The happiest people in the world are people being released from the hospital.
The main things we get from our parents are good habits.
I never knew the guy who did the Rossville Furniture Co. ads a few years ago.
Judge Russell Bean is a bird lover, and I'm going to ask him to appoint me to preside over a bird court and see if we can curb some of these rampant illegal activities in the avian kingdom.
Today I propose ways to make a lot of money for the public treasury while at the same time controlling pests.
Eating new foods at early ages can create a lifetime affinity with a little touch of addiction in the affinity.
If you don't know about gout, you've never had it. If you've ever had it, you will remember it well.
I am a well-known proponent of tomato sandwiches made from real home grown tomatoes.
For years I have wanted to share some stories about the extent to which some people will go to get their opinion or request for some political favor before you.
In 2004 I wrote a column on how you can look back on your total life and see little "mini lives" hidden in the big picture. This is especially true when you are writing your autobiography.
Now that Fannie Lee Crowe Owen has completed her earthly journey and is with the Lord she loved and served so well, I can write about a question I have been asked many times.
One of the quickest and surest roads to wealth in songwriting is writing the theme for a network TV show.
Early rides are so influential that sometimes one of them can end up influencing our life decisions.
When Gene Roberts stepped down from being mayor of Chattanooga in 1996, he went on the Fort Wood Board, where he served with such distinction, he was given an appreciation luncheon to celebrate his decade of service.
Change is afoot at Erlanger and I see little to be lost by it. However, some of it has not been thoroughly reasoned out yet.
An interviewer once asked Merle Haggard, "What is it like to be a big-time country music icon?"
When a person starts writing songs, they soon discover that their life doesn't belong to them any longer. It belongs to their songs.
The late Ralph Barger was both mayor of Red Bank and a Hamilton County commissioner.
Most of the TV ministers and counselors are telling you to make resolutions for 2013, to set new goals and commit yourself to a better way of life.
Every year it seems that one Christmas present will endear itself to me.
I am amazed at how paralyzed we get when a disaster strikes like the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Hunter S. Thompson said, "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. Then there's the negative side."
Unless some excellent historian like the late James Livingood sets his mind and hand to it, few will fully appreciate the work of the first Hamilton County Commission. I say without hesitation, it was the grandest legislative body in local history.
I guess it's because of the way I was raised, but I see life is an interaction between us and the Creator of all life.
We see people in one way, not realizing they have been in many roles and economic conditions in their lives.
Self-image is so important. It is not a silly idea of Norman Vincent Peale and his merry little band of positive thinkers. It is a fundamental law of the universe.
In the last few columns, I have been urging more regional cooperation in building infrastructure, like the bridges at highways 30 and 60. The same benefits would flow to us in new jobs if we truly practiced regional job development.
After my election in 1978, six county executives from nearby counties came to ask me to serve as chairman of the Southeast Tennessee Development District.
Signal Mountain is one of our most prized residential areas, despite having only one dependable access route (Signal Mountain Road).
Frequently when I pass the Ooltewah interchange on I-75 and see how it is still booming, I remember a conversation I had with then-Hamilton County Commissioner Bill Bennett, who represented that area so well for many years.
When a politician talks about religion, most people think he is just panhandling for votes, so I never mentioned when I ran in ’78 that I had a spiritual experience the previous summer.
When people ask what I am most proud of from my years as county executive, they are often shocked that I don't talk about jobs and things like the Tennessee Riverpark.
Like a Civil War soldier blown open by artillery fire during the Battle of Chattanooga, the old Osage orange tree helplessly laid there on the ground of the courthouse Wednesday.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Chancellor Roger Brown made a wise and, in my opinion, a Christian decision in substituting a few moments of silence for prayer at football games.
When my sister lived in Ocala, Fla., she sent me a column written by a psychologist/columnist there. He advocated barring children from restaurants because he thought their behavior had become too disruptive and distractive. He created a storm of protests.
These questions came as a result of last week’s column on bluegrass.
Few people who came to hear me in most of the local country and rock music venues for four decades know that I started out playing bluegrass.
We gained so much more than we lost in building an aquarium and all the riverfront developments, but our biggest loss as a community was missing the opportunity to build a first-class vocational school at or near Chattanooga State Community College.
One thing wrong with writing on medical topics is that you can never cover a subject in one column, and you always get a lot of feedback from readers you feel you should share.
The wife of TV minister Robert Schuller noticed that he became unmotivated after his 70th birthday. She told him to write down his goals for the next 20 years of his life.
Someone once told me the real purpose of life is to use our greatest talents to succeed, and I thought to myself, "That's only half of life." The other part is to tune into our failures for information.
James Rouse came here to help us in the renaissance of Chattanooga and became "Mr. Creativity" to me. I loved to hear him philosophize.
When I have a bird I don't recognize in my backyard or in one of my boxes, I see it as a chance to learn.
An unwelcome bird tried to enter a box containing a family of what I think are Tennessee warblers in my yard. It reminded me of all the dangers birds face every day in our backyards.
Let's face it: These are difficult days for the Democrats of Hamilton County and Tennessee. When a lifelong Democrat like Bill Knowles jumps ship, you know something isn't right.
Einstein said, "There are two ways to live your life: You can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."
There's an attitude floating around among us that newspapers are old-fashioned and all other media are modern -- especially computers. I hold a different view. I see newspapers as ever-fresh, new and modern no matter how long they have been around.
When you start backyard birding, you will try a lot of ideas from the "experts" that won't work for you. Just quickly get rid of anything that doesn't work. Don't keep them around to aggravate you as I have done.
I noticed in my 40s that I cried more easily. As soon as I became aware of this, I began trying to figure it out. See if my ideas make sense to you.
