The heart of good and evil

Dear Chroniclers,

this is the last in the series of "Adventures across the Pond". It will be the shortest too, for the actions of the people will speak for themselves.

Helicopters overhead

When we first came into Lancaster on our tour charabanc we saw helicopters flying overhead. We thought nothing of it until we switched on the TV that night in our hotel room.

Preparations

A local milk-truck driver called Charles Carl Roberts IV had pulled up his truck outside an inconspicuous Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines three hours before we arrived. It was one of his regular deliveries.

Roberts had prepared his visit meticulously for at least six days beforehand, ticking off a list of items he would take into the schoolroom with him. These included:

• three guns;

• a stun gun

• a bag with 600 rounds of ammunition;

• a piece of wood pierced with ten eyebolts spaced ten inches apart; and

• a set of plastic bindings.

There were other things he took into the schoolroom with him.

The heart of evil

Roberts did not emerge alive. Instead, he tied up ten Amish schoolgirls by the blackboard, shot them at close range then put the gun to his own head.

Five of the girls were killed outright, three left in a critical condition and the remaining two seriously injured. They ranged in age from six to thirteen.

The heart of good

The Amish buried their lost girls quietly and as a community. They invited the family of the killer to the funerals, believing they too were victims. They will be sharing the money raised in the wake of the tragedy with the family.

Our last day

On our last full day in Pennsylvania we went into the heart of the Amish community. Here are three memories we carried home with us:

• the Amish grandmother who greeted us, full of joy, to her quilt-shop. She had three grand-daughters who attended the schoolhouse - one escaped, another was in hospital, her shoulder shattered, the last had just been buried. She harboured no hatred.

• the ninety-six year old Amish man who showed us around his simple workshop where he still makes the most beautiful furniture.

• the faces of the straw-haired Amish children who ran out to welcome our charabanc as it pulled up outside the farmhouse where we ate our penultimate meal in Pennsylvania. They greeted us with smiles and waves - the road, just a stone's throw from the schoolhouse, has just been re-opened by the police.

The grace of God

There are tears in my eyes as I type these last words and close the book on our visit. It is the meaning of the grace of God that we saw first-hand in the Amish who carried this message so very faithfully.

The last words are from Him ...

"We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose."

Romans 8:28

On Breakfasts and Battle-fields

Dear Chroniclers,

welcome back to the continuing adventures of the electrofrieds, deep in the heart of Pennsylvania. You join us just as breakfast is about to be taken ...

Full stomachs for the day

Unaccustomed, as yet, to the "coronary-on-a-plate" helping typical of American portion control we dig deep into the assembled troughery.

We choose fruit to start. Succulent red water-melon, a fast-emerging favourite of teenygoth, is stacked high on her plate. We assume it must be in preparation for her hollowing out some frightful pumpkin mask come our return to Old Blighty.

Whilst she chows on down, mrs electrofried and I exchange pleasantries with the catering staff. To a person, they are unfailingly civil, welcoming and genuinely interested in service with a capital, "S". In other words, the diametric opposite of our loyal, but frankly deluded, retainer - the execrable Fetlock.

Having been "happy-dayed" to our hearts content we resume foraging duties and set off in search of the next course.

The perils of American bacon

I do not know if you have encountered American bacon before, but to the uninitiated it is a most bewildering thing. First, the wretched stuff is cut so ephemerally thin that were it to feature on the breakfast menu at the House of electrofried, one decent blast of tobacco-flecked spittle from dear Cook would despatch it, coughing and spluttering, to its Maker.

Were that not bad enough, those responsible for its presentation have chosen to pile the stuff several layers deep in a silvered turine. It resembles nothing so much as a complex work of pork-based macrame and my tentative insertion of the serving fork into the heart of this tangled web only serves to make matters worse.

Let battle commence

My goal is to extricate a rasher or two for consumption alongside a mild smattering of scrambled egg. It is not, however, to be. The serving fork emerges from the fray loaded with a writhing mass of intertwined bacon threads all of which seem intent on knotting themselves ever tighter around its prongs.

Herein lies the dilemna. Is it good ettiquette to remove by hand the surplus pig-meat, or should one accept one's fate gracefully and disgorge the entire contents onto the waiting plate?

I chart a course mid-way between the two, surreptiously returning half the pay-load to the open turine before slinking off to our table with the remainder stacked high. Teenygoth greets my arrival with her customary derision.

"Cor, Dad - you moving up a belt at your Sumo class or what?!!"

Her barbed remark is waved off contemptuously and I tuck into my breakfast. Big mistake. The bacon has been cooked to a crisp and as my knife makes contact with the toppermost layer an explosive shower of porcine-shards covers a fall-out zone extending some ten metres from our table.

Teenygoth giggles, but even now, I await fearfully the launch of a class-action from litigious American diners caught up in the piggy-crisped maelstrom.

En Charabanc

Breakfast over, we board the tour charabanc.

There is a certain blissful magic to travelling the backroads of America ensconced in the richly trimmed plastic mouldings of a fabled "Bluebird". It's driven by the seventy-year old Glen, our sharp as a pin chauffeur. If anything, he looks in better shape than the charabanc itself.

Several of its internal fittings hang at interestingly jaunty angles, unrestrained by long-lost fixing-screws that doubtless have been swallowed up some time ago in the swathes of shag-pile carpeting underfoot. One fears that any rapid braking motion on the part of our driver will lead to a complete collapse of the interior in a fashion not dissimilar to the untimely despatch of my breakfast bacon.

Crossing the Susquehanna

I take up station toward the rear of the coach and scribble random thoughts of our introduction to the Amish in my much-thumbed note-book, glancing out periodically at the unfolding view from the window.

As we reach the banks of the Susquehanna I look up to see a mile-wide reach of shallow water traversed by a series of stunning bridges. One in particular catches my eye. Its mist-shrouded arches resemble a row of hand-stitched embroidery in a creamy landscaped sampler.

A rude awakening

Time, and the view from the coach window, continue to drift by. They carry with them a jet-lagged horologist who falls fast asleep, until ...

"Come on Dad, we're here!"

As ever, I am rudely interrupted by young teenygoth.

We've arrived at the Gettysburg Visitors' Center and the rush is on to empty bladders and top-up the ever-expanding collection of tourist souveniery. Battling my way to the front of the queue I settle on a rakish pencil'n'pad set featuring a cartooned cannon and the implacable face of Mr Lincoln.

Descent to the lower levels

The Visitors' Center exudes a curiously run down air that rather befits its content. Descending to the lower levels, we chance upon a series of dimly lit exhibition cases that display decaying Union and Confederate uniforms. They appear both haunted yet lived-in at the same time.

In the eerie gloom the faded colours make it difficult to distinguish between the two warring armies - death and low-lighting bleed them into one amorphous mass of dull blue/gray fabric.

An announcement over the tannoy summons us to the Viewing Room at the far end of the Center which houses the "Electric Map". Time to go.

A journey in flashing light

We join a party of bored American schoolchildren seated around four sides of a square auditorium - on the floor below us a map of the Gettysburg battlefields punctuated by swirling lines of small electric bulbs.

As the commentary blasts out over the tannoy systems they blaze and dim, illuminating the progress of the battle in front of us as the warring armies attack and counter-attack. Fascinating stuff, and wasted on the yawning youth who stretch out on the seats around us.

Guided by voices

After a brief pause for lunch we're back on the charabanc, this time accompanied by the commanding figure of our Battlefield Guide - a statuesque middle-aged lady whose girth is matched only by her extensive knowledge of and evident passion for the Battle of Gettysburg.

The charabanc rolls around the battlefield and we take in views from Peach Orchard, Cemetery Hill and the Wheatfield. We practice marching manouevres and cannon-fire, drenched in sweat from an Indian Summer sun. The tour concludes at the summit of Little Round Top and, as the heat begins to die, our Guide recalls the grim and bloody statistics.

Three days of battle between July 1st - 3rd 1863 see over 46,000 soldiers lose their lives. They're still digging out skeletal remains to this day.

A hand waves

The rest of our party return to the charabanc, but I pause for a second to look down into the valley. Pictures of decaying military uniforms, twinkling electric maps and a sweat-stained marching party fill my vision.

Then for one brief second I think I see a hand rise from the ground below to wave.