I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about a cat who came to our back door, appeared to love us, visited often, and ate a lot. We thought the gods had sent us another cat to take the place of our guard cat who'd become famous because of Nutsy and Raven and possoms and skunks and traps.  She just disappeared and a day or so later this cat came calling.   We named him Elvis because we'd look up and Elvis would have left the porch. (Elvis has left the building....) Well, now Elvis has left us. Here's my theory of what happened.  When our cat disappeared we'd just bought her some savory more-expensive food.  With her gone, we fed it to Elvis.  Elvis licked his chops and begged for more and more. Elvis ate all the expensive stuff.  Being cheap we went to the dollar store and bought a big bag of ch... 01/16/2010

Our historic First Methodist Church on Main Street in Searcy Arkansas dates back to the 1800's and has graced many an old post card or photograph and the front has hardly changed.  It has spread, fattened, or become bigger in whatever way you want to describe but the front stayed the same. Now they are having some repairs done.  Driving by today I couldn't help screeching to a stop and taking these pictures.  Those guys are pretty high up!  But they had an easy way of getting up there with that lift.  Imagine the ones who first built the church and laid those bricks.  It would have seemed much higher then.                     The brick work done so long ago was truly beautiful as shown in the picture below.  The city of Searcy  is fortunate in where the church is located because anyone ... 01/15/2010

Remember when you could drive a big car and never worry about filling it up? Remember when the filling stations did full service with a smile? Remember when the filling stations would give free gifts with a fill-up? Remember putting a tiger in your tank?? I did remember the wonderful old ads about putting a tiger in your tank but couldn't remember who did the ads. I found this old collectible that says it was ESSO. This little thing is apparently a key chain of some type.  What is surprising is that on the opposite side it said you could drop it in a mail box and Esso would  return it to you? WOW!!  That's service! The back says drop in any mailbox. Happy Motoring Key Club. Z211931  Box 52008 Houston Texas 77062. Postage Guaranteed.   Now why am I putting this thing on Activerain blog s... 01/14/2010

  During World War II Searcy Arkansas had a real honor in that our own Margarete Neel was chosen as the Red Cross poster girl. She was on Red Cross posters everywhere. During a White County Historical Society special day of honoring Searcy's past history our Anita Hart Fuller was the one who posed as the poster girl on the court square. Here she is in front of our White County Court House with books, information and an authentic poster from World War II.  Anita is the tart-tongued commenter on some of my blogs who finishes out the history lesson, sets me straight or sometimes tries to set Nutsy straight. She's a true historian and a fun person to have around.  I have featured her mother, Corinne Hart on my blog many times.  Her mother lived to be 100 and participated in so many Searcy ... 01/12/2010

Happy Pictures. They were taken at the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in St. Augustine Florida. Standing behind the magnifying glas  (at least I guess it was a magnifying glass) made us feel strange and mysterious.  Looking at the photos makes me think that we were in another dimension with the possibility of traveling to another planet!  Be sure to attend one of their museums if you have the opportunity.   01/12/2010

About a year ago I wrote about the experience of getting a text on my land line phone.  It was strange.  It didn't happen again until yesterday. The phone was ringing and when I picked it up the message came through this way. Robotic voice says with no expression, "Have a nice dinner.  I will call you tomorrow."   The robotic voice actually sounds almost threatening.  Why would someone call me and wish he a nice dinner unless it was going to be my last one? I quickly hung up and started thinking.  And then I think I figured it out.  I'd called my daughter and told her we were having friends for dinner and unless she called me back quickly not to call until the next day.  She had probably done that text message.  She'd just got my message on her cell phone and answered by text not notici... 01/10/2010

The James Lercher family of McRae was selected the 1979 Farm Family of the Year.  Betty and James Lercher moved from Illinois to McRae in 1951.  They had 15 children, 5 daughters and 10 sons. The newspaper article stated that just one of the impressive features of the family was their ability to work together at the various jobs on the farm.  When an important decision was to be made, a family meeting was held to include everyone in the decision. A community ballgame was held on the farm each Sunday afternoon and the entire family tried to get together at least once each month.  In the picture above most of the family is represented including a son-in-law or two. Of significance to me presently is one of the boys is now my personal assistant, heir apparent, and co-worker because I conv... 01/09/2010

We love our heat pump.  It works great most of the time.  It is so economical and we were promised low bills by the electric company when we reluctantly installed one in the new house years ago. It proved to be a good promise.  They did say, however, that heat pumps are not good in extremely cold weather.  Look where the temp gage is today!!!  We hardly ever see that needle so close to a zero!  Frightful.  We run around asking how people can stand cold weather like this ALL the time.  Another thing they pointed out is that a heat pump has the outside compressor part running all year long whereas the gas heat does not.  Well, it doesn't run when it goes to the emergency heat which is when the little green light comes on!  Little green light means Emergency Heat is on.....higher bills. S... 01/08/2010

People talk. People shouldn't talk about churches. Should they?  Gossip?  Well, I've heard some about this church in Searcy Arkansas that is located at 400 West Arch Street and it is right across the street from another church. The congregation from both churches could meet in the middle of the street and visit...and talk.... The one across the street was the subject of my blog a day or so ago.  It's the Episcopal Church Trinity Parish. This church is the First Presbyterian Church. Gossip has it that the First Presbyterian Church used to be a chapel on a military base!  Which one?  Where?  Gossip didn't tell me that but perhaps my Searcy historians can. It was moved to this site and has maintained its dignity and simple beauty ever since. Or so the story goes.   01/05/2010

Kids have been out of school since before Christmas.  Christmas was December 25, 2009. Today is January 4, 2010 and kids are about to lose what they'd learned!  Right, moms?  They need to get back in school!  School is out for a snow day!    YIKES!!!!                                                                          Parents are screaming with dismay.  How are we going to get to work, take care of kids, get back into a normal routine???? Kids are screaming with delight!!  No school for another day!  Snow day!  Let's go play in the snow, make a snowman, throw snowballs!!  Even this old real estate agent, Barbara S Duncan, is wishing we'd get back to normal.  I was planning to go to the office today and get loads of stuff done. But these steps look treacherous.  I also need to go se... 01/04/2010

Episcopal Church Trinity Parish is located at 200 North Elm in Searcy Arkansas. I found this old picture of the church and didn't recognize it. My blogging friends recognized it immediately.   I started to straighten up the picture but it lost some of its character in the straightening. This church is just a block from downtown but in this picture it appears to be way out with farmhouses. It has been perfectly maintained throughout the years and added onto at least once. Now it is having another add-on.  Except it is not an add-on.  I guess you'd call it an extension because the extension is across the street in another block. And it is HUGE!  It looks as if they are repeating the style of the church and I like that idea a lot. Here are views of the front and the back of the new extensi... 01/02/2010

We danced the night away.  At least my dancing-fool husband did.  I think I've said before that his most hurtful remark once was, "Dancing with you in this contest is the only time I ever lost a dancing contest." The band was Sonny Burgess and the Legendary Pacers, a band that started in 1955 in Newport, Arkansas.  They still perform all over the world to big crowds.  They play the old-fashioned rock-n-roll.  Here's Sonny. The kids of today don't seem to have the affection for dancing the night away that old-timers did. Unfortunately, the old-timers are getting tired. One funny remark made around 11:30 p.m. while waiting for the New Year to appear was this. "You know we used to gather up money to get the band to play longer.  Wonder how much money it would take to get them to stop early... 01/01/2010

What neat photos we have found of old Searcy Arkansas. Evidently the first one is of a Wave in uniform visiting in front of First Security Bank in order to perhaps solicit women to sign up for the Waves. Look at the Ford Motor Company sign behind her.  Who can remember when there was a car dealership downtown on the square. Also note the window opened at the bank.  This must have to gain ventilation in a stuffy bank with no central air.                              Next we have our famous Searcy lady, Corinne Hart, Anita's mom who lived to be 100 posing in the very same spot with a poster.  Question?  Who is that guy grinning like a Cheshire cat above the sign and is he real or part of the sign?  For those who might wonder where this is, it is on the East side of the court square.  Firs... 12/30/2009

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Seniors in Searcy High School have gone out and sold advertisements in the High School Yearbook for as long as I can remember.  The books were heavy, full of pictures with enough memories to last a lifetime.  Here's a picture from the 1976 yearbook. The Seniors might try to get themselves and their relatives in the picture if the relatives had a business and bought an ad.  This picture shows VW Duncan, car salesman supreme, who started and reigned over the car dealership on Race Street in Searcy Arkansas until his death.  Also in the picture is my daughter Valerie, her step-sister Lana Duncan and my husband Rodger Duncan.  The car? It was a brand new 1976 Chrysler Newport, says my husband.  Did I get to drive it?  Heck, no!!    12/29/2009

She just sat there holding that Kindle. A Kindle, as you probably know, is this device that you can buy and read books on.  You can also download books within seconds.  Amazon.com sells them and reports that they are the # 1 best selling item for gifting. I gifted my daughter one for her birthday so when she came for Christmas she brought it with her. My newspaper is my great pleasure early in the morning.  My husband's too.  We have to walk to the end of the driveway to pick up the newspapers and it can be cold or rainy or icy or snowy and we make it down there and bring the paper back.  I do accuse him of hiding in the hallway until I leave for the paper so that I'll freeze instead of his having to go and freeze. Daughter gets up and just takes out this Kindle.  There she is across th... 12/28/2009

My daughter came home for Christmas and lugged into the house a large plastic storage bin filled with three-ring binders.  She was vague when I asked what it was, but later, after we opened presents she dragged it into the kitchen and said, "I have one more gift for you."  "I thought it would be nice to print out all of your blogs," she said, handing me a neatly organized binder. "Here are all the blogs from 2007." "The rest," she said, dragging six more binders across the floor, "are from 2008 and 2009 and I thought I'd never get through it." Turns out she decided to print out the blogs AND the comments, which was easy in the early days of the blog, which she called the time of "Hellooooo? Is anybody out there?" The first month took about 10 minutes and 10 pages of copy paper to archiv... 12/26/2009

Someone gave my husband a jar of pickles.                                  On the front they say, "Caution!.  May be addictive!" That was an understatement.  He gobbled up those Bennie's Fire and Ice Pickles within days and it was a quart jar. He's looking around for more.  The original-gifting-guy parted with two more jars.  And then he has no more! I searched the internet and Bennie's is not on there.  I call the number that is on the pickle jar and she lives in Texarkana Arkansas, about 3.5 hours drive from where we live.  She just kinda makes them in a little shop.  She does not ship them because it is too much trouble and they are too heavy. That means that someone has to pass through or go to Texarkana for pickles.  He tried to get everyone in Searcy who has tasted the pickles to ... 12/21/2009

I stumbled across another memory.  I for some reason saved the newspaper clipping about this house at 309 W. Center Street that was marked for demolition in order to build apartments. It was 78 years old and was a perfect example of Queen Anne Victorian.  It sat grandly on a corner with huge trees shading it.  I can remember attending an auction there.  It was the first auction I'd ever been to and I bought a few things.  One thing was an old trunk in the attic that I couldn't get down by myself.  Hubby chewed me out royally when I had to call him for help.  I actually didn't mean to buy it but just raised a finger at the wrong time. I've learned since then not to wipe sweat, scratch your nose or look the auctioneer in the eye if you don't want to buy! You can read the article.  But the... 12/19/2009

Here's another of the pictures that I salvaged from sure death as they were being thrown away by a widow whose husband had taken pictures of houses he had a part in building in Searcy Arkansas. I can't find this one.  It is, of course, fairly simple and there may be lots of them spread around.  If the unique fence were still standing that might be a hint.  It does have a chilling scene, doesn't it.   12/18/2009