The week I learned the Amish are not part of the 'good ole boys club'

My crash course to local town politics, permitting, kickbacks, and Amish prejudice

PART 4

(continued)

I constantly find a duality to be true in my life - the best things that happen to me are usually followed by something challenging, difficult, or downright scarring. I should have known as I stood there in awe, filled to the brim with gratitude, watching these genius construction professionals work their magic in front of me… on MY land I had bought only 6-months earlier with a loan.

It felt like one of the best moments of my life.

You might be saying to yourself, “You need to get out more, Alex, if watching a roof go on a barn is considered a shining moment for you.”

You have to understand I was witnessing something more than a roof going on a barn that day. I was watching an entire community of individuals, trained in the arts of their forefathers, working in harmonious tandem, in one of the calmest, most tranquil construction worksites I have ever stepped foot on.

There wasn’t a curse word, a shout, or a condescending comment from anyone. It was soothingly quiet, despite the construction vehicles moving around each other. These men were so confident and adept in what they were doing that not for a moment did I feel anxious, worried, or unsure of my decision to have a large barn center built in Upstate New York.

I never once questioned my decision to work with this Amish community. I still don’t.

There I stood at 8:30AM on a glorious spring day, watching my barn go from a frame to a closed in structure… in one day.

The trusses were nearly done by 11AM. They worked so quickly that by the afternoon, the metal paneling was being run up each truss and secured to the roof. And when I say ‘run up,’ I mean it… literally.

It was more than I could document. That’s how swiftly these men moved. It outlined just how much time we, the regular non-Amish folks, spend staring at our phones when I watched an entire community of individuals, most phone-less (the bosses have track phones), accomplish what a ‘regular construction’ company would in months… in one day.

And that’s exactly where the first major problem came into play with what was otherwise a charmed experience with these gentlemen. The speed. You probably know where I am going with this.

What profession is notorious for being the opposite of fast? Yes, you guessed it… the government.

I will never forget the body language of the local town inspector that day when he visited the farm to permit that round of construction. His anger was tangible from hundreds of feet away. He didn’t attempt to hide his temper… one of the Amish drivers let me know that he wasn’t shy about disclosing his unhappiness with the speed at which these builders had moved on my land.

Before someone comments below that the Amish ‘should have waited for him,’ let me tell you two things:

• the Amish called and informed the town about every step they were going to take and the date they were going to do it ahead of time

• the Amish don’t operate in a space of anger, resentment, passive aggression, or fear

Since the Amish are not passive aggressive people, they did not find anything wrong with politely and directly communicating their future building dates and following through on them. This was one of the first ‘culture clashes’ I witnessed in action. In the town’s eyes, the Amish should have waited and followed their every word and direction. In the Amish’s eyes, their master is the Lord, which means their job down here on earth is to work hard, daily, with excellence. It was fascinating to watch unfold.

Well, I am not sure if fascinating is the word when the town inspector, from that moment onward, decided he disliked me, my farm, my property, and my builders. Things got dramatic from that point forward. (The local political problems are still ongoing.)

The drama quickly submerged me into a world of local town politics that has me, as a political science major, dreaming up ways we could balance and check the power some of these town and village people wield in business developments and openings. I plan to explore this in future articles.

At the same time, bringing electric to my undeveloped land had turned into a hellish nightmare

I am not sure if ‘hellish’ does justice what I went through getting electric brought to my land. The Amish were fully underway building my barn, as you can see in the photos, while I was desperately trying to put an electricity plan into place.

“Have you heard back about the electric yet?” one of the Amish brothers asked me that day.

“Not yet… I am working on it. I am not sure what I am going to have to do to get my neighbors to agree to this,” I said.

“I don’t understand why they wouldn’t agree to bringing electricity to your property? What’s the big deal?” said their driver.

In order to have electricity brought to my property, I was going to have to tie-in to one of the nearest electric poles. I had two options:

• the pole at my neighbor’s directly next to my property

• the pole across the street, which was significantly farther away

To put this plan into motion, I was told I needed easement papers signed by the neighbor that agreed to the electric design. In other words, I needed to have that neighbor sign a contract that they OKed having wires hang over their front yard. It’s not exactly a comfortable conversation for me (I understand why a person would not feel an immediate calling to say yes to this).

From the get-go, the electric company, National Grid, assigned me an electric designer who told me it was my responsibility to get the neighbor to sign the papers. In retrospect, that was a completely inappropriate call and misuse of power. I had to make many, many abrasive phones calls that came down to me begging my neighbor to agree to sign the papers.

“I don’t know what else to do here. If you don’t sign these papers, I will not have electricity. I don’t know what I am going to do,” I said to my neighbor.

I remember the day well. I was in the car driving north to catch the total solar eclipse in the Adirondacks. I was under the impression the neighbor across the street was going to sign the papers up until that point. I waited weeks for him to sign them, after being told he was away on a trip.

He told me that day he changed his mind and was not going to approve the design. My heart sank through my body, the car, and out onto the highway as we sped towards the eclipse path.

Oh my god. I may be one of the biggest idiots EVER. I just paid an Amish company almost all of my liquid cash to build a barn I won’t be able to power.

I started to panic. Luckily, I was in the car with two very good friends who offered to pull over so I could make some calls. They gave me the best advice they could. With no idea what else I could do in that moment, I called up the neighbor closest to me to beg on the phone.

By the grace of God, he agreed to sign the papers. I had to physically print the papers, drive to his property, and stand there with him while he signed them (all thanks to National Grid putting me in a position that should have been shouldered by them). Next, I had to mail the papers to Albany to initiate the electric design. After months of trying to get these papers signed, I was in disbelief as I dropped the envelope into a mailbox on a road leading into Saratoga Springs (note: I have since become good friends with this neighbor and think very highly of him - if he had not agreed to the design in the end, I would have been shit out of luck).

I thought I could breathe a sigh of relief. Again, I had no idea an even bigger challenge loomed around the corner between National Grid and the county. I also could never fathom I was about to witness an electric designer and county permitter, fighting in the middle of the road, over the placement of a measurement stick on MY land. It got so bad I had to ask my mother to fly up from Florida to help me convince these men to give me the permit. I’ll expand on this in the coming articles…

I wish this didn’t have to get as dramatic as it did!

And I later found out… the county was so incredibly difficult about approving the electric design because… I never called to get a permit for the driveway the Amish installed in 2023. Talk about an awful full circle moment. The same man that permitted the electric design was also the point of contact for permitting driveways that connect to county routes. Bad luck.

I was learning so much, so quickly while this all went down. It felt like my head was spinning. I learned that county, town, and village norms change entirely from one region to the next. In the county where my Amish came from, needing permits for driveways was not the norm. I said to them many times during the barn construction project, “I don’t know how you guys do it. I don’t know how you handle these permitters changing their minds and making up rules in every town.”

They would always smile at me when I would say this. It’s not part of their culture to complain or be negative, so they’d never respond in agreement. But the twinkle in their eyes told me they were appreciative I was able to see how difficult these town permitting warriors were on them.

One of the Amish lads I chatted regularly with throughout the project did one day tell me that in his 32-years practicing the art of wood construction, there was a noticeable difference in the ‘difficulty’ of people in positions of power today when compared to the 1990s.

In his innocent way, he was letting me know that people today suck. And if you throw these same people into a position where they can shut down someone else’s plans, goals, business, or dreams, they are going to do it… and enjoy it.

Still, the positivity that radiated out of this structure and everyone who came together in its conception overpowered the bad. The day the Amish closed in my barn was a divine convergence of my hopes and visions with their genius and proficiency. I think we could all feel that something unexpected was coming together. Not even the town, or the county, or the weather could keep us all from smiling ear-to-ear.

I brought my Canon camera to the worksite that day to capture the boys in action. Yes, the Amish asked me to document them working for their website and future marketing materials. No, they don’t update their website - they hired a digital marketer to manage it for them. Still, being asked and entrusted to do something like this for them meant more to me than I can describe. I owe this community any favor they could ever request until the end of my life.

At the same time, the videos I was posting to TikTok and Instagram of this build were going massively viral. It was this week when their driver let me know my videos had indeed booked them new jobs.

“Wow. Now that’s truly the power of positive social media,” I said to their driver.

In a world that’s constantly trying to bring itself back to equilibrium, I feel like it’s inevitable when so much good is happening in such a concentrated spot… that the world’s energy forces have to lower it back down to equilibrium.

I didn’t have to vocalize this out loud.

The Amish understood energetics just as much, if not better, than me. I soon learned they were used to daily prejudice and persecution. One person after another would make a nasty or judgmental comment to me about hiring the Amish for my barn.

“Ah, well what did you expect with your propane tank if you hired the Amish? They’ll do anything to make a quick buck,” said the man who inspected my propane tank. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the tank, by the way.

“I hope they treat their animals as well as they treat their time collecting checks at worksites,” another inspector said to me.

(I’ve been to their homes, by the way - their animals were better cared for than the animals I see at all non-Amish farms in the area today.)

I can’t share some of the downright ignorant and crude comments that were made at this time. For some reason, in a world where people try to be socially aware of racist comments… that doesn’t count for the Amish. They are fair game to anyone who wants to utter the most heinous of remarks.

The Amish left my property that day having completely closed in the barn. They accomplished what I thought would take months in one singular April day. They are living, breathing proof of what humans are capable of if we focus, put the phones down, immerse ourselves in skills at a young age, and most importantly, work as a community first, as opposed to a solitary individual.

Individualism, personal glory, and ego are deemed evil to the Amish

That’s why they mostly all wear black. They believe the collective should rise above, while personal glory is mitigated. Is that the ‘right’ way to live? Well, none of us are to say. But, I can say that these individuals were the happiest professionals I ever watched in action. Their joy was so engrained in them that it made my every day at the barn site positive.

It was impossible not to feel joyful around them.

And it was that commitment to a community-driven way of life that made those peeking in at their work on my property irrationally angry (and jealous) at them. The town would proceed to make these guys jump through hoops that were entirely unwarranted. Every step of the way, the Amish remained calm. I still don’t know how they maintained their stoicism with such obvious discrimination.

The Amish have never, and will never, be part of the good ole boys club that runs most of our everyday lives across America right now. And thank God they’re not part of that club, for the very ancestral magic that makes them desperately needed in our world today would be slowly eroded through back-door deals, kickbacks, temper tantrums, collusion, discrimination, and narrow-minded thinking.

It’s that same magic that makes the Amish true artists, too

“They’re just getting started,” their driver said to me as the day came to a close. Up next would be their exterior design, wood-working, interior design, lighting, fixture selections, septic tank installation, and site configuration talents on display.

I don’t mean to keep repeating myself but… I had no idea just how artistically talented they were. Or that they knew how to find cutting-edge accessories and lighting fixtures on Amazon?

The Amish are true Renaissance men, in every essence of the definition.

Stick around for part 5, coming next week!

To read part 3, click here.

To read part 2, click here.

To read part 1, click here.

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