That’s a snippet of imagery from a song by the Dead Milkmen that I can’t seem to get out of my head. It haunts me with its absurdity, yet upbraids me with my own tunnel vision about Luddite society…
It never occurred to me, before this song, that the Amish might swim. They churn butter and make quilts and raise barns; they are not avid swimmers in the popular imagination. I could more easily imagine the Amish starting a death metal rock band than I could imagine them frolicking in the water.
I want to meet an Amish triathlete now, just to say I’ve shaken hands with such a creature. Does one exist now, or has one ever existed?
I think about these things on Tuesdays.
