At the Fort Wayne International (yes) Airport today, beheld a bevy of what was either very conservative Mennonites or liberal Amish – there’s a twilight area there in which it can really be hard to tell – going on a trip. Looked like three families, two younger, one old couple.

They went through security (the men had belts, which made me tilt towards Mennonite), and then one, very tall lady beeped when she walked through the detector. So she had to be wanded.

And she was, standing there very patiently, for, I swear, five minutes. The security woman ran the wand up and down her over and over – I wasn’t close enough to hear the beeps, but apparently it was beeping, and Security Woman kept asking Amish/Mennonite Woman questions, and she kept shaking her head (it’s unlikely she would have any metal on her body except for perhaps hooks and eyes. ) I don’t think they ever figured out what was setting off the wand, but we can rest easy, knowing that none of those Amish terrorists are going to get through security without a fight.

(Seriously, I appreciate serious airport security. It’s all for the best. But it was just such an odd sight.)

(Oh, and for those of you think that because they were flying they couldn’t be Amish – well, that’s just not so. I suppose some very Old Order Amish wouldn’t fly, but the limitations of transportation are really more on operating and owning, not riding in. So an Amish person could ride in a car or van (as groups of them do, to construction jobsites and such), but he/she couldn’t drive it or own a motorized vehicle. They get “English” to drive – sort of like the Sabbath Goy.)

Speaking of the Amish: UPN is planning a new reality series:

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, who also oversees UPN, yesterday compared the so-far-untitled show, which he said would probably air this summer, to a “reverse version” of Fox’s “The Simple Life,” the hit show in which rich girls Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie lived with an Arkansas farm family for a month.

“This is not intended to be insulting to the Amish,” said Moonves, who ran into problems in 2001 when he tried to develop a “reality” version of “The Beverly Hillbillies” for CBS. Rural advocates launched an ad campaign against the idea that eventually led 43 members of Congress to demand that Moonves drop it altogether.

The Amish, Moonves told members of the Television Critics Association, “don’t have quite as good a lobbying effort.”

What a jerk.

And, as the article goes on to point out, most Amish are not as sheltered as the popular image suggests. You see, the draw of the show is supposed to be the shock of seeing a television for the first time, etc. Problem is, the Amish, around here at least, shop in the same stores as everyone else. I’ve seen groups of Amish in Mexican restaurants and Damon’s. Lots of televisions in the latter, by the way. As Nance mentions below, some Amish are starting to like their cel phones.