Hagerstown, Indiana

Rachel, myself, and Baby Aster ventured to rural Wayne County, Indiana yesterday to visit our midwife.  The midwife who was involved with our baby's birth lives in the bucolic countryside where there's been an influx of Amish from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania over the past 10 years.  I've written before about the distinct differences between this group and others in Indiana. Here's a past post. 

While Rachel and Aster were at the mid-wife's I slipped away into nearby Hagerstown which, really, Amish or not, seems like a town that time has forgotten in many ways.   There's a bustling IGA still. Remember those?  IGAs still cling to life in some small towns, but these grocery mainstays have generally been stomped out by the bigger boys like Kroger and Wal-Mart.  There's what looks like an old one-branch bank next to a hulking limestone post office.  I stumbled upon a cool praying mantis on the post office steps.  While I was eagerly snapping pictures of the praying mantis and the bank, the town's lone cop (okay, maybe they have more, I'm taking some literary license here) eyed me warily.

The Amish presence is pretty evident upon arriving in Hagerstown. I saw a buggy clattering through the parking lot of the IGA.  A yellow sign along the main route through town cautions drivers to be alert for buggies.  And on this day a couple of Amish men in typical attire of vests and straw hats were rehabbing a house downtown.