English Fish

On the Mt. Hope road, south of U.S. Route 250 in Wayne County, Ohio, just north of the Holmes County border, there is a small and unpretentious hand-lettered sign announcing “Hand Made Baskets” at a secondary driveway into an Old Order Amish residence, and if you park at the edge of the peach grove and honk your car horn, Mose Gingerich will meet you on his little porch at the back of the house, rolling his wheel chair out through the screen door so that he can wave you inside to his basket room.  He has a strong handshake and a ready smile, and he will be happy to sell you any of a variety of his baskets, from the simple $4.00 pencil holders up to the larger $35.00 fruit baskets with looping leather handles.  While you sort through his offerings, he’ll probably keep his hands busy with a new one, and if you seem undecided about your purchase, he’ll point out that he also makes fishing lures.

That’s what he was working on at his bench under the window the day I took my sister’s family there.  It was hot, and the windows of his little room were all closed, so he asked if I wouldn’t open a few of them for him, because from his chair, he really can’t reach them himself.  Mose was born with spina bifida, and his legs are short and bent, and his head is misshapen.  But his face is round and happy, and his fingers are nimble and quick.  He has barrels of reed stock sorted by colors, stacked in the corner behind the door, and he has fishing line and feathers laid out on the shelves beside his bench.  As we sorted through baskets, he cut line, tied feathers to a hook, cinched off a knot, and dropped another lure into his tray, asking if I had a favorite fishing hole.  He has two of them on his property, both easy to reach with his hand-cranked tricycle. 

As we were leaving, three of the Gingerich kids eased up to the edge of the peach grove and watched us load our baskets, appraising us with practiced eyes, unwilling to speak to the chattering English strangers, seeming to think us curious for the way we were dressed, and maybe for the way we talked.  They were approximately eight, nine, and ten years old, and Amish kids that age won’t say much to you, even if you ask them something as simple as their names.  But they waved well, smiling broadly as we left, and I am sure they were wondering how much money Uncle Mose made that day from the tourists who stopped because of his sign-lure out by the road.  It couldn’t have been more effective if he had hung a basket on the hook.  And Mose ought to have been happy with his day.  He probably lightened us by about ninety-five tax-free dollars, and I am sure he was shaking his head, wondering how my sister would get all that handicraft loaded onto a plane for Atlanta.  

Amish folk like the Gingeriches don’t have much contact with the English.  They keep to themselves as much as possible.  But that little sign out by the road must draw a few of us English fish in, from time to time, and when it does, there will sit Mose Gingerich, knotting a new lure at his bench, or stitching a basket together in his lap - with a smile as wide as a pie plate, and a handshake as friendly as a neighbor.  It may be that simple, hand-lettered sign that lures you in, but it’ll be Mose himself who sets the hook.