“Laughter is brightest, in the place where the food is.”

—Irish proverb
_______________________________________

The message was waiting on my answering machine last Friday when I got home from the gym. From the Amish housewife, the one who gave me that cherry pie a few weeks ago. She had a deal in mind.

Her family was having their annual Christmas gathering the next day. Their married kids were coming home for the feast. Roasht, with all the fixings. Plus lots of other food, seasonal goodies. If I brought them a hard copy of my latest blog, they would trade it for food.

Who could refuse an offer like that? Sounded like a great deal to me. Will trade blog for food. Maybe I can expand the concept, at least locally to Amish people who don’t have access to a computer.

Amish Roasht (pronounced “Roo-usht”) reigns among my favorite dishes. I didn’t grow up with it. It’s pretty much exclusively a Lancaster County concoction. Like most Amish cooking, it’s pretty simple. Not particularly good for you. But, ah, is it ever tasty.

It’s a mixture of bread, stuffing, chunks of chicken, other tasty ingredients I can’t identify, and topped with dark gravy. Baked and browned to perfection, served at all Amish weddings. Lancaster weddings, that is. In most communities, the bride and groom get to choose their menu. Ham, beef, steak, whatever. Even hot dogs. Not in blue-blooded Lancaster. The meal is traditional, set in stone. Roasht, mashed potatoes, corn, creamed celery. Laden tables of it. With my admittedly unsophisticated palate, I couldn’t imagine getting tired of such fare. But if one had a number of weddings to attend in a short time, it might be possible.

I don’t get invited to many weddings here in Lancaster, so Roasht is a rare treat for me. I usually have to beg the guys at work to skim some from the weddings they attend, which they are extremely hesitant to do. So I promptly called my friends and left a message. I wouldn’t be able to come around until Saturday night, but I would be there, blog in hand. Have my Roasht ready.

Saturday was a busy, extremely eventful day and I didn’t get home until 6:30. After printing the blog, I sallied forth with it to collect my food. Drove the several miles to my friends’ place and pulled in the drive and parked. Through the windows, I saw a circle of stragglers, snacking and visiting after a long day of feasting. The family greeted me cheerfully and the good housewife promptly and loudly introduced me as David Wagler’s son, Ira. Or, as they say my name in Lancaster, “Iar.” No one seemed even slightly impressed. Guess they’d never heard of Dad. Or me. Which was fine.

I sat on a chair at the edge of the circle and chomped on snacks the good housewife pressed on me and joined in the conversation. Everyone was having a boisterous time, swapping old Amish jokes, and stories from the past. One young man launched into a hilarious tale, which he claimed happened right here in Lancaster County. Although I found it extremely funny, I can’t tell you how very dubious I am about the veracity of the tale. Even so, it’s worth repeating.

I didn’t take notes, but near as I can recall, the details are loosely as follows. Please keep in mind that I cannot vouch for the truth of even a single detail.

During all Amish church services, the preachers go into conference, or “Obrote” for about an hour as the service starts. Usually in a side room or upstairs. Most often upstairs. The congregation sings until they return, and proceed with their officiating duties.

One Sunday, in a particular district in Lancaster County (my hosts stubbornly persisted in claiming), the preachers finished up their conference in the Obrote. Decided who would preach, who would read scripture, and so forth. Led by the Bishop, they somberly filed out of the room and approached the stairs to return to the congregation. The Bishop clumped down, looking grave as Bishops are wont to do, followed by four preachers and a deacon, the deacon bringing up the rear.

I don’t know anything about this particular deacon. Perhaps he hadn’t slept well the night before, or perhaps he hadn’t drunk enough coffee that morning, or maybe too much. Maybe he had other things on his mind. Maybe this happened down at the southern end, and he was barefoot, like they do down there. Most likely, though, he just wasn’t paying attention.

In single file, four preachers and the Bishop walked down the stairs in front of him. Sadly, as he stepped down on the top step of the stairs, the deacon stumbled. Flailing wildly for the hand rail, he lurched forward and bumped solidly into the preacher in front of him, two steps below. “Ach, my,” the preacher cried out in warning. But it was too late. He instantly lost his balance and fell forward onto the preacher in front of him, two steps below that. That preacher fell onto the preacher in front of him, two steps down. The last two preachers, alerted by the commotion, instinctively grabbed the hand rail and hung on. Although they momentarily stemmed the flood, it quickly over-whelmed them as well. Down they tumbled, all the way down to the elderly Bishop, who was just reaching for the door knob to open the stairwell door that separated them from the congregation.

The people below, of course, were lustily roaring some slow church tune, perhaps the Lob Song. The house swelled and echoed with their singing. Despite the great noise of their joyful roaring, they suddenly heard a series of sharp bumps and crashes from the stairwell. The clatter increased, distracting the song leader, who was in the middle of a particularly drawn out lead. He faltered and lost his concentration, and promptly got stuck. All the men rushed in to help him get back on track. Their off-key assistance made an awful racket.

The fearful rumbling from the stairwell increased dramatically, like an onrushing tornado. And just then the stairwell door was violently flung open by an unseen force. Before the horrified congregation, their esteemed Bishop shot out as if propelled by a cannon and crumpled to the floor. Instantly followed by the four preachers, who popped out one by one like dominoes, landing around and on top of the unfortunate Bishop. Last of all, the deacon tumbled out, coming to rest at the best possible spot, perched on top of the pile.

All decorum was lost. Whoosh, right out the window, just like that.

The song leader, greatly distracted, lost all composure and gave up any pretense of trying to lead, his voice faltering to a forlorn squeak. The song sputtered to a halt. Everyone gaped at the incredible scene. Several nearby men roused themselves from temporary paralysis and jumped up from their benches and rushed toward the pile of men.

But lo, the pile struggled; arms and legs flailed about and began to untangle them- selves. Muffled exclamations were heard. The deacon rolled off his lofty perch at the top and, in an entirely reflexive reaction, vigorously slapped at his legs to dust off his pants. One by one the preachers unwound themselves and staggered to their feet. Lastly, even the Bishop rose unsteadily to his feet with some assistance from the preachers.

No one was seriously injured. Miraculously.

The song leader cleared his throat. This was his moment. Heroically, he rose to the occasion and restarted the song. Relieved, everyone joined in, and roared lustily again. Led by the now gingerly hobbling Bishop, the preachers regrouped and filed slowly forward to their seats with as much dignity as could be mustered under such calamitous circumstances. The very embarrassed deacon brought up the rear, stepping carefully so as not to stumble again. They all sat down and recomposed themselves to normal austere settings.

The remainder of the service unfolded uneventfully, although no one remembers any details of the sermons.

And that’s the tale. Except for a few mildly embellished details (well, maybe more than a few and perhaps more than mildly embellished), exactly how it was told to me. Along with repeated assurances that the event actually occurred. I don’t know. Seems the stuff of legend, too wild to be true.

But I just write what I hear. Somebody’s got to record this stuff. For the future, and all.

It was time to get back home and watch some football. I gathered my container of Roasht and a pack of cookies, profusely thanked my hosts, and headed for the door. Without question, I got the best of the deal. One blog in exchange for some great material for another, plus a goodly portion of home-cooked food. The Roasht was delicious, and provided two substantive meals.
______________________________________________

On to some facts I can verify. Anne Marie returned home to her family Monday morning. She zips about the house, energetic and active as ever. Wearing a brightly colored little hat to cover her surgery scars. One would never know she had brain surgery last Friday. Her parents arrived from Canada last weekend and plan to stay for a month. I stopped by for supper Wednesday night. Everyone was all hyper about Christmas.

Paul and Anne Marie asked me to thank everyone who sent them cards, letters and gifts. I had not asked permission to post the request, so they were a bit surprised. And very grateful and humbled, to hear from so many people they didn’t even know. And some they did know. Once the official test results return, usually in three to four weeks, they will make the decisions on what treatments to take this time. It’s looking like they may be able to get in at Johns Hopkins for some advice. Thanks to Ellen Wagler for her tireless assistance on this front.

Well, Christmas is almost here. Grinchy as ever, the spirit of the season eludes me as usual. This year, I have one person to shop for, myself. OK, maybe a few family members, too. I always head to the mall on Christmas Eve to walk about, looking for last minute impulse items. It’s always fun, the mall almost spooky in its emptiness.

Weather permitting, my brother Nate and I may head to Kentucky the day after Christmas to see our parents. Which may present some challenges for me to post on schedule, what with them having no electricity and all. Not to mention internet access. I’ll play it by ear and see what happens.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, OOPS, I MEANT TO SAY, “BAH, HUMBUG.”

“…they are just grown-up kids who have learned
on the frozen creek or flooded corner lot that
hockey is the greatest thrill of all.”

—Lester Patrick
_______________________________________

I don’t remember exactly when and how it started. Near as I can recall, my brothers and I were the founders of the hockey tradition in Aylmer. Which flared up under-ground and blazed briefly for a few short years in the early 1970s. And did not long survive our departure.

I don’t know which came first. Playing the game, then discovering the National Hockey League (NHL), or following the NHL through the newspapers George the Mailman gave us, then learning the game from that. Like the chicken or the egg. Which came first?

Whatever. We learned to skate when very young, on the two acre pond a few hundred yards east of the house, across from the little dry creek that ran through our barnyard. I was six years old when skates were unceremoniously strapped to my feet. I swayed and stumbled and skidded and fell on the ice a hundred times before finding my skating legs.

We learned with hockey skates, of course. Figure skates were for sissies. Everyone knew that. We scorned anyone who used them.

We played a rough form of primitive hockey. As the littlest boy, I had to tend the goal. Be the goalie. I was drafted by my older brothers. Didn’t have a choice. They placed me between the two boots that served as nets on our rink. Which wasn’t really a rink, just two solid acres of slick windswept ice.

It was cold. My brothers milled about and whacked a little black disc at me. It was very hard. Called a puck. I was supposed to stop it. Keep it from going between the two boots, which kept sliding around on the ice. I waved my little homemade goalie stick at the puck, and stopped it sometimes.

But it was fun. Even in the cold. Which wasn’t so bad, once you got used to it. We skated as often as we could. In the ensuing years we got better at hockey. Skilled, even. We used old two-by-fours scrounged from somewhere when our father wasn’t looking and made our first rink one winter. Thirty feet or so wide. Sixty or seventy feet long. We nailed a few boards together for the goals. No nets, but better than the boots.

We got better. Invited some of our neighborhood friends over sometimes to play with us. Became quite skilled skaters. Professionally sharpened our skates at the Canadian Tire store in Aylmer. Got real hockey sticks. No one taught us the game. We learned on our own.

We followed the NHL religiously. George the Mailman saw to it that we got a newspaper almost every day from the extras he carried in his car. The St. Thomas Times-Journal. We chose our favorite teams. Checked each day to see how they were doing in the standings. Craftily, of course, as Dad had a maddening tendency to pilfer and destroy the Sports section before we could get to it.

I chose the New York Rangers as my team. No particular reason. New York sounded like a fine name. A fine town. I idolized their players. Titus chose the Chicago Black Hawks. Steve the Toronto Maple Leafs. Three boys. Three teams. Plenty to debate and discuss. And boy, did we ever.

Those were the glory days of the NHL. When they had real men, who didn’t wear helmets, and goalies who were just developing protective face masks. Classic guys. Gordie Howe. Bobby Hull. Bobby Orr. Gerry Cheevers. Dave Keon. Brad Park. The Esposito brothers, Tony and Phil. Ed Giocomin of the Rangers, my goalie hero.

About then we got serious about playing on our homemade rink. We built real nets for the goals, using burlap sacks for the netting. A huge improvement, but the puck had an annoying habit of slipping through the seams, causing many heated arguments as to whether or not the shooter had scored. We bought hockey gloves. Shin pads. Elbow pads.

I developed as the primary goalie in the community. Had quite a reputation. I bought a glove and blocker, and a wire face mask. And shoulder pads. But I could afford only the regular shin guards, not the thick goalie pads I needed. The shin guards were thin, but better than nothing, which was what I had before. During winter months, my shins were always speckled with pulpy little soft purple blotches, from blocking slapshots with my legs. I wore the bruises proudly, as wounds of battle.

We developed strategies too. Instead of a tight knot of players swarming after the puck like a herd of thundering elephants, we created our own lines. Forward, Center, Defense. Stick handling, passing. I cannot stress enough that all this was learned with no encouragement, no coaching, and no real knowledge of the game, other than what we read, and the pictures we saw.

On our rare trips to town, we splurged on forbidden contraband. At Steen’s Cigar Store on the east end, we perused and purchased glossy hockey magazines. Snuck them home and into the house and hid them in our bedrooms, under the mattress. Devoured them cover to cover.

Somewhere about this time, my brother Steve got his first radio. He kept it hidden in the barn and started listening to the professional hockey games. From that, he learned some basic strategies.

He was by far the best player. The best Aylmer ever had. Which isn’t saying a lot, but it’s something. He could score about anytime he got a mind to. Always irritated me that I couldn’t stop him at the net. But I kept trying. Sometimes, to his surprise, and every-one else’s amazement, I made the save. Stopped his breakaway cold.

During the last two winters we lived there, 1974 and 1975, ice hockey in Aylmer reached its apex. Steve and Titus were young adults. I was a teenager. Our cousins, uncle Abner’s boys, and the Miller boys, David and Raymond, made up our little group of tough seasoned players. Sometimes Junior Eicher joined us. But not usually.

Usually the pond froze over by mid November. Not hard enough to skate on, but enough to shoot a puck across. And that’s what we did, after chores, before breakfast, one of us on each side of the pond, shooting the puck back and forth. Waiting eagerly for the deep freeze to come, so we could skate and play.

By December the ice was thick enough. We played about twice a week, always at our pond, because we made the best rink. Sometimes they planned the week night games on Sundays, sometimes furtive messages were passed along through school. Every-thing was informal. Under the radar. No sense in unduly alarming the church fathers, who frowned on all sporting events. Waste of time, they felt. So it was never an official youth gathering, just a few neighborhood boys getting together.

Around 7:30 or 8:00 of an evening they pulled in with their buggies, the Millers and our Wagler cousins. Got out in the crunching snow, put their horses in our barn. We all piled out to the pond, lugging our gear, skates and Coleman mantle lanterns. Each side of the rink was lined with four buckets placed upside down on the snow. We lit the lanterns and placed them on the buckets.

Our rinks were fine works of art, compared to our earlier primitive ones. Two-by-sixes lined both sides. Behind the net, and it was a real net, still homemade with wood frames, but with real chicken wire, we placed a four foot high backboard to stop flying pucks.

Without further ado, we chose sides, usually four or five players per team, and took to the ice. Those are some of my fondest sports memories. Loaded with my goalie gear, I huddled in my net, my private little kingdom, a force to be reckoned with. Every nerve alert. You scored on me, you accomplished something.

We tried to emulate the big leagues. Three timed periods of ten or fifteen minutes to a game. My little sister Rhoda served as timekeeper and also dropped the puck at face-offs.

Great shouts then, as the game began. Bodies flying here and there, as the lines surged back and forth across the ice. Checking, pushing, shoving, shouts, cheers. Clashing of sticks, the scuffing of skates on the snow-specked ice. The solid thunk of men and skates and sticks and puck hammering against the boards. The adrenalin of blocking shot after shot, breakaway after breakaway. The sinking feeling when the puck whipped past me into the net.

Sometimes tempers flared in the heat of battle. But we never allowed open fighting, and it never happened. Besides, the guy you fought might be your team mate next week. So we kept it cool. We had no refs, but policed ourselves.

Usually, at least once a night, somebody crashed into a lantern, knocking it onto the ice with a splintering sound as the glass globe shattered to smithereens. Time was called, the remaining lanterns on that side spaced evenly, then play resumed, as heated as before.

Sometimes the full moon hung white in the skies, and it was bitterly cold. The North-west winds swept over the ice and the crusted snow. Young, and full of boundless vigor, chilled to the bones, our toes turning blue and numb in our skates, still we played. And played and played.

On and on, until ten o’clock or so. Sweating, cold but exhilarated, we unlaced our skates and headed to the house for hot chocolate and cookies and conversation before everyone headed home. Until the next game.

Sadly, there are no photos. These events survive only in the memories of those who lived them.

By the winter of 1976, we moved to Bloomfield, Iowa, and the Aylmer hockey legends soon passed into oblivion. My brothers and I were the driving force, and the game simply could not survive without us.

We took it with us, though. Bloomfield was a land of opportunity. To teach a whole new crop of neophytes the joys of the game. We did just that. The Bloomfield youth took to it like ducks to water. We played fast and furious for a few good years. To the chagrin of more than one Bloomfield preacher. Something about the speed and violence of the game simply does not appeal to staid old Amish gray bearded leaders.

But the Bloomfield games never quite stacked up to the old Aylmer standards. Or maybe I just hated change. The old classics always remain the sweetest in memory.

The last time I visited Aylmer, in the late 1990s, I stopped by the old home place. Walked the haunts of my childhood. Naturally, everything had changed. Including the old pond.

It’s barely recognizable. The current occupants, for reasons known only to themselves, reshaped the pond. With bulldozers. It’s about half as big as it was back then. Even the two old tree stumps that protruded from the waters are gone. No remnants remain, no water-logged boards from our old rinks, no splinters from our wood-framed nets, no bits of chicken wire. But if one dug around in the muddy banks, I’d bet you’d find an old puck or two.

I haven’t played in decades. Haven’t skated in years. But if I had a time machine, I would return. Back to those Aylmer glory days. For one last game.
______________________________________________________

It’s been kind of a bummer week. Haven’t slept well. Partly because of my friends, Paul and Anne Marie and what they’re facing. Partly because of other issues. The weather hasn’t helped. Cold drizzly rain the last two 2-1/2 days. It’s enough to depress a guy.

I stopped at Paul and Anne Marie’s last night after the gym. They fed me as usual. A few other close friends were there as well. We sat around and ate and talked and laughed, in the face of the looming specter of her surgery.

Her surgery was this morning at 11 o’clock. On shedule and everything went quite well. I spoke with Paul at 4 this afternoon. She was recuperating in ICU, still groggy. Paul said the tumor was almost exactly the same size and place as last time. Anne Marie will be allowed to go home as soon as she leaves the ICU, hopefully as soon as this Sunday.