Sunday, March 05, 2006

Three of a Find

This past Friday was devoid of any sweeping themes, unless you count the inherent schizophrenia of general news...

I kicked off the first of my three brief stops in the Blue Room of the Guilford County Courthouse, loitering by my tripod as representatives from five different architectural firms tried to convince the assembled wonks they should be the ones to build the new County Jail. Despite a number of eyebrow maneuvers on my part, I could not break the poker-face of Sheriff B.J. Barnes - who was either deeply engrossed in the monotone sales pitches, or merely sleeping with fake eyeballs painted on his lids.

A half hour later I found myself shivering by a dilapidated mailbox as a few of Sheriff Barnes' deputies and a dozen other sworn officers paced outside a non-descript home. The assignment desk hadn't been sure just what was going on when they dispatched me, only that a small army of police and firefighters were descending on the unremarkable address. Fifteen minutes on scene, I was none the wiser, but the way the grim faced first responders kept gesturing toward an overgrown path beside the home told me they weren't there to compare badge numbers. But there wasn't much time to investigate, as impatient lunch-buddies were idling in their own news units at a pre-determined locale.

Too bad I never made it to them. Before I could fulfill my culinary rendezvous, higher forces colluded to send me elsewhere. Which is how I wound up standing in my sock feet in the middle of a crowded mosque while a couple of hundred Muslims bowed in deep reverence to Allah. Through my viewfinder, I zoomed in on the turban-wearing speaker who was railing against the local newspaper's choice of cartoon. As the heavily bearded man worked the faithful into a quiet frenzy, I thought about competiing religions, global politics and a the heavily accented call for tolerance. Well, that's not entirely true. I was still pretty much focused on lunch.

Hey, a photog's gotta eat...

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