A few years back, I was a contestant on a quiz show called 10 Seconds on CMT (Country Music Television). The format was nearly the same as the old Name That Tune show back in the days when televisions had rabbit ears. Another contestant was a girl named Gina Butler. She was a singer from California looking to make it in Music City. We sat and talked some. I gave her a frameable drawing of a Nashville scene I had received as one of my parting gifts. In more recent times, I noticed she had started a nice little business for herself. I dropped by at one of her stores hoping to catch her one day, but she was not in and I left her a note. She phoned me, but, alas, remembered neither the gift I gave her nor myself. That girl, Gina Butler, has one of her stores in Spring Hill: Gigi's Cupcakes. Now you know the rest of the story (Sorry, couldn't resist).
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A LOCALE CALLED EWELL STATION: The Ewell Farm there comprised nearly 3,000 acres just west of Spring Hill and at the far end of Depot Rd., going back to around 1867. It was where Ewell Farm regularly sold herd after herd of registered jerseys in Spring Hill auctions held clear up to the Depression years. It is noteworthy for a number of reasons but primarily due to the fact its owner and namesake, Richard Stoddert Ewell, brought the first jersey cattle into Tennessee, and created one of America's best known livestock farms.
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WHERE HAVE ALL THE SUPPLIERS GONE, LONG, LONG TIME AGO?: Filtech Inc., an Ohio company, won a contract in 1999 with Saturn and anticipated shipping 345,000 oil filters to the Spring Hill automobile facility during its first year under contract. Notable is that Saturn once had more than 200 regular suppliers, and even held annual recognition events to honor them.
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A YANKEE WE ALL LOVED: As a youngster growing up outside Joplin, Mo., my soon-to-be idol Mickey Mantle played Class C minor league baseball for the Joplin Miners. I didn't know who the first baseman was at the time, Cromer Smotherman, but years later our names were in the same Columbia, Tenn.-area phone book. Just the way it was back then in Joplin -- if we had owned a phone at the time. Out in the country, we didn't even have electricity. Smotherman was appointed Mantle's minder by the team's manager, Harry Craft. Mickey was raw and young and Smotherman was married, had a young daughter, and was attending college in the off-season at Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro. I became acquainted with the Smotherman personage while helping John Hall in researching his book Mickey Mantle: Before The Glory. And, if I might put in a personal plug, I have an instrumental tribute song about Mantle, "Mickey Mantle Farewell," for sale on CD Baby. It's a single from an album I hope to release soon.
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Parts of a movie were shot earlier this year in Spring Hill, Santa Fe, Pulaski, Nashville and possibly other locations. Titled Deadline, a theatrical release is scheduled in early 2012. Eric Roberts is the most recognizable of the cast names. I was an extra in the flick. I chose to put myself on an email update list regarding the movie. A recent email asked me to chose which art poster for the movie I liked best among three choices. One of the posters showed part of the front of the Rippavilla Mansion. Whether that ends up as the actual poster for the movie or not, Rippavilla plays a main part in the movie, though disguised as just another nice mansion in Alabama.
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A regular feature in The Tennessean is a column called "Chef Du Jour." Our own Whoopie Pie whipper-upper Deana Marcum told me she wondered how she became a recent focus of that column (published August 30). "I was surprised when they called me and asked for an interview," she said. "I thought it was just about big-time chefs in Nashville." Hey, bakers are chefs, too, ya know.
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