Chester Alley

My wife is from Chester, S.C. We met when she was working at a local drugstore and I was just starting (first day on the truck actually) with Coca-Cola. That's a story for another time and it doesn't put either of us in a good light. Our first meeting was a confrontation. Hah! We really didn't like each other at the beginning. 

We have grown on each other, I guess you would say.

No. This isn't our story.

This is about something else I gained besides a wife and children.

Chester, S.C. is in, I would guess, the north western part of the state. When I was driving for Coke I got to know the town well. It was very busy then, just twenty years ago. Now it's a shadow of what is was, even then.There's an old theater called The Chester Little Theater. It is reportedly haunted. The wife has been there. The group she was with decided to use a Quija board. And that's where I'm done. I don't touch those things.

I've never been inside. I don't think I want to go inside. 

The alley beside the theater interests me.

I love old brick. And metal. And glass. Left to its own. Nature begins to take over even in a city setting.
 

Black and white really lends to something like this. You get a better feel, for what I'm seeing anyway. I wonder if someone ever lived up there? Coming out on the fire escape at night for a smoke or to listen to the city bustling below. Maybe the fire escape had to be used for its intended purpose? Perhaps the ghosts of those folk were climbing hurriedly down that ladder even as I was standing there taking the picture. Trapped in that little piece of time. Looping over and over. Or peeking back at me as I peek through their window.

And the things that are always left behind get me. Old pieces of equipment, old bottles, coins, etc. I've found whole safes before out wandering around. Locked and their combinations probably lost to time in the head or pocket of the man or woman in charge of them. And it makes me sad that I'll never know what kind of treasure I've missed out on. 

There is so much more to this little town in the way of its architecture. I have to get back there soon. 

It's a big old world and I can only photograph part of it. So here is a small part of the part you didn't get to photograph. Share yours with me.