Donovan....

.... I spent the day down in Chattanooga touring the aquarium, hitting the pubs, and craning my neck towards the summit of Lookout Mountain........ it has been a wistful kind of day, really.... brutally hot.... with rain that began as high, cool drops in the clouds hitting the pavement as warm mist after a very, very long fall...... the humidity was crushing, but it was good to see the old city alive in the downtown area....

.... but venture a few streets over?..... and Chattanooga is a ghost town for block after block..... derelict warehouses, closed businesses, weedy sidewalks trailing alongside the abandoned parking lots of old manufacturing buildings.... it's an economic cemetery that rivals the one north of the city for the Civil War dead....... but down at the river?...at the Imax, the aquarium, the restaurants, and the museums?.... you'd think that you were in the very cradle of civilization...... accompanied by sno-cones, gourmet pizzas, and ice-cold imported beer & live entertainment.........

.... I love Chattanooga..... it is a city that holds many, many wonderful memories for me....... but today, I found it heartbreaking to see what a difference three streets over can make for a city.......

..... the song that at the top of this post has been in my head all day, and that is why I posted it..... perhaps it put me in the mood for seeing the heavier side of Chattanooga today...... then again, the song is about hope...... so maybe that is what I am supposed to glean from today's tour of the urban backroads........

...... there is always hope, I believe....... always..... even if we're not sure how to change things, there must always be hope.....