Both boys dead? but that’s out of nature. We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.
’Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall;
And, when Italy ’s made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, excerpt: Mother and Poet
_____________________________________________

A quiet pall hangs over the Lancaster County Amish community this week. One can feel it, sense it all around. It seeps into every aspect of existence, permeates the days as they slowly pass. Is present in a thousand murmured conversations. A deep gut blow of shock and disbelief. Tragedy has once again been unleashed upon the land, with a suddenness that jolts the senses. And affects even those of us on the peripheral of things.

It descended early last Sunday evening, from a string of seemingly unrelated events. First, a furious thunderstorm whipped through, dropping inches of rain in minutes, accompanied by dime-sized hail in some areas. A tornado touched down in a trailer park about ten miles from my house. After the storm passed, the white specks of hail covered the ground. Water ran everywhere. Beside the roads, and over the roads in places.

Across the county, in the Nickel Mines area, a little nine-year-old Amish boy looked up at the receding banks of storm clouds and saw angels in the skies. He ran to tell his mother. Startled, she smiled kindly and patted his head. There, there, she said. Go and play. But he insisted. He had seen angels. And who can tell a child he didn’t see what he saw?

Shortly after that, around 7 o’clock, along Rt. 340, a few miles east of Intercourse, the dark thing came. Two pickup loads of Amish kids traveling in opposite directions, just east of New Holland Road. For reasons still unknown, one of the trucks skidded into the oncoming lane. May have hydroplaned. A horrific crash. A twisted mass of mangled steel and broken bodies. And fire and blood and death.

Two were killed. Almost instantly, or expired within minutes. Two young men, who were passengers in the truck that lost control. Eighteen and nineteen years old. Several others in critical condition. Flown away in helicopters.

And just like that, the two are gone. Mervin Lapp. Mahlon Lapp. Brothers, from the same family. Their lives extinguished in the prime of their youth. All they were or might have been, all their plans, all their tomorrows, snuffed out like a candle’s flame.

The community staggered. And yet, immediately the old traditions were triggered. Set into motion. Friends and relatives of the family gathered and stayed with them. Others quietly saw to the necessary logistics. Benches, tables, food. Tomorrow, two graves would be dug. About every year or two, it seems, something like this comes down. A tragedy, with loss of young life. Around here, they’ve seen it all before. And will again.

And the details ripple out, in the murmuring small talk. Where they were that day. Where they were going when it happened. A Sunday evening social gathering, with volleyball and hymn singing. But those details are not important.

The details ripple out too, of who they were. Of things that matter. The short chapters of their lives. They were the two oldest of six children. Solid steady Amish boys. In their running around stage. I don’t know if they were “wild.” And I don’t know their hearts. But they were hard working, clean cut. Basically decent kids, as the Lancaster Amish youth tend to be.

I don’t know the family. Of the brothers who died. I can hide behind that comfortable veil of protection. Of anonymity and emotional distance. But through the fog, the inconceivable pain of such devastating loss touches even strangers. I know what pain is, and loss. I’ve lived it, felt it, breathed it. But not at this depth. Not like this. Few of us have.

Parents are supposed to die before their children do. That’s the natural order of things. And when such an unseen and unexpected bolt strikes and takes two of six in one family, it’s impossible to imagine the shock and grief. Of saying good bye to your sons after they are gone. Of clinging to the memories of the last glimpse of them alive, their last conversations, their last words. Of the empty bedrooms, where they will not return to sleep.

And now, in a stoic culture where few emotions ever surface, the father breaking down in tears. The mother bent in grief, and her deep hopeless longing to reach out and gather to her the two sons who only a few short years ago, in her vivid memory, sat laughing on her knees.

It is a hard and bitter thing. For us to contemplate. For both of them to bear.

The younger siblings, they who looked up to their older brothers, will now listen in vain for the familiar sounds of their footsteps and their voices. Hear them in their minds, in the heavy silence that will echo through the emptiness. Or when the wind blows just right. But those footsteps and those voices will never come again.

They will, I think, grasp this new reality in time. Accept it, even. They’ll have to, to survive. But these events, this loss will be seared forever in their hearts.

There is no way to understand such tragedy. To really get hold of it. Or make sense of it. Not in human terms. Was it random chance? God’s will? Fate? The result of choices? Or simply a consequence of a fallen human world?

Because for all of us, especially those who emerged from an Amish background, there, but for the grace of God, go we.

I look back and recall the things I got into, the things I did, some of the foolish choices I made a lifetime ago. The stupid chances I took. And marvel that a similar misfortune did not befall me, or my friends.

Just as well as not, it could have happened. My life snuffed out, like theirs. But it didn’t. And so I’m here today, writing my blog, instead of being a distant fading memory in the minds of my parents and my siblings. It seems so random.

Take a fresh young Amish kid from the farm, throw him out into the unfamiliar world of motor vehicles, alcohol and a host of other strange and wondrous things, and chances are actually pretty decent that he’s going to get hurt, if not killed. Or self destruct.

I’m not saying that was the case here. These guys lived at home all their lives, worked in the neighborhood. By all accounts, they were quiet, decent, hard working. Riding along in their friend’s truck that night. And for them, death came calling.

But in many other Amish communities, especially in the Midwest, kids leave home and live hard dangerous driven lives. Like I did. Like countless others do today.

Where I grew up, we never had such a tragedy. Such sudden, unexpected death. But we heard the preachers from other, larger communities when they passed through. Grave, dramatic eerie tales spun in distinctive sing song rhythms. Of young men who had left to live in the world. Who shook their fists at God. And were killed in some bloody fashion, usually in a car accident. Running into trees or telephone poles. Their lives cut short in a split second. The stories came from Arthur, Illinois, Daviess County and northern Indiana. From Holmes County, and Lancaster. We drank them in, wide eyed. Resolved never to follow such a path to destruction.

And yet, some of us did follow that path. Only the prophesied destruction didn’t fall. It could have. But it didn’t. We made it through the gauntlet. As most do. Some few don’t. It seems so random. And so unfair.

Statistically, such accidents are bound to happen. The sheer number of Amish youth who drive vehicles, and take passengers who might not, dictates that much. And so it does, every year or so, in almost all the bigger settlements. Everyone clucks, talks about it, sympathizes and moves on. The preachers preach it. And it fades away. Until the next one falls.

This one was here and this one was now. They came home for the final time on Monday night at 10 o’clock. The two sons. Home, where they were raised and where they grew and lived and worked. The viewings would be at home, not in some cold antiseptic impersonal funeral home.

The two caskets were carried inside and set up for viewings the next day and evening. The all night wake, as the dark hours slowly passed. Friends and neighbors gathered round, the family never alone.

And the next day the people flooded in for the viewings. In Lancaster, viewings are open to anyone who wants to come. But you must have an invitation to attend the funeral. I’d never heard of such a thing, before I got here. But that’s the way it is. Probably about the only way to control the potential overflowing crowds that would descend otherwise. Especially in a case like this.

I didn’t go to the viewing because I didn’t know them and did not want to intrude upon the family’s grief. But many of the Amish I know did attend. And told me of how it was.

Wednesday morning. The funeral. A dreary day. By late morning, a steady drizzle as even the heavens opened up and wept. They gathered again, those who were invited, for the service. The somber preaching. Two sermons. Then the long period of viewing in the home. The trip to the graveyard, a long snaking line of black buggies. To the same destination in Nickel Mines where the little murdered Amish school girls were buried a few years back.

There, the coffins were opened for one last viewing. Everyone filed through, then stood in silence and tears as the family gathered around for their final farewells. Stricken, exhausted, drained of tears from the sorrow and shock of the past few days, yet they wept again.

Then the coffin lids were closed. The pallbearers stepped to their positions. The crowd followed and quietly surrounded the open graves.

The little boy who had seen the angels in the skies stood there with his family. And watched with tear-stained eyes as his two oldest brothers were returned to the earth.

Ira Wagler
April 3, 2009
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POST NOTE: This afternoon (April 3rd) at 2:30 PM, another passenger in the truck that lost control, Stephen Beiler, Jr. passed away. He never woke up from a coma since the accident. At least one other young man remains unresponsive.

Pray for all the families involved and for the young man who still clings to life.

Every encounter between civilians and the state’s armed enforcers has
the potential to escalate into an episode of state-inflicted lethal violence.

—William Norman Grigg
____________________

I saw the police car pull into the parking lot and park outside the office. A wiry middle-aged state cop got out and walked in. It was a Saturday morning and I was the only guy there.

He greeted me curtly. Seems the alarm had triggered when I’d arrived earlier. It had made no sound, so I was unaware that it had tripped. The alarm company had notified the police. Early on a weekend morning, the local cops weren’t around. So a state trooper was dispatched. He was probably at the end of his shift and seemed irate at this last minute call.

I assured the cop that I was the general manager at Graber and was here working, with one guy out in the yard. He seemed to believe me. Then he got out his writing pad.

“Your name?” he asked. I told him. Spelled it out.

I reiterated. I worked here. Was the GM. He jotted notes on his pad.

Then he requested my date of birth. I balked.

“Why do you need my date of birth?” I asked. Politely.

He bristled, his close-cropped gray hair stood on end. His face turned ugly. “Because I’m talking to you,” he snarled.

I said nothing. Just gaped at him, across the counter. Then he caught himself. His whole demeanor changed, in less than a second.

“Look, I just need to know you are who you say you are,” he said, much calmer now. Almost polite. “That’s all. That’s why I need your date of birth.”

So I finally told him. Unhappily. “Don’t see why you need to know that,” I grumbled. He thanked me tensely and walked out. Sat in his car at his computer, plugging in all the info I’d given. And, I thought suspiciously, probably inserting a red mark beside my name as a warning to future cops that I was a trouble maker. And had dared to question his authority.

The experience left me irritated and a little shaken. And then steaming mad. The guy was nothing more than a cheap thug in a uniform with a chip on his shoulder, a badge, and a gun on his hip. A thug of the state.

There are two polar-opposite views out there when it comes to cops. From the left, cops are brutish thugs, out there to bash heads and deprive poor innocent people of their rights and drag as many as possible off to jail. From the right, cops serve and protect; they are that thin blue line between helpless civilians and the savage human beasts that roam the land.

Most Amish and associated plain groups view cops as a necessary arm of the secular government. People to be respected and slightly feared. My father would not have believed in calling the cops for any reason. At least that’s what he professed. I don’t think he was ever really tested on the issue. Never robbed or physically accosted or anything.

Plain people have a simplistic world view. They are honest. They keep their promises. Their yes means yes, their no means no. They don’t swear oaths. And because that’s how they operate, they expect the world around them to be the same way.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not being critical here. Just stating things as they are. Or as I see them. Ultimately though, most plain folks are naïve, as sheep among wolves, harmless as doves. But not wise as serpents. Most believe that if you don’t do anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear. That the government is generally benign. It’s not.

In their rare brushes with the law, they are as innocents led to slaughter. Open, stating their views honestly. Admitting their mistakes. Expecting to be taken at their word, not to have the facts twisted and used against them. Which can come back and bite them. And often does.

I used to be pretty ambivalent on the issue, but mostly a 100% law and order guy. Cops were always right. If you got in the way and got your head bashed, too bad. Shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. I never had much direct contact with cops. They were just a fact of life, the guys stopping speeders and handing out tickets. And solving crimes and chasing bank robbers. In all my years, I’ve only been stopped by a cop once, about fifteen years ago. For speeding. And he let me off with a warning.

Like most people, I used to believe that if a man was arrested and charged with a crime, he was very likely guilty. Why else would he be arrested and charged? Surely those responsible for enforcing the laws wouldn’t knowingly destroy an innocent man’s life. For no other reason than to get a conviction.

I got irritated when a crook got off on a technicality, or was released for lack of evidence. How could that happen? The man was obviously guilty. Or he wouldn’t have been charged. Besides, one could usually just look at the accused, often a bedraggled druggy from a minority group, and tell he was a crook. That’s what I used to believe.

Then I went to law school, back in 1994. Into a pressure packed three year program that made my undergraduate years seem like high school. Attended classes with my peers. Plugged away, day after day. Learned some new perspectives.

And it soon began to sink through my thick skull. The reason the cops and prosecutors have to jump through so many hoops to prove their cases. It’s not to protect the guilty. It’s to protect the innocent. Regardless of how damning the evidence seems, the facts must still be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. The accused must have rights. Procedures must be strictly followed. Otherwise, everyone charged with a crime would be guilty. Including you and me.

I learned too, what it means when an accused pleads “Not Guilty.” That always happens in every criminal case. Before the law, the accused is not stating he didn’t commit the crime. He’s stating that the state must prove he committed the crime. The murderer caught red handed with blood dripping all over him will plead “Not Guilty.” And rightfully so. Even in that case, the state must prove he did it.

Soon enough, I graduated with a fairly radical outlook, considering my background. No longer so ambivalent. I’ve pretty much concluded that the less you have to do with law enforcement at any level, the better off you are.

I’m not out to write an anti-cop screed here. There are a lot of decent guys out there who are cops. At work, I’ve developed a real friendship with a local township cop, who wandered in several years ago, looking to remodel his garage. He’s returned off and on since then, always asks for me, and we figure out the next stage of his project. Young guy, recently married. Very friendly. Decent. I always tell him to leave our Graber trucks alone, and he laughs.

I’m sure there are many others like him. I just haven’t run into them. But to me, he’s the exception. I remain highly suspicious of law enforcement at every level. I concede there are criminal elements who must be confronted by some sort of legal enforce-ment arm. Even so, I’m increasingly edging into the libertarian camp. The enforcers must not be allowed to become oppressors. Must be closely watched. And held to account.

Seems to me that since 9/11 and the passage of the unconstitutional Patriot Act, the police at every level have been relegated to more of an occupational force than a protective one. The Thin Blue Line that prevents chaos has now morphed into a force that causes chaos. And instills fear.

These days, every time some two bit criminal is arrested, he is charged with a litany of offences, many overlapping. Always at the end, “terroristic threats.” A new crime, thanks to our esteemed Dept. of Homeland Security. An argument between two guys or a domestic dispute can now be an act of terrorism. Add years to any sentence. It’s silly. And oppressive.

Norman Rockwell’s idyllic America no longer exists. If it ever did. These days, if a cop intercepted a runaway child, the child would no doubt be taken and handed over to the loving care of the local Children and Youth agency. Charged as a delinquent for the pocket knife in his knapsack. His parents hauled into court and their rights terminated. The family unit decimated. Stuff like that happens every day.

Every weekend in this state, cops set up road blocks to catch drunk drivers. Innocent drivers are stopped, everyone in the car is harassed, forced to produce their identity papers. And heaven help the poor soul who had a glass of wine with dinner that night. He is hauled off in shackles, fined, imprisoned, ruined. It’s insane. Certainly not what you’d expect in a free country. More like Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union.

This is all done by state and local cops. Which is bad enough. But compared to the Feds, they are amateurs.

I utterly despise federal law enforcement. Loathe every branch. The FBI, the INS, the TSA, and especially the ATF. There is not a single redeeming quality in any of those offices. Or any of their officers. To call them jack-booted thugs is too kind. They are animals, goons. They consume untold billions in tax dollars and do nothing but oppress and murder the populace. Ask the Randy Weaver family in Idaho, or the surviving Branch Davidians in Waco. Or Elian Gonzalez in Cuba.

The state level is perhaps a little less evil. But it was the state Leviathan that convicted and imprisoned Levi Stoltzfoos last year. He sits rotting in a maximum security prison, desititute, robbed by the state, with no hope of release in the next five to fifteen years.

Overall, maybe I’m not being fair. Maybe it’s just me, and my paranoid nature, letting off some steam. But if you take nothing else from this post, absorb this one point. Whether you are Amish, Beachy, Mennonite, or just plain old English. Keep it stored in your heart and mind until the day you might need it. Irrational as it now seems. Remote as such a possibility might be.

If any members of any branch of law enforcement ever show up at your door to “ask some questions,” do NOT engage them. Doesn’t matter what it’s about. Whether your horse broke through the fence and caused an accident, or you unknowingly broke some obscure law, or your taxes weren’t quite properly filed. Doesn’t matter whether the questions pertain to you or to something you may have witnessed. Doesn’t matter if the questioner is a cop, a prosecutor, a detective, or the dog warden. Or a combi-nation of any of the above.

You have no obligation to talk to them. Not without your attorney present. They have no right to even be on your property without a warrant. DO NOT talk to them. Regard-less of how friendly they are or how seemingly innocuous their inquiries. Talking to them will not prove your innocence, or gain you the slightest shred of lenience. It will only dig your hole deeper.

I’ve seen it happen more times than I care to count.

Keep in mind at all times this tragic fact. They are not there for a picnic. They are not there to slap you on the back and socialize. They are not there to find the truth. Or to seek justice. You are a statistic. For the DA to add and trumpet in his next election. For the cops to seek more funding. For the detective to get his raise. For the dog warden to shut down your kennel.

They are there in the name of the law. To destroy your life.