My husband recently traveled from our home in Illinois to
Ohio to meet some old friends at a hot rod event, and he decided to break his
journey in Amish Indiana, where he could have some great pie and stay at one of
our favorite B&Bs.
His stop was to be over a Thursday night, so he decided to go
to the huge cruise-in that happens at Essenhaus Inn in Middlebury on Thursday
evenings in the summer. A “cruise-in,”
for those of you not married to a “gearhead,” is when owners of old cars show
up at a designated place and spend the evening checking out each other’s cars. Sometimes there is music, food, and/or
trophies. Lots of spectators show up at
the bigger cruise-ins, and the event at Essenhaus is huge.
I remarked that “Shaklee Chris,” one of our older Amish
friends (how he got that nickname is a story for another day) had been wanting
to attend that event, but it was too far by buggy and his adult children didn’t
want him to ride his bike there alone!
(He is 85.) My husband Gary left
a voice mail for Chris, and soon it was arranged.
Gary arrived in Amish Indiana in time for some pie-eating
before picking him up. They
proceeded to Essenhaus, where Chris treated him to dinner. They then spent some time wandering up and
down the rows of old cars. My husband
said that Chris was the only Amishman he saw there.
Later, on the way back to Shipshewana from Middlebury, Chris
told Gary stories about the local Amish—and about some of the local business
owners who were now “English” but had grown up Amish. They made a couple of stops, including an
Amish buggy shop run by one of Chris’ grandsons. He makes a good living making buggies for the
locals, and he picks up extra money from an arrangement that a tour company
made with him. They stop by with
busloads of tourists who want to look around his buggy shop, and he gets paid a
fee. He said he
often sees two groups a week.
I was glad to see my husband so comfortable with the
Amish. It was his first trip into their
world without me, and he passed the test with flying colors!
Postscript - Shaklee Chris passed away on April 5, 2017.
Postscript - Shaklee Chris passed away on April 5, 2017.