While I'm online...

I might as well post this, which has been sitting on my desk for a while now. It's the Life in the Noog column (by Chuck Crowder) from the May 20, 2010 edition of The Pulse, The Noog's free, weekly, alternative/non-traditional newspaper.

A 'Noog by Any Other Name -- Contrary to popular belief, Chattanooga, Tennessee (as famous as it is) isn't the only 'noog in this great country of ours. Nope, we are actually one of four Chattanoogas. In addition to ours, there are also Chattanoogas in Ohio, in Oklahoma, and in Colorado. Obviously, we're the most well-known, thanks to that famous train song, and, because of it, I feel sorry for the other Chattanoogas and the poor folks who have to live there.

Not ony do they have to constantly correct strangers that in fact it's the Tennessee Chattanooga that Glenn Miller so immortalized, but they also have to explain why it's our Chattanooga that continues to win exceptional mid-sized city awards while theirs are stuck in the rut of a perpetual identity crisis.

Take Chattanooga, Ohio. The most famous thing that's happened in that tiny parcel on the Ohio/Indiana border is birth of "household name" major league baseball legend Bruno Betzel, who, as everyone knows, played third base for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1914-1918. Who could forget that arm? This town is so small and sad that the web site OhioHistoryCentral.org ("the online encyclopedia of Ohio history") in fact has a page outlining the Civil War's Battle of Chattanooga as if it actually took place there.

Then there's Chattanooga, Oklahoma -- population 432. It's home to Lawton Speedway Ministock Champion Casey Henning. When the town was being developed around the turn of the century, however, the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railways extended a branch line from Lawton to Chattanooga. This dumb luck became the focus of a major ad campaign for the town in 1906. So, in essence, Glenn might have written about that Chattanooga railroad, if agriculture hadn't taken over. But wheat beat the wheels. And nowadays, the average per capita income in Chattanooga, Oklahoma is $12, 989. So I guess if you wanna make the big bucks, you gotta move to Lawton.

Next, there's Chattanooga, Colorado. In the 1870's, Chattanooga made money three ways: silver, transportation, and gold, in that order. Nestled at the foot of Red Mountain Pass, Chattanooga was the primary pit stop on the wagon route from Silverton to Ouray. By the time gold was discovered in the area, hundreds of miners had staked out just about every square inch of available land. Buildings and homes were constructed in hopes that Chattanooga would rival nearby Cripple Creek (made famous, of course, in that song by The Band). But, as fate would have it, fire swept through the city, destroying nearly everything. Most buildings were never rebuilt, and only a few, scattered ones remain today.

And then there's our beloved national treasure: Chattanooga, Tennessee. Geez, I feel so sorry for the other three that I think we could win the grand prize if all we put up for comparison was St. Elmo. But despite the shortcomings of the "others", I'm sure there are some inconveniences they cause us that are just as annoying as the ones we rub their face in every day (well, probably not). Take the U.S. mail for example.

I'm sure there are packages, letters, greeting cards, magazines, catalogs, Publisher's Clearing House offers, and other posted parcels that "accidentally" get rerouted to a Chattanooga other than the one for which they were intended. There's probably a Main Street, Market Street, and Broad Street in every one of those towns, let alone the numbered streets and other ambiguous roadway names such as Maple, Elm, and Oak. So it could be a problem, theoretically. And if so, what happens then?

My thinking is that there has to be some sort of Postmaster Tribunal of Chattanooga's finest that meets each year in one of the Chattanoogas to catch up on current events, party, and, of course, exchange misrouted letters.

I can see it now. The four, old, weathered postal buddies hooking up at T-Bone's for a few beers to laugh about the good old days of hand stamping and curse the new-fangled bar code readers. Then it's off to City Cafe to tie the old feedbag on. It may not be the fanciest place in town, but there are more than 400 menu items available 24 hours a day -- and not a one is more than $9.95. As everyone knows, there's nothing a postman appreciates more than a good deal.

Afterwards, it's off to some back room of the main branch of the post office to sort through the misdirected mail. After a few tugs off a left-handed cigarette, the boys start going through their mailbags like it's Christmas morning. "Who's got a Winder Binder on Frazier Avenue?" "Anyone have an Applebee's on 4th Street?" "What about a Hiroshi's on Main?" Of course, nearly every parcel is intended for our Chattanooga, so the night is generally one-sided. But our guy never lets on that his comrades live in the shadow of greatness. No, he just sits back, knowing that, as long as the cards and letters keep coming, there's no place like home.