From the Editor

By Stephen Sapp 

Someone said to me a couple of weeks ago, “Well, I think we can safely say that spring has definitely sprung!” Hearing those words reminded me of the long, long driving trips in our old Chevy station wagon my family took every Christmas when I was a boy from Asheville, NC, to Ft. Myers Beach, FL (two full days of driving in that time before the advent of Interstate highways). One of the things that made the trip more bearable (or in truth less unbearable) were the Burma-Shave signs along the roads (almost all only two lanes in those days), which provided some levity and even sound guidance. One that I especially remember went like this: “Spring has sprung / The grass has riz / Here’s where last year’s / Careless driver is / Burma-Shave.” That reminder (and the warnings in the accompanying pictures) are still excellent advice today! 

Not that spring has certainly sprung, please enjoy this Spring issue of Ripples, which contains a great deal of news and important information for us Lakeportians (OK, I know that term will never catch on, but I thought I’d give it a shot anyway—at the least, I might provoke a pointless controversy over whether it should be pronounced “Lakeportians” or “Lakeporshuns” [think “Martians”]!).