Staying Local — Roots + Wings

By Rory Feek, Plain Values

I once made a trip north to Amish country in Ohio to visit and spend time with Marlin and his team at the Plain Values home office. In the few days that I was there, I returned home with some unexpected personal insights that I thought I might share in the next column or two. The first one has to do with automobiles, or actually maybe the lack of automobiles in the world of the Amish, and also recently in mine.

On our last evening in Ohio, Joel Salatin invited me to come to an event he was speaking at in Middlefield, where a few hundred Amish folks from the community would be gathering to listen to and learn more about ‘being self-sustainable in challenging times.’ I thought this was an unusual talk considering how self-sustainable the Amish are. So, I was excited to go check it out.

The sun was setting, and snow was falling as we neared the event center where Joel was to speak. The highways were filled with hundreds of cars and trucks coming and going, as the snow fell harder and the visibility on the roads decreased. The travelers were all safe and snug in vehicles that made it possible to feel like it’s summertime, as they made their way through the frigid weather.

But here and there, we kept seeing fainter lights, moving much slower through the snow falling on the roads. Silhouetted horses and black buggies filled with Amish men and women were making their way to the event just like us. When we arrived, there were dozens of buggies lined up in a row in the parking lot.

Joel’s talk was wonderful, and everything he shared was well received by the hundreds of Amish folks who left their coats and hats piled on tables by the door and filled every seat in the room. I was honored to hear Joel speak and get to meet some wonderful Plain people who came up to me and said they’d been reading this column and even some of the books I’ve written.

When the event was over, the snow was falling even harder. As we made our way to our warmed-up rental car, dozens of Amish men were holding lanterns, scraping snow off their buggies, and hitching up their horses for the cold ride home. I thought about all the women in their dresses and the small children who would be making the chilly ride too.

The next morning on our way back to Tennessee, I found myself thinking about the cars that had filled the icy roads and the stark contrast between them and the horses and buggies, and why I felt such deep respect for the latter, even though logically it makes no sense to travel in such a difficult way when there are such easier options available. And yet, it strangely felt like their choice was better. But why?

Who would do that? I mean, who would purposely choose a slower, harder way of traveling over something faster and much easier… beside the Amish, that is? But then it occurred to me that, well, I would. And actually, I realized that, in some ways, I already have.

Now, I have been financially blessed to own and drive some nice cars and trucks over the last decade or two, but in the last year, I sold all of them. All except one that is.

First went the family Suburban last summer. With children, full-size SUVs are big and comfortable and even have built-in video players for those passengers in the back seat to make the ride even more enjoyable. The truth is that the video player went long before the Suburban did. Much like the time a dozen or more years ago, when my wife and I removed the television from our farmhouse, I came to realize that although Disney movies made traveling in the car fun for my little girl Indiana, it clearly wasn’t better for her. And so, one day I just decided to push the player closed, and we never opened it up again. Luckily, my little one loves playing with Barbies and reading books, so it wasn’t too much of a struggle for her to just talk with her Papa or play on her own while we drove.

Then this past fall, I took the final step and sold the F350 King Ranch that had been my dream truck for years. Living here on a farm, that one was a lot tougher for me to let go of. It had been easy to justify keeping it, by thinking it was a necessity. But with pickups in the driveways of both my brothers-in-law on the north and south sides of us, I clearly had access to a truck if I needed one. So last October, I handed the keys to my truck over to a new owner and drove home in my 1954 Oldsmobile 88.

Since the mid-90s I have always had at least one classic car from the ’50s that I would take out from time-to-time on Sunday drives when the weather is beautiful. If you don’t mind not having air conditioning or a heater that works very well, these classic cars are wonderful. Though most of them weren’t much to look at, or barely ran, I felt inside that they provided a link to the past my life somehow needed. A part of me wanted to make them a ‘daily driver’ but honestly, it just never made sense when I always had faster, easier vehicles as an option to drive.

My Oldsmobile, while it can be fun to drive, can also be very difficult. It lacks the comforts of the previous cars we’ve owned  and a high probability of breaking down if I travel too far or go too fast.

But that isn’t the point. I didn’t want to go too far or too fast.

This decision was part of my continued effort to simplify this past year, with the hopes of making our lives more meaningful. While I had purged our modern vehicles and opted for a daily driver that lacked power steering, power brakes, defrost, and a windshield that forever stayed fogged up (not to mention leaking water every time it rained), I chose to limit my mobility intentionally to stay connected to my community.

I didn’t choose what was easiest for our family… I chose what was best for us.

For me, my decision to sell our nice cars and drive an older one wasn’t just about choosing to downsize vehicles, it was actually about choosing to stay more connected to the place where I live and the people around me. Like the Amish, whose horse and buggy keep them from straying too far from their beloved community, so my old car keeps me local. I too, in a way, have decided to be tethered to my community. Purposely. I don’t want to be able to go anywhere and everywhere whenever I choose. Instead, I choose to be happy where I am.

Being in Ohio this past week and seeing the Amish people’s commitment to their communities being lived out in their simple mode of transportation reminded me that sometimes we have to make decisions that aren’t always easy for others to understand. I like to think that these kind of choices hopefully make us better people. When Indy and I are tooling down the road in our old car it reminds me of this commitment and gives me hope that I’m on the right path… or at least a better path for me and the community that I’m part of.

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This article was published in the May 2022 issue of Plain Values Magazine. If you want the latest stories every month, subscribe to the magazine at plainvalues.com. As a special thanks, get 10% off your subscription with the code “GAB23”!

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