Paul Newman Slept Here

This building in Sumter used to be a church, a Sunday school, a community school, and a derelict. Now, condemned by the town as abandoned and unsafe for habitation, it is for sale to anyone who would like to move it from the property and restore it.

The owners were on the property and were happy to chat and let me take pictures as long as I didn't go inside. I thanked them and snapped away. The kicker is I didn't think much of any of the photos when I first got home and downloaded them to my computer. Still, as I played with this one a bit by converting it to b&w and cropping it to give it a longer and leaner look, it started to grow on me in a Cool Hand Luke, Depression era South, kind of way. In my head I could almost see Paul Newman and George Kennedy sitting on the steps, trying to catch a breeze after sweating through another day on the road gang (something that you still see down this way btw - county prisoners in bright green and white striped pants and shirts working along the side of the road or on the county work farm).

I guess it's fair to say that the photo and I originally had a "failure to communicate" but worked out our differences with a little bit of blipsweat .... and the adventure, at least in my head, continues.

Update: For those who wondered what the inside of this lovely old derelict might look like click here.