Visit to Selma, Arkansas, Summer 2011

first posted on LiveCatDeadCat on 09 July 2011

Speaking of photos

Here are some recent ones I took using the Maui Minolta point and shoot-regular-35-mm-film camera.  I visited a restored Rosenwald School in Selma, Arkansas a couple of months ago, the purpose being a monthly meeting of Southeast Arkansas Economic Development District and its Regional Solid Waste District board, which administers Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality recycling grants, which I depend on to keep the Recycling Center going.

I guess I'd heard of Rosenwald Schools, but don't recall when or where, and I'd never heard of Selma, except of course the one in Alabama.  Selma, Arkansas has about 150 residents according to its highway sign, and from the looks of the tiny town, it seemed more like ten. 

But it had a couple of old churches including this Methodist one (above) that dates to the 1880s.  The Rosenwald School building itself was built in the 1920s, and was restored, with the help of volunteer labor, shortly before the meeting was held:

Edward Suber and Edward Suber, Jr. were the most impressive people I met at the meeting.  Mr. Suber Sr. is a small man but he has, I thought, considerable charisma.  He's black, with somewhat graying but distinguished looking hair. He and his son were in the food line in front of me (a good lunch is always served at these meetings). Earlier I'd seen him reading over a double-spaced manuscript, so I asked him if he was going to give a speech.  He pointed at his son--10 or 11 years old--and said, "No, he is."  And it was a super speech, about  the history of the Rosenwald Schools.  He had the written speech in front of him, but didn't look at it once.  His pronunciation, timing, and inflection were of professional quality.  He got a standing ovation at the end.

And here's another story. On the backroads on my way to the meeting, I passed a cropduster just in the process of taking off parallel to the road.  The pilot was female, with a low-cut black blouse on!  I passed her, then she passed me just as she was taking off.  Then she flew over me several times, disappearing over trees for a minute or so then coming back.  I was kind of worried about getting sprayed with herbicide, but there wasn't any spraying going on that I could see.  Then to top that off, on my way back to Pine Bluff, on different roads, I saw the same yellow plane again, and this time it seemed to be following me!  Why didn't I take a picture?  I was kind of afraid to.  I stopped once near a turn I was about to make and got out of the car with the camera, but didn't have the nerve or whatever to point it at the plane when it went by.  Then I got back in the car, and as the plane was coming back toward me I made my planned turn onto a road that was sheltered by trees on both sides, heading back in the general direction of Pine Bluff.  I felt like I was being played around with, and it was sort of fun but sort of threatening, too.  The plane, a yellow single-engine plane, zoomed over me once while I was driving through the trees, then I didn't see it anymore.  Below:  inside-looking-out of the Rosenwald School after the meeting.