Department of “Why Bother?”

Skinny brick building in Glouster OH 11-09-2014I didn’t pay much attention to this building when I was northbound through Glouster to the Burr Oak Lodge where I was staying the last time I was in Athens, Ohio, but I did a double take on the way south. (Glouster is the place where I shot the epitome of a small-town football game last fall.)

That is one skinny building

Skinny brick building in Glouster OH 11-09-2014I had to stop to make sure it wasn’t an optical illusion.

No, it really WAS that skinny. It got bigger at the other end, but I could easily span the back wall without having to stretch my arms out as big as I had gestured before to describe the size of a fish that got away. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Only eight bricks wide

Skinny brick building in Glouster OH 11-09-2014That wall was only eight bricks wide. If a standard brick is eight inches long, and you figure the space for the mortar between the bricks is half an inch or less, that would be, let’s see 8″ x 8 bricks x 7 mortar rows @ 1/2 inch equals just 67.5 inches or a little more than 5-1/2 feet wide. Allowing for the thickness of the walls, the open space inside the thin end would have had to have been less than four feet.

Why would anybody use that many bricks, not to count the labor of laying them, for such a small return of space?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but my guess is that both bricks and labor were cheap in Glouster when that building was constructed.

Bricks were a big deal

Hocking Block - Ray Charles Plaza - 05-14-2014Here’s a really good history of the region that explains how important the iron, coal and brick industries were.

Curator Jessica is somewhat of a brick expert, so she’s always looking for SE Ohio bricks like this Hocking brick she spotted when we were walking around the Ray Charles Plaza in Albany, Ga.

Ray Charles Plaza

Ray Charles Plaza - Albany GA 05-15-2014While we were meandering on back roads to get home to Florida from home in Missouri, one of the Road Warriorettes – I think it was Curator Jessica – spotted a guy playing a piano next to the Flint River in Albany, Georgia. That was worth a U-turn.

Ray Charles is a native son of Albany

Here’s a description of the park and sculpture from a city website:

Albany Georgia, birthplace of Ray Charles, has memorialized the city’s most famous native son with a downtown park that bears his name, airs his music, and features a one-of-a-kind sculpture that is one of only two sculptures in the world that bear the likeness of the legendary blues and jazz singer.

Sculpture plays music

Ray Charles Plaza - Albany GA 05-15-2014Located in Downtown Albany on Front Street between Oglethorpe Blvd. and Broad Avenue, directly accross the street from Hilton Garden Inn, Ray Charles Plaza, designed by landscape architectural firm Jordan, Jones and Goulding of Norcross Georgia, sits on the bank of the Flint River and gives Riverfront Park visitors the experience of a Ray Charles performance. A revolving, illuminated, bronze statue of Ray Charles seated at a baby grand piano, the work of sculptor Andy Davis, is the park’s centerpiece.

Miniature displayed in visitor center

Ray Charles Plaza - Albany GA 05-15-2014As water flows down the sides of the statue, music by the legendary blues singer plays on the park’s loudspeakers. Students from Georgia Academy for the Blind assisted Mr. Davis with the design. The students and Mr. Davis also designed a touchable miniature version of the statue that features markings in braille.

The statue is flanked by two walkways designed as keyboards with raised sharps and flats that form benches. The walkways connect to the Albany Riverwalk. The park’s “scenery” includes a large treble clef in the plaza floor and “moonlight in the pines” from the song, Georgia On My Mind. Reflecting Georgia’s longleaf pine forests, the “Moonlight in the Pines” scenery consists of illuminated loblollies, longleaf pines, live oaks and grasses.

Downtown has another attraction that I’ll save for another day.

A Hocking Block

Hocking Block - Ray Charles Plaza - 05-14-2014You KNOW you are traveling with a museum curator when she starts jumping up and down all excited at spotting a Hocking block in a walkway in Albany, Georgia. The block came from a brickyard in SE Ohio, not far from where the Athens County Historical Society and Museum is located.