A Great Blue Heron is a frequent visitor to the creek behind my house in the Ridgeport subdivision. It moves slowly and cautiously, tilting its "S' shaped neck looking for amphibians and small critters to consume. It looks prehistoric taking off in flight, with its six-foot wingspan, long body and long beak. A year round resident, the Great Blue is often mistaken for a crane. The home for this one is inside the Wakefield subdivision next door where, about a hundred yards or so directly behind the new Church of Latter Day Saints located on Duplex Rd. and Commwealth Dr., a pond partially surrounded by a wooded area provides santucary. That pond is still undisturbed even after all the nearby development.
+++
Songwritin' buddy Jeff Carpenter is now a Spring Hill resident. Not that he lived that far removed beforehand, out near the Bethel community where his pals the husband and wife team known as Joey + Rory still call home. Jeff is a talented singer/songwriter originally from Arkansas. He has performed as a self-contained act (solo) regularly for the past two and half years at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge's airport location. Check Gary's Place to find when he plays next at that venue. You can sample his work on the 'net at ReverbNation. His "In the Mud" and "Trailer Park Queen" are country music gems.
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Food Lion employees and fans breathed a sigh of relief recently when the parent company trimmed its roster of underperforming stores and the Spring Hill location was not one of those lopped. I am a Food Lion fan and would have hated to see it disappear since it was one of the few places available to stock up on some grub when I first arrived in our fair city. It has historical significance from my point of view. I have been especially displeased over the years by journalists at The Tennessean who, when writing about the grocery shopping experience, refer to the activity as "Krogering," thus turning a brand name into the generic, as if Food Lion, Publix, Harris Teeter, Foodland, and other grocery stores did not exist.
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Thompson's Station held a slogan contest (see "Sprung" December 1, 2011) and in so doing found a winner. The brand it chose to single out its city: "Welcome Home."
What? I didn't say anything.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
January 12, 2012, Spring Hill Informer
Art is where you find it.
Where you found it last month was hanging on the walls of the Spring Hill library from the hands of ink artist Bob Jones, who was profiled in the last issue of the Informer.
More on Jones. He was born in Old Hickory and has lived in Spring Hill for "about the last 12 years."
He was drawn to the area for the same reasons many of us uprooted for hereabouts. Back when the city had either none or one of most things bigger cities had.
"I never thought it would get this big," he said.
As an artist he started early.
"My dad said I started drawing at age four. We went to a carnival and when I got home I tried to draw the merry-go-round."
The art school in Nashville he attended for four years did not do him much good right off.
"My four years of art college didn't help me much right away. I got drafted. I think I drew every guy's girlfriend in the company."
As for tips to those aspiring to enter the pen and ink drawing field, Jones says, "You'll make mistakes. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Work at it regularly."
Jones does a pencil drawing first and then inks over that. "I like that the pencil adds a softer tone with the ink."
Where does he start first with his faces?
"I start with the nose. If you can get the nose drawn right, you're pretty much on your way."
Jones, in his 70s, is at work on the second floor of the Leiper's Fork Gallery Wednesday through Sunday of each week. He is busy mostly with commissioned pieces."I invite anyone to drop in anytime and say hello," he said.
"I don't have time for a lot of the fun stuff I like to do. I do skip around on some of projects to keep from getting burned out. I'll work on one for a few hours and then go to another."
It is a difficult medium to master, Jones said. He pointed out a drawing of a jazz musician where the guitar detail alone took two weeks to finish.
"I've worked two weeks or more on some drawings and ended up tossing them. My wife got on to me for that."
He said he plans to finish some commissioned work and then devote more time to another love, painting in oils. A favorite in that mold is Andrew Wyeth, primarily a realist painter.
Too busy over the years to teach art, Jones, said he is trying to plan out a schedule whereby he can conduct art classes some time next summer.
+++ Motoring down Maury Hill Street on the way to the city park, off to the right at its 518 address, sits the 150-year-old-plus St. Mark United Primitive Baptist Church. It is amazing it still is united after all this time. It did get a new roof nearly four years ago. Other work to keep it upright and presentable still needs to happen. A new paint job is the least of its needs. The church is on the National Register of Historic Places. Anyone interested in helping with its preservation can send a check to the church's Building Fund, P.O. Box 147, Spring Hill 37174.
+++
Talk about your legendary music types. Not only does one brother half, Don, of the Everly Brothers live in Columbia, Gram Parsons also has a connection to that city. Gram was born Ingram Cecil Connor III in Waycross, Ga., on November 5, 1946. His father, Cecil "Coon Dog" Connor Jr., was from a wealthy family in Columbia. Gram attended Harvard briefly and became involved in Boston with the folk music scene where he helped form the International Submarine Band in 1966. The next year he relocated in Los Angeles. After his pioneering days with the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers, he had just two albums under his own name. He died at age 26 in 1973.
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It must have seemed a good idea at the time. It is even a better idea today. A decade ago, plus or minus a year or two, Spring Hill had a business consisting of a miniature golf course, enclosed baseball pitching machines, and a building to serve refreshments. It was on Ferguson Rd., the last street to the right off Duplex Rd. going south and approaching the I-65 overpass. Parts of the complex are still visible. The street is now one-way toward Duplex Rd. to accommodate school buses leaving the Chapman's Retreat school.
+++
With the passing of Bill Hall at age 65 on December 23, I anticipated seeing the word "beloved" in his obituary. I wasn't disappointed.
In contemporary times, Hall was likely Spring Hill's best known personality. He grew up here and in addition to his several years as the weatherman for Channel 4 in Nashville, he hosted, often in camo, his own televised outdoor fishing and hunting program, Land and Lakes, for several years. Congenial and calm, he leaves behind wife Carolyn and three sons, and memories to the many he touched in the Mid-South for a multitude of reasons.
Where you found it last month was hanging on the walls of the Spring Hill library from the hands of ink artist Bob Jones, who was profiled in the last issue of the Informer.
More on Jones. He was born in Old Hickory and has lived in Spring Hill for "about the last 12 years."
He was drawn to the area for the same reasons many of us uprooted for hereabouts. Back when the city had either none or one of most things bigger cities had.
"I never thought it would get this big," he said.
As an artist he started early.
"My dad said I started drawing at age four. We went to a carnival and when I got home I tried to draw the merry-go-round."
The art school in Nashville he attended for four years did not do him much good right off.
"My four years of art college didn't help me much right away. I got drafted. I think I drew every guy's girlfriend in the company."
As for tips to those aspiring to enter the pen and ink drawing field, Jones says, "You'll make mistakes. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Work at it regularly."
Jones does a pencil drawing first and then inks over that. "I like that the pencil adds a softer tone with the ink."
Where does he start first with his faces?
"I start with the nose. If you can get the nose drawn right, you're pretty much on your way."
Jones, in his 70s, is at work on the second floor of the Leiper's Fork Gallery Wednesday through Sunday of each week. He is busy mostly with commissioned pieces."I invite anyone to drop in anytime and say hello," he said.
"I don't have time for a lot of the fun stuff I like to do. I do skip around on some of projects to keep from getting burned out. I'll work on one for a few hours and then go to another."
It is a difficult medium to master, Jones said. He pointed out a drawing of a jazz musician where the guitar detail alone took two weeks to finish.
"I've worked two weeks or more on some drawings and ended up tossing them. My wife got on to me for that."
He said he plans to finish some commissioned work and then devote more time to another love, painting in oils. A favorite in that mold is Andrew Wyeth, primarily a realist painter.
Too busy over the years to teach art, Jones, said he is trying to plan out a schedule whereby he can conduct art classes some time next summer.
+++ Motoring down Maury Hill Street on the way to the city park, off to the right at its 518 address, sits the 150-year-old-plus St. Mark United Primitive Baptist Church. It is amazing it still is united after all this time. It did get a new roof nearly four years ago. Other work to keep it upright and presentable still needs to happen. A new paint job is the least of its needs. The church is on the National Register of Historic Places. Anyone interested in helping with its preservation can send a check to the church's Building Fund, P.O. Box 147, Spring Hill 37174.
+++
Talk about your legendary music types. Not only does one brother half, Don, of the Everly Brothers live in Columbia, Gram Parsons also has a connection to that city. Gram was born Ingram Cecil Connor III in Waycross, Ga., on November 5, 1946. His father, Cecil "Coon Dog" Connor Jr., was from a wealthy family in Columbia. Gram attended Harvard briefly and became involved in Boston with the folk music scene where he helped form the International Submarine Band in 1966. The next year he relocated in Los Angeles. After his pioneering days with the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers, he had just two albums under his own name. He died at age 26 in 1973.
+++
It must have seemed a good idea at the time. It is even a better idea today. A decade ago, plus or minus a year or two, Spring Hill had a business consisting of a miniature golf course, enclosed baseball pitching machines, and a building to serve refreshments. It was on Ferguson Rd., the last street to the right off Duplex Rd. going south and approaching the I-65 overpass. Parts of the complex are still visible. The street is now one-way toward Duplex Rd. to accommodate school buses leaving the Chapman's Retreat school.
+++
With the passing of Bill Hall at age 65 on December 23, I anticipated seeing the word "beloved" in his obituary. I wasn't disappointed.
In contemporary times, Hall was likely Spring Hill's best known personality. He grew up here and in addition to his several years as the weatherman for Channel 4 in Nashville, he hosted, often in camo, his own televised outdoor fishing and hunting program, Land and Lakes, for several years. Congenial and calm, he leaves behind wife Carolyn and three sons, and memories to the many he touched in the Mid-South for a multitude of reasons.
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