The most memorable quotes in the Chattanooga Times Free Press for Aug. 23-28:
“If they do this, we’re basically going to be in the Civil War days with peg legs.”
– Mark Stubbs, of Stubbs Prosthetics and Orthotics, on a Medicare proposal that critics say would sharply reduce options for lower-limb amputees.
“There is no question in this court’s mind this event occurred, but because of the statute of limitations in the state of Tennessee for this event, it is not clear to this court that it happened after Oct. 31.”
– General Sessions Court Judge Clarence Shattuck, dismissing rape charges against Charles David Pugh, whom accusers said seduced boys who volunteered at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
“How can anyone be so stupid as to do that after all the turmoil we’ve been faced with?”
– Cleveland City Councilman Richard Banks, when Sgt. Eddie Bonnett resigned from the police department after a subordinate complained Bonnett texted her a nude photo of himself
“Everyone wants to blame management, but we don’t bring them in. We don’t go to the community kitchen and pick up items. We don’t go and pick up a mattress that somebody gave us that was already full of bedbugs.”
– Chattanooga Housing Authority manager after residents in several CHA apartments complained of bedbugs
“His life mattered to me.”
– Satedra Smith, mother of 20-year-old Jordan Clark, who was shot to death on the street Aug. 25.
“John Ross was our chief during the Removal. He said, ‘We were overwhelmed. Our hearts were sickened.’ When you read that it’s hard to imagine what actually took place. Today, yes, our hearts are still saddened over what took place, but we have joy in that we overcame.”
– Joe Byrd, speaker and former chief of the Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation, over the meeting Friday of the three Cherokee tribes at Red Clay State Historic Park, the first joint meeting there since the Trail of Tears