O youth, still wounded, living, feeling with a woe unutterable….
still thirsting with a thirst unquenchable – where are we to seek?

—Thomas Wolfe
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Hardly a week passes that I don’t get a handful of private emails from readers of my blog. The occasional virulent screed excoriating me for some imagined slight, or my ungodly world views. But most often just a hello, and a comment about this or that scene, or an observation on something I’d written. Last week was no different.

Except one of the emails came from a college professor. A professor. Wow, I thought to myself. Must be moving up in the world, if even the intelligentsia is reading my stuff. Wonder how that happened. With the world wide web, anything’s possible, I guess. The email was brief, but polite. The professor is teaching a class on the Amish, probably in sociology or world cultures. He had a question. In my opinion, what percentage of the Amish youth are involved in “Rumspringa?”

Ah, yes. Rumspringa. That mispronounced word popularized by the film, The Devil’s Playground. Which, to be fair, was a pretty accurate film, in many ways. The term simply means “running around.”

I emailed the professor a brief, equally polite note. All Amish youth run around. That’s what they do after turning sixteen, when they are considered adults. Run with the youth and attend singings and social gatherings. But if he meant to ask what percentage of Amish youth “run wild” and touch and taste the unclean things of the outside world, either at home or after leaving, my guess would be twenty to twenty five percent. But that’s just a guess. Might be close, might not. It varies greatly from community to community. Some smaller communities have almost no such wild youth. In larger communities, wild youth are much more common.

Despite its unprecedented access to wild Amish youth in Ohio, The Devil’s Playground widely disseminated a huge misconception. And a huge disservice to the Amish. One that’s almost impossible to uproot. The belief that the Amish allow their youth a time to explore, to run wild, to live a mainstream lifestyle. To decide whether or not they really want to remain Amish.

I’m not saying that never happens. It probably does, in some rare individual families. But as a church policy, it is utterly false across the board. Never has been that way. Never will be. The Amish church does everything in its power to maintain its grip on the youth. Including applying some of the most guilt-ridden pressure tactics in existence anywhere in the world. No sense encouraging anyone a taste of outside life. Because there’s always a good chance they might not return, regardless of their good intentions when they left.

And I know whereof I speak, from my own experiences. The first few times I left, I had every intention of returning and settling down. It wasn’t even a question in my mind. Just a year or two, a taste of the outside, then I’d be content to live out my days in the Amish faith where I was born. Calm and settled in the simple life. Marry. Raise a family. Perhaps write some apologetics, as my father did. Watch my children grow.

But it didn’t happen. In fact, it pretty much went just like the preachers always claimed it would. Once the “world” gets its grip on you, the probability of return recedes into impossibility. One can weep and wail and repent at leisure, but it will be too late. You can’t go back. And the gnawing regrets will haunt you all your life.

That’s what they said. The preachers. And all of it was true. Except for one important point. The regrets part. There are none. Not about leaving, anyway. But I do have one major regret. That I didn’t get a grip and save myself a lot of mental anguish and guilt and leave for good long before I actually did. I seesawed back and forth for years, determined to force myself to follow my head instead of my heart. Until I finally decided to quit trying to please others, make my own choices and break free for good. And did.

Could it only have been much sooner, so much anguish could have been avoided. So many tears, so much grief. But I had to travel my own journey, define my own path. In my own time.

My particular expression of regret will never make it into any Amish sermons. Doesn’t fit the template. Not that I blame them. Or that I’m resentful. I’m not. It is what it is.

But I digress. Back to the Rumspringa. I’m not saying my opinion is accurate in every community. I grew up in Aylmer and later in Bloomfield, Iowa. Both communities consisted of a single district at the time. Very small. So I admit there are many nuances in the larger communities that I may not quite grasp. But overall, I think I have a pretty good idea of how things are.

I’ve lived in Daviess County and northern Indiana. In both places, it’s standard practice for young men to drive and own cars and still live at home. Parking their vehicles openly right at home. How it goes in Holmes County with their mishmash of separate groups is anyone’s guess. I’ve never been there, even for a visit. In Lancaster County, many young men drive, but the vast majority do not park their vehicles at home. Usually in a field some distance away, or at a non-Amish neighbor’s place. But even here, many remain living at home while owning motor vehicles.

That was unheard of where I grew up. Dad had an ironclad rule. Own a car, you can’t live at home. And that’s the way it was. I accepted it with no bad feelings. Couldn’t have imagined anything else.

The smaller communities keep a tight-fisted grip on their youth. Or try to. That’s why they’re smaller communities, because the people there usually fled the larger settlements to get away from the wild youth practices. In Aylmer, you look sideways the wrong way, and they whack you hard. Shave your beard, even though unmarried? You’d better not, or the deacon will be knocking on your door. Smoking and drinking? Partying and carousing? Absolutely unheard of, in all its history.

Bloomfield used to have a similar iron grip on things. About thirty years ago. Until a pack of six young men shattered the old molds and forged their own. It’s never been quite the same since.

I remember well the day I turned sixteen and started running around. In August, 1977. I was just a pup, really, a tall spindly beanpole of a kid. The Bloomfield settlement had probably around twenty families then. There were no wild youth.

Feeling quite grown up and important, chest puffed out, I joined my brothers, Stephen and Titus, and my sisters, Rachel and Naomi, and attended youth activities. And the Sunday evening singings. I quickly attached to a little core group of friends. Six of us. We were from fifteen to seventeen years old.

We never named our little gang. Six young Amish kids. The Herschberger brothers, Willis and LaVern, from Arthur, Illinois. The Yutzy cousins, Marvin and Rudy, from Buchanan County. Mervin Gingerich, from Kokomo, Indiana. And me, from Aylmer. Sprouted from extremely diverse communities. Thrown together by random chance, by our parents’ decisions to move to Bloomfield.

We were intelligent and hungry. Read voraciously. Mostly trashy best-sellers, picked up at yard sales and used-book stores. Carefully stashed them away under our mattresses or hidden in little nooks about the house. Occasionally we stumbled on the real stuff. Real literature. And recognized its quality. Somewhere at this point, I grappled with Shakespeare for the first time, painstakingly deciphering the Old English of his age.

We were exclusive. Didn’t hang out with just anyone. Huddled together, protecting each other from the storms that occasionally engulfed us. Intensely loyal to each other.

I can’t remember any time of my life that I felt closer to a core group of friends than I did to those five guys during those few short years. We didn’t consider ourselves “wild.” Scorned anyone who consciously tried to be. And we didn’t necessarily think we were cool. But we were, at least in our own restricted little world.

Those were tense and troubled times. Restless, driven by the pride and passions of youth, unsure of what we really wanted, we set out on a path of our own choosing. Scandalized the poor Bloomfield settlement countless times in untold ways. We weren’t particularly rough or rowdy. But we did like to party a bit and have a good time.

We gathered on Sundays. At church and later at the singings. Sunday afternoons, we hung out at the Drakesville park, or a local schoolhouse, sipping beer that we’d bought from Bea, the clerk at the little convenience store in Drakesville. Smoked cigarettes. (This was in the great golden age before the tobacco and alcohol Nazis unleashed their venomous lies and turned this country into a whining nanny state.) Unlimbered our contraband. Transistor radios and 8-track tape players. Tinny, awful sounding equipment. Deeply absorbed what is now considered classic country and classic rock music. Acted up and told rowdy jokes. Mimicked the preachers with mock sermons, laughing uncontrollably. Dismembered our adversaries with our bold talk.

And sometimes, too, we showed up a bit tipsy at the singings. Made all kinds of unfortunate scenes with our loud hilarity. Much to the horror of the house father and other stodgy guests. One Sunday evening, one of us (who will remain anonymous), piled way too many baked beans on his supper plate. He soon realized his mistake; he couldn’t possibly eat them all. Instead of quietly setting aside the plate, with uneaten beans, he belligerently accosted those around him with the plea, “Viddoo Boona? Viddoo Boona?” (You want beans? You want beans?). The five of us sat there and roared, everyone else looked liked they’d eaten green persimmons. Sour. Oh, my, sour doesn’t even come close.

Pretty harmless stuff, really. We weren’t destructive. We didn’t terrorize people. But somehow, we managed to frequently trigger a great flood of dramatic groans and intonations from parent and preacher alike. How could my son act so wickedly? Dee boova sind so loppich. So veesht. (The boys are so naughty. So wicked.) You know better. Why can’t you just be good and behave, like the (name withheld) boys? They are such decent boys, so nice and upstanding. And such up-building members of the church. They were nice and upstanding, all right. And dull, and dense as mud.

We gagged at such drama. Ignored the incessant scolding. Despised the pious (name withheld) boys. Hunkered down and persisted in our wicked ways. The more our parents and the preachers tried to crack down and suppress us, the harder we “kicked against the pricks.” Whatever discipline they designed and threw at us, we resisted. They plugged a leak here, the water slipped through over there. They tried to separate and divide, and it drew us that much closer to each other.

And somehow, when I now look back on those times, I can’t bring myself to be too harsh on anyone involved on either side. Upon occasion, I can still dredge up some mild resentment at a few pious nosy long-bearded busybodies, who made a mission of trying to straighten out other people’s kids. Who stirred up the flames of discontent and disharmony in the community at every opportunity. Who secretly harbored their own dark skeletons in their own hidden closets, secrets later exposed. And who will be dealt with at some point later in my writings. But overall, the years have tempered the rage and frustrations of our youth. And, I hope, softened the deep pain we inflicted on those closest to us at the time.

Although far from perfect, our parents had given up a lot, had uprooted their lives and moved to this little new settlement, in hopes of establishing a community where the youth would be respectful and behave. Not drag in all the bad stuff, the wicked habits practiced in other places. I couldn’t see that then. I can now.

And the six of us, well, we were simply spirited youth. Which doesn’t excuse a lot of the stuff we pulled off. But who can instruct a pack of youth who band together in revolt? At that age, no one. And no one did. We knew instinctively that there was so much more beyond our closed and structured world, so much we could grasp in our hands and feel and taste and absorb.

And we knew, the six of us, that when they were young, our fathers had done the very things they were now denying us. Not that they ever admitted any such thing. But we knew. And they should have known we knew. Don’t do as I did, is what we heard. Do as I say. There was no tolerance for anything less, no attempt to consider our perspective. No respect, no communication, no honesty. And that simply could not work, in the age-old conflict between fathers and sons. Not when the sons have a shred of spirit.

And looking back, not that far from the age my father was at the time, I remember many things. The vast chasm that separated us. I was a hothead, strong-willed, filled with passion and rage and desire. Stubborn. Driven. As was he. I was my father’s son. The harsh, hollow words that echoed in anger and sadness across the great divide. Words spoken but not heard. Words better left unsaid.

And so the battle lines were drawn. The six of us against the world. Or at least our world. Tensions flared and faded and flared again, as confrontation after confrontation surged and subsided. The mental strain escalated to an almost unbearable level.

Until it all reached its inevitable crescendo. On that fateful starless April night, when I got up at 2 AM in the pitch black darkness, left a scribbled note under my pillow, and walked away. All my earthly belongings stuffed in a little black duffel bag. Seventeen years old, bound for a vast new world that would be all I could ever have imagined.

In my eager mind, the great shining vistas of distant horizons gleamed and beckoned. A world that would fulfill the deep yearning, the nebulous shifting dreams of a hungry, driven youth. And it would be mine, all of it, to pluck from the forbidden tree and taste and eat. I could not know that night of the long hard road that stretched into infinity before me. That I was lost. I could not know of the years of turmoil, rage and anguish that eventually would push me to the brink of madness and despair.

And so I walked on through the night. Within a month or so, all five of my buddies would follow. And the shattered little community of Bloomfield would reel and stagger from the bitter blow. From the shocking scandal, the shame and devastation of losing so many of its young sons to the “world.”

My long journey had just begun.
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Congratulations to Rosita Beiler and Ken Martin on their engagement. Rosita is the office manager at Graber, and I have worked closely with her for eight years. The guys at the office like to think they run the place, but they don’t. Rosita does. She is an invaluable asset to the company, and we are all excited for her and Ken. And wish them the best, all the happiness in the world. The wedding is planned for July 18th.

Ken and Rosita

…..till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

—Genesis 3:19
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The text on my phone was short and to the point. From my sister, Rhoda. Three words. Abner Wagler died. Not exactly unexpected news. But still, jolting in its finality. Another one gone, from my father’s rapidly diminishing generation.

Abner was born in 1919 in Daviess County, Indiana, in my father’s family. Two years before my father’s birth.

Uncle Abner and Aunt Katie Wagler lived on a sandy farm two miles west of us in Aylmer, on the same road. With their family of fourteen children. I don’t think all fourteen ever lived home at once. By the time the younger ones were born, the older ones had married and left to establish their own households.

We grew up with their younger children, our first cousins. Went to school with them. Hung out. Played hockey. Got into mischief together.

Abner was an original founder of the Aylmer community. One of the core group. Along with my parents. Pete Yoders. Homer Grabers. Pete Stolls. Among others. Mostly Daviess County stock, they migrated like pilgrims from various points in the States, to establish the community that would be different from all the rest.

He was hard core Amish. Stern, sallow faced, sunken cheeks. He always wore round wire rimmed glasses. Yellow tinted. His large black felt hat, wide brim turned down all around like an upended bowl, covered his rimmed shock of wild unruly hair.

He spoke in a high pitched voice. Occasionally led a song in church. A thin quiet man, not as tall or strong as my father. Frugal, content to work in obscurity on his tidy little farm. He puttered about, raising crops and milking a few cows. His flock of chickens produced eggs that he sold at his stand at the Aylmer Sales Barn every Tuesday. Once, when I stopped by their place with my father, Abner was sitting in the summer kitchen, surrounded by baskets of fresh eggs, painstakingly sizing each egg on a little scale and packing them in bubbled cartons. Regular, large and extra large.

He emphasized quality, took pride in his work. Almost a perfectionist. He didn’t write, like my father. Avoided the limelight. Never got involved in all the glitz and glamour at Pathway Publishers. I’m not sure what he really thought of it. He never expressed an opinion on the matter, at least not publicly.

As a child, I thought him distant. Humorless. Grave. Sour. I didn’t fear him, just didn’t know him that well. I can’t remember many conversations with him, other than passing small talk. After we left Aylmer, I saw him and his wife only sporadically, when they happened to be in our area or we in theirs. And at funerals.

For decades, he was estranged from several of his sons who had chosen to leave the Amish church. He could not speak to them without delivering the harsh strident admonitions he felt were justified. Required, even. His ardor never slackened, and effectively strangled any possibility of meaningful relationships with those certain sons.

Sometime around the late 1980s or the early 1990s, I’m not sure when, he and Katie retired. Attached a sweeping wing to their big farmhouse, a “Dawdy House.” Lived there with their one unmarried daughter, Fannie Mae. As they advanced in years, Fannie Mae faithfully cared for her parents. Katie died about four years ago, leaving Abner and his daughter alone in the Dawdy House. His health declined steadily after his wife’s death.

The clans would now gather for his funeral. From far-flung places all across the land. His sons and daughters. Relatives. Nephews. Nieces. Grandchildren. Friends. From many denominations. Amish. Beachy. Every stripe of Mennonite. And English. Including those of us who had left the Amish church. Connected by a single thread. Our Amish blood and heritage.

It would be safe to attend. Even in Aylmer. Even for those like me. “Safe passage” of sorts. For a short time, by unspoken agreement. To honor and respect a patriarch who had passed on.

I got up early Monday morning. Loaded my bags, fueled Big Blue and left for Steve’s house. He was on board by seven. And we were on our way. We drove north on 11 and 15 into brooding overcast skies. Big Blue hummed along. This was his second long trip. Through northern PA, over into NY. On and on, stopping only for gas and to switch drivers.

We reached Buffalo around 2 o’clock and crossed the border. The stern lady border guard examined our passports, asked a few rote questions, and waved us through. After locating Highway 3, we headed west through the white landscape. Canada was blanketed with snow. Large banks lined the road. We plugged along; Highway 3 meanders maddeningly through every possible small town and village, all clogged with lights. Our progress was frustratingly slow.

Town after little town slipped by. As did precious time. Finally we reached Tillsonburg around four. Getting close. On then into Aylmer, where we found the only motel in town, a dinky drafty little hovel. I booked a room and unloaded my stuff and freshened up a bit. Supper would be served at five. We left then, heading out to the east end of the community, then north on the road bordering the west edge of our old home farm. Drove back west along the main drag to Abner’s farm.

The community was still recognizable. But different. Houses and homesteads had sprouted, willy nilly, where bare fields had been before. Much more populated. Aylmer had expanded greatly since we left thirty-three years ago. We passed the east school. The old school house had been torn down and a new smaller one built. Simon Waglers, the old Sammy Eicher place. David Luthy’s Historical Library, then Elmo’s old farm. The old Sansburn farm. Then the west school house. Pete Yoder’s place. Levi Slaubaugh’s old blacksmith shop had shrunk, it seemed, from how I remembered it. But still there. Abner’s farm was next.

It looked the same. Old gray asbestos siding on the house he had built with his own hands almost fifty years ago. Some pieces hung in tatters, swaying in the wind. Other outbuildings looked a bit raggedy, in a state of sad disrepair. Someone had let the place slide. Old Abner would never have stood for it. His farm was always impeccably tidy, cleaned up, the whitewashed barns gleaming in the sun.

We parked Big Blue beside the road in line with other vehicles. Titus and our sister Rachel had just arrived. With separate drivers. Rachel had accompanied my parents from Florida, where they were staying for a month, all the way to Aylmer. In a little mini van Dad had hired in Sarasota, with a driver. Beachy guy. Fourteen hundred miles. In two days. Exhausting to anyone, let alone an elderly couple. Rachel looked strung out.

With the help of some strong young men loafing about, we wrestled Titus’ wheelchair up the steps into the house. The four of us were then led to a little room with two small windows on the back of the house. Ushered in by several of Abner’s sons and daughters. The coffin, a plain wood box, was set up there. We approached. And there he lay.

About as I’d remembered him, only older, worn, tired. His face settled in death, his long gray beard cleanly combed down to his chest. The round wire rimmed glasses were clear, not tinted yellow like I’d remembered. We stood there with his sons Edwin and Simon and his youngest daughter, Lydia.

They spoke briefly of his last days, how his health had deteriorated. How he’d suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for the last fifteen or so years of his life. Double pneumonia finally assaulted him. And did him in. He died on Friday, January 30, at 6:30 PM. They spoke too, of little snippets of his life, the things he’d done and said. The things he had enjoyed. On this day, it was about him. And their memories of him. We listened respectfully, shifting about in the tiny room. Titus and Ruth’s five year old son Thomas approached the open coffin and stared in fascination at the corpse. His first brush with death.

Dad had arrived earlier that afternoon. Anxious to see his brother, he hobbled hastily to the little room. Somehow he slipped in unnoticed; no one accompanied him as he entered the door. One of my nieces saw him disappear inside and rushed to be with him so he wouldn’t be alone. She found him bent over his brother’s coffin, weeping aloud, calling Abner’s name. Sobbing like a child.

We drifted out then into the living room. Every room in the vast house was crowded with people. Neighbors, Abner’s children and their partners and families. And people like us, from distant places. We waded through and shook hands with everyone. Murmured greetings. Made our way to the table set up in the kitchen of the Dawdy house, where a simple casserole supper was being served. We filled our plates and sat at a small table off to one side of the room. Dad joined us there. On the wall above us, a large chime clock hung silent, its hands stopped at 6:30. The hour Abner had died. It would remain so until after the funeral.

About then Dad’s younger sister Rachel (Mrs. Homer) Graber arrived from Kalona, Iowa. Hobbling on a cane, from a recent leg injury, Aunt Rachel approached Dad from the back; he didn’t see her coming. She sat beside him at the end of the table and spoke his name. He turned and greeted her joyfully. The two of them sat and talked.

And there, before us in that moment, the years seemed to wash from them. And suddenly it became clear to me that they were seeing each other as they did in their childhood years. To each other, they were not two elderly, crippled people. They were brother and sister, a lifetime ago, at home in their parents’ house in Daviess County. Alone, oblivious to the people in the crowded room, they spoke in cracked voices of the fateful thing that had brought them to this place. Their brother’s death. Of their family unit, only they remained. My father and his little sister.

After supper, we drifted among the freundschaft, visiting briefly here and there. I spoke with Abner’s children, my cousins, many of whom I had not seen in years. Our worlds are light years apart, yet in this ancient setting, this traditional wake, we connected again, as we could in no other place. Our clamoring talk was mostly of little things.

Later, after spending some time with siblings at my sister Rosemary’s home, I headed for my motel room. Rachel rode along; she had booked a room as well. The dinky little motel was about what you’d expect. The bed was literally hard as a rock. I finally drifted off into restless slumber. Late.

At eight the next morning, Rachel and I headed out to the funeral. It was cold, with a bitter northwest wind. Titus had just arrived, so Steve and I wheeled him into the house. Every room was filled with wooden backless benches. A space had been reserved for Titus and Ruth close to the front. Steve and Rachel and I were ushered into the little side room where the coffin had been the day before. My brother Nate soon texted me that he’d arrived from his home an hour north, in the Kitchener area. I walked outside to meet him and guide him to the room where we were seated.

Titus and Steve on the morning of the funeral

At nine, the service began. There was no singing. Never is, at an Amish funeral. Just two sermons, then the viewing. A local bishop, John Martin, stood and preached the first sermon. For half an hour or so. It was the first Amish funeral preaching I’d heard in years. After he finished, Roy Miller, the well-known bishop from Shipshewana, IN, rose to preach the main sermon.

I remember Bishop Roy from back in the 1970s. Even back then he was well known. I had not heard him since. Almost immediately he broke into a rolling sing-song chant. His voice was not loud, but carried through the house. Up and down and sideways, twisting and turning, he chanted for almost an hour. Maybe it was my absence of so many years, or maybe it was just me, but I almost could not understand the man. His lulling sing-song rose and fell in hypnotic rhythm. Exhaustion crept in and I hung my head and slept. But somehow his voice penetrated even the depths of my slumber. I understood his words more clearly in my subconscious mind than when awake.

By 10:30, Bishop Roy wound down his chant and took his seat. The preaching was over. Now the long slow process of viewing the body.

Room by room, they filed slowly past the coffin. Families. With children. Parents held up the little ones so they could see the deceased. Then the youth, row upon row. And visitors, like us. All in somber reverence.

The Amish culture does not shrink from death, but faces it squarely for what it is. The end of this life and the beginning of eternity. There are no whispered condolences to the children of how Grandpa now has wings and is flying with the angels. Or that he is now smiling down from the skies. It is a somber heavy thing. And everyone, including the smallest child, views the body in the coffin. Absorbs the fact that death is a part of the journey through life. And will eventually come for us all.

In half an hour or so, everyone had filed through. Then the room was cleared, and Abner’s children and their families took their turns. Each family approached and surrounded the coffin. Unashamedly shed tears. Wept. After a moment, they returned to their seats on the benches by the wall. At last the pallbearers came in, closed the lid, and lifted the coffin. Abner Wagler was leaving his earthly home for the last time.

We mingled with other visitors and talked while the coffin was loaded on a horse-drawn hearse. A long line of buggies joined the procession, ready for the short trip to the grave yard. The hearse then trundled off, followed by the other buggies.

Procession of buggies and Big Blue’s dashboard (sorry)

Approaching the graveyard

Nate and Steve and Rachel joined me in Big Blue and we took our place in the procession of buggies and motor vehicles. The grave yard was close, about half a mile. We parked beside the road and walked in to join the crowd. I huddled in my long heavy winter coat. It was cloudy and bitterly cold. Specks of hard snowflakes swept sideways from the sky.

At the grave yard, the coffin was opened for the final time. Everyone filed by again and then stood off to one side in the crowd. And again, Abner’s children and their families approached, one family at a time, to say their last good byes. Fannie Mae, who for years had cared faithfully for her parents, now stood at the head of the coffin, hovering over her father. As each family approached, she shared their last moments with their father.

As we waited, I visited quietly with Dad. I glanced over to the grave and saw a lonely figure seated there on a wooden chair, close to the open hole, huddled in a blanket against the biting winds. Dad’s sister Rachel. Separated from the crowd, alone beside the grave, waiting for her brothers to come. I asked if he wanted to join her. He nodded and quickly hobbled over with his cane. Stood there silently like a sentinel beside her chair.

David Luthy, who ably filled the role of funeral director, stepped up and closed the coffin lid. For the final time. The pallbearers lifted the coffin and walked the few steps to the grave. The crowd surged and stopped, surrounding them. The coffin was carefully lowered into the earth with straps, then a wooden cover. Two pallbearers then lowered themselves into the grave on top of the cover. Shovels full of dirt were handed down, and they filled the edges around the coffin. The grave was quickly filled. As the top was rounded out, local bishop Peter Stoll delivered a short graveside eulogy, reflecting that Abner Wagler was the last original settler of Aylmer who still lived there. Now he was gone. After silent prayer, we were dismissed. It was over.

We all headed back to the house, where lunch was being served. I sat with my nieces and nephews (Rosemary’s children) and visited with them and my brother Nate. And my cousin and old friend Phil Graber from Florida. So many people, so little time to talk. I didn’t get a chance to meet many old acquaintances who were present. I did shake hands with a few of Aylmer’s leaders, and say hello. All were most gracious.

Shortly after 2 PM, Steve and I walked out and boarded Big Blue and drove off on the snow-swept road. We were among the first to depart, in Aylmer for less than twenty-four hours.

The clans had gathered. The people had come, braving the bitter winter winds and snow, some from far away. For a brief window of time. In solemn honor and respect. Accompanied one of their own to his final resting place. Shared the ancient traditions.

As they had in the past, for others. And will again.

Soon the last stragglers would go their separate ways. Within a day or two, the clans would be dispersed. And scattered to the winds.

Until the next time.