I don’t know how the Amish found Grayson County but they are here. Heck, they are everywhere.Their communities are all around us and their buildings are everywhere. On the roads, one buggy will turn your quick little trip to town into a mind numbing challenge that will force you to wonder if you prayed for patience. Here is a little tip on how to know if they have already made the trip back home. Poop on the left side of the road. You are welcome. In my mind I can see that first buggy making Its journey to discover our county. Like an odd looking Christopher Columbus setting out on their voyage, I wonder if maybe they were searching for Butler County and just ended up here. Surely we must have looked just as odd to them as they do to us.

Unwilling to embrace our modern technology, they do most of the same things that we do, but in a different way and this is the part that bewilders me. They shop at Walmart. It is an odd thing to see buggies tied to a light pole in a Walmart parking lot. There was a time when all I worried about was getting gum on my shoe on my trek to the shopping carts.

About thirty miles or so from here is an Amish store that has lights. And heat. And bathrooms with running water. Alright, I’m lying about the bathrooms with running water. They do however have an outhouse, Ok, a porta potty. I think an outhouse sounds much more rustic.  Today I went there because my wife had never been and they have a lot of very cool things and while there, I did a lot more observing the surroundings in the store and I realized that even though they have lights, they don’t have electricity. All the lights were gas. The same thing they heated with, they used for lighting. Later we went to an Amish bakery, or was it Mennonite?…. Its like some of the Amish just said HEY, I want to drive a tractor, but back to the lights ….  it was the same way. There is more than one way do do things, but why do they pick the hard way every time? I will say that you can’t out work them. Nope.

They are a people who have no desire to become us, but they live among us. With their strong convictions they resist changing to fit in even when it would clearly make their lives easier and as peculiar as that seems, maybe there is a lesson here for us all. Just maybe, sometimes we are too quick to fit in.

One last thought concerning our Amish neighbors. They have never heard of The Walking Dead, or Game of Thrones, or omg…. Breaking Bad. The horror….. The Sopranos.

ws