Nissed Shot Blues
It is fitting I should enter my haunt.
In car with wifey, who is not camera soul, driving east on warm Sunday morn, out in the country just east of Abbotsford, WI, on a four-lane, fenced on each side. A gravel access road on each side, just inside the low fences.
Off to left are six young (12-14) Amish girls, in Sunday best, riding east also, perfectly abreast, upon old coaster brake cruiser bikes on that gavel country road.
They were dressed in beautiful home-sewn pastel pinafore dresses, soft, pastel yellows, pinks, blues, greens, white aprons and wee head veils, with the wind blowing their apron ties and dresses back slightly. The sun was shining in their faces, the right angle.
The girls were all smiles and laughing, as young girls might do but Amish girls rarely seen doing. No cares, free, likely on the way to church. Not the usually drab blue cloth and bonnets. The contrasts are difficult to describe.
I wanted to dash up the road and swing in and take a picture through the fence with a long lens, but wife suggested it would be wrong to take their picture as they believe pics are craven, and it might ruin their happy freedom.
I could have taken the pic surreptitiously but passed the opportunity.
That missed moment still haunts. It was so telling, they were so beautiful, everything was there, but my temerity; and I am a non-believer.