Old Believers once abounded

My family were part of that Amish colony from 1936 until 1949 when they moved to a large Amish church in Virginia. Even though I long since left the Amish community I have many happy memories of those years – not to mention, many Amish relatives. Amish families typically are large.
However, there are many factions of Amish. For instance, the writer is incorrect in believing the Amish didn’t have electricity in their homes in Oregon. In reality, only one Amish family did not have it – when he built their new home west of Whiteson, my uncle Will Miller chose not to install electricity. When he eventually sold the farm and moved to Oklahoma he paid a heavy price for it- the new owners had to retro-fit the house.
It is true that telephones and radios and record players were prohibited as was any musical instrument larger than a harmonica. And some church leaders were not too sure of harmonicas. :)

Incidentally, the title of this piece "Old Believers" is misleading. Old Believers, when I lived in Oregon always referred to a Russian religious sect living in the Woodburn area, not to the Amish.

As a “johnny come lately” compared to a lot of us, Karl, we know that Old Timers are largely identified with Woodburn, Oregon. They are of Russian decent, mostly.

Here is an article that explains how they got here, etc.

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2001-11-24/article/8516

Karl can be kinda funny that way. I've always enjoyed his take on things, whether real ..or.. imagined.

While we're on the subject of what is real, and what is imagined, did anyone other than myself and my wife hear a rather slightly loud rumbling or fluttering tone during the early AM this morning ... out here in Grand Ronde?

I've only heard/felt/experienced that particular sound only twice so far in my life. Once back in late December of 1992, and the other back in mid September of 1978.

The first time, I was watching a bullet coming at me that ended up lodged (of all places) in the back of my throat. It actually passed through my adams apple on journey there. The second time that I'd heard that similar sound, it had been made by a meteorite that at the time (roughly about 22:00) had the appearance of a flaming VW Beetle tumbling across the sky above my two young daughters and I.

At the time (1992) I'd been pointing out various constellations from a snow covered vantage point roughly about 14 miles from the Yosemite Valley.

A bullet into the throat? Sounds like a story there!

Any idea of what you heard this morning?

No Ebbie, haven't been able to figure that out yet. Whatever it was didn't seem to bother any of our three dogs so I was kinda stumped as to why only my wife and I had heard it. After having turned on the computer and seen the news about the meteor over Russia this morning, thought maybe something similar in nature had occurred in our vicinity, but, I guess not. Though it did sound a heck of a lot like what my daughters and myself heard that night up in the Sierras.

The sound of the bullet coming at me made a somewhat scaled down, yet similar sound. What I'd thought to be the sound of the fluttering wings of a very rapidly approaching bug, apparently had been the heat radiating from around the bullet.

Burned like hell for a bit, some blood ran down my down my neck, but then the bleeding had stopped by the time I'd made it out of the woods and into the cab of my truck. I chalked it up as a bug bite drove home. About a year later my throat swelled up real bad and one of my buddies (Dar Polhman) looked down inside my throat with the aid of a dental mirror and a pen-light, then he employed a bent shisk-ka-bob skewer that enabled him to arch over my tongue and down deep enough to dislodge what appeared to be a small meteorite, while his wife (Liz) pinned my head down on her kitchen table during the operation. Real nice lady.

I hacked it up and into his hand. He then told me that I'd been shot. I said really?

He pulled out his buck knife, cut it in two, and sure enough, the little meteorite was pure lead.

Wow!

Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction. Anything you'd like to share that others may view as a somewhat out of the ordinary experience, Ebbie?

That is, providing of cousre, that Karl doesn't object too much to our hi-jacking his 'buggy ride' down memory lane.

I remember well thr Amish and thier buggies the early fifties.I was ten years old and lived near Hook And Eye lane on a farm with my parents.I went to school with Sylvia Miller.Frieda weaver.Ben Chupp Mahlon Troyer.I picked beans in the fields with them.They were very hard workers. Betty Riley Schara-Snow.