As visitors of birdinhandnews.com you may know that I am the creator and the chief writer of the site. I write most of what’s on here, although many names may appear after various articles. Some of the writers are real people and I thank them for their contributions. Lately all the “Dear Abners” have been sent in by readers. Abner thanks you for your questions and is doing his best to answer them all. He has been an inspiration to me and has offered much good advice, but now his head is almost as big as his beard because he's getting so many questions.

Now I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself. I am Ira Lee Wagler of Leola, PA. I am 23 years old and have brown hair and green eyes. I drive a black F-150 with much pleasure. This is where it gets confusing and I apologize to readers who may have mistaken me for someone else. I have an uncle, Ira Wagler, of New Holland and he has a website called irawagler.com. The contents of birdinhandnews.com (except for one “Dear Abner”) have not been written by that Ira Wagler. I write this because the older Ira Wagler voiced some concern with people confusing me with him. One Amish man from Michigan called him to ask about “The Amish Man Poisons Wife” story.

I come from a family of Amish writers. My grandfather, David Wagler, is perhaps the most famous Amish person among the Amish. He has penned several books and started such magazines as “The Family Life” and “Black Board Bulletin.” He is currently involved in the production of “Plain Interests,” although he is over 80 years old. His son and my uncle, the aforementioned Ira Wagler, is also quite the writer. He graduated from law school and I’m proud to have the same name. Sometimes it’s a little hard though, to keep our writings separate.

One of my cousins, Mervin Wagler, recently wrote a book, The Odyssey of a Heart. (Go to irawagler.com to see how you can purchase this book).  His brother, Rueben Wagler, is also a good writer. Check out his website, rwagler.com. Way back in the early 90s when we were good and faithful students at Clearview School in Bloomfield, IA, he started a newspaper. It was called the Wacky Weekly, and that’s where I made my first attempts at writing. I was in third grade then and didn’t have the greatest grammar, but wrote a few wild stories. The paper was shut down after several issues by concerned parents.

On the other side of the family is my mother, Wilma (Yutzy) Wagler. She is also responsible for putting “writing” genes in my blood. She has written in The Budget for many years and at one point wrote an ”Amish News” column for the Bloomfield Democrat.

Now more about Ira Lee Wagler. I was born in Iowa in 1983. When I was 12 my family left our 80 acre farm and moved to Lancaster, Pa. Some where along the way, we left the Amish and joined the Amish Mennonites. I did not want to leave Iowa and still feel that great state in my blood. However I was young enough to join the rush of Lancaster without many problems. I made new friends at school, got a new haircut, and lost my suspenders. It was a good move.

My parents joined Pequea Amish Mennonite Church in Narvon, PA. I joined when I was 13. I was too young to join church. But I did. Pequea was a big Beachy Church. It was filled to the brim with Lancaster People. I’m sure they wondered why an Amish family from the West would want to join their church. (To Lancaster people, anything west of Ohio is the West. They often get Idaho and Iowa confused). The church was quite progressive in many ways. The girls had the biggest poofs around and the boys had the longest sideburns. They set the trends for Beachys all over the country.

When I turned 16 I joined the youth group and those were some of the worst days of my life. I went to Pequea Youth activities with much reluctance and wanted to leave as soon as I got there. I had had a few uncool friends but didn’t really feel accepted. We usually sat in the corner and watched the cool people have fun. Lucky for me, I went to high school where I had a life. I wasn’t really cool at first, but after I became the star basketball player, I got more friends. My days at FMH are a topic for another time.

Somewhere in those days I started keeping a diary and have done so for the rest of my short life. I was inspired to do so partly by my own mother’s diaries, which I read with much interest. She has kept a diary since her teenage years. My life is now chronicled in 12 books of various shapes and sizes. It is very interesting, amusing, and sometimes embarrassing to read my old diaries. I am amazed at my old self, my simple thoughts and my weird dreams. Unlike my mother, who at times ripped pages from her old journals, I vowed never to destroy any of mine. I know most men don’t keep journals, but I am very glad I have and don’t know if I’ll ever quit. In my life, when there’s been no one I could talk to, I could always trust my faithful old journal to take in everything I wanted to say and not laugh at me or spread my dirt all over the county.

Since that time I’ve written various things. Once I started a newspaper, The Bird-in-Hand Biweekly News, but it died after 2 issues. I most enjoy writing fiction and have written numerous short stories. I wrote a little in high school and have learned a lot about writing during my years at HACC.

I write because I like it and I am surprised that anyone wants to read what I write. Some of you may think I’m a bad writer. Read something else. I don’t like to write with all kinds of big words and long sentences. I write how I talk. I write to my audience. If I was writing to a bunch of Yalers I’d write like one, but since I’m not I usually write in simpler terms and I think using the thesaurus is dumb. I’d rather give you something that makes sense and is easy to read than a bunch of lofty prose.

I will write more about my life later, but now a little about this website. I started it because I was bored and now I’m not sure what I want birdinhandnews.com to be. I want it to be a place where Amish, Amish Mennonites, and Mennonites can enjoy news stories, and ideas. I also want it to be a place where English people can find out a few things about their Plain counterparts. I want it to be worth visiting, and I want you to keep coming back.

A few years ago I received a letter from David Wagler. In it he wrote: “There are three kinds of reading material. The first is Christian reading material which is up-building to the Kingdom of God and His Church here on earth. Secondly is morally helpful reading or such as may be conducive to the mundane aspects of this life, which can also help in building up the church of God. The third category is anti-Christian, or tends to undermine the teachings of the Bible.” My Grandpa wrote this on his trashy old type writer. Who knows what he could’ve done with a computer.

I like this assessment of reading materials. I think birdinhandnews.com falls into the second category. I think it could add something to a mundane life. I hope you all understand that I don’t take myself very seriously. Some of the things on this site are blatantly false, others are partially true, and some are the cold, hard truth. I may criticize or make fun of many things Plain people do. But I do appreciate our traditions and understand why we do most of them.

When I received an angry email from a sheriff in Missouri, I realized that some may be taking the site too literally. I know some people think the site is dumb, and thanks to your own personal control of your PC’s mouse, you don’t have to look at it. Most feedback I’ve received has been positive. Thank You all for your support and hopefully by the time you read this, we will have over 3,000 hits. (by Ira L. Wagler 6/3/07).