Before I was married, I never owned a car and I never owned a TV. My now husband couldn't understand how I got along. When we were dating, he bought me a TV just so he could watch stuff when he was at my apartment. TV watching was something I usually did at my parents' house. I lived just a few blocks from the train station. On weekends when I wanted to visit my parents, I'd hop on a train and go to Washington D.C., then take the metro out to the train station nearest my parents' house. Sometimes my dad would pick me up but other times I just walked to their house about 15 minutes away. I walked a lot. I liked watching TV with my parents. My dad always had it on to a football game, a World War II movie, the news or Masterpiece Theatre. I'd make myself a cup of tea, curl up on the couch with a magazine or a book and chat with my mom and dad, only half watching whatever was playing on the screen. But I never felt the need to get my own TV. I was happy with just listening to the radio. Baltimore had (still does) a great classical music station. That was enough for me. I never felt the need for a car either. I walked or took the bus. I never was much of a bike rider. I didn't learn to ride until I was 10 years old and then about a year later my bike was stolen and that was the end of my bike riding career. Occasionally as an adult I'd ride, but I discovered that no matter what kind of seat I had on the bike, I was always extremely sore from it! So I am not a big bike rider. When I needed to get somewhere and it was raining or cold I either bummed a ride, took the bus anyway, or sometimes called a taxi. It was no big deal. In fact, one way my husband courted me was to offer to give me rides home at night from the library at school. He had his eye on me and would manage to be there just as I was packing up to leave. I remember his battered, powder-blue Datsun and how fast the heat worked. It was a cold winter and unlike most cars you didn't have to wait for the heat to do its job. That warm air would blast out right away!
Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende charts a way my life could have gone but for the fact that I married my husband, technology geek of sorts. Brende took a course at Yale, his undergraduate school, on the history of technology. This fascinated him and he decided to try out a new master's program at MIT on Science, Technology and Society. Brende had come to the conclusion that technology is not the labor-saving knight in shining armor our society thinks it is but rather generates more work and stress as it begins to rule our life creating its own demands. He contrived to spend 18 months among an Old Order Amish or Mennonite community (he never discloses which group in respect for their privacy). Shortly before he embarks on this adventure he meets and marries his wife, Mary. Right after a 10 day honeymoon he whisks her off to Amish land. Fortunately, Mary is game for all this.
His new neighbors and landlords are the Millers, a big close knit family who gently and tactfully teach the Brende's how to survive without electricity and running water. The little house Eric and Mary rent is darling and cozy. The stove is practical for both heating and cooking. They do have a bathroom in the house but you have to flush it by dumping buckets of water down it. The water is right out in the yard. Most of the community around them had figured out a way to have water go right to the pump at the kitchen sink though, so Eric and Mary were even a little more old fashioned than many in regards to water (though many of the other houses still had outhouses as well).
The Brendes planted pumpkins for a cash crop and they rented a field of sorghum to harvest and make molasses from. They only have a certain amount of money in savings, so they have to live very, very frugally. Fortunately the Millers planted a garden for them before they even arrived. Also, everyone in the community shares food or will trade it for labor. The Brende's discover a close community where labor becomes a social thing. Everyone pitches in to help each other raise barns, thresh wheat, harvest foods, chop down trees, etc. There is a lot of camaraderie.
Eric was in pretty good shape physically. He was on the rowing team at Yale and he regularly rode his bike in Boston while at MIT. He really enjoyed the fact that every day life in Amish country kept you in shape. No need to take time out to go to the gym. You got a work out every day. He also found that the community he was living in had thought up all sorts of clever short cuts to save labor. Eric in his naiveté would attempt to do something and one of his neighbors would say, 'that seems like a lot of work. Call me lazy but I think you should do it this way.' And then they'd give him a tip which indeed would make things easier. So he found that while some things did call for some back breaking work these were fairly short lived, seasonal things. Most of the time, there turned out to be a lot of time spent in leisure. If your needs are simple, your work gets pretty simple too.
Mary goes along with all this spunkily. She teaches herself to cook; she learns to do the wash with an old fashion washtub which turns out to be pretty easy to do. You do have to haul in hot water, which gets dumped in the hand cranked washer. But it takes only a few minutes to actually wash the clothes. She already likes to sew. The Mennonite neighbors somehow convert a sewing machine to a foot pedal powered one. She likes to garden. She's pretty happy most of the time. However, sometimes she gets homesick. She especially misses being able to go to church. She and Eric are both Catholic and there is no Catholic church around for miles. They are deep in Anabaptist country. So a couple of times, when things get tough, they hop in their little Escort and take a road trip. The consequence for one of these trips is that Eric got sunstroke badly. While he'd spent a week driving around the midwest in an air conditioned car, sleeping in air conditioned motels, there had been a heat wave back at the farm. When he returned it was threshing time. His farming neighbors were all acclimated to the heat and had no problems but Eric was not. He struggled through the day trying to do his share, staggered home and was sick in bed with a fever for three days. The heat at first was just unbearable for them both but as the weeks went on, they did adjust. It just took their bodies longer; A/C was their enemy.
Mary gets pregnant while there and successfully delivers their first born son with two midwives from the community. I found that part of the story fascinating.
Anyway, I won't disclose anything more, but the book is just a fascinating read. It is a wonderful peep inside a mysterious culture. Brende is a thoughtful guy with his head on straight. I saw an interview with him on Faith and Culture, which is where I heard about this book. Brende has made a name for himself. He and Mary now live in St. Louis with their children, leading a low tech life style. Here's a clip where he's interviewed.
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