something goes wrong when you’re landing, so I want to be off the plane when it’s up in the air and go skydiving.

THEO VON: Yeah, for sure.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: And go skydiving.

THEO VON: Dude, that’s going to be sick.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I’m really excited. So this week is… I think this is a week I’ll never forget. Really, really crazy. So yeah. No one knows this. I haven’t told anyone, and so I won’t say anything. Yeah, it’s crazy. Let’s go skydiving. It’s cool for the first time. But I think, don’t they put… they strap a person on the back?

THEO VON: They put a guy on you.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: I just tell him you’re not interested before you guys jump.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Just say, look, I’m not interested.

THEO VON: I’m here for the jump.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I’m here for the jump only. Yeah. Just so I don’t want him getting any ideas.

THEO VON: Yeah. No ideas at all.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: When we land, it’s over.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah. Right. That’s what the plan is. And because I was thinking… I was talking to my coworker, I was thinking that would be a really crazy story. The first airplane you ever go into, you just decided, I don’t want to… I’m just going to tell them out.

THEO VON: You know, out of here.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I’m out of here. Yeah.

THEO VON: It’ll be the first plane you’ve ever been in, and then you’re out of it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I’m out of it. Yeah. And there’s the same way with a podcast. I decided the first podcast I would be on would be Theo Von’s. Because you’re pretty cool, dude.

Reflections on Culture and Family

THEO VON: Well, thank you, dude. I think you are, too, man. I’m really intrigued by you guys’s lifestyle. I think I learned a decent amount about it today.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: There probably could have been some other avenues about it that I could have asked about.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: But I appreciate you coming, bro. I really do.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I appreciate you inviting me.

THEO VON: And I admire you guys having a unique culture. I think there’s a lot of people in the world that are trying to get back to the roots of their culture and things that matter and mean something. So I almost feel like you guys are already there in some ways.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah, some ways. Yeah. And it feels like some people, it’s not grounded anymore to family and stuff. They’re just doing really crazy stuff. But if you touch grass every day… if you’re outside every day, and I’m outside all the time. That’s why I’m so dark. Almost look Mexican, but I’m not.

THEO VON: Mm.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: But yeah, truly crazy. Well, I appreciate it a lot for you inviting me. This is a really crazy experience. Coming out here to town and then me sleeping 10 stories up. Up 10 stories. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen.

THEO VON: Oh, you’re in a hotel. That’s really high.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

THEO VON: You never done that?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: No, I haven’t. And it’s my first time ever staying in a big city like this, so it’s… I’ll never forget it.

THEO VON: That’s awesome.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yeah.

Closing Thoughts

THEO VON: Well, good, man. Timothy, I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much, dude, for your time. Thanks for coming out to my show and yeah, thanks for being here with us and helping us learn, brother.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: I appreciate it, dude. All right.

THEO VON: Thanks for my hat, too, dude.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Dude, that’s the least I could do.

THEO VON: It was nice. And when I get close, you come by for some coffee, soup, all right?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yes, sir.

THEO VON: With me?

YOUNG AMISH MALE: Yes.

THEO VON: You got it.

YOUNG AMISH MALE: All right.

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