KUTZTOWN PA GERMAN FOLK FESTIVAL 2004

Another thing the Pennsylvania Dutch are known for is their tacky crafts and interior decorating abilities.  Sure, Duthchie craftsmen can handle their wood and some even know how to blow (glass works) quite well but most of it is still tacky.  They can make Martha Stewart almost tolerable.  Just look at the hex signs.  WTF?!?  And some of it I just don't even understand like the giant chair below.  Sometimes bigger is not always necessarily better.

Traditional homemade glass blowing

Fee, Fi, Foe, Fum. I think this giant chair is dumb.

Alejandro immitating some painted goards

More tacky wooden crap to decorate your house with.

Kristi next to some hex signs and a colored milk jug

And even more tacky wood carvings.

Walking sticks for the fat elderly.  After eating all that hearty Dutchie food we tend to be an extremely overweight people.

Oh, by now you're probably thinking to yourself...  "Man, the Pennsylvania Dutch seem to have so much fun.  They are such light-hearted people." Well, you're wrong.  They are Quakers.  Religious zealots.  Sure, they seem like a great group of people to hang out with but don't ever cross them or do anything immoral.  Or else they will hang you.  Take for instance the story of Susanna Cox.  A nice, sweet girl who grew up in the early 1800's.  Her only mistake in life was that she happened to be an indentured servant who had sex with a young gentleman and consequently gave birth to an illegitimate child which she murdered by sufficating him.  So naturally the Pennsylvania Dutch hanged her, but not before raping her, for her adulterous ways.  And now every year you can witness the joyful re-enactment of the hanging at the Kutztown Pennsylvania German Folk Festival.  What warm and gleeful Dutchie fun!

And you can't have a re-enactment of Susanna Cox's hanging if you didn't include a traditional Moravian church with a cemetary.

Onto more happy fun Dutch stuff...

The Gallows

... or back to food section.