We're all crazy Mennonites

Tonight I went to Barnes & Noble to pick up a book for my dad about Wenger Mennonites that he wants to read. It’s written by none other than Don Kraybill, super-famous Amish expert and bigwig at Etown College. He was going to be at a book-signing at the B&N beginning at 6:30.

(Sidenote: Wenger Mennonites are a lot like Amish in that they don’t drive cars. They do, however, have electricity and ride bicycles. They’re named for their bishop, Joe Wenger, who split from the Old Order Mennonites (who do drive cars—they split over this issue) in the 1920s).

When I walked into the store, Don Kraybill was sitting at a table inside the front door, signing cards, because he had completely run out of books. They were completely gone, and this was only a little after 7:00. People were stopping to talk to him, Mennonites were wandering around the store.

Across the aisle, facing him, as though they were boxers in a ring, was another author who’d been invited to sign books tonight. His books, entitled “How to Make Money in the Upcoming Real Estate Crash” were sitting stacks high on his table, and no one was engaging him in conversation.

This says something about the kind of county I live in.

As does the fact that on my way out of B&N, I saw my dad’s first cousin and his two kids (my second cousins). And it says something about the kind of person that I am that I didn’t stop to talk to them. Because I didn’t feel like making small talk, and I had been reading a book and it had made me cry, and I didn’t know how my face looked after that. So I just kept on walking.

But I like that I can see some second cousins at the Barnes & Noble on a Friday night.

Oh, and Don Kraybill is an uncle-by-marriage to this relative that I saw tonight. Really, life in this county is one big incestuous tangle. But I kind of like it.