So, even the "plain people" can be seduced away from tradition and lured to the Good Life:
The great increase in discretionary income spawned a "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality," says Mervin Lehman, 39, an Amish father of four who says he was making more than $50-an-hour and working up to 60 hours a week as an RV plant supervisor before he was laid off in November.
Some Amish bishops in Indiana weakened restrictions on the use of telephones. Fax machines became commonplace in Amish-owned businesses. Web sites marketing Amish furniture began to crop up. Although the sites were run by non-Amish third parties, they nevertheless intensified a feeling of competition, says Casper Hochstetler, a 70-year-old Amish bishop who lives in Shipshewana.
"People wanted bigger weddings, newer carriages," Mr. Lehman says. "They were buying things they didn't need." Mr. Lehman spent several hundred dollars on a model-train and truck hobby, and about $4,000 on annual family vacations, he says. This year, there will be no vacation.
It became common practice for families to leave their carriages home and take taxis on shopping trips and to dinners out.
Some Amish families had bought second homes on the west coast of Florida and expensive Dutch Harness Horses, with their distinctive, prancing gait. Others lined their carriages in dark velvet and illuminated them with battery-powered LED lighting.
I'd never want to live like the Amish, and even they have found ways to cheat a little and occasionally experience the mainstream culture they otherwise disdain, so I don't know why I find this story so depressing. Maybe because they at least have tried to go their own way and keep something of their traditions and then found money just as tempting as everybody else does.
At least some of them seem to have learned from the experience and have something to fall back on:
In Indiana, a back-to-basics movement appears to be taking root. More patches of produce have sprouted behind Amish homes this summer. Restaurants are entertaining fewer Amish customers. Mr. Lehman says neighbors "are more considerate of each other now."
Wow, Amish going back to the basics, even growing their own food. I'm not depressed anymore -- that may be the funniest thing I've read all week.
