By Will Higgins and Tim Evans, USA TODAY

SHIPSHEWANA, Ind. — Freeman Wingard is Amish, but he spent the last decade living quite differently than the popular characterization of the Amish as farmers, their plows hitched to enormous draft horses as they eschewed influences of the outside world.

Wingard took his family to restaurants every week, made trips to Chicago and vacationed in Florida. That was when, he says, he was earning $40 per hour working in a Northern Indiana recreational vehicle factory.

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The economy has taken some toll on most of the USA's 400 Amish settlements, experts say, but none has seen such a widespread impact as the country's third-largest Amish settlement in Northern Indiana.

"Nowhere in U.S. Amish history has a down economy affected the Amish so much," said Steven Nolt, a professor at Goshen College who has written about the Northern Indiana Amish. "It's a pivotal time for them."

More:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-0...

Fuck 'em.