Thank you for your continuing comments on editorials, syndicated commentaries and other articles published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Below are two edited comments I received this week and my responses. Send your comments and questions to ccooper@timesfreepress.com.
“[T]hanks for your insights and perspectives. The new [Erlanger] park, just like your take on the renovations regarding the waterfront to keep pace with change, is needed to keep professional baseball in [Chattanooga]. Pro sports do not always make economic sense but [do] add to the overall life experience for those in this area. Not sure about the average Joe having more sun exposure than what they experience at AT&T park. Skyboxes are revenue drivers, and maybe I will be invited and can have a ‘skybox experience,’ but I will be with the average Joe’s in the heat. Having been through the transition now to a third ballpark, I just wish my dad (huge baseball fan and grew up watching the Yankees) could witness it. We are fortunate to live in a city that gives us opportunities for a fantastic work/life balance.”
Having worked at Engel Stadium for four seasons in the late 1970s and having covered the Chattanooga Lookouts for the newspaper over several seasons in the early 1980s, I hope the new stadium and what springs up around the ballpark are a huge success. They will need to be to cover the cost of the stadium — to take as much burden off the taxpayers in future years as possible. But the architectural renderings make the new park look exciting, and it will certainly be an improved view for people entering the city from the west than the moonscape of former foundries offered.
It has been interesting to see Minor League Baseball transition from a game where you attended to see the team win and the individual players do well to a night of entertainment, where the food, the activities and the experience are paramount and a win by the team just a bonus.
“Thank you for the remembrance of Kay Arthur … . I still pick up the Bible I used during a few of her inductive Bible classes years ago. Those classes started me on an inquisitive spiritual journey that has taken many twists and turns since, but you are spot on how she could make you feel in one on one encounters.
In fact, I was at a class at Precept Ministries when someone from the staff interrupted to inform us of the horrific World Trade Centers news. I’ll never forget the prayers that ensued. Little did we know at that point.”
I was not surprised to read this week — not necessarily from my commentary but in the wider media — the outpouring of memories shared of time spent with this Chattanooga ministry leader. Undoubtedly, her evangelical ministry made a positive difference in the faith of many people across the world.
› No local Memorial Day site, in my opinion, compares to Chattanooga National Cemetery with tens of thousands of American flags planted aside each grave. This task is handled annually by local Scouts, their parents and other volunteers.
However, Scout Executive Jared Pickens says local Scouts actually wind up placing more than 60,000 flags at cemeteries in Cleveland and Tracy City, Tennessee, and Ringgold, Georgia, as well as the national cemetery.
I recall joining with my then-Scout son to participate in this annual exercise some years ago, and I believe it always gave the Scouts a sense of the number of people who had served their country from Southeast Tennessee and the importance of Memorial Day itself.
› The Hamilton County Chapter of Moms for Liberty is once again listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s 2025 Hate Map, along with other chapters in Blount County, Knox County, Putnam County, Shelby County, Williamson County and Wilson County, along with Mom Army Knoxville and Mom Army Nashville, and the Family Action Council of Tennessee, run by former state Sen. David Fowler.
All the “moms” groups, individuals who seek better lives for their children, are listed as “anti-government” because they have the audacity to oppose things like men in women’s sports (or locker rooms). The Family Action Council is listed as anti-LGTBQ because it openly promotes marriage between one man and one woman.
It’s amazing what stands for “hate” today and what purveyors of hate like the Southern Poverty Law Center consider normal.
› We’ve had to smile at all the pushed out media urging Chattanoogans to “drive like a local” because of all the road construction in the area.
Our question to state and local governments would be: Why not coordinate a little better so that road construction backlogs don’t happen? Instead of multiple interstate highway projects, why not stagger them so that interstate driving through Chattanooga isn’t so dangerous? And why not wait to re-light the McCallie Tunnels until interstate construction is through, or at least further along. Today, motorists leaving work downtown who want to go east and don’t want to take the interstate now have to creep through one lane of one McCallie Tunnel. Suddenly, it’s the 1950s again.