A North Philly perspective on Lancaster
From Cecil B. to Lehigh, posted April 20.
During one of my visits to see Michelle, she asked me where I was from. I told her Lancaster, a county about an hour’s drive west of Philadelphia.
Michelle said she had been there when she was younger. I asked her where in Lancaster she went, and she said it was an amusement park, with rides for children, but that she couldn’t remember the name.
There are only two real amusement parks in Lancaster. One is Hershey Park, and I thought she would know the name of that. The other is Dutch Wonderland, a child-friendly park in the middle of the tourist area of Lancaster. I asked if that was the one she had been to, and she recognized the name.
A little background: I have been to Dutch Wonderland several times, mostly as a child. For pre-teens and children, it’s quite a thrill. It’s lack of character and non-existent Lancaster connection make it grow old pretty fast, though (A common snarky observation in Lancaster is that Dutch Wonderland is neither Dutch nor a Wonderland).
Michelle mentioned that she had been to some of the many Amish tourist attractions while in Lancaster. I told her that I had grown up Amish. At first, she didn’t really react to it. But then she opened up and told me I reminded her of Amish people a little bit when we first met.
I think it was the dark dress pants and shoes and black peacoat I wore the first few times (I was usually coming from an internship).
Michelle seemed interested in the Amish, but in a somewhat limited way, like she wasn’t quite sure how to talk about them. I wasn’t surprised, since I’d be surprised if many of my Amish relatives could talk about Michelle or her environment with much lucidity.
Still, she said Lancaster seemed nice.
It struck me afterward that for most people in the world, there isn’t really a language to talk about things happening in places not like their own. I don’t mean language as in an actual language, but a way of talking about things. How do the Amish fit in to Michelle’s worldview, and her neighbors’ worldview? How does a woman who wants her daughter to get into a school with a focus on computers and computer skills talk about a people who believe that technology removes them from God, and should be avoided if one wants to live a good life? Are they holy? Self-sacrificing? Stupid?
Along the same lines, I’ve wondered what Michelle thinks of me as a person. I am well on my way of becoming part of the establishment, more than I have been before, and not really worried about that. Does she think I can understand what her life is like? Does she care?
