Blog 3892 – 07.19.2026

The Medical Arts Building 

I remember as a boy riding up the elevator to visit my pediatrician, Doctor Long, to get a penicillin shot for my annual case of tonsillitis. His office was located in The Medical Arts Building in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It seemed so much bigger then. I had my tonsils removed when I was fourteen during the summer break between junior high and high school. What was a simple in and out procedure for younger children who recovered quickly was for me a week of spitting because it hurt too much to swallow.

I had enlarged tonsils that Doctor Long told my folks for years needed to come out. It was several years before my parents were able to save the money to pay for the procedure. And so every winter I had several days off from school till the yearly bout of tonsillitis became so bad that I required a penicillin shot to knock it out. For many years as a boy growing up I remember those days out of school, the elevator rides, and that sharp pain in the butt of the medicine that always made me better soon.

The annual bouts of tonsillitis went away and in there place I had chest colds but none ever lead to pneumonia so I am happy about that. I only recall getting one more penicillin shot and that was for a bad cold that I had while in college when I was twenty-three.

When I saw the picture of The Medical Arts Building on social media this morning and learned of it being taken down I thought of how the Chattanooga of my youth has changed so much. I have lived in Houston, Texas for way over half of my life and since my parents both passed over twenty-five years ago my visits back to Chattanooga have become fewer and farther between.

Now a building that was a big part of my boyhood is no longer there as are so many people that I knew and loved growing up in Chattanooga. It has been a long time, about ten years, since I have visited the city of my birth, now one more point of reference is gone. I have watched Houston change all around me yet sadly I have missed most of the changes that have taken place in my hometown town.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White