Week 3

How am I moved by seeing? I went to the county court building for my pilgrimage. The county court building is located downtown and is where the county courts and county clerk reside, along with the county jail and sheriff’s office. There are additional county government offices there, such as the veterans representative office. It’s located in a multistory limestone building with a glass entryway for visitors guarded by multiple county security officers and a security screening station. There are multiple courtrooms on the first floor, with seemingly 3 courts on each side of a long hallway. The courtrooms themselves are filled with seating space, and were packed when I visited there. In general, the county court building was much less busy than I expected it to be. While one of the courtrooms was packed, all other courtrooms on the first floor were empty, with no staff or visitors there. I observed as the process unfolded, where members of the public attempted to get out of a traffic ticket, with many of them being successful. There were two government employees present who discussed with the public individually about the facts of the traffic citation issued to them. This became quite boring to observe, so I left the courtroom and walked to the left and straight about 50 feet until I reached the office of the county clerk. The office was filled with about 20 desks with paperwork strewn all over, and had a long, thick counter stretching 30 feet to separate the workspace from the publicly accessible waiting section. There were only two employees present, with half of the lights towards the furthest side of the room from me being dark, and little activity seemed to be in progress. I chatted with one employee at the counter, took a few information brochures, and exited the office to the right, noticing the American flags near the government crest and additional security officers near the central security observation room to my left. As Solnit mentioned, this had a purpose, so it was a pilgrimage, but I wasn’t changed much.

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