This is not the Chattanooga I left in September 1989.
For one thing, it’s hotter here than I remember. Or maybe it’s simply a matter of El Nino throwing a temper tantrum.
The air, as hot as it is, is cleaner than I remember. Downtown is far more vibrant. There are a lot more out-of-state license plates clogging Market Street and Frazier Avenue. The Read House, or the Sheraton Read House as they now call it, is so booked I got kicked out after five days and had to crash at a friend’s house.
When I left this city 21 years ago, you couldn’t ride a hand-carved animal under a pavilion in a place called Coolidge Park. But you can now.
I can’t help but wonder what Walter Cronkite would think if only he were alive and could visit the Tennessee Aquarium or take in a Lookouts game. The broadcast icon once voted the “most trusted man in America” broke the news that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas and then informed the world six years later that Chattanooga was America’s “dirtiest city.”