The Kindness Matters Podcast
So. Much. Division. Let's talk about how to change that. Re-engage as neighbors, friends, co-workers and family. Let's set out to change the world. Strike that. Change A World. One person at a time, make someone's life a little better and then do it again tomorrow and the day after that, through kindness.
Kindness is a Super-Power that each of us has within us. It is so powerful it has the potential to change not only your life but those around you, too. Let's talk about kindness.
The Kindness Matters Podcast
Driving the Amish: A Journey of Cultural Discovery
What happens when a homeschooling mother of six from Portland finds herself driving Amish families across America? Haley Straw takes us behind the curtain of a culture often misunderstood yet deeply rooted in kindness and community.
After relocating to rural Missouri for a fresh start, Haley stumbled into a role as an Amish driver that spanned nine years and countless miles across the country. Her journeys revealed a community far different from the romanticized versions in novels or the simplistic portrayals in media. "They're human," Haley shares, explaining how this revelation transformed her understanding of Amish life.
Our conversation explores fascinating aspects of Amish culture, from their remarkable healthcare support system built entirely on community contributions to their "frolics" (work parties) where families gather to accomplish major tasks together. Haley shares heartwarming stories of Amish generosity during crises, explaining how publications connect communities nationwide to help those facing medical bills or other hardships.
The episode is peppered with profound Amish proverbs that offer timeless wisdom about kindness and forgiveness. "Forgive and forget instead of resent and remember" and "Kindness when given away keeps coming back" reveal an approach to life centered on moving forward rather than harboring grudges. Haley's most touching story involves driving Amish children who experienced mountains for the first time - a moment of pure wonder that captures the beautiful simplicity of finding joy in new experiences.
Haley has documented her unique cultural immersion in her "Tales of an Amish Taxi Driver" series, with a third book in progress. Share this episode with someone who appreciates stories of cultural discovery and the universal language of kindness.
#different #culture #kindness #children
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It's one thing to highlight the kindness that we see in the world, but it's another to, as I put in many of my social media posts, #bethechange. I am donating all of my royalties from the sale of my book, Change A World; In Order to Change The World to local and national non-profits. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Well, hello there and welcome. You are listening to the Kindness Matters podcast and I am your host, mike Rathbun. What is this podcast all about? It's about kindness. It's a pushback against everything negative that we see in the news and on social media today, and it's a way to highlight people, organizations that are simply striving to make their little corner of the world a little better place. If you want to join in on the conversation, feel free, Go ahead and follow us on all of your social media feeds. We're on Facebook, instagram, tiktok. We're even on LinkedIn under Mike Rathbun. Check us out. We're even on LinkedIn under Mike Rathbun. Check us out and, in the meantime, so sit back, relax, enjoy and we'll get into the Kindness Matters podcast.
Speaker 1:Hey, welcome everybody to the show. Thank you so much for taking 30 minutes, or 30 minutes-ish, to listen to my show and my amazing guest. If there's anything in this show that you find to be uplifting or positive or inspiring or motivating any of those things, please feel free to share this show with your friends, your family, your work colleagues, perfect strangers on the street, whoever. I would very much appreciate it if you would share the show, if you find any value in it. But let's get into today's episode. My guest today is Haley Straw, and Haley at one point was living in a biggish West Coast city and found herself in rural Missouri rural Missouri and it was there that she came in contact with people that most of us know about but don't really know. Welcome to the show, haley. Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, glad to be here.
Speaker 1:It's, and you were okay. So you were, you made the move, you have six kids, right, yep, and you were homeschooling. That must be exhausting in and of itself, and we could probably do a whole show on that. And then you okay, how did this happen and who did you meet and how did it change your life? How did this? Well, okay, there's a lot of questions here.
Speaker 2:Well, moving from portland to rural missouri was we were just struggling out there financially and there were other things going on and we just needed a change of pace. So we were actually offered a free house in rural missouri and I'm like, hey, let's just take it and go, let's just uproot everything we homeschool. You know, we don't have to ask permission for anybody, we can just do it. So we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so do any particular reason why rural Missouri and just Because that's where the guy who offered the free house lived.
Speaker 2:He's like just down the street from me and there's a house for sale and I just want to crowdfund, raise and buy it for a family that's in need and that's so cool missouri, because we had never been to missouri before we didn't, we moved here and we had never been there before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I was like was that kind of a culture shock for you coming from Portland?
Speaker 2:Amish country Missouri. Yes, yes, very much.
Speaker 1:I can only imagine so okay, so you're living, you've got this free house, which is, I mean, cool in and of itself that somebody would do that for you. And okay, how, the group that you came in contact with, that I've alluded to, that I haven't said out loud. You came in touch with the Amish population there in Missouri, didn't you? Yeah, how did that happen?
Speaker 2:So I wrote about it in my first book, but I'll give you the synopsis. There was a woman at church. She was in her 70s and she befriended me and she said hey, do you want to go check out the Amish stores? I didn't know what that meant, so she took me out to the Amish community, one of them, and to a dry goods store. And typically every Amish community I've ever been in unless it's brand new, just starting up with like five families has a dry goods store.
Speaker 2:So we went there and they saw my big pickup truck and they learned that I had a maxi van, a 12 passenger van, and so they just asked me to start driving for them and we needed another income. I don't believe my husband was working at that time, so we needed an income and it was something that I could do. My youngest was like three at the time, so my oldest would have been I can do math 15. But it was something that I could do and I could take my youngest, one, two or three children with me all over the country and so my oldest could kind of handle themselves. I could take the youngest and I could work and earn money and give them cultural experiences and take them to see the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh sure. Now did you know how far you'd be going when you signed up for this?
Speaker 2:I didn't. I mean they enrolled me. I had no idea what was going on. Kind of like being conscripted or yeah, I didn't know what I was getting into, but I thought well, I'm up for an adventure, why not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what an adventure. Eh, that's my Canadian coming out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, I've driven them to Canada too, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Shut up From Missouri.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I drove them to a funeral one time and a wedding. I stayed in Godard one time and a wedding I stayed in Goddard, like right on Lake Michigan. Is that the town? No go in Ontario? Okay, wingham is where the community is.
Speaker 1:Okay, so many questions here, but you've gotten to know the Amish, I think better than the vast majority of Americans, unless they happen to live in Amish country. What was the most surprising thing to you? You knew about the Amish right.
Speaker 2:I mean, I heard about them, but I didn't much heed to them. We lived in Fort Wayne, indiana, when my husband was going to college and she was born in Fort Wayne and there was a community called Grable right next to Fort Wayne. So I would see the buggies at the store and stuff, but I never paid any attention to them. They weren't interesting to me. I was having a—.
Speaker 1:You had other things going on.
Speaker 2:I had other things going on.
Speaker 1:I had other things going on. They make great furniture and there's barn raisings. I mean, what else do you need to know? Right, and they make the best peanut butter pie in the world. What's that?
Speaker 2:I said they make the best peanut butter pie in the world, which is so sinful I have to stay away from it. Peanut butter pie. I've never heard of that at their weddings. That's a wedding staple. Yeah, yeah, and I've been to a lot of weddings.
Speaker 1:So, okay, so you just happen to wander into this dry goods store, which is kind of like, I think, for people, um, it's kind of like the, the old general store, right yes they've got a little bit of everything true and if they don't have it, you don't need it all right or someone else, like the neighbor, has it. You know, sometimes yeah, yeah, that's cool. Um, so now, okay, I'm sorry I I got away from. My original question was what was the most surprising thing you learned about the Amish?
Speaker 2:They're human.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because and I think it might have to do because they I want to use the word shun, but I don't think that's necessarily the word I want they avoid the rest of the population, right? They don't make any overt efforts to, so I think the case can be made that we don't know much about them. We don't know much about them, so, and because we're Americans and humans, we tend to make up our own realities about them, would you say that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought they were much better than us. You know all those like Beverly Wilson and I don't know all those romance authors that write about Amish, some girl named Tracy. I can't even read that stuff. I tried, but it's just so idyllic and it's not reality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So but then you got to know them a lot and, um, we we know, or we know, we assume we know um, they're, they're hard workers and and that's true, right, yeah, I mean like sunup to sundown kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Like hardcore. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, and they are now. Are they a version of Christian? In their faith, it's Anabaptist, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that just means they get baptized.
Speaker 1:They don't do infantile baptism okay that means, yeah, they believe in the same jesus and basic structure we have yeah, yeah, yeah they came about, I think, as part of the protestant reformation, which is when we got what Lutheran? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:A lot of other different Christian, yeah, so, and they are very religious right.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, yeah, Bible, bible, bible, bible, king James Version, just if you wanted to know.
Speaker 1:Anyway, yeah, Perfect, I did want to know about that. Does that drive a lot of their beliefs and a lot of their actions?
Speaker 2:All my stars? Yeah, yeah, it does. They reference the Bible a lot, but every religion and my own included, Mormons we use the same version of the Bible, but everybody interprets it their own way and focuses more on different scriptures. Right or wrong, that's what they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we're seeing that a lot lately, aren't we? Yeah, but you found them for the purposes of this podcast, to be generous and kind. This podcast to be generous and kind, is that true? Is?
Speaker 2:that true? Oh, my stars. Yeah, I had an instance just this week. Yeah, yeah, they are extraordinarily Okay.
Speaker 1:So much so, and you got to know him so well that you wrote not one but two books.
Speaker 2:Working on my third and then fourth and then fifth.
Speaker 1:And then I don't know 't.
Speaker 2:oh my gosh, so I have hundreds of stories. I've been with them all over the country for nine years so it's been nine years.
Speaker 1:That was something I was going to ask you about yeah, and I'm doing a little bit.
Speaker 2:Now I've got my next door neighbor. She has five children in five years. She literally her oldest is five, her youngest is one oh my goodness she has had enormous amounts of health conditions, and so she's she just needs some doctoring. So I'm just taking her doctoring right now. I'm doing that just to keep my foot in the door, you know yeah, um, oh, that I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker 1:They, the, the, the amish, they don't have health insurance, as you and I know it right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So what do they do?
Speaker 2:I have learned, like one time my son. We were driving back from Oregon and he was a little hoodlum, he's a 15-year-old, he's very intense, okay, does not think about anything, just does, anyway. So he busted his head open when we were in nebraska staying at the hotel and I'm like, well, you know, I'll just try to bandage it up. And then I went to the amish house right when I got back and he just took care of it for me. He knows how to do all this stuff to bandage up big wounds.
Speaker 2:He um another guy in my community knows how to set bones, as long as they're not sticking out the skin, you know he has stitches like they have skills and a lot of them are well versed in natural healing and herbalism and all those old remedies that we have lost.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, so they, they have a really good network to take care of themselves. There are Amish people that, like in the communities, typically you'll find somebody that knows how to do massage and a little bit of chiropractic work, although they weren't trained. But you know, they have these freedoms and they just operate on, not operate. They don't operate, but they just help each other. So it's okay. Okay, like with right.
Speaker 1:So they don't need hospitals. And well, I mean, eventually they will need a hospital for some things, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I've driven them to the hospital many times. There have been a lot of buggy accidents actually in the news lately, like vehicle buggy accidents. One in Michigan there was a drunk driver Was it in New York or Pennsylvania? And then I think there was another one in Minnesota Just recently within the last couple weeks.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, they go to hospitals. They have problems giving birth, they get giving birth, they get cancer. You know their horse kicks them in the head. Things happen they have to go to the hospital that are beyond what their capacity is to heal and restore.
Speaker 1:Sure Okay, so their medical, their medical experience or expertise only goes so far, got it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they don't have insurance. So the hospitals I know that there's one, was it the what's that big one in Minnesota, Rochester, Minnesota, the Mayo, the mail I've heard and I've been up there a few times with the amish they will work with the amish and give them huge discounts because they pay cash okay, so the money, okay, they pay cash and if they can't pay cash.
Speaker 2:This is where the kindness and community comes in. They have many different publications and I've read them, and they come out monthly. There's one called called plain interest. There's one why is my brain not working this morning? Anyway, there are different ones. Okay, and sometimes they'll say, like you know, elmer's wife, you know, fell off the buggy, got ran over. She has 50,000 in hospital bills. Can you contribute? So other communities will send money. Like, if the community that they live in can't cover it, then other communities will send money and it will get, it'll be covered.
Speaker 2:That's their insurance wow voluntary community, people supporting people. I love it. It warms I do too.
Speaker 1:I, I absolutely love that idea and I think we were more like that, and, of course, this is going back to the day. But yeah, there was a time when you know you knew all your neighbors and if you needed anything at all, all you had to do is ask. And I think we've lost some of that, unfortunately. But so now you are, unfortunately. But so now you are I'm going to call you out here an expert in hang on one second Amish Proverbs.
Speaker 2:Oh duh.
Speaker 1:You hoard them. How many are there? Are there a lot?
Speaker 2:Are there a lot, oh, probably hundreds. I mean I think I have a hundred on my little document right here that I still need to add pictures to that I've taken. You know, make little memes. They're not memes because they're not fun.
Speaker 1:They're great. You sent me a couple and I'm thinking about using one of those as the cover art for this episode Done. Art for this episode Done. So. But a lot of them are about kindness, are they not?
Speaker 2:Yes, yep, a lot of them are about kindness.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, okay, Sure, give me one.
Speaker 2:Oh, do you.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, if you aren't happy today, what are you waiting for? That's one of them that's a lovely one.
Speaker 1:I like that because you're the only one that can make yourself happy that's true, and they're all about that.
Speaker 2:they really, they take things with faith. When things happen, they really take it well, they don't obsess and hoard and try to seek revenge like a lot of people do. They just okay, what can I learn? Let's go next, next and move on. What is it? Oh, forgive and forget instead of resent and remember. That's one of the Amish Proverbs.
Speaker 1:Oh, I like that one too.
Speaker 2:I do too.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. One too, I do too. That's awesome. Um, so in your in your journeys, so you signed up to to drive them and you're thinking into town for something or other, and then you find out you're going on road trips and and a few of those that you've talked about. I mean we're not talking about a few hour road trip and then back, we're talking a couple days, like overnight, kind of thing, right yeah, very often and you said something to me while we were talking before the show that I find hilarious or humorous.
Speaker 1:They don't always pick the closest destination for what it is that they want do they For doctoring Well, the. Mayo. There's a good example.
Speaker 2:Well, I drove a load from my community here up to Mayo because there was a man. He had six children, he and his wife, and they were going to church and um, and they got rear-ended and he ended up being in a coma and he actually ended up dying. But he was taken to Mayo because that's where they were close to, so yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:I would imagine that's a big specialty hospital and trauma yeah, but no.
Speaker 2:There's a joke, though that the Amish have. I'm not very good at jokes, I'm better at proverbs, but how do you get an Amish person to the moon?
Speaker 1:I give up.
Speaker 2:You put a chiropractor up there, that's hilarious. Because they will go the farther away the better, because it's an excuse to go somewhere and it's a legitimate excuse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not just like I want to go visit Six Flags or something Right?
Speaker 2:You won't see them there.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, no, but it's a legitimate trip.
Speaker 2:Right, that's right. So yeah, get a chiropractor. Wow, get Amish there, that would be something in the news Now.
Speaker 1:how many people are in the community that's closest to you? What's the population like?
Speaker 2:So there are four church districts that's what they call their congregations and each church district is made up of like 20 to 30 families, and if you have 20 to 30 families you probably have a couple hundred people, 250 people, easy.
Speaker 1:So and you weren't the only driver for them, were you?
Speaker 2:Oh my stars, what, no, no, no, there are no drivers and if there's a funeral that comes up which you can't plan for, there are not enough drivers.
Speaker 1:But you've got like 120 people need to go to this funeral.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from the community, or sometimes they do get a bus. They'll charter buses in cases like that it's just cheaper and they can all ride together and it's an Amish party on a bus right With popcorn. That's all they're allowed, Popcorn, and Mountain. Dew yeah, that's their party.
Speaker 1:What do they drink?
Speaker 2:Mountain Dew.
Speaker 1:Mountain Dew. You said Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, popcorn and pop, that's their party.
Speaker 1:Settle down there, Amish Getting a little wild yeah. Yeah, if it goes anything above Mountain Dew, you're Settle down.
Speaker 2:Yep, they don't do that typically that's so fun.
Speaker 1:Okay, so give me another Amish proverb, I'm ready for it Another one.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know if this is a proverb or not, okay, well, here's one the best portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless and unremembered acts of kindness and love.
Speaker 1:That's a namish problem oh, I like that, I like that. So the this could be almost anybody's proverbs. I I can hear Mother Teresa saying this, but that's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're very good about little acts of kindness. I mean, they're very, very good, and I've always been kind of a person that likes to do that or wishes I could do it more. And I can't just intentionally do it, but that's their lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some people do kindness, random acts of kindness, just as an aside or because it helps them to feel good about helping somebody else, but that's literally their life.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:Wow, so the barn raisings, those are a real thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're called frolics.
Speaker 1:Folic F-O-L-L.
Speaker 2:Frolic.
Speaker 1:Oh, frolic, Like it's a frolic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they give it a fun-sounding name, but it's really a work event.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so go ahead the woman that I took doctoring this week and I'll take doctoring again next week. Um, I dropped two of her little kids off, you know, because they were going to be watched. And I'm like where are we going? We're going to this big house and there are all these buggies there and these women getting out of their buggies. I'm like what's going on here? And she said, oh, it's a work party, we're having a work party. So the women, they have work parties too.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if you're in a family say there are five girls and a mom and they're in the same community, they will rotate houses Every month. They will go to, let's say, Lizzie's house one month. Every month they will go to, let's say, Lizzie's house one month, and then they'll go to Barbara's house one month and all day they'll do whatever Barbara wants. And if she wants gardening help all day, or butchering chickens all day, or quilting all day, they all do that and they bring their little kids and they all bring food to eat and it's a work party, it's a frolic.
Speaker 1:Okay, Frolic, A lot of their language. I think sounds like German, German-ish.
Speaker 2:Yes, pennsylvania, dutch, a form of German.
Speaker 1:yeah, that's so funny. Quick story has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about. But when I was a kid growing up, of course you know in school you talk about what's your ancestry, right? And I came home and I asked my parents. I said and what's my ancestry, what am I? And the answer was you're English, irish and Pennsylvania Dutch. I'm like Pennsylvania Dutch. My dad said well, that's what I was always told Pennsylvania Dutch is just German. I had no idea and, sure enough, once I got my ancestry kit I was like oh yep, there it is on my grandmother's side, german.
Speaker 2:That's funny.
Speaker 1:I think they said Deutsch, yeah, and they settled in Pennsylvania, and so they were known as the Pennsylvania Deutsch.
Speaker 2:But no Amish huh.
Speaker 1:In the background that you can find, Not that I knew of. No, that's interesting. I never even thought to look for that. I might have to re-up my subscription. I kind of got out of it after a while. It's like you know, 20 bucks a month adds up, right. I have no idea I it after a while.
Speaker 2:It was like, you know, 20 bucks a month adds up, right, I have no idea.
Speaker 1:I haven't done that. It's like, well, you can, you can go on there and it's like 20 bucks a month which how much is that over a year? But that's the only way you can see like documents and things. So like, hey, I found my dad's birth certificate. Yeah, but you can't see it unless you're a member. Don't get me started. Ancestor. You're on my list, but yeah, no, I never. Actually. I think they were all. Don't get me started. Ancestry. You're on my list, but yeah, no, I never. Actually. I think they were all Lutheran, probably.
Speaker 1:My dad always said, when I asked him about his religion growing up Episcopalian. I don't know, he was not the religious person in our family. That was my mom and she was Roman Catholic. I don't know he was not the religious person in our family. That was my mom and she was Roman Catholic. Yeah, yeah, but this is not that show. I just there's such these stories. Tell me another story about driving them. Tell me a good one, not that the others weren't good. A story about driving them? Tell me a good one, not that the others weren't good.
Speaker 2:A story about driving them.
Speaker 1:Look at me poking you like a monkey Dance.
Speaker 2:Well, this just kind of shares how innocent they are, and I am going to write a book and it's probably going to be called Danny and Susie Go to Colorado or something like that, because after my first year of driving, I mean, I had become friends with this family. They have 10 kids and yeah, I only have six and people told me I had a lot. Nope.
Speaker 2:That seems like a lot 10 is more, and my kids became friends with their kids and I became friends with them and I was driving my family out to Oregon to visit and they're like well, why don't we stop in Colorado? You know, you can just take us too. So I took some of them and some of my kids and we did a family trip and we were just going along driving through Kansas. That's where we drove through Kansas to get to Colorado and I had never been to Colorado, my kids had never.
Speaker 2:None of us in the van had been to Colorado okay we were driving along and they would let me play like church hymns, or um, actually the dad who has since deceased, which is a completely another story he, he was a little rebellious and he liked Johnny Cash and typically the Amish don't listen to music. Yeah, to popular music no, no, even if it's old popular music, but I'm like I'm, his name is david, I'm like david. So I mean, is it okay if I play it? And he and his boys are like yes, play johnny cash, play johnny cash.
Speaker 2:And his rebels I know rebels, his wife, who was sitting up front with me. She's like uh, she was really uncomfortable with it, I could tell. So I started playing and she opens her hymn book and she's right next to me and she's singing really off-key kind of loud, trying to sing these hymns to ward off Johnny Cash, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And they're rocking out in the back of my van, these little Amish boys with their bowl haircuts, you know, and their blue shirts and their suspenders, and my kids are kind of laughing oh my gosh, you got johnny kettuck, oh, down, down down in a burning ring, and then you got mabel over there going bringing in the sheaves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean for real. And then we got to where we, like I said, my kids and I we've never been to colorado. And then we got to where we could start seeing the mountains and the horizon and the kids were just. You could feel the excitement rising in the van because these children had never seen a mountain, because we're in Missouri, there's nothing here, and so we got closer and closer and then they started hooping and hollering and it was such a memorable moment for me to be with these young people the first time they ever saw the mountain.
Speaker 2:Just the awe. Yeah, yeah. It's such a gift to be able to participate in these events and these moments with these humble, um, pretty isolated people yeah, yeah, and you don't even stop to think about how nice I mean I was.
Speaker 1:I was blessed growing up because my dad worked for an airline worked for Northwest Airlines so we took some pretty amazing trips. For a kid in the 70s, you know, and I sometimes think, even now, that I didn't realize how lucky I was. But the Amish are all over the world. I have no idea. My wife and I, in 2014, took a trip to Belize. We didn't go to the big city, we went to this little town. We knew some expats that lived up there and not far there was an entire Amish community in Belize. I had no idea.
Speaker 2:I just I guess, I just assumed it was an American thing, I think Belize and Canada are the only other two countries that they're in. Oh really yeah, yeah, they've been in Mexico before. I believe there's some really conservative Mennonites in Mexico. I know.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, That'll be your next trip, Haley.
Speaker 2:I've been to Mexico.
Speaker 1:They'll be like I have to go down and visit Cousin Jacob in Belize.
Speaker 2:I want to go to Belize. I probably better up my passport.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Yeah, it was an interesting experience. We didn't go over to the community but, um, but yeah, everybody knew the store and the furniture and and everything. They had houses that were built by and those were pricey the amish. If you had an Amish person build your house, it costs more than if the locals made it.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Interesting because they're about on par. I had the Amish build my house out at the fireman. They're about on par and they're a lot better workers too, because I'm not paying them to look at their phone or to smoke a cigarette. You know what I mean, yeah yeah, phone, or to smoke a cigarette, or you know, I mean I mean they, yeah, yeah, and they work, take a three beer lunch break. Yeah they're, they're very serious about work.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, they're very serious. I love that about them. Uh, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much, hayley. I really appreciate it. I love so.
Speaker 2:Okay, name of your books um, the series is called Tales of an Amish Taxi Driver. They're on Amazon. I just have two I need to work on. I need to finish my third.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's fine, they'll be on Amazon. We'll put links to them in the show notes and yeah, it's been Can.
Speaker 2:I leave a proverb that I forgot.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes please.
Speaker 2:My favorite ones, okay, and I do have a picture for this one and I don't know if I sent it to you, but it's, I think it's. Anyway. It's either me or my daughter with a little Amish girl, because they're the cutest. Kindness when given away, keeps coming back. Oh, I think you sent me that one, okay, yeah, that's one of my favorites and that's what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, the little Amish girl. Okay, and that's your daughter.
Speaker 2:Is it me?
Speaker 1:I think it's you.
Speaker 2:I think it's me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's another one just before that where I'm sure this is probably your daughter. Kindness Begins With Me.
Speaker 2:That was my daughter and that's a Mormon saying. Actually, I just put it on that picture.
Speaker 1:That's fine too. Yeah, that's cool. I love the little girl with her scarf. And what's your daughter handing her, do you know?
Speaker 2:Chicken. So that's the small animal auction. They have these little small animal auctions every month, except for in the winter, in the community that we've got our farm in and they the kids, raise animals and they sell them and the women make donuts. They start at 3 am making donuts and then they hand them out if you get to the auction early, for free, and they make pies and they've got hamburgers and chicken and it's just a big community event where everyone can sell things and the kids can make money and they earn money for their parochial schools.
Speaker 2:So that's where the picture was from, so my daughter and I love going to those every month.
Speaker 1:They just give these little animals away.
Speaker 2:Well, they auction off the animals. So my daughter's hoping for a kitten, because we got a kitten from the Amish last fall and the cat ran away. We went to buy eggs and we came home with a kitten, and so she's like when's the next auction?
Speaker 1:I'm hoping to have kittens there we're going to get another Amish kitten. Oh my gosh, that's so fun. Oh, I could talk to you for days. This is so much fun. Thank you for sharing your experience with the Amish and their kindness, and I can't wait for that third book to come out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me neither, it was my pleasure.
Speaker 1:All right, we will be in touch, but until then, have a great weekend. Okay, thanks, you too. I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode with my guest, haley Straw. I hope you're able to take something positive from the time you spent with us. Maybe you'll be inspired, maybe you'll be motivated, maybe you'll be moved. If you experienced any of those positive feelings, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends and family I'm always striving to offer you a better podcast, so you know, give me some feedback, let me know and family, I'm always striving to offer you a better podcast, so you know, give me some feedback, let me know how you think I'm doing. Email me, leave me a message. It would mean the world. Also, feel free to follow us on our socials like Facebook, instagram, linkedin and TikTok.
Speaker 1:This podcast is part of the Mayday Media Network. If you have an idea for a podcast and need some production assistance, or you already have a podcast and are looking for a supportive network to join, check out maydaymedianetworkcom and check out the many different shows like Approcentric Spoil, my Movie Generation Mixtape In a Pickle radio show, wake Up and Dream with D'Anthony Palin, staxo, pax and the Time Pals. We'll be back again next week with another episode and we would be honored if you would join us. You've been listening to the Kindness Matters podcast. I'm your host, mike Rathbun. Have a fantastic week.
