Carroll

here now!” Always good at taking a hint, I exited the building. I didn’t even go back to the gym to get the albums.

A few days later, I saw those cheerleaders again. “What happened to you?” they asked. “We looked around, and you were gone!” I guess they never got the word.

Now, all these years later, in my current job as an education reporter, I still visit that school quite often. The old principal’s portrait still hangs on the wall, near the front entrance. I stop, smile and wave at him every time, whispering, “I’m back!”

David Carroll, a Chattanooga news anchor, is the author of the new book “Volunteer Bama Dawg,” a collection of his best stories, available at ChattanoogaRadioTV.com, or by sending $23 to David Carroll Book, PO Box 15185, Chattanooga, TN 37415. You may...