The following is a special presentation of WTCI, Chattanooga, North Georgia, and the Tennessee Valley.

I've been gone a long time, but Im going home.

From guitar picking to writing to politics.

Just what does this local icon have to say about the Chattanooga community and his life?

Some days you laugh, some days you cry.

But it gives you that perspective that you can't get any other way that I know of.

Hear more from Dalton Roberts coming up on the A-list.

Dalton Roberts For longtime Tennesseans and area residents, it's a name that's very familiar.

You may read his columns each week in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, or you may remember him from the 16 years he spent serving as Hamilton County executive.

But if reading the newspaper or following government issues is not your forte, well, the range of his creative vocals and guitar melodies may just strike a chord in your memory.

Maybe one little piece of history.

Roberts is a man of many talents with a wide range of personal stories.

As you are about to see.

Well, Mr. Roberts, thank you for being on the A-list.

We are so happy to have you.

Thank you very much.

I'm glad to be on a list.

Well, I've been calling you a Chattanooga icon.

I hope that that's okay with you.

Well, I guess I know that this is the first time I've made an A.

All right, Well, so we're happy to provide it.

You know, it's funny because I feel like I know you, even though this is the first time we've met in person because of the columns that you write every week for the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

And I'm sure a lot of our viewers feel like they know you, even though they might not have met you because you write on such an intimate and personal level.

Sometimes they're thought provoking, sometimes they're sad.

A lot of times they are funny.

I mean, they're always funny.

But how long have you been writing that column?

I've been writing that column since I left county executive.

Paul Neely, the who's that time publisher of the Chattanooga Times.

Right, came to my office and one day after a Rotary meeting and he said that letter you wrote to the editor this morning was only thing I heard him talk about at Rotary today.

And I decided, if anybody can stir up that much interest, I want you to write a column for us will you do that.

And I said, Yeah, well soon as I leave office.

So that was in May.

So I started that the first week in September.

I wrote my first column.

Do you remember what it was about?

Yeah, it was about, well, what it was like to be county executive.

Some advice for Claude Ramsey, who succeeded me.

To another humor column.

Well, sort of.

It was half serious and and half humorous As everything.

But I've been writing them now for a good lord.

How long is it that 14, 15 years is a long time.

I'm just amazed.

I've got a book of compilation of 52 of my columns that I'm selling now.

It's called Long John Cardinal, because that's the feature column.

It's about one legged cardinal.

I had one time and I fed for five years.

Hey, what is the inspiration for your columns?

Do you wake up one morning and think, I'm going to write about that?

Yeah, I do.

And every week you have to write this.

Yeah.

It's a lot of writing.

Where do all of those ideas come from?

Well, Robert says it's because he's a collector.

Really?

It's not an uncommon hobby.

But Robert Shelf is unique.

He says the only thing he collects is ideas.

Even now, the hands that he's used for so long as a musician transform his humorous thoughts and anecdotes onto paper.

Robert says he writes daily in a journal, and so far he's logged approximately 140 volumes of letters ideas and commentary.

Do you and me know.

What's the best idea you've ever collected?

Oh, Lord, I. I don't know.

I think really the best idea I've ever had, which became a firm belief in mine, is that the strongest theological thought I've ever had, I'll put it this way, is that one day I realized that the same juice that people that the Buddhist worshiped the same juice that they talk about and that the Christians talk about and the Jews talk about, and the Hindus, all of these different religions all relate to a juice thats flowing through all of life, and it flows to us.

It's like in our breath.

It's like inner energy.

And when you start looking at life from that kind of a perspective, you're constantly energized, you're constantly moving, and you constantly think in your mind advancing.

And I guess that's the best thought I've ever had.

So what was Paul said in him we live and move and have our being.

You know, it is if something doesn't come to me in my normal activities of the day before I leave here, somebody may interject some idea in my mind.

They'll start growing.

And first thing you know, I'll sit down, write it.

If I don't, I go to my journal.

I've been keeping a journal now for 30 years and I've got 147 volumes, three inch notebooks.

Wow.

And it's not somebody told me one of my ex-wives told me.

They said, you don't keep a journal.

You keep a scrapbook.

What about the life goes a long way.

Through those hard.

I have a weakness for novelty songs.

You know, the one that I had had such a good hit with and that turkey was a novelty song.

Don't Pay the Ransom, honey.

I've escaped.

It's about a guy who goes out at 2:00 in the morning.

He realizes he hadn't even called his wife.

So he calls and says, Don't pay the ransom honey Ive escaped.

Are any of these autobiographical?

I will not answer that on grounds it might incriminate me.

Fair enough.

Well, true love is hard to find, though.

an ex-wife goes on forever like a fish dangling a lose drawed line.

You going for him to fall down that river?

You pull all the hooks out of your skin.

That the one in your pocketbook reel you in.

True love is hard to find, but an ex-wife goes on forever.

You never know.

Woman Do you?

Me, the board.

You just think you do that some, you know you find true true cheap term really the words for Don't hold your breath.

I'm telling you she was God's truth was hard before.

But in those old river like fish dying all in I lose dried like son, you know, swam deeper down in river A million people all do bodies give that the one anybody's big really true Lulu's hard to find but the next one goes on forever and ever Next world girls own trouble.

Oh, it's just a little mischief.

So music is definitely a passion for Roberts.

His clear style and catchy lyrics are a rare find.

He says he first began to fine tune his guitar skills when he was just a teenager and played with his uncle.

Dan.

Roberts says his father then cut him a deal, telling him if he'd learn how to play a guitar, then he could get one and that's where this lifelong path of playing began.

But there was an old bootlegger.

Lived down the street from us who had a stellar guitar and a strange mess to set up close to half an inch high.

So it was hard to push in the strains on it.

But I played that thing until I got blisters on my finger and then corns, calluses.

And then I got blisters under the calluses until I learned one song.

Uncle Ben said, When you learn one song, I'll teach you another one.

So I learned sitting on top of the world and one day with Daddy, Come on, work.

So I'll play something I played him that needs me to go get you a guitar.

Anyway, he bought me a Martin, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven.

That's one of the best guitars in the world.

This is the song that my uncle taught me when I was 13.

Then it got me a martin guitar.

It was in the spring to one sunny day.

My baby loved me and she went away.

Now she's going, My will never leave.

I'm sending over the moon if you don't like it.

Really.

The most significant thing about that to me is my dad was a working man at that time.

he's working man all his life, for that matter.

But he worked in the hosiery mill.

And he didnt make great money.

But he bought me a martin guitar for the first guitar.

But Uncle Vann taught me that song.

I'm sitting on top of the world, he told me.

Who loves deficit the of deeper words I'll get my love on the other side.

I I'll be gone over me because I'm sitting on top of you Yeah I'm a certain on top of the blues.

So when Uncle Vann taught you to play was he teaching you a skill or giving you something you're going to carry on for the rest of your life?

Well, I guess he didn't know, you know, And I guess I didn't know because, you know, you never know when you start trying to play something, how good you going to be at it, Right?

How efficiently you going to learn to play it?

But I got good enough at it.

It I played weekends and night clubs all my life.

I didn't quit until 93 and then I started doing a one man show.

I couldn't play for 5 hours.

I had so much arthritis in my hand, so I had to quit the nightclubs.

And I hated to do that because I loved to play for dances.

What were you playing?

Were you writing your own music the whole time or.

Oh, most of the time in nightclubs, just doing the top 40 type stuff, right?

Mostly country and rock and roll and some blues.

So how did you go from music to politics?

Well, it was no problem.

You know, In fact, when I took the job as county manager, that was a non-elected office that I held seven years before I ran for county executive.

When I took that job, the people who hired me were the members of the old County Council.

And I said, There's one thing I want to say up front that I don't want to hear anything about me playing music in nightclubs because I'd rather turn this job down.

Roberts has built thousands of friendships and experienced so much in life through his music, but he's also left his mark on the Hamilton County community.

When he served as the county executive, he developed a whole new structure for county government.

And I think he he had certainly put a lot of time into that.

And it really became a model for the state.

Dalton's mastery at channeling the energy of the elected commissioners was, I think, precedent setting.

I think what inspired everybody that worked for him was his belief in you.

You wouldn't have let him down for the world because he had such confidence in what you could do and he instill that confidence in you.

So you just felt like you could just do anything.

And how long were you county executive for?

That was 16 years.

What was the best part about your job?

Being able to see some things with my own eyes that I was building, you know, like taking part in the aquarium and the river walk and fine industrial parks and the river port and all those things that I think made a difference in this county.

That's a deeply rewarding thing.

When I was a Jaycee, I used to head up projects and I always thought every time I'd get a project head up as a Jaycee, I would notice that I'd have to go to see some elected person to make it work.

So I said, Well, these days I'd like to be in a job, an elected job where I could make something happen.

Here is the elected people that touch the dominoes, that do things like start the whole river development thing.

And to be a part of something like that is one of the greatest rewards I've ever experienced.

And could you pinpoint maybe your greatest accomplishment during those 16 years?

Well, I guess Jobs, five industrial parks.

Bonnie Oaks is just about for all the rest the river ports, not because it's really designed for river port work, but the one at Soddy-Daisy is full and one in Ooltewah is full, the Volkswagen come here.

That was a project that Pat Rose when he was mayor and I started not Volkswagen but the the the land that came out we went to Washington back and the second year of my administration and the last year of Pat's administration and made a petition to the Department of the Army that you get that land for jobs.

And over the years the people I kept following that up as long as I was there for 16 years, Gene Roberts became mayor and he and I pushed it for the years that he was mayor.

And then Claude Ramsey came in and he and Littlefield and the other two mayors who came in, Corker that everybody has pushed this project for 20 years now, over 20 or 25, 30 years is really started back in 80.

What do you think about the direction our city has gone since you since you were in office?

Well, you know, I think that we've made a lot of progress.

Believe me, if you had been around here when back before we started all the downtown stuff, you could have fired a cannon right down the middle of the street on a Saturday night, and you'd never hit a person.

There was nothing downtown.

A lot of people who were younger don't realize that Chattanooga had nothing going downtown for a long, long time.

So some of these things, the concentration on the downtown and the development downtown and the development on the river is just really gratifying.

Now, I've heard people call you a visionary, and I've heard others call you a front porch philosopher.

What would you call yourself?

I don't much care what anybody called me.

As they call me, they supper's ready.

I really don't.

You know, I think I am a visionary.

I've always, especially about my time I can think of.

I'm always thinking the things that I'd love to see Chattanooga do and Ive committed myself to a vision for this town.

And I was elected and I did everything within my power to actuate that and make it happen.

I've been known and known to that and go.

Oh, Dalton Roberts has yet another side you may not know.

He obtained a bachelor's in education at Tribeca College, located in Nashville.

He then taught seventh and eighth grade for two years in Athens, Tennessee, before attending the University of Tennessee at Knoxville to obtain a master's in special education.

He then spent over a decade working for Chattanooga City schools as the special education supervisor for students with special needs and the gifted and talented.

He also worked as the school system's social worker.

Looks like the sky turned upside down.

Tennessee glistening in the moonlight.

Oh, lots of Chattanooga.

My dome.

I knew no for too long.

But tonight I learned from gung ho.

I won't be long term as such.

All the lots of charm and the love oh, loves.

I'm just a girl who's got this job turned upside down.

Tennessee glistening in the moonlight.

The lives of Chattanooga.

My oh.

So who have been your mentors?

Oh, Lord, a lot of people I work for a lot, I suppose.

I work for a lady named Frances White when I was a social worker.

Then she helped me to control my mind, control my emotions.

She was a brilliant woman in a master's degree social worker, and she supervised me for four and a half years.

And I don't know how in the world she put up with that kind of injustice drives me crazy.

And I would have these horrible temper fits and she would sit there and smoke a cigarette and watch me throw a fit, and she would say that.

How did that ever help Johnny if some kid was talking about, Can you think you'll ever be able to take all that energy and mood into a plan for Johnny?

That line you just said, that injustice drives you crazy.

Explain that.

Well, if youre a school social worker, you see children abused all kinds of ways.

And that was a stage I need to go through to see how much injustice there is in this world and how many kids are abused.

And then after I think about 3000, temper fits, I learn that that didn't do anybody good for me to have a temper fit.

Francis finally got it through my head and I had to take that energy that I was expanding in wasteful ways.

Infuse that into a plan for that kid.

And I got good at that.

And it was most precious work I've had.

People ask me, What would you do the rest of your life if you if you were just talking about job satisfaction?

And I think it would be in school.

Social work is so rewarding to take a kid who's got everything against him and come up with something that gives them a shot.

You know, it's really a deeply rewarding thing.

Its the only thing I've ever done, and I guess I miss it more than I miss politics.

I guess I miss it more than I miss schoolteaching, and I never did really much good teaching the confinement of it.

And the system itself kind of stifles creativity.

And I've always liked to operate on a creative level.

Is there anything you haven't done yet that you want to do?

I can't think of it.

I really can't.

I want to keep on doing what I'm doing now.

You helped us tell a story recently, and now you're the narrator for one of the documentaries, Heroes of the Valley.

Oh, yeah.

Work with Shaun on World War Two.

How is.

That?

Oh, I love that.

I love that.

I still haven't spent all the money they paid me.

There's some things you do because you love it, and you can do something for your public television station.

That's I love to do that.

It means so much to us in this day when there's so little attention to certain very important topics in the main media.

So little independence.

the main media are owned by half a dozen people, companies are conglomerates now, and public television is becoming extremely important to us.

Give back.

He certainly did.

Robert's voice is an integral part in sharing area veteran stories as he animated the writing of producer Shaun Townley.

Men and women of the Tennessee Valley.

Walking viewers through a time of heroes thing.

They left their families to travel across the globe.

They pushed themselves to unexplored physical and emotional limits.

The documentary was nominated for a regional Emmy in 2008.

So today, I've learned so much.

Dalton Roberts, a Chattanooga icon or a front porch philosopher, a published author, a successful songwriter, a community leader, a heartfelt man with a passion for kids, a need and a warm voice to lighten the load of our hearts.

Now, one of my friends had a special request.

He was hoping you would play the theme song to the Hamilton County Fair.

Well, that may be an impossibility.

You wrote that, though.

I did.

I wrote it in about an hour in the studio.

They called me and asked me to write something for the county fair, and I was down in the studio in Pittsburgh.

They recorded it, so I just went in and wrote this Under the county fair.

There's a lot of good things to share.

If we could make crafters so County Fair is a place to go.

Oh, memories are in the end.

Come along and make use.

If you want a little piece of history, tell me.

Find a place to be.

Come on, come on, come on.

Give the county fair.

Well, thanks for helping me with that.

If you ever need a backup singer, I'm available.

Oh, good, good, good.

Thanks.

Mr. Roberts.

This has been a pleasure.

Thank you.

I'm sure you enjoyed it.

Dalton Roberts is a true local treasure.

Be sure to join me next week as I pay a visit to the winter retreat of Jack Perkins.

Coming up on the A-list next Thursday night at 8:30 p.m., I'm Allison Leibovitz.

See you next week.

We're not playing gotcha.

We're just playing.

This is wonderful.

And it's right here.