Roger Rheinheimer

Amish Snow Roger Rheinheimer

The Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan TV show, and Woodstock rocked the established order. Young Ezra Neuenschwander was an outcast, picked on by his high school classmates for being different; work boots, faded trousers held up by well-worn leather suspenders, equally faded denim long sleeve shirt fastened with hooks and clasps, since buttons were too "worldly," and the iconic Amish hat. He spoke with a faint German accent, and was awkward in his manner, like so many adolescents. But he was smart, very smart, always excelling in school. Home was equally distressing, with a harsh, religiously dogmatic father and a passive mother. One day, the abuse reached an intolerable level, and Ezra shoved back, something that went against his every fiber, knocking his angry father to the ground, hitting his head on a plow on the way down. Certain he had killed his father, Ezra fled, headed for the big city of Philadelphia. Amish Snow is a sometimes raw and ultimately heartwarming tale of a young Amish man trying to navigate the turbulent 1960s, a story of loss, redemption, and the triumph of the human spirit, coming of age in a dangerous time.