Back in late October I was in Williamsburg, Kentucky, down south near the Tennessee line, for a photojournalism workshop. On the first day of the workshop, we drew slips of paper out of a hat, each of which had a name, phone number, and sentence or two description of the person. We were to make contact with that person and arrange to meet and from there develop a photo story that would be published at the end of the week.
Let the college kids make their mad rush for the hat first, then drew my own slip of paper. Opened it up, saw that I'd drew an organic farmer and thought "this shouldn't be too difficult." Should have known better. It immediately went sideways from there. Called the phone number, turns out to be a work number and they're not in the office. This journalism stuff is fun! Left a message and waited. Hour or two later my contact calls me back, there's been a death in the family and there's a funeral and such and they're not sure if or how they can still work with me. I explain what I'd be doing and they agree to talk it over with their husband and let me know the next day.
That was fine by me, but it left me with time on my hands and some doubts as to whether the story would pan out. Nothing for it but to go exploring Williamsburg and see if a fallback story could be found. A tip from someone in my workshop group (they split us up into small groups of 6-8) led me to the subject of these photos, the Friendship Center.
Struck up a conversation with the person behind the counter, who laid claim to being a descendant of the founder of Williamsburg, Samuel Cox. She was interested in being the subject of a story but the more we talked, the more the Friendship Center seemed like a subject. It is a thrift shop that was founded by Catholic nuns with a mission of helping people, with funds from sales being used to help those in need in the community. The nuns retired a decade or so ago and turned the place over to someone else in the community, with it continuing to be operated by volunteers.
Things got awkward when another volunteer came out and loudly informed the one I'd been talking to that they'd just gotten off the phone with the owner, and that nobody was to speak to us workshop people about the shop until she got back in town in a couple days. A few minutes later she discreetly informed me that the person I'd been speaking with liked to tell 'big fibs'. Was still trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with that curveball when my contact called me back and invited me out to their farm. With my late start on that story I was never able to make it back to the Friendship Center and follow up before deadline, but it still managed to be a story of sorts.