Thank you, Kevin, for commenting about my Amish story not being published. If you read on, you'll understand why I asked that it not be published. My editor agreed with my reasoning.

Regarding my murder mystery short story set in a real Amish town in Illinois, I requested that my editor not publish it with her anthology, along with my explanation of why. The story is probably pretty solid, inasmuch as I really nailed the way the Amish in Nickel Mines, PA, reacted in real life to their own murder tragedy. I nailed the characterization, and many details of daily life. In my story, however, it wasn't an outsider who murdered the girls--it was a severely retarded young Amish boy. There are inbreeding issues within the Amish community that lead to mental retardation, so that part is realistic.

I felt horrible about the way the media was crawling all over the town in PA, instead of just leaving the community alone, but these school shootings ever since Columbine are front page news. At least the cops in PA managed to keep the media away from the actual funerals. I went to college about an hour north of Harrisburg, which wasn't the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, but there were plenty of Anabaptists in surrounding towns, both Amish and Mennonite. Far be it from me to intrude on them, other than doing business, buying a pie at a farmers' market on a Wednesday, or some cheese and jam, or a nice cut of meat from a store they run.

Yes, I'm "English," a term the Amish generically use for all outsiders. My last name is indeed English, which traces back to a town in Derbyshire called Tissington, where my namesake is buried at a Catholic church, along with her husband, who happens to be my brother's namesake. That bit of background aside, the Amish and Mennonites never had a problem interacting with me, when it came to doing business, or as a "Hi neighbor," as Jerry Seinfeld put it. A "Hi neighbor" is one to whom you wave and acknowledge, saying "Hi!" as you pass on the street or in the hall, even if you don't know their name.

I've been to many funerals, Catholic, Jewish, Methodist and Presbyterian, but never an Amish one. I would never be invited to one, nor would I want to crash one. There is something just so wrong about doing that. I'm glad the media were kept away.

On another topic, the Mets won, and the Yankees lost! Whee! The Giants game is going to start soon, and I promised dad I wouldn't stop by until it's over. Well, 4:15 in case it runs overtime. He wants to test drive my Verizon cell phone service against his Cingular service, since his is up for renewal. "Can you hear me now?"

His house was built in 1930, so the walls are plaster/lathe construction. Radio waves don't go through those very well, so he's got limited ability to use his cell phone inside his house, as well as a wireless router for his computer. My walls are sheetrock, so I don't have the same issue. I don't think Verizon will do any better in his house, unless its signal is stronger. With either service, I suspect he'll have to go out the back door or onto his patio to use it.

None of us use our cell phones as a matter of habit. Land lines rule for clarity, and are much cheaper to use. But in this day and age, if you don't have a cell phone, it's tough to do business with clients. It's there, but I almost never use it, and it's the same with my dad. Steve uses it, but mostly because his clients call him on it, not vice-versa. Our highest usage so far was 180 minutes in August, when Yury was calling Steve. That's nowhere near our 700 family minutes, so there's no reason to upgrade our plan.