Today after meeting and working in the studio I went with another outreach student for my first lesson in driving on the wrong side of the road, down to Mason's Bend, a small and impoverished community at the end of a dead end road near the Black Warrior river where many of the best-known RS projects are sited. They are weathered and aged already by the climate here, but seem to have become more part of the place and fitting for their purpose. Already some are like relics from another time; the chapel particularly, empty and neglected, an architectural experiment lost in the wilderness.




After dinner we went to the high school football game; Greensboro Raiders vs Jemison Panthers. The largely white Jemison team came with a troupe of glittery-costumed cheerleaders, athletic dancers and well-rehearsed band. Greensboro's band only started this year and has only been able to afford T-shirts to be worn with jeans, or black shorts. The sound they made was thin and their dance routines basic. To start with, we hung out looking over the fence, sitting on top of the car with a bunch of black people cooking tailgate food and similarly watching the game for free. After half time the game is free, so we moved inside.




After the game, all the cars move a few blocks down to the carpark of the strip mall, and everyone hangs out with music blaring, chatting and eyeing each other up for an hour or so, until the cops inevitably come to move them along.