a little and groups where it seems like no one’s ever sober. They’re toasting everything except their next confession. It’s up to the individual to choose.
Still, most kids do what I did. They start out with a youth group close to home, a group that their friends are part of. That’s who they know so that’s where they go. This is one of the first big decisions an Amish teenager gets to make. Officially, it’s your choice, but choice is not something Amish kids have a lot of experience with. You didn’t get to pick your church or its many, many rules. In school, there weren’t any electives to choose from. You certainly didn’t pick howto dress or which chores to do. Your parents made all those choices, under the strong influence of the church and the local bishop. So even if it’s only “I’m going where Ruben and Isaac are going,” for the first time ever, well, at least those words came out of your mouth.
I started out with a horse-and-buggy group in Lebanon County. They were so plain, they didn’t even really have a name. Some of the other groups had names, like the Crickets, the Lightning and the Renegades. Also the Hurricanes, the Seahawks and—these weren’t quite as wild sounding—the Swans and the Antiques. I also heard about some car-driving groups that called themselves the Avalanches, the Dominoes, the Checkers and—these sounded almost like real gangs—the Cougars and the Sharks.
The youth group I chose was just known as the Lebanon youth group. They had a couple of cars that they didn’t use too often, and that was about it. They didn’t go many places, and when they did, someone had a set of reins in his hands. Most of the kids in my Lebanon group didn’t have haircuts, either. They do now, but they didn’t back then. They didn’t drink much. That might have made us popular with the parents, but it didn’t make these kids very much fun to hang out with. After years of imagining the blowout I’d have when I finally turned sixteen, I probably came off as a little bit of a rebel, or at least impatient. I was one of the only kids who had a haircut and left his hat at home.
No one in the community had any reason to whisper about what went on with the Lebanon youth group. We got together on Sundays around four or five in the afternoon. We played volleyball and some other games, then we had a meal together, then everyone sang some Christian hymns, then we all went home.
Really, that was it.
As far as I was concerned, Rumspringa was starting out as a huge disappointment. I could have stayed at home and done most of that. The only difference I could see was that of all the boring things we were doing, some boring girls were doing them with us. During the week, I did my usual farm work. Every other Sunday, I went to church in the morning. This was my big excitement? After all the tales I’d heard from older kids, this wasn’t my idea of Rumspringa at all. As far as I was concerned, I hadn’t been waiting sixteen years for this .Andthe girls barely even talked to me. They just talked to one another.
I knew I had to find another group to Rumspringa with.
I still had a few friends from Lancaster County, kids who’d been there when I was a baby and some I knew through my brothers Christian and Henry, who’d never liked Lebanon County and went back to live with my Lancaster uncles as soon as they possibly could. If you live in a big city, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, may not sound like a major metropolis. But compared to Lebanon County, believe me, it was Rome, Paris and New York rolled into one. Lancaster is the biggest area anywhere for the Amish community, especially Amish youth. All the other counties are smaller. When I was seventeen, I told the Lebanon group good-bye and switched to a youth group in Lancaster County.
That was more like it. Finally, the only times I was expected to wear a hat were when I went to church and to funerals.
M y new gang was called the Souvenirs.