Amish Country

I drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania with the same strategy I’ve used this whole trip: prepare 0, learn on the fly.

My morning in Hammonton, NJ had gone awry given an earlier Blueberry season this year than anticipated. RIP my Blueberry-seeking endeavors. Too early in Maine, too late in Hammonton.

At least I got a cool video of the upstate NY U-Pick!

At the midday point, I came to the realization that I needed to win with my next location choice. No matter what, the experience would be memorable. Lancaster was an easy choice for this reason. Again, even though when I left Boston I was “heading towards Lancaster,” I hadn’t committed to the city until today.

Once I got off the expressway and into the gorgeous cornfields I decided to go up a driveway and pick the brain of a farmer. Note, this part of PA has many Amish Farmers. In fact, Lancaster county has the highest concentration of Amish in the world. At the farm, I saw some horses on the left as well as kids with no shoes running across the gravel path to their father who was behind a horse looking like he was tending soil. I waited on the driveway, and about 4 minutes the later the father goes on this hybrid between a Bicycle and Scooter and makes his way towards me.

When I say I knew nothing about the Amish, there is no exaggeration to that statement.

I found myself asking the farmer the most basic questions of all time — and funny enough I kept saying, I’m sorry I can just Google it… I’ll do more research. I said this as he took an extra 2-3 seconds to respond to every single point I made.

I eventually head out and after interacting with the counter guy of the custom butcher, father filling up a propane tank on his horse and buggy at the gas station, and woman who told me the supermarket was closing early today, I started to generate a basic blueprint for how they are. But I was lacking the principles that explained why they acted that certain way.

To fix this, I enacted a simple strategy: visit the local library and start reading.

And honestly, it worked. What’s funny is many of the principles in those readings are logical and things that many of us agree with. This notion goes along with one of my core principles that most of us resonate with points made by a variety of religions.

One good one is the Amish principle of Gelassenheit:

• Quietness and inner peace

• Not asserting yourself

• Being teachable and not prideful

• Letting go of ego

• Trusting in community over self

Once the principles are understood, their eccentric behaviors have explanations. A reason they don’t drive cars is in their minds, cars separate people, which threatens both family and community. Their constraints are impressive to me.

Despite the fact that I’m on a road trip I do resonate with this principle. When I was in Quesada, Spain, one thing I couldn’t help but notice was the congregation of all community members in the village at night. Everyone walked to the center and the fact that most people didn’t have cars to drive to neighboring village results in a true communal feeling.

With so much optionality in the Western world, sometimes it’s easy to forget concepts like this. I’m happy the Amish people reminded me of this notion.

Don’t worry, I am not abandoning my car in Lancaster, PA.

Random facts about Amish people

1. They’re obsessed with Chiropractors

2. They buy cars but can’t drive them. In fact, my AirBNB host’s husband was a driver for the Amish people

3. You don’t buy meat from Amish “Custom Butchers.” Instead, you bring your animal alive and pick up your meat 7 days later

4. Amish restaurants have women working in the kitchen. Made me realize how every kitchen I’ve ever seen in NYC is men-dominant — which is interesting given women traditionally ran kitchens

5. They don’t own refrigerators and often get a block of ice from the ice man to keep items cool

6. Kids walk around Barefoot

Very happy I came to Amish town. I used to laugh at it as a kid. Many people still laugh at it.

The reality is, there’s so much to learn from them, and I’m happy to have spent time here in Lancaster. For real. It feels like a different country, in a good way.

-Jack