I was invited by my good friend Glendoria to visit Hampton with her and the famous Watermalon Parade. Each little town in South Carolina appears to have a special parade day. This was the watermelon parade. On this occasion I took only an elderly zoom compact that suffers from some appalling shutter lag but the photos turned out quite well. Sometimes, these old camera can be just what the doctor ordered. Given that this was in the sweltering heat of summer - a time when sunglasses and hats are really needed - the least weight one carries the better. The other issue is that taking photographs necessitates the removal of both hat and sunglasses. I am certainly glad I was not one of the early settlers to the United States, from a time before they realized they couldn't just go around in heavy woolen tunics.
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| Watermelon Parade, Hampton |
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| Watermelon Parade, Hampton |
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| Watermelon Parade, Hampton |
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| Watermelon Parade, Hampton |
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| Watermelon Parade, Hampton |
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| Watermelon Parade, Hampton |
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| Watermelon Parade, Hampton |
The inclusion of anything Confederate has issues in the Southern US. To everybody else, in the rest of the world, it's just US history. To people in the US it has darker connotations. At the end of the Civil War, a group of disparate Confederate soldiers, upset that they had lost and disliking President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves in the former Confederacy, created a group known as the Ku Klux Klan. I don't think I need to explain the Ku Klux Klan and their stance toward immigrants and non-white people.
I was absolutely stunned to find that the Klan still exists. I had assumed it was something from the 1930s when people went around in white bedsheets with blazing crosses. Apparently, according to what I hear, it still exists and is quite strong in some states. I have met people who have seen Klan gatherings from their schoolbusses when they were younger. I heard that there have been gatherings recently. There's even a restaurant chain that is reputed to have Klan application forms at the counter. Needless to say, as an immigrant myself, I don't want to put myself at risk by seeking out members of the Klan to find out what their really are - as opposed to what I hear.
At one time I went looking at places to live and found the street I was on was a dirt track. I drove up that dirt track and found a house on a bend that was straight out of The Dukes of Hazard. There was a man sitting on the porch with a shotgun on his lap, dogs chained up in the front yard, pick-up trucks and motorbikes in the front and back yards and two half-life-size Ku Klux Klan figurines on the porch - one in red and one in green. Having seen that, I did a hasty 3-point turn and left. I didn't feel safe, even though I do the American thing and carry a .357 Magnum in my glove compartment. I don't want to have to use it - it's something I'd rather use as the last resort if trouble won't leave me alone.
It just seems to me like bad fiction that the Klan even existed in the first place. I just cannot quite comprehend it. Having said that, some reading around the Klan revealed that there is not just one Klan. It has died out entirely at various periods. The current Klan is the 4th generation or 3rd revival of the idea. It's not one homogeneous group run by one Grand Wizard. It is literally thousands of small groups clustered mainly in the Southern US. Most of the groups have no connections with each other. In general, their dislike is for anybody of a non-caucasian race and anybody from a clearly different area. Essentially they are territorial groups and they seem to spring up whenever money is tight and people feel hard-done-by. I've seen similar things happen in Britain where nobody cares if foreigners work there when the work and money are plentiful. When it gets tight, people moan about "foreigners taking our jobs".
The day in Hampton was very nice. It was, as I said earlier, scorchingly hot so it was very pleasant on the way back to stop by some cool lakes to walk and watch the fish and some alligators.
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| A nice, cool lake |
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| A nice cool alligator |
Going further on our trip back to Lexington, we found various interesting and abandoned buildings. This is one of my passions. I really enjoy photographing old and dilapidated buildings and machinery. It would have been nice if I'd had my SLR with me but I had just a zoom compact so I did my best with elderly and less than adequate equipment. On the way though, I did pass the smallest police station in South Carolina - in the town of Olar.
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| Olar police station |
From Olar, we headed north, through the town of North and onward toward Lexington and West Columbia. The following images are of buildings encountered along the route. South Carolina has a vast wealth of picturesque abandoned buildings.
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| Abandoned SC building |
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| Abandoned SC building |
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| Abandoned SC building |
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| Abandoned SC building |
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| Abandoned SC building |
The last photo was hard to obtain as it was both at maximum magnification and then some and against the light. These ultrazoom compacts are good until you get to the extremes of use. Then they just show how poor they are compared to a digital SLR.
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