What Are They Doing?

click on picture to see better 

This picture is a puzzle.  We are trying to guess what is going on.  It looks like a farming or a road crew taking a break.  The man on the far right with a hat on not quite right is Anna's grandfather  Paul  Everett Foster (1895-1936.  For years I thought Paul was helping his neighbors with their farm but today we were looking at the picture again and saw two men are wearing ties - you can bet those two are not doing much manual labor.

Paul lived in the Cumming/Alpharetta, Georgia, area about then.  He looks about  18 or 19. The picture may have been taken about 1915, give or take a couple of years.

I have read that the country would pick temporary road workers the same way they picked people for jury duty, draw names from a hat.  I know they did it in Macon County, North Carolina in the 1840s and 50s.  They were a new county and were always cutting roads and having to draw on able body men for labor.

That is what I think now, Paul Everett Foster was part of a work detail.

PS My friend Walker Gaines said they look like they are making bricks.  That makes sense.