Wednesday Walk: Re-Uzit
Ambivalence towards assassinations, Amish thrifting, Avoiding Amazon
Welcome to Willoughby Hills!
Every Wednesday, I offer a few short ideas that I hope will inspire you to do some more reading, thinking, and exploring. Let’s take a little walk together and see where the path leads…
Meh.
On Sunday, I said that I wasn’t ready to say much about the assassination attempt against former president Trump over the weekend. I’ve been trying to really grapple with what I’m feeling around this event, and all that I can muster is ambivalence. I’m wondering if others of you are in the same boat?
I grew up hearing stories from my older relatives about the day they heard that John F. Kennedy had been killed. From the personal accounts I heard as a kid and the news reports I later watched, that event seemed earth shattering.
In my lifetime, there has never been a close call on the president’s life like this (the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan happened a few years before I was born). This shooting against Trump should be historic. And yet, it doesn’t seem to matter at all.
In some ways, this is the logical conclusion of the path we’ve been down for some time. It has become commonplace for angry white males with easy access to guns to bring an AR-15 style weapon in public and open fire. If it can happen at churches, synagogues, movie theaters, elementary schools, high schools, grocery stores, work parties, or concerts, then of course it can happen at a political rally.
If we fail to protect elementary aged children at school, of course nobody else is safe from gun violence, including former presidents.
I wonder if this event would carry more resonance had the bullet hit its mark. Or had there been some international conspiracy or evidence that this was some kind of inside job from the CIA.
But, no. It seems it was just another lonely white guy expressing his rage with an assault rife.
And as we’ve done with every gun violence tragedy over the last 25 years, we shrug, accept it, and move on.
In the case of Trump, there’s also the notion to reckon with that this is “chickens coming home to roost.” Long before he was ever a political figure, Trump was known for his inflammatory rhetoric. The right especially seems to traffic in a specific grievance politics that is powerful when used in their favor but is also so volatile that it can turn on its own in an instant. Just ask Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney or any other number of once prominent Republicans that have been swallowed by their own machine.
There’s still a lot to unpack about last weekend, but like every other instance of gun violence in the U.S., I doubt we’re ready to do that work. And maybe that’s where that ambivalence comes from too.
An Amish Thrift Store
I’ve been sharing little bits and pieces from our recent road trip down to Florida and back up to Massachusetts through the Appalachians. At the end of the trip, we spent two days in Lancaster, PA and today, I want to share with you my trip to an Amish thrift store.
We’ve driven by the “Bird-in-Hand Re-Uzit” shop (named for the town Bird-in-Hand, PA) a few times, but have never been inside until this trip.
The store is in a large metal building that felt more like a garage than a store. Like many Lancaster businesses, this one offered both car and horse parking. The store featured large windows that let in natural light, but it also had some basic electric lighting. In the front were new toys and books, many of the dollar store type variety. Very little of these seemed to be second-hand.
The rear of the store featured home goods, all second-hand. It was a mix of “English” and “Plain” items, including plates and cups, furniture, bikes, baby items, and Christmas decorations. While the setting felt different, this section of the store felt like a standard Goodwill.
The store also featured an attic loft space, and that’s the area that was noteworthy. The entire attic was filled with Amish clothing, presumably all donated.
There were Amish dresses, Amish pants, even Amish head coverings, all of it second-hand.
As I took a closer look, I noticed that most of the clothing was stitched by machine but appeared to be homemade. Nothing had a size noted, nor was it organized by size (presumably because it was all made to fit one specific person).
I tried on a few shirts and actually really liked them. I ended up buying one shirt for $2, another for $3, and a vest for $5.
In the context of this store, the items may look especially Amish on me, but I think when I wear these in the real world, they will hardly garner any notice.
The clothing was all made of a poly blend (again, with no tags, it’s hard to know exactly what). That was disappointing.
But I loved that every article of clothing was made piecemeal and custom, rather than churned out in a factory. (It’s an important distinction here, because even though most of our clothing in the U.S. is mass produced in places like China and Bangladesh, it is still touched by way more human hands than we might think. The fact that these Amish clothes were machine sewn don’t make them much different than factory produced clothing, other than that they were likely sewn within a few miles of this store and are completely unique).
The only marking on some of the clothes were names or initials put inside the garments using puffy paint.
I tend to romanticize the simplicity of the Amish, but this trip was a good reminder that the Amish aren’t simply stuck at some arbitrary point in history (I’ve explored this idea before). They are in a constant negotiation with modernity and consumerism. Their thrift store shelves have less garments than ours, but there’s still extra stuff to sell.
Oh, and one difference between a standard Goodwill and the Re-uzit store: this one had a cooler near the registers selling Coca Cola, Snapple, and homemade butter.
Shop Less
Today is day two of “Prime Day” when Amazon offers sale prices on many items, akin to “Black Friday.” In 2023, Amazon sold 375 million items worldwide on Prime Day. That’s a lot of stuff.
I have been re-reading J.B. MacKinnon’s great book The Day the World Stops Shopping this week, as he is scheduled to be a guest on my podcast soon, so consuming less stuff has been on my mind.
It’s probably no surprise, but I am no fan of Prime Day. I would encourage you to shop locally for items that you need, rather than buy from Amazon.
But if you feel tempted by a deal, I wanted to share some guidance from Amelia Pang’s amazing book Made In China. Pang was a guest on my podcast a few years ago and if you want to better understand the labor practices in China, listen to that episode and read her book!
1. Do I already own something that serves the same purpose?
2. Is this item so much better that I would feel compelled to donate three things in its place?
3. If it were more expensive, would I still try to figure out a way to afford it? Or am I feeling an urge to buy this only because it’s extremely cheap?
4. If the product I’m considering is an updated version of one that I already own, is my current one working just fine?
5. Am I sure I will wear or use this product a lot? Or will this likely end up sitting in storage after one use?
One last call-out for Prime Day: I’m seeing many big brands publishing lists of their favorite Prime Day deals. In almost all cases, those lists contain affiliate links, meaning the company sharing the link makes a small commission if you use their link when ordering.
It frustrates me to no end to see companies that bring in millions in dollars in revenue using Amazon’s affiliate program to make a few extra bucks. If you absolutely must buy something from Amazon today, please, please, please don’t use a big brand’s affiliate link. Look instead for links from small content creators, BIPOC creators, and/or LGBTQ+ creators.
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Other Wednesday Walks
If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.