"Angelo Campanella" <a.campanella@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:enXVj.193078$D_3.25660@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> marika wrote:
>
>> I knew they had buggies in the days of the Bible cos I saw Ben Hur
>> But I didn;t know they had stills
>> I bet they ddn't have flight simulators
>
> Lots of Amish live here in northern Ohio and in Indiana and of course
> Pennsylania. It's an Amish "rite of passage". Before a high school
> graduate can enter be an adult in Amish society, he or she has the right
> to have a "free" year where they can do ANYTHING they wnat to do. (I
> forget the name of the process.) Most knuckleheads, the girls, too, just
> go on sprees with friends or alone, trying all the sins of modern
siciety,
> then at the end of that year decide either to migrate out into our
> society, or return to their home farmland where their parents help them
> start a new farm most anywhere they want to.
>
> Angelo Campanella
>
>>> THE AKRON BEACON JOURNAL
>>> A 17-year-old Amish boy was charged yesterday with driving under the
>>> influence after allegedly passing out at the reins of a buggy, which
>>> then hit a police cruiser. Police in this village about 30 miles east
of
>>> Cleveland said officers
>>> spotted the buggy weaving as it went down the road about 2 a.m.
Sunday.
>>> When officers pulled up beside the buggy, they saw the driver was
passed
>>> out in the front seat. They tried to wake the youth with their sirens
>>> and horns but were unsuccessful.
>>> Police Chief David Easthon said officers tried to stop the horse on
>>> foot. It veered off the road and hit a police cruiser.
>>> The buggy turned over, ejecting the teen-ager. The teen was treated at
a
>>> hospital for scratches and released. The horse suffered a gash on the
>>> leg
>>> but is expected to recover.
>
> Thank God for that.. Would not want to loose that renewable
trans****ation
> resource. We can see the wisdom of some Amish ways!
>
> Ang.
>
http://www.pr-inside.com/hard-hit-us-consumers-turn-to-amish-run-r585047.htm
Hard-hit US consumers turn to Amish-run stores, expired goods
© AP
2008-05-13 02:15:03 -
MESOPOTAMIA, Ohio (AP) - In a quiet gas-lit farmhouse, two girls in
bonnets
and long blue dresses wind tape around expired bottles of Newman's Own
salad
dressing, and wipe dust off dented cans of vegetables and crumpled boxes
of
Butterfinger candy bars.
They are picking through the leftovers from America's supermarkets.
Amish-run salvage stores, a thriving
discount industry tucked away in America's farmlands, sell expired food
and
medicine dirt-cheap. This shadow economy, run by people who typically shun
modern methods of commerce, is drawing a steady stream of non-Amish
customers seeking relief from the United States' financial ills.
«We have anything from a Mercedes in our parking lots down to horse and
buggies,» said Ray Marvin, general manager of B.B.'s Grocery Outlet, an
Amish-owned salvage store chain in Quarryville, Pennsylvania.
The customers are after prices resembling those of old-fa****oned
nickel-and-dime stores _ paper towels for 50 cents a roll, salad dressing
for 10 cents a bottle.
Except for baby formula, the Food and Drug Administration does not
prohibit
the sale of expired foods or medicine. The agency bars the sale of
adulterated or misbranded drugs, but those are evaluated case by case.
Everything else is fair game _ «buyer beware,» as B&K Salvage owner Bill
Gingerich puts it.
Salvage goods also show up on the shelves of some close-out stores, but
those primarily sell bulk wholesale and overstocked goods at discounted
prices.
«We've been amazed, how good we've done,» says Rebecca Miller, an Amish
woman who opened N&R Salvage with her husband last year on the outskirts
of
Mesopotamia, in northeast Ohio. The couple has never taken out an
advertisement, she says, but the customers keep coming.
While most of these Amish-run businesses have been around for several
years,
store owners say business has picked up considerably in recent months as
the
country struggles with rising gasoline and food prices, a credit crisis
and
home foreclosures. While some stores advertise in local newspapers, their
popularity has largely spread through word-of-mouth.
Several Amish businesses declined to cite sales figures. Non-Amish salvage
store owners also re****t climbing sales.
Mike Mitchell, owner of Amelia's Grocery Outlet in New Holland,
Pennsylvania, says sales grew by 12 percent in 2007, and his chain of 11
stores is on pace to increase sales by 23 percent this year.
There are at least six Amish-run salvage stores in northeast Ohio and
nearly
a dozen in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, forming something of a
discount
shopper's marathon course.
«A lot of people drive from one salvage store to the next and see how many
bargains they can get,» says 41-year-old Barbara Byler, an Amish woman who
runs Shedd Road Salvage in Burton, Ohio. «Some people don't have jobs. We
expected them to come.
Only the savviest bargain hunter would be able to find N&R Salvage,
perched
on a grassy slope with open fields as far as the eye can see. The store is
heated by a single coal-burning stove, and Miller rings up customers using
a
battery-operated cash register.
The Amish are scattered across 28 states, with the highest populations in
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. A deeply religious group, they
traditionally
live off the land and without electricity, among other modern amenities.
Yet
many have abandoned farming for family businesses, construction work and
factory jobs.
Heavy losses of manufacturing jobs have hurt Amish and non-Amish alike in
northeast Ohio. The nearest city, Cleveland, recently landed on a list of
the top five poorest urban areas in the U.S.
«I'm trying to find ways to cut back on my grocery bill,» says 73-year-old
****rley Baxter, pu****ng a shopping cart down the aisles of B&K Salvage in
Middlefield, Ohio. «And a place like this helps. At our age we're on a
fixed
income.
The narrow aisles spill over with water-damaged taco shells (25 cents per
package) and pesto sauce that expired four months ago (five packets for $1
(¤.65). Fresh bags of homemade flavored gelatin and rolled oats are
usually
in stock, along with oddities such as light-up Disney princess pens.
There's low-price facial moisturizer, tubes of old toothpaste, discounted
rolls of toilet paper _ even expired over-the-counter medicines.
At Triple M Salvage in Middlefield, adventurous customers can buy Hair
Regrowth Treatment from Rite Aid that expired more than three years ago.
For
a buck, they might try a bottle of Dulcolax stool softener that expired
last
June or year-old caplets of Tylenol Allergy medicine.
Food becomes salvage after it is discarded by supermarkets, typically
because it's damaged or nearing expiration. Seasonal products whose shelf
life is over, such as Christmas-themed paper plates, also end up in the
scrap heap.
The products are then ****pped to reclamation centers, which are owned by
major grocery chains or independently run. Some products are thrown out;
the
rest gets packed up in banana boxes and trucked to discount stores across
the country.
«We separate all the different categories, like the vegetables from the
fruits, let's say,» Gingerich explains. «The desserts from the barbecue
sauce, that kind of thing.
Products that are too old or moldy are thrown out or marked as free, says
Byler, at Shedd Road Salvage. Greg Martin, manager of Banana Box Wholesale
Grocery, a Kutztown, Pennsylvania-based food brokerage outlet that works
with salvage stores across the country, says he's seen incoming loads
covered in cat litter.
Since she discovered salvage stores, Jo Leyda of Windsor, Ohio, almost
never
pays more than $2 (¤1.30) for a box of cereal.
«Why not? I don't care if the box is ripped,» says Leyda, a mother of
five,
shrugging. But she hesitates at buying expired products.
«If it's a bottle of salad dressing that's like, a month expired, there's
probably nothing wrong with it,» she says. «But generally I just stick
with
the scratch-n-dents.
Customers at B.B.'s boil down to «people who value a dollar,» Marvin says.
The chain has expanded to four stores since opening 15 years ago.
Amish expert Don Kraybill of Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown,
Pennsylvania, calls the popularity of salvage stores a «mini Amish
industrial revolution.» He says it is a natural outgrowth of booming Amish
micro-enterprises, a result of the decline in farming.
«Their businesses frequently succeed because they have low overhead, they
work very hard, they're creative,» Kraybill says. «And they have an ample
pool of labor within their extended families.
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