Which way de Amish?
Here's a shocker: the Washington Post reports that Heat Surge "Roll 'n Glow" space heaters aren't really made by Amish people, as the Ohio company's newspaper ads imply. Yes, all those bearded, straw hat-wearing men in the ads are really non-Amish placing cheap Chinese space heaters in expensive wooden mountings.
Just about anyone who lives in central Pennsylvania, aka, Amish central, laughs at the idea of "Amish" being a mark of quality. I have nothing against the Amish, but they do run a lot of puppy mills, and their fat-and-calorie rich food leaves much to be desired. I'll buy Amish furniture, maybe, on a cold day in hell. But to the outside world, Amish inexplicably means quality, and sales of the "Roll 'n Glow" heaters are booming. No one ever seems to ask why a religious sect that eschews electricity and powers their tools with windmills, steam engines, and horses would sell electric space heaters.
Newspapers didn't used to take ads like these, but with the precipitous decline of the industry, just about any joker with cash can get his ad in print, and it will go right up next to the sooper-dooper hearing aid and patent medicine ads.
Oh, and the headline on this post refers to a story told me by a Franklin and Marshall College graduate years ago. Seems he was strolling through downtown Lancaster and minding his own business when a big car with New York plates rolls up. The window rolls down and the driver called out, hey, boy, which way de Amish?
Which way, indeed?