Staff Photo by Dan Henry - 11/4/13.
Mark Kennedy, editor of the Times Free Press opinion pages, writer of the Sunday “Life Stories” column, and writer of the automotive piece titled “Test Drive.” Our family was 700 miles away on vacation a couple of weeks ago, but we couldn't escape the social media campaign that led to Chattanooga being crowned Outside magazine's Best Town Ever. Or, if not ever, at least until next year.
Even my sons, ages 8 and 13, were hooked by the online voting tournament in which the Scenic City bested 63 other places in a contest that some took to calling "May Madness" - although the final round spilled into June.
"How are we doing in that city contest?" my older son would ask daily while we were at the beach, and I'd report the latest vote totals.
That's when it hit me that the contest is not about what outsiders think about a few dozen American cities, but what the citizens of those cities think about themselves. What else could explain the relentless cheerleading - I was guilty, too - to convince Chattanoogans to go online and vote for their hometown round after round, week after week: First and 10, do it again!
The contest could be more correctly labeled: The Proudest Town in America.
When we got home from Florida, I was thumbing through some copies of our Community News papers and came across an article about the Creative Discovery Museum turning 20 years old.
I immediately remembered how both of our boys loved the CDM when they were little. They would play with wooden trains in the Little Yellow House, get wet climbing through the Riverplay exhibit and excavate sand around buried dinosaur bones in Excavation Station.
I began to free-associate and suddenly realized that my boys, their mother and I have family memories associated with almost every downtown landmark. How many Americans kids grow up in a city where downtown is their playground?
My wife and I tried to create a rooted environment for the kids. We both grew up in small towns and had the luxury of maturing in place. In turn, we understand the importance of creating a forever home for our children.
I'm beginning to think we've succeeded.
As we took the boys to Riverbend last week, I began to have a flood of memories associated with downtown places and spaces, so I decided to write them down.
* Renaissance Park. I can still make myself laugh thinking about the boys and my wife cardboard surfing down the big hill in the middle of this North Shore park. I remember one spectacular spill involving my wife. She looked like a tumbleweed made out of elbows and kneecaps.
* Market Street Bridge. Although I have tons of memories about the Walnut Street Bridge and its famous pedestrian walkway (we used to take the boys there when they were still in strollers), it's the Market Street span that I will remember most.
My younger son is terrified of crossing the Market Street Bridge on foot, but will sometimes relent if the wonders of Riverbend await him on the other side. I will always remember how he grabs my forearm with both hands as we cross the bridge and how that makes me feel like an authentic daddy.
* Riverbend festival. For years, I covered Riverbend as a reporter. I never got to enjoy the festival socially until I began dating my wife in the mid-1990s. I still remember huddling with her under a tent during a downpour before the kids came along.
More recently, watching my 13-year-old drift away with friends at Riverbend this year reminds me that we don't lose our kids at 18, they actually exit the family's social cocoon much earlier.
* Tennessee Aquarium. For years, the aquarium was a cold-weather refuge for me and my youngest son. When all our usual outdoor options were closed for the winter, we could count on our aquarium membership to pass a Sunday afternoon. Despite all the visual wonders there, it was the penguin exhibit - specifically the place were you dip your hand into the ice-cold water - that seemed to delight him the most. Go figure.
* AT&T Field. Our family has spent many summer nights on this lovely patch of green watching the Lookouts play baseball. And I use the term "watching" loosely, because I noticed early on that my boys were more focused on ice cream and Slushies than balls and strikes.
For years, my older son would sneak away to the cage down the right-field line where you test your baseball-throwing skills against a radar gun. Once, when he was about 7 years old, I made an ill-advised promise that I would give him $50 if he ever threw a baseball 60 mph. I was confident that he would forget. Alas, he did not. And one night about three years later he returned to his seat with a hand out. I had to use the ATM to pay my debt.
* High Point. A newer attraction, the indoor/outdoor climbing emporium called High Point has become one our family's go-to pastimes. Sometimes boys just need to burn energy. Nothing produces rubbery legs like a bag of chalk dust and three hours of climbing.
Block by block downtown, the family memories flood in: Disney movies at the Bijou/Majestic, "Nutcracker" performances at the Tivoli Theatre, Italian Ice detours on Market Street, ribs at Sticky Fingers, pizza at Lupi's, frosted cookies at Southern Star, World of Wheels at the Convention Center, lazy afternoons at the Model Railroad Museum in the Chattanooga Choo Choo, early mornings at the UTC Children's Center at Battle Academy.
And on and on.
If I close my eyes I can see two young men, perhaps 20 years in the future - brothers, maybe - walking their own children down Market Street and sharing boyhood memories.
"Remember when used to ," they will muse, over and over, pointing here and there.
Best town ever, indeed.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www.facebook.com/mkennedycolumnist.