Rollerblading Amish



What? The Amish are into rollerblading? It's news to me, but here's a 1996 New York Times article attesting to this cultural quirk:

''It's faster than a horse, and it's fun,'' said Mr. Herschberger, 20, who skates the 25 miles in two hours, almost twice as fast as an Amish buggy. ''You just feel free.''

Mr. Herschberger has abundant company on the roads of southeastern Pennsylvania. In the last few years, hundreds of Amish, most of them young, have taken up in-line skating to run errands, play hockey or just zigzag for pleasure.

Among the 150,000 or so Old Order Amish, who live in 230 settlements in 22 states and Canada, in-line skating is justified as an efficient, sensible means of locomotion, another example of how the modern can square with the traditional.


Article Link and Pictures via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Visboo

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So do the Amish pith their young, or is it all self delusional brain washing?

I take it you have never heard of Rumspringa At 16 They are required to experiment and explore with the " Real World" They throw massive parties where kids come for 100's of miles , Drive , smoke, get cell phones, drink, and only come back to the community if they want too.

As for why they don't get roller skates the in lines just work better on the types of roads they have
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Seems a little hypocritical, since there's plastic in a pair of roller blades, not to mention all of the factory work that goes into it. It would be more sensible for them to use roller skates (and easier to make according to their principles).
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they dont want to use electricity but I have seen many of them riding the bus and if they are buying roller blades (because I'm sure they can't fashion them out of wood), where do they think the blades come from? A factory that uses electricity. I live really close to the Amish and some Mennonites, they are all pretty much hypocritical from what I have experienced. They talk about how technology is damning yet they have stores with electrical lighting and are constantly using technologies. Yea, roller blades don't seem advanced by our standards but they cannot change the rules just because the times around them are changing.
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