Cornhole is a game popular among Amish in some communities. I played it once in Ohio at an Amish birthday cookout. I’d say it’s got elements of horseshoes and shuffleboard to it. If you’re not familiar with cornhole, it’s pretty simple. You’ve got two slightly elevated boards with a medium-sized hole towards one end of [...]
Continue reading Cornhole
I often take along my running shoes when I travel to Amish communities. When you’re in the car for long hours and saddled up next to the table for many more, hitting the pavement for a jog becomes a basic necessity. The scenic roads of Lancaster County are popular among recreational athletes. In parts of [...]
Continue reading Amish Runners and the Bird-in-Hand Half-Marathon
I just got off the phone with an Amish friend, “Alvin”, from Holmes County. I like to call Alvin, a furniture maker, from time to time, to check up on things in Amish Ohio. The big news? March Madness, or I suppose the Plain equivalent, is apparently heading to Holmes County. I’ve written a number [...]
Continue reading Holmes County to host Amish Mud B-ball Tourney
Reader Michelle V recently asked: do Amish play football? Well, here’s a bit of evidence that they do, courtesy of Rick Harrison, who took the above photo at the 2009 mud sale at Georgetown in Lancaster County. While football is not as popular as softball or volleyball, the ole pigskin does get tossed around, especially [...]
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Well, it’s Thursday morning, and chances are you may already be thinking about the weekend. There was a time, when most Amish were on the farm, when what you did on Saturday didn’t differ in a terribly meaningful way than what you did on Monday. Cows still needed to be milked, fences could still use [...]
Continue reading Amish leisure activities
With the NBA finals ongoing, I couldn’t resist sharing one more photo—of an oddly-placed hoop in the Amish settlement at Holmes County. Most basketball goals you see outside Amish homes are in places a bit more conducive to a pick-up game, like this one. But I don’t know, I kind of like the idea of [...]
Continue reading Amish playing dirty
You frequently see basketball hoops in the Holmes County settlement, and in other Amish communities as well. As with many things Amish, there are different stances on the issue of sports—on what games are acceptable, who should play sports and when, and so on. If you’d like to read more check out this review of [...]
Continue reading Buggies and hoops
Rick weighs in with an action shot of an intense game of cornerball, aka ‘eck balle’, from an auction this past weekend at Georgetown in Lancaster County. This apparently wasn’t the only sport being played; Rick mentions a few games of football and volleyball going on as well. He comments: ‘I am imagining the football [...]
Continue reading Amish cornerball battle
photo: Rob Ward Richard Stevick, author of Growing up Amish: The Teenage Years, describes eck balle, or cornerball, as ‘the plain peoples’ equivalent of NCAA March Madness.’ From Growing up Amish: ‘Until the 1950s, cornerball flourished among most of the Pennsylvania Dutch communities, both plain and fancy. Although the “fancy” or “church Dutch” eventually abandoned [...]
Continue reading ‘Eck balle’: disappearing sport of the Pennsylvania Dutch
