During the morning walking portion of our day, we approached Forsyth Square from the east, the side flanked by Drayton Street. I spied a couple of gentlemen sitting on a park bench in the middle of the park's south section, a scenario that reminded me of something that had happened on our very first visit to Savannah in March 2017.
If you're a regular follower of this blog, you might remember the story and picture of the two nattily dressed gentlemen I made in 2017 and included in one of my posts here about that trip.
At that time, I had asked the gentlemen if they would mind me photographing them, and both cheerfully consented. They told me their names, but I didn't write them down. By the time I got home to Indianapolis and began to compose the blog post, while I had remembered the full name of one gentleman (John Harrington), I could remember only the first name of the other one (James). The photo leading off the post is a cropped version that ran with the original post in 2017; below is the uncropped original, which I don't think I included in the 2017 post.
When I saw those gentlemen on the bench from afar on the recent visit, I decided to cross the grassy meadow of Forsyth Square to investigate if maybe those were the same two gentlemen I had photographed in 2017. If so, I was hoping to get the other guy's last name and possibly do an updated photo.
Alas, as I got close to the men, I could see that it was not them. I turned and walked north toward the central fountain. In short order, I came upon a single man on another bench, and I came up with the idea to ask him if he were a regular visitor to the park (he said yes). And then asked him if would mind telling me if he knew or recognized John and/or James if I showed him their photo on my iPhone.
He looked at the photo for a good 10 seconds before he flashed a smile and said, while still fixing his attention on the photograph, that yes, he has seen them in the park before. He said they help staff a very modest Jehovah Witness booth that sets up daily in the park near the central fountain.
I thanked him and headed north toward the fountain. Before I got to it though, there was a small booth along the sidewalk on the right that clearly was religious in nature. So I strolled over to it and gambled that it was likely staffed by members of Jehovah Witness that the man on the bench who I had just talked to mentioned moments earlier. But the booth was staffed by two women -- no men. So I repeated with the women what I had done with the man moments earlier -- showed her the picture and asked if they recognized John and James.
The first lady I showed the picture to immediately and cheerfully said yes. She confirmed that one was John Harrington and told me James' surname was Washington. She also confirmed that the two men help out with the church's mission to spread the word at the park booths, but they do so primarily in the afternoon.
I told her about the chance encounter I had with John and James six years earlier in the same park, and the woman agreed to let me send her a copy of the photo by text so she could show it to John and James the next time she came across them. I gave her my name, too, in case either of the gentlemen cared to know that information. There was a small part of me that wished John or James might drop me a text at some point since that May 16 encounter, but that has not happened.
When I first came upon John and James in 2017, they were simply sitting on a park bench that was considerably south of the park's central fountain. There was no church-related booth setup nearby. Because of my curious nature, I would have liked to have asked them this time around if they always had been members of Jehovah Witness and participated in church promotions in the park ... or whether that activity came about in the years after I was there in 2017. I will add that in the few weeks since learning about their work with Jehovah's Witness, when I've gone back to look at the photo I took in 2017, I've wondered if the pamphlet James Washington is holding might be a church flier.
I guess I'll never know. And I didn't get a chance to go back to the square while we were there to see if John and James would welcome an updated portrait.
End of Series
Previously in this series:
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