by Will Emaus

Created on: September 29, 2009

What do you learn from living near the Amish? I would imagine in way of learning lessons, you can learn from a people like the Amish things that work and maybe a few that don't work as well.

I lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for 4 years, I lived in a cabin on top of what I guess you could call a mountain (a really big hill maybe) overlooking the heart of Amish Country and was around these folks on a daily basis, it was specifically because of the beauty of their area that I moved to that part of Lancaster.

I was used to urban and suburban atmospheres, and so Amish country for me was like a living treasure every day. The thing about Lancaster is that although it's well known that the Amish keep to themselves, they are surrounded by us English on a daily basis, both those of us who lived there and the millions of tourists that converge on the area every year.

In that respect, the Amish of Lancaster are probably much more conditioned to our world than a lot of Amish communities are. They still have their space and maintain their privacy but in way of detailing how they interact in modern society:

The Buggies-I'm sure there was a time when the Amish in Lancaster were able to travel in relative peace. However they do have to train these horses and it's in those "rookies" that sometimes things get a little scary. Semi's go up and down Route 30 which intersects Amish country out in Lancaster and I've gasped more than once seeing a horse-drawn buggy pulling a family jump out into the intersection in front of a truck; it's frightening to watch the driver yell and jerk the reins to try and get control again, knowing his family's life is at stake...

Buggy Posts-East of Lancaster, there are buggy posts in many of the parking lots. Amish go to the grocery stores, I've seen them in the parking lot of Walmart, ATM's, Convenience Stores, Restaurants and so on. I can't say I've seen any Amish picking out an iPod at the Rockdale outlet mall, but they are in the same places the rest of us are on occasion.

Certainly one of the great things I remember from living in Lancaster was that I made a point of going to a particular gas station on Route 896 at about 1AM every Sunday night, because that's when the Amish teenagers get to take their "road trip" to the gas station.

I'm talking a sea of buggies stretching for almost a solid mile filled with teenagers pouring into the gas station to get a root-beer or something like that, these were the happiest people in the world to

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