Wrens have always been one of my favorite birds. Going all the way back to my college days when I took ornithology at Trevecca College, I have loved wrens.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This column is adapted from Dalton Roberts' soon-to-be-published autobiography.
This town has not done a good job honoring Bessie Smith. We built a blues hall. Then when we didn't really want blues performances, we turned it smoothly into a "cultural center" when the only thing cultural about Bessie was her blues.
I have no expectation of a neighbor, except that they be honest and pleasant and neighborly. I never expected one to be perfect, but Theo King was, in the words of a song by the group Alabama, "Close Enough to Perfect for Me."
If you want to get spanked until your nose bleeds, just write a column about some sports issues of the day and make a mistake. The sports fanatics will swarm you like chickens on a junebug.
One of the protesters camped out on the courthouse lawn called me and asked what I thought of their protest. I asked, "What is it you are protesting?" and after fumbling a little with his answer, he finally said, "I am not sure."
Something is wrong with Peyton Manning. I don't care if his neck operation is a success and he can thread a needle with a football, something is wrong in his gourd.
Words play a dominant role in human society, but we fail to fully realize this. We use our words carelessly and thoughtlessly. A writer needs to love words, but even nonwriters should develop a healthy respect for them.
Years ago I first saw a bumper strip with the message "It's never too late to have a happy childhood." It has been popularized since then, but the message it carries still has not been taken to heart by most people.
Owls are nocturnal creatures and are equipped with special eyes to see in the dark. Yet for weeks I have heard an owl hooting long after daylight, and the other morning when I went to my birdwatching window, there he sat on the swing set!
Someone scolded me for not listing Bessie Smith in last week’s column on the best local singers and song interpreters. I have written often about Bessie and even wrote an entire CD titled “Tribute to Bessie Smith,” but I am always happy to honor her again.
Thanks to the newspaper's Current section on Fridays and the online listings by Bob Payne, we can know where most local entertainers are performing each night of the week.
Sitting at Karl's Family Restaurant on Hixson Pike one recent drizzly day waiting for breakfast, I heard continual grousing about "the nasty rainy day."
I have often written about Long John Cardinal, the one-legged cardinal I had for five years. But I haven't written about his sex drive almost killing him.
A lady who worked for Hospice of Memphis thrilled me describing a service they provide. It's called a "life review," and they started doing it when they realized how many of their patients didn't feel good about the life they had lived.
I want to share a secret with you today about myself that is, frankly, a little embarrassing to a bashful Watering Trough boy. The only condition is that you must promise to never tell anyone about it.
Truth is an idea that so completely resonates with you that it motivates you deeply, causing you to aspire to new heights, drawing the highest and best energies from the very depths of your being.
I was expelled from school in the 10th grade. No injustice was done. I should have been expelled a year earlier.
Former Chattanooga Times reporter and columnist Barney Morgan was on my staff the last years of my government work, and after work he would bring a reporter's pad up to my office and get me to tell some of my most exciting political tales.
Just minutes ago, I opened the blinds of my bird-watching window, and it aggravated me to see a starling clinging to the bottom of my wire-basket suet feeder. Suet cakes are fairly expensive, and I don't care to see starlings consume them. But an hour later I saw a downy woodpecker feasting there, and it pleased me.
Musician and computer whiz Donnie Jenkins often gives me insights into important things, and when I had lunch with him recently, he said, "The problem with America these days is disconnection."
Surprise gifts are the best. They seem to stick longer and clearer in our memory. When I was a child, my father sometimes rode us to church on a streetcar.
A man once sought my counsel when he was considering running for mayor, and I could see that he was full of fears and trepidations. I did not encourage him. The last thing we need is a mayor who is afraid of making a mistake.
Denis Waitley says, "Real success comes in small portions day by day. You need to take pleasure in life's little treasures. It is the most important thing in measuring success."
Faye Field tells how her mother came to spend Thanksgiving with her one year, and as they set the table, her mother said, "I wish you had sterling-silver tableware like your sister."
I jokingly said to a pretty waitress at Waffle House the other day, "You are so pretty I would fall madly in love with you if I didn't like you so much."
Last week's column on the local Medal of Honor Museum drew an interesting assortment of responses, ranging from invitations to come and see where the local project is now to an opinion that "if any city should have a national museum it should be Pueblo, Colo. -- the only city to proudly claim four MOH recipients."
One ball that we dropped here was the chance to build a true Medal of Honor Museum. I would still love to see one built somewhere to honor those who have earned the nation's highest military honor.
I once heard that we should cherish all of our happy moments because they make a fine cushion for old age. I would add the thought that happy moments make a good cushion for any age. Our younger years are the time we are most prone to lose a record of the
When I first heard that Steve Jobs of Apple had died at 56, I was sad because I have become a Mac fanatic. He developed the Mac and an incredible array of high-tech products we now take for granted.
I was heartened by Sen. Lamar Alexander's leaving a strictly partisan group and declaring he intends to seek solutions to our national problems through communication with Democrats as well as Republicans.
In my personal journal today I found a note from Dee Dee Johnson of Fort Oglethorpe, and it reminded me of something I have learned about time: Believe it or not, you can slow time down.
My uncle Hoyt Roberts taught me to play the guitar, and he has been home for a week.
I cannot pronounce Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh's name, but I love his writing.
For years I have said, "The quality of a person's life is directly proportionate to the number of tricks he knows and the number of treats he possesses."
We all have some special little spots in this world, and one of mine is the Chickamauga boat-dock area right off Amnicola Highway and Kings Point Road.
A friend at the Hungry House was asking me about my column on the black-throated blue warbler building in one of my bluebird boxes, and I told him, "I'm sorry but a reader educated me that it was a tree swallow, and I will be writing a column to correct it."
I recently learned the great lesson that some family rituals are too beautiful and meaningful to let them perish.
I have been caught up in the emotional storm of opposing John Brown's parole in the 1973 murder of David "Stringbean" Akeman and his wife, Estelle. His parole hearing was this week.
There is clearly a difference in recommending someone for a position and exerting pressure for an ally to be appointed. When I had appointments as county executive, I often received recommendations from members of the County Commission. But I cannot remem
For the first time since 1995 I did not attract bluebirds to my nesting boxes this year, but I did have the rare experience of having a pair of black-throated blue warblers. They were fascinating.
I was sitting in a room with about 25 people who were the cream of Chattanooga society when a tattooed, muscular, black man in a tank top walked in. He said, “When I looked in here and saw so many fine citizens of this town, I knew someone in here would give me a couple of bucks for a bottle of wine.”
One of the turning points in my life was a brief note left on my desk when I was county executive.
Everywhere I go, people come up and ask me how Baby Girl is doing. I am sorry to report that she has died. After 14 years of faithful devotion from motorcyclist Jerry Hall, she had a heart attack.
Maybe I am going to be a voice crying in the wilderness today, but I feel compelled to say something about our values and priorities as reflected in the insane salaries we pay certain people in our society.
With the recent death of entertainer extraordinaire Jerry Lee Gothard, I am reminded that I have wanted to do a column on my favorite musical memories.
If anyone needs the object lesson, the current squabbling and paralysis between our city and county governments should be enough to convince even the most skeptical that we need a unified government.
Donnie “Possum” Jenkins is a great coiner of phrases and today he laid one on me: “No matter where you go, sometimes there you are.”
Donnie “Possum” Jenkins is a great coiner of phrases and today he laid one on me: “No matter where you go, sometimes there you are.”
