I’ve been in Chattanooga for about 20 years now, long enough for my kids to call this home but not quite enough time to not answer “Auburn” when people wonder where I went to school.
The transition from then to now has been measured in dog years, by comparison. Two decades ago, beepers were common and cellphones were new.
Now, a devastating public health enemy has forced us to change the way we live, work and worship. COVID-19 has tested so much around all of us, and whether we know it or not, so much of what we mean by “community.”
On Saturday, as I drove down Cherokee Boulevard, I thought about this as I took a look at another fast food-style McCondo going up where Nikki’s Drive Inn used to be.
Don’t get me wrong: I love our city and county’s growth in jobs and our place on any number of “Best of” lists. I hope that condo building fills up faster than First Presbyterian on Easter Sunday. It’s a sign of confidence in our city’s future and promising economic outlook.
But those 800-to-1,000-square-foot condos likely will be filled by well-heeled empty-nesters, retirees or young professionals who could work, worship and watch movies from the comfort of their sparkling living rooms with a view. That’s fine, of course.
That these condos will stand where an iconic restaurant offered thousands of families, friends, business associates and forever regulars a regular place to grab a burger or a Friday night shrimp platter should give us all pause.
And that’s not who or what Chattanooga was when I arrived. Our “community” today feels as if we are frayed at the seams.
Some of this fraying is basic. We are more isolated than ever, and that’s an issue way bigger than the 423.
Sure, political division is part of it. Part stems from our obsession with next-level technology that encourages texting and tweeting over face-to-face interaction. Then, of course, COVID looms. The resurgence of the virus has left us in no man’s land, unsure of whether we should go out, stay home or pray for a masked-up trip to Walmart with a couple yards in between.
The “unity” in “community” seems to have become as scarce around here as downtown parking and across the region and country as an honest politician.
As for the “comm” in “community,” well, whether that’s commonality or communication or even common sense, again, the regression of our willingness to be communal threatens the fiber of all communities, don’t you think?
The issues before us are complex; that may be the one thing on which we can all agree.
But what if the answers are right here before us – in our community, in both actions and in definition?
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.
View other columns by Jay Greeson
Jay Greeson