Day 23 - 01/23/12

I had to help my mom with some personal business this morning, so I was late going into work. On my way to Mobile, I decided to stop by a piece of property I had noticed many times but never had time to stop in order to take a picture of a dilapidated 2-story house sitting in the distance under an old oak tree.

Just as I pulled into this long driveway and started to climb out with my camera, an older gentleman in a big black pick-up truck stopped and rolled down his window. I immediately introduced myself as Laura Delegal from Leroy and began to make my apologizes, telling him was just taking a picture of the Canada geese and the old house in the distance. He waived off my apologies and introduced himself as Teal Corte. I noticed he was wearing a button-down with "Auburn Athletics" embroidered on the left side and he proceeded to tell me that he had graduated from Auburn in 1961 and was involved in Auburn University and Troy University athletics. He knew two of our Leroy alumni, Clint Moseley at Auburn and Aaron Williams at Troy.

We had a nice time chatting about these two wonderful young men and then he told me that he had several coaches from Auburn University and the University of Alabama who would be arriving at his home shortly for a luncheon and that he had to go, but he insisted that I follow him across the field to the old house to get a closer look.

When we arrived, he hopped out and told me about the 200-year-old oak tree next the house, which had recently been pruned, and a little about the history of the home. It was built in the 1890s and had 6-inch wooden planks on the side that had been hand-hewned to appear to be only 3-inchs wide. He said it was one of fifty other such homes used by sharecroppers that used to be on his family’s property. He then wished me well and jumped back into his truck and left me to explore. I just love Southern gentlemen.

For tips on photographing old homes, check out How to Photograph Abandoned Places.