Maybe Fundie Sighting

[debrand]

Were you in Boone by any chance? I went to college at Appalachian, and Boone is an awesome place to live! If it is,you're probably more likely to run into hippies (especially downtown) than fundies on a regular basis. Though at least as of six/seven years ago there was a preacher who would show up on campus to yell at people that that if you'd ever seen a gay person and hadn't condemned them you were going to hell. As far as fundie types go in that part of the state, Pentecostal is my best guess.

It is very close to Boone but not Boone. I have dreamed about living near Boone for some time and was surprised this job just fell into our laps. Hopefully, we will get it

[FeministShrew]

Is it...Blowing Rock? Now that is a tiny little town!

Wherever it is, I hope he gets the job!

[Sobeknofret]

We've got a Mennonite community not far from here. One family I see a lot of owns a mobile homemade ice cream operation. They have three or four churns hooked to a machine that turns the dashes, and a freezer in a long trailer to store it. They travel around to community events-- fairs, rodeos, festivals. Best.ice.cream.ever. They use whatever fruit is in season locally for some, chocolate, and vanilla, fresh milk and cream. Huge scoops for $2.50.

[Spider Burps]

Is it...Blowing Rock? Now that is a tiny little town!

Wherever it is, I hope he gets the job!

Hah, Mr Burps and I lived there during my last year in the area! We had a duplex in the woods, and because we weren't in the town proper, the paved road leading to our zombie-safe place wasn't plowed until at least eight hours after the other roads; Mr Burps missed sooooo much school because of the snow/ice. The only warning we were given was that we may want four wheel drive "because the driveway is gravel."

(As an aside, Holton Mountain Rentals sucks ass. Pass it on.)

[lagenialester]

I know I don't post much, but I certainly read :) I had TWO possible sightings lately, both last week. I was surprised to see that many here in Madison, WI.

The first on was at a Savers thrift store (I love shopping at thrift stores for clothes). I was in the men's t-shirt aisle, right across was the polo shirts. A family of fundies appeared, choosing polo shirts (the mens' fundie shirt). I saw the mother (her head covered with black piece of cloth), two tween girls, a toddler brother and baby brother in the cart. I figured they homeschool since it was a weekday morning. I knew the baby was a boy since he had a blue onesie one. The the girls all wore long denim skirts and all had long hair. I tried to conceal my excitement that I finally saw fundies and continued to look at the shirts. I thought I saw the dad when they went to checkout, he looked like an ordinary guy.

The next sighting was this past Saturday at my local library. I think they may have been fundie-lite or fairly new fundies. My library was having a book sale and they came to get books. The mom wore a denim long skirt, no headcovering. Also were two girls around 8 or 10, long flowered skirts and a toddler brother. Maybe they read more than just the bible.

So anyway, those were my two sightings :)

Oh no, they're invading us! (Also it's scary to me because I shop at that Savers....) The first family might have sounded like Orthodox Jews to me, except Madison has a VERY small population of those as well, but once you described the Dad they definitely sound more like fundies.

[fauxmenno]

There are actually a lot of Mennonite and Brethren around both my hometown in NW Ohio and where I currently live in SW Ohio so it's not uncommon to see them out and about, but I still get excited when I see them. Because really, I just want to ask inappropriate questions about their lives and religious beliefs and find out if they are into Gothard-ism at all.

[formergothardite]

Living in a small town in NC, I barely notice the fundies anymore. They are everywhere. The penecostal ones have the long skirts and high hair, the IFB ones long skirts dragging the ground usually with really long hair.

[Tish Cook]

I work in a town that has a very large Hassidic Jewish population. I have noticed that when the women are shopping alone (and by alone I mean with their 6 + children under 10 or another female) you will get a quick smile or a polite nod. But most of the time the are accompanied by their Husbands. They cannot go to the DMV alone, where they may encounter non Jewish men who will try and speak to them. The husbands actually do all the talking to the DMV employees, the woman stay mute. It adds at least 20 minutes onto an already LONG dmv trip for the average person.

Also the husbands who do accompany their wives to Target must approve every item the wife picks up off the shelf and I would say that, on average, 60 % of men speak to their wives like they are property. I always feel sick to my stomach when I see them shrink back a little. Must they degrade them in public?

[lagenialester]

I work in a town that has a very large Hassidic Jewish population. I have noticed that when the women are shopping alone (and by alone I mean with their 6 + children under 10 or another female) you will get a quick smile or a polite nod. But most of the time the are accompanied by their Husbands. They cannot go to the DMV alone, where they may encounter non Jewish men who will try and speak to them. The husbands actually do all the talking to the DMV employees, the woman stay mute. It adds at least 20 minutes onto an already LONG dmv trip for the average person.

Also the husbands who do accompany their wives to Target must approve every item the wife picks up off the shelf and I would say that, on average, 60 % of men speak to their wives like they are property. I always feel sick to my stomach when I see them shrink back a little. Must they degrade them in public?

This is so sad to me. I was part of an Orthodox community for awhile when I was still figuring out how religious I wanted to be and the women in that particular community were a lot more "free" in that sense. Sure, we all wore skirts and covered our arms, but most of the women had careers outside of their kids and really ran the family. It makes me really sad when I see beautiful traditions turned into a tool for oppression within the community!

[paganhomeschooler]

I live in Northeast Ohio and I really don't see too many fundies in the Greater Cleveland area. There was a family in the town I grew up a little further south in that were maybe fundy-lite. They were Baptist and had umpteen kids with "C" names, but they went to public school. They always had their Bible with them, though! We also had Amish, do they count as fundy?

The regional differences are interesting, I would assume fundies are more common in rural areas.

NO! Amish are WAY cooler than fundies! lol I have partied with a few Amish in my day. Come to the southern part of NEO....lots o' fundies/fundie-lites 'round these parts. :-/

[Libby Liberal]

We recently moved to a small town on the edge of a large Southern city. When I lived in the city, I never, ever saw fundies. I didn't at first when we moved out here, either.

And then? An Aldi's opened up near us.

Fundie central! You are guaranteed a sighting every time you go. The saddest is a family where the mother looks to maybe be in her late twenties and she has an uncountable number of children ranging from infant in arms to about ten or so. They arrive in this smog-farting minivan that terrifies me, and they don't buy enough food (IMO) for that many people, although it seems like they are doing a main grocery shop.

Everytime I see her I want to tell her about how food stamps are awesome and the freedom paying work provides.

[Jenny]

Amish are WAY cooler than fundies! lol I have partied with a few Amish in my day. Come to the southern part of NEO....lots o' fundies/fundie-lites 'round these parts. :-/

I grew up in Ohio. Last Thanksgiving, my Grandma invited their Amish neighbors to join us for dinner. They are nice people and I have sampled some excellent cakes and cookies made by the teenage girls. I've also been through the area where the beard-cutting Amish live. Very, very, rural, but otherwise, a nice drive.

[PennySycamore]

I love Boone! That area is so beautiful! I'd love o move up there someday.

Yesterday evening there was yet another protester in front of BJU. I don't think it was the same guy, this one was taller, skinnier & looked older. He had on what looked like a shredded graduation robe over a dress shirt & tie, & had a fake monk's tonsure on his head. :? It looked like a bad Halloween costume.

He was holding a homemade cardboard sign, the only words I could make out on one side were "pope" & "vatican", but the other side read "BUILDING THE KINGDOM OF THE ANTICHRIST."

I'd love to know what the deal is with these guys, but I haven't been able to find out anything.

Didn't the current president (Stephen Jones?) of BJ get his masters at Notre Dame? That may have sparked the protests. I've noticed someone with a sandwich board across from BJU a week and a half ago which was strange, but not as strange as seeing someone with an evangelistic sandwich board a couple of months ago over on highway 290. That was just plain weird as it's out in the country. Don't know what sparked that.

I like to drive my MINI up in the NC mountains which has lots of great twists for a MINI to tackle. One route I sometimes drive because it's not spectacularly long is to go up old 25 near the Greenville watershed to Saluda and come back down the Saluda grade on US 176 to Tryon. There are all these big ol' crosses in Polk County for some reason. You don't see them so much in Henderson County.

ETA: Yesterday I got behind this van where a head-covering woman jumped out and picked up the free paper with ads in it. I believe she was wearing jeans, but I'm not sure. Her license plate, though, read "AHEBREW" Yep, she was a black Hebrew. I'm glad they pulled off the road. It was getting tiresome to drive 10 feet and then have to stop again. I don't know why these people were collecting the papers.

[CelticGoddess]

I'm not far from NC - about 10 miles from Tryon, which is another cute little town. Fundies of all kinds abound in Rutherford & Polk counties, which share the border with my SC county.

I get the fundie stinkeye all the time in the grocery store I shop at, which gets a lot of NC customers, probably because of my really really short platinum blond hair & Dr. Who or Metallica t-shirts.

Now I'm wondering which cute little town you were in!

ETA: I almost forgot! There was a guy in a Russian military-type uniform - overcoat, fur hat & all- in front of Bob Jones University today. He was there when I went by at 8:30 this morning & still there (in the pouring rain) when I went home at 6.

He was holding a cardboard sign that said something about Lenin loving BJU because they're subsidizing something or other. If it's the same guy, he shows up every once in awhile protesting about BJU being too liberal. :roll:

It's been a long time since I've driven past BJU so I've missed him. I have seen the guy who wears the PVC pipe thingy with the sign that says "Repent for the time is near" across from BJU at the corner near the cemetary. Driving on 85, I only see the assholes.

ETA: I did see a car yesterday that had crosses, "JESUS" and painted on the side "Hell is one Rally you want to miss". You could barely see the paint for all the decals and crap. what made it really funny, all the Harley Davidson decals on the car also. And the old dude driving.

[HereticHick]

I'm from the NC mountains & yes there are fundies there-- but also lots of "back to the land" hippy types as well. And people with elements of both cultures. And I commute through Union Station in DC & see vacationing Amish and Mennonites regularly!

Maybe I'm stereotyping, but I do feel that ultra-orthodox Jewish women are much more likely to wear black than Christian fundies, & less likely to put their daughters in gingham or plaid "prairie dresses".

[fundyfreak]

I took my first trip to Hobby Lobby in southern MA over the weekend & lo & behold a fundy mama & her spawns all decked out in the Little House on the Prairie dresses. Matching ones to boot. Usually when I spot fundys they're rocking the denim skirt with socks & cheap keds knock offs.

[Triplet3]

I'm going to America for the first time ever in a month or so (need I say I'm SO excited!) and hope to do a bit of fundie-spotting while I'm there. I'll be in California near San Francisco for a fortnight. Who knows, I might actually be able to contribute to one of these fundy-spotting threads afterwards! I don't think I've ever seen a Christian fundy before here in the UK, or not any wearing fundy-obvious clothes at any rate.

[laura oz]

I posted earlier about my dentist. My appointment took 2 hours again, but this time he invited my family and me to his church. He's a really nice person, but I noticed how he talked to his female employee. He asked her to bring him some compound(?) for my tooth and when she had the wrong response he took a kind of "teacher" tone. Like I said, he's really nice, but it just sort of hit me the wrong way.

[FeministShrew]

Well, today the dude was back in front of BJU, but on the opposite corner. On the corner he usually stands on were two young guys. I don't know if they were students but they were wearing dress shirts & ties. One was wearing a ball cap & holding a sign that read "Free Nelson Mandela." The other one had on a fake beard & top hat & his sign read, "Free Willy." :lol:

The regular guy was wearing a normal coat & hat & carrying signs that read " Flirting With Sodom" & "In Bed With the World."

So much crazy!

[Ali]

I'm going to America for the first time ever in a month or so (need I say I'm SO excited!) and hope to do a bit of fundie-spotting while I'm there. I'll be in California near San Francisco for a fortnight. Who knows, I might actually be able to contribute to one of these fundy-spotting threads afterwards! I don't think I've ever seen a Christian fundy before here in the UK, or not any wearing fundy-obvious clothes at any rate.

That is not an area you are very likely to see fundies. However, San Francisco is a great place to people watch. Have fun!

[pookel]

That is not an area you are very likely to see fundies. However, San Francisco is a great place to people watch. Have fun!

Hippies, yes; fundies, no.

Although I did once get buttonholed at an organic grocery store in the Escondido area* by a white guy with dreds who wanted me to visit his commune where they praised Jesus and celebrated Jewish holidays and danced the hora every night. I was too polite to lecture him on cultural appropriation, so I just smiled and nodded and left quickly.

* Not all that close to San Francisco, but I think still short on fundies and long on hippies. I'm not from the area; I was visiting my brother, who is a Buddhist monk at a nearby monastery.

[Coconut Flan]

No, Escondido and San Francisco aren't on the same plane. Near Escondido one can find the occasional fundie and definitely a bunch of fundie-lites. So far the only fundies I've seen in San Fran were a family of tourists.

[Triplet3]

That is not an area you are very likely to see fundies.

Oh, damn. :( How about near the Grand Canyon? We're thinking about driving over there at some point during our holiday.

However, San Francisco is a great place to people watch. Have fun!

Thanks, I certainly shall!

[sarahjames3]

I grew up in Ohio. Last Thanksgiving, my Grandma invited their Amish neighbors to join us for dinner. They are nice people and I have sampled some excellent cakes and cookies made by the teenage girls. I've also been through the area where the beard-cutting Amish live. Very, very, rural, but otherwise, a nice drive.

They are very nice people - we have many Amish and Mennonite families in our area and more buying land all the time. They sell baked goods locally and are farmers and builders. I have always been mystified, though, by their definition of "modern" ways. They refuse to drive autos but will ride with any "English" who will drive them. Some will only travel by horse and cart, though. Some sects will drive their tractors for shopping excursions (pulling enclosed wagons loaded up with family members!) They dress in the old way but will wear Nikes and Reeboks with their long dresses and head coverings! I've seen them shopping in Walmart with disposable diapers and pullups in their carts and we frequently see them eating out at restaurants in the area. Some have electricity to their homes but others not. If they have electricity they only have bare light bulbs and not coverings - I guess this avoids a modern appearance? It's all very interesting. My husband does business with them from time to time.

[Ali]

Oh, damn. :( How about near the Grand Canyon? We're thinking about driving over there at some point during our holiday.

Thanks, I certainly shall!

Hippies, yes; fundies, no.

Although I did once get buttonholed at an organic grocery store in the Escondido area* by a white guy with dreds who wanted me to visit his commune where they praised Jesus and celebrated Jewish holidays and danced the hora every night. I was too polite to lecture him on cultural appropriation, so I just smiled and nodded and left quickly.

* Not all that close to San Francisco, but I think still short on fundies and long on hippies. I'm not from the area; I was visiting my brother, who is a Buddhist monk at a nearby monastery.

You may be a little more likely to see fundies in other parts of California that are less liberal. Another poster mentioned Escondido, which is eight hours south from where you are going to be and much different culturally than San Fransisco. I grew up in California and used to live in Escondido and I do not remember ever seeing a fundie while I lived there. I think many Christians in California are different than other parts of the country and I would describe them as hippie Christians. This is the kind of Christian pookel is describing.

It is possible to see fundies at the Grand Canyon as it is a popular tourist destination. Keep a look out because you never know what you are going to see...especially in San Fransisco.