December 1, 2011, Spring Hill Informer

Spring Hill is home to two former major league baseball players, both pitchers and both of whom reside in the Ridgeport subdivision. Marty McLeary toiled from 2004 to 2007 and Paul Foytack toed the slab for 11 years ending in 1964. With the Detroit Tigers, Foytack was a teammate with current U.S. Senator from Kentucky and Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning.
+++
In another life as a car salesman, I encountered Nashville songwriter Clarence Selman. He was looking for an inexpensive, safe "getabout" for a daughter. My sales manager arranged the deal and we both went to meet Selman at his Nashville office in the Music Row area. During a long and congenial talk session, Selman mentioned how singer-songwriter Tom T. Hall had commissioned him to research the history of Spring Hill to provide background for a novel Hall was writing. I have since delved to see if either Selman or Hall had found inspiration in their endeavors to write a song with "Spring Hill" in the title somewhere. Hall was especially fond of writing songs with place name titles. I found none by the two, but I did discover a song titled "Spring Hill Factory Assembly Line Blues," written by a Ralph Landis for Wherefore Music (BMI).
+++
How big was the $5 billion Saturn Project? Only "the largest single industrial investment in American history," according to journalist William Plummer in a piece he wrote for People magazine, August 19, 1985.
+++
A house for sale at 1074 Beechcroft Rd. has a going price of $8,980,000. It's a big package: 5,002 sq. ft., 445 acres. A little bit surprising for me is it and my little house have one thing in common: 2 bathrooms. Getting up in the middle of the night there might require something with wheels as an aide.
+++
Thompson's Station's mood molders are holding a slogan contest in hopes of using it to "brand" the community in a way that best summarizes what the place represents. Sort of a "Gracious and Growing" concept that Gallatin employed a few years ago. When I think of Thompson's Station I can't get beyond the whistle-stop name. I think of other such names, such as Minnie Pearl's "Grinder's Switch," and television's Green Acres spinoff "Petticoat Junction." I like Thompson's Station and think it is a good idea. I am already anxious to hear the finished slogan. It is a good idea for Spring Hill as well. "America's 14th Fastest Growing City" is getting stale, plus it always lacked in pizazz.