Flying the Coop: Leaving Mennonite Land (guest post)
In the movie based on Beverly Lewis’ best-selling romance novel The Shunning, pretty Katie Lapp senses something is missing in her simple Amish life. Then a fancy woman comes to Lancaster County looking for the baby girl she gave up for adoption nearly 20 years...
2 Easter Vignettes: Sacred and Sentimental
* Poem for Easter - British poet George Herbert loved to explore the soul's inner architecture. He often wrote poems with shapes representing a theme, the resurrection in this case. The poetic lines, "increasing and decreasing to imitate flight," also mimic the...
Easter at Grandpa Martin’s Farm: Freshest Eggs Ever
Easter eggs on the farm? Why sure – Fresh eggs from Aunt Sue’s chicken pen, popped into her kettle of water brought to a boil in the kitchen. And then in short order, eggs cooling on the counter soon ready for us to paint. With paint wands made of little wisps of...
Amish Buggies: They Come in Colors
When I bring 5-pound bags of Wenger’s famous ham-loaf frozen from Pennsylvania to Florida, the plastic-coated tubs of meat are wrapped in newspaper and then shrink-wrapped in plastic. The wrapping on one of the packages revealed answers to the intriguing question: Who...
Just for Fun: Signs Around Town
Signs . . . they're everywhere . . . billboards in the city, stickers on cars, comments on Facebook. I found some wise ones in a novelty shop, on a car, on a piece of paper, on a writer's sweat shirt. Some you've seen before. Others, I hope, are new. Silly video at...
Sometimes Opportunity Knocks, and Sometimes it Knocks You Over
Author and blog friend, Merril Smith writes about what happens when opportunity knocks: Be prepared for romance, inspiration, and an introduction to the Dabba Wallahs!
Purple Passages with a Fish & a Kiss
Purple Passages with a Fish & a Kiss, March 2014 Edition Winter Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. Willa Cather, My Antonia If winter comes, can spring be far behind? Percy Bysshe Shelley “Ode to...
A Year of Biblical Womanhood: Rachel Held Evans’ Secrets Divulged
This evening my alma mater, Eastern Mennonite University, is hosting author Rachel Held Evans, one of the foremost thinkers and writers in evangelical circles today who has appeared on Oprah and The View and spotlighted by NPR, the BBC and The Washington Post. Her...
Behind the Scenes @ “Plain and Fancy Girl”
Writing a blog post is magical--right? Words appear in the right order and photos sift down from above and settle into a nifty niche between paragraphs. Well, sort of . . . When I created the post Mennonites, Ventrlloquists, and Memoir, 3 things happened in...
It’s Not Easy Being Green
This post first appeared March 15, 2013 now published again to celebrate the wearing of the green! It's a long way from Lancaster county, PA to Jacksonville, FL, but years ago our family moved into a neighborhood called Killarney Shores with street names like...
10 Ways My Grandma & I are Alike (or Unlike)
10 ways I’m like (or unlike) my Grandma Longenecker 1. She started fancy and turned plain. I reversed the cycle, plain to fancy. 2. She always wore black laced-up shoes with heels to do housework. For me, it’s tennis shoes in winter and sandals in the summer. No...
Story of Hope: A Killer’s Wife Speaks
When I bring 5-pound bags of Wenger's famous ham-loaf frozen from Pennsylvania to Florida, the plastic-coated tubs of meat are wrapped in newspaper and then shrink-wrapped in plastic. The wrapping on one of the packages (we need two to feed the clan now!) revealed the...
Blurry Images: The Mothering Instinct
Looking at indistinct footage from 16 millimeter home movies of the 1950s has invited me to examine from a distance the much younger, and in many ways different, version of myself. Not surprisingly, I appear in the "mothering" mode in many of the shots. I have always...
What is Your Most Beloved Book?
There are several childhood books in my library that are in the I'll-never-part-with category, except maybe to pass on to grand-children. One of them is Come to Storyland with pages missing and others as brittle as autumn leaves. Here is blogger friend and author...
Mennonites, Ventriloquists, and Memoir
The wild, permissive Rentzels with a red porch light live next door to our family, the Mennonite Longeneckers, one of several plain families that live on Anchor Road. In their parlor, the Rentzel's old Emerson black & white TV has introduced me to the wonders of...
Dear Heart: My Driver’s License Speaks
Tucked under the signature of my Florida driver’s license are two words in blood-red that indicate that I am an organ donor. This means that if I were in a fatal crash, my kidneys, liver, lungs, corneas—even my heart could be harvested for transplantation. Harvested...
The Red Hat Society: A Different Chapter
Red hats, purple dresses, feather boas -- all signatures of the Red Hat Society. There is even a Queen Mother, Sue Ellen Cooper of Orange County, California, who founded the Society in 1998 after she hosted a fancy tea party for ladies decked out in purple and red....
Moments of Extreme Emotion: Flunking
Yes, I have flunked my driver’s test—again. Is it the bullet-nosed, grey Studebaker I am learning to drive on, or is it just me? Anyway, the patrolman’s decision is final. I cannot drive alone. At least not yet. I have practiced driving with eight people stuffed into...