Slow Down and Meet The Folks Who Tend The Flowers

   I have a good friend who lives down the way from our condo. Now, he is a professional photographer, one who is actually good enough to sell his work, but he also likes to encourage us amateurs, so he gives me his old photo magazines.

   Reading a story this morning about a travel photographer and his 21 month journey around the world, he had this to say:

   "It should be no surprise to readers of this magazine that the world hold endless photogenic opportunities, and all we need to do is open our eyes and minds, and use our abilities to capture them."

   Readers of this blog will know for sure that I have spent many miles and some hours going around our state photographing courthouses. We even stop in small towns in other states to see old courthouses, like this one in Senatobia, MS, the county seat of Tate County. Still in use after 140 years, fantastic!

   As I read through the article mentioned above, I thought how many times I had just breezed into a town, taken a couple of shots, and gotten on my way to the next county seat. Many times we traveled on weekends, and of course, the buildings were not open, and no one was around. There was no way to interact with the locals, even if we had wanted to tarry, but most times it was a race to see how many courthouses we could get to in our available travel time.

   But it is at those times that we do go in the buildings where we come away with a sense of the community, and it is those that we remember.

   Like the Deputy sitting by the metal detector in the new Troup County courthouse in LaGrange, who took the time to talk and to even walk us back out to the street so he could point out things that we needed to be aware of in "his" town.

   One small incident, our first stop this past Wednesday on our way back from Arkansas, in Buchanan, GA, county seat of Haralson County:

   My research had shown that there was a current courthouse and also a previous building that had been the county office and court building before the current one was constructed in the early 70s. As we pulled into town, there was the ever-present clock tower waiting for us on the town square. It was now the Library, having been restored after the new courthouse was built.

   But where was the new one? Spotting lights on in a storefront across the street, I went into the office of a small accounting and tax preparation firm seeking direction to the new courthouse.

   "Up the street to the stop sign, turn right, go under the railroad overpass, first street on the right, there it is. You can't miss it."

   We followed, and it was there. But it was ugly. After seeing all those grand old buildings around the state, I thought this one did not even rate a photograph, but I took the prerequisite one anyway, just to say we had been there.

   As I started to get back into the car and move on down the road, I thought, "No, I should go inside and see if anyone could tell me a story. There had to be one."

   Inside the front door, a metal detector, and another deputy. I told him of my quest to capture all the courthouses of Georgia and asked about the current building and the old one downtown on the square. It seemed to be something that he wanted to talk about. We got the story.

   It seems that in 1891 the county built a red brick courthouse with a clock tower on the town square. In the late 1960s, this old building had seen better days, and a referendum was placed on the ballot to float a bond issue to renovate the structure. It failed to pass, the people did not want to spend the money and take a chance on increasing their tax rates.

   The main reason for a new courthouse was that the old one only had one courtroom, and they, the officials, needed two. The building was OK structurally, but just not big enough for county officials. However, it was large enough for the people, and they rejected the proposal.

   Along came some progressive citizens, and they banded together to build a courthouse and then lease it back to the county. Thus the new one came into being, a utilitarian structure that definitely was not a photogenic opportunity.

   I bet I will remember that story and the two buildings that went along with it, but I would not have gotten any of it unless I first took the time to go in and talk. Sure it took ten minutes or so, but it made the town of Buchanan memorable, at least to me.

   Not only in photography, but too many times I am in such a hurry to get things done, or to get somewhere else, that I just do not take the time to look around. Too many times I do not think of questions that I would like to have asked, until I am 4 or 5 miles down the road and don't want to take the time to go back. Maybe it is only a couple of blocks, but anyway I don't turn around and go back.

   There are photographs that need taking, there are stories that I would like to hear, but most of all there are people all around that would like to feel a part of my life, just by offering the information that would make my visit worth the stop. Sadly, I don't give them that chance and am the worse off because of my hurry attitude.

   Does God look at my hurrying and sigh? Does He know what interactions I have missed, for my information and for His purpose?

   Slow down, smell the roses, and meet the people who tend them.

   That is where the heart of a community is located, even beside a metal detector in a small town of western Georgia.