Sharon Jones and Augusta

Some months ago, before Thanksgiving,  I was down in Augusta at a memorial for Sharon Jones, a soul singer who passed away after struggling with cancer.  The memorial was held in a beautiful old theater downtown, and was quite moving as Ms. Jones' long-time friends and church people shared their stories about her. I saw her perform only twice, and found her energy infectious and inspiring.

Students from the James Brown Academy of Music performed.  Trust that their work was loads better than my poor photo!  These kids rocked it! (My  pictures of the horn section were so bad I am not even putting them up.)

We wandered around the small downtown, soaking up the sun that fell warmly against the walls, admiring quirky old buildings and signs.

Look!  Palm trees!

My favorite.  We could've got run over taking this one.  We had to stand in the road real quick.

Many hats for men and women displayed. Clearly a town where people dress for church.

We window shopped mostly, though I did buy a vintage coat, a dark, full and swingy thing with a round collar.  In it, I feel like an early 1960's secretarial girl--either that or an old lady! Haha.

I liked the fixtures in the shops--old shelving and display cases like I haven't seen since I was a child. In one place a tailor consulted with a customer while I moseyed around his sewing machine and tape measures and ironing board.  Nice to be in a place that keeps things old and a little jumbled.

Sharon Jones had two memorials.  One in New York, you know, with all the show biz people.  But, I liked this one.  So many people talking about how she liked to fish, videos showing her digging worms, and neighbors saying how she was when she was "home."  And it felt like a person could get near a real soul somehow, or the essence of a person, breathing in that little town and those people. In the shop where I bought the coat, when the proprietress heard we had been up at the theater for the service, she asked if we'd heard a certain man (I forget his name) sing.  We said we had.

"Oh, and doesn't he have just a wonderful voice?" she exclaimed.