March 8, 2012, Spring Hill Informer

A coupla years back, the state changed, at considerable cost, some highway signs at the 840 interchange, ones that did not reflect the actual name "Thompson's Station." Note the apostrophe. It was a totally unnecessary mistake to begin with. Somewhere there is an old adage about signmakers being poor spellers and inept followers of proper grammar in general, a slight slam on craftsmen being just that and not educators. Always doublecheck the signmakers.
Somewhere along the way, city officials must have determined that their city, with the apostrophe, was the proper spelling. That is good. Make it official. Many cities, however, with a similar name form have chosen to drop the apostrophe and some have not only done that but combined the words. "Bakersfield," for example, the city in central California, was originally "Baker's Field."
Amazing to me is how many people in Spring Hill spell the name as one word, "Springhill." The fact that we have a "Springhill Village Apartments" perhaps adds to that confusion. Thompson's Station has a "Thompson Station Baptist Church." Oh, well, I guess it cannot be expected that everyone will eventually get the same memo on the subject, and there is always more important things to dwell on. I imagine that is the main topic in that Baptist church.
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"You Are So Spring Hill If..."
Complete that incomplete sentence for us at The Informer and send it in. If we get enough of them they could see print.
Here are a couple of examples:
...your church used to be your hardware store.
...your church used to be your grocery store.
...you thought a Saturn plant was a flower.
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On a recent beautiful Sunday afternoon, I made a visit to the Rippavilla Plantation gift shop.
Actually, I was just driving around and saw some parked cars in back. Curious as to whether the gift shop was open on a Sunday at the top of the day, and if that was the reason for the cars, I parked and ventured forth. It was open, with visitors inside. I enjoyed looking around. It is a pleasant and interesting gift shop, with sale items including paintings, books, postcards, stationary, most all of which, of course, pertain to persons, events or incidents relating to the grounds.
Exiting, I saw a woman making some brush strokes on canvas. Plein art, I told myself. I politely interrupted at an opportune moment and introduced myself. She in turn informed me she was Susan E. Jones. She was painting the barn scene in front of her. She has a table with some of her art work for sale in the gift shop.
An interesting woman, she informed me she was a member of The Chesnut Group ("Plein Air Painters For the Land") and a current project involved raising money for the Duck River watershed program. More on that later.
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Count for the annual Dr. Seuss birthday blowout at the Spring Hill Public Library held March 2: 601
Most of that total was made up of kids. Surprise, huh?
For the first time, the entire library was turned into Seussville for the event. Previous attempts to confine it to one large room did not serve well, a library worker said.