I posted this blog a short month or so ago and it closed yesterday.  A new person coming to town bought it for cash.  He has to like old houses with charm!  I also wrote a blog about the perfect offer that I couldn't believe was true.  Good listings and good sales like this one make up for the frustrating ones that make us want to scream. **************************************************************   It was my pleasure to receive a call from the owners of this house built in 1947 and loved and pampered by the same family for 63 years!  The family added on a second bath and they moved the rock wall, built the bath and put the rock wall back.  They added onto a bedroom and once again moved the rock and then put it back so that the house is rock all the way around.  It does not look adde... 06/16/2009

These pictures were taken on our main drag, Race Street in Searcy Arkansas, and show the detail on a house built in 1925!  It's still standing and has magnificent detail for a home that would be considered modest in size today.  I especially like the detail around the windows and soffitts.  What craftsperson could do this detail today???? The way Race Street is expanding with commercial properties taking away the old family homes, I'll drive by one day and it will be zapped.....gone....so these pictures may someday be precious.  And while I was snapping pictures, I discovered this chimney!  Guess who says he has just become a chimney sweep?  Nutsy Wallenda, the certifried home inspector from Washington. Now Nutsy is prone to exaggerate so he may be nothing more than a chimney climber. ... 06/12/2009

Barbara, This is Alice....just wanted you to know Mark had an accident Saturday evening.  He was trying to cut a fairly large limb from the back yard at the Foxboro huse and he fell. He doesn't remember anything.  He fell a little under 20 feet with the chain saw in his hand.  He doesn't remember calling me, but somethow he made a call to me.  When I got the call there was no voice, just the sound of a motor running.  I knew something was wrong.  He called me just seconds after that and all he would say to was "I don't know, I don't know."  I called for help. I got there first and Mark was lying in the back yard with the 26' ladder beside him and the chain saw stuck in the ground about a foot from him.  It was still going.  As Mark would say...long story short... We got him to the hospi... 06/09/2009

I had this photo loaned to me.  It shows three handsome guys standing in the front entry to this unique rock and brick house.  You have to look at the rock and brick carefully and try to figure out how it was done.  Did they cut the rock to fit around the brick?  It must be hard to cut a rock.  Searcy Arkansas and White County has a multitude of this style house.  The rock mason must have been very popular. But I ramble.....I didn't know where the house was that was behind the three handsome guys.  Today I found it!   So you can see how it is still the same!  Now we just need to know who the three handsome guys are and whether they are still standing!  Searcy readers may be able to tell "the rest of the story." 06/06/2009

Blogging makes one more aware of the city, the houses, the styles, and the popularity of house styles from the past.  Driving around Searcy, one can't help noticing that at one time the big porch was the ultimate.  Frame houses all had big porches and some that wrapped.  These are examples of a style found often on the old streets of Searcy Arkansas, especially Center Street and Market Street. Worth noting for sure is that each house has a sidewalk in the front.  Kids could ride their bikes, play hop-scotch, and not worry about being run over by a vehicle.  Parents could sit on the porch and watch. And there were not so many vehicles then. Fast forward to today and we find NO sidewalks in our new subdivisions in Searcy Arkansas.  Perhaps that is one contributing factor to our kids prefe... 06/05/2009

Our Multiple Listing Service added the selection "Green" house to our list of features a few weeks ago.  None of us knew for sure what they meant.  Now CARMLS, the service, has defined a green house. 1.  Low-E Windows.  Low-E windows contain Low-E film on both interior sides of a double-pane window, in addition to film on the outsides of the panes.  2.  Tankless water heater.  It doesn't heat water until the consumer "asks" for it by turning on the hot water valve.  Water heats quickly over coils.  You can get a $300 tax creit for installing tankless water heaters in an existing home. 3.  Roof Radiant Barrier Sheathing.  These barriers are materials installed in buildings to reduce summer heat gain and winter heat loss.  The barrier reflects radiant heat back towards its source, reflect... 06/02/2009

We got "rolled." We haven't been "rolled" since we had young kids at home and their friends thought that was a fun thing to do. The "rolled" greeted me as I went to pick up the morning newspaper. They musta got the houses mixed up because we've just got a new neighbor who shares the mailstand with us. (The doors were banged up on these boxes the day before but they didn't knock over the brick stand.)  The kids must be flirting with the teenage girl over there.  But there's a sign in the yard saying she's a cheerleader?  Can't they see that sign and roll her yard? Hubby says it must be someone I've angered as a real estate agent ogre.  I deny that. I tell him it must be his nutty golfing buddies who did it.  Or the kids he asked to quit popping wheelies in their golf carts on our vacant... 05/26/2009

  This old photo taken by my friend Paula when she was doing a Girl Scout's photography project is one of my favorite of Searcy Arkansas during the 40's, I think. I've posted various pictures that she loaned me for my blog. This photo shows what is now Quattlebaum Music Store and what is still Stott's Drug Store on the right side of the picture which is the South side of the Court Square.       This photo shows Quattlebaum Music and Stott's Drugs as they were just a few months ago.  I was cruising downdown and snapped this photo. This week, however, I was in the downtown area and noticed changes going on at Stott's Drug Store.  The were pulling off all the "modern" front of the store and revealing the old stuff underneath. They are restoring it to look like the old historic Searcy Arka... 05/24/2009

I'm reposting this blog from Don Thompson's blog with his permission.  Memories of WWIII remember the Service Flag hanging in our window of the house on North Main across from the First Methodist Church. I lived with my grand parents and the flag represented their son, Alvin Graham. Then there was the terrible day a telegram arrived announcing that Alvin was missing in action. I can still hear my grandmother, Sadie Graham, breaking down and crying uncontrollably. We kept up hope that he would be found alive but eventually we learned he had died on the battlefield in France. Alvin had married just a short time before while on leave before heading to Europe. His bride would never see him again. There were so many similar stories at that terrible time. Lorraine American Cemetary , France .... 05/23/2009

TV is not my thing.  I rarely watch and haven't learned how to go beyond VCR and haven't taped any favorite shows in ages. But being from Arkansas, one hour away from Conway, I decided to be loyal and watch "American Idol" Wednesday night.  I did take a book with me to read during commercials and when I was bored. That Adam Lambert reminded me of a new Elvis but he wasn't good at moving the hips.  The glamorous face look I liked.  But the newspaper today reported that Kris Allen is "humble," a good church goer and person. SO.....Conway came out enforce to make him win.  The newspaper said this morning that Erika McMahan of Conway had a party of three at her house and sent 11,692 votes on Tuesday night.  That was probably topped by one person, Bobbie Kierna of Greenbrier who texted 10,84... 05/21/2009

        The Governor of Arkansas is Mike Beebe from Searcy Arkansas.  He used to be just a good old guy who worked as an attorney in Searcy and played golf with the fellows.  He still plays golf with the fellows and is still a good guy but now lives in the Governor's mansion in Little Rock. A few years back they were playing golf and a squirrel actually picked up his golf ball and hightailed it up a tree.....actually stole the ball and probably cost the governor a stroke or two.  I suspect it was some relative of our mischievous Nutsy Wallendawho plays around on this blogsite and steals attention. Our now Governor Beebe became our Attorney General prior to becoming Governor.  The guys who were playing with him when his ball got confiscated surprised him by making a trip to the Attorney ... 05/20/2009

Perhaps being married to a blogger makes you fair game.  Of course, he didn't ask for it when he married me because he didn't know I'd become a tattler on a blog site.  But he's stuck now. What is his latest thing to do? He went to the barber shop and gathered human hair to put around his six  four tomato plants! This guy has decided to grow a garden on our vacant lot.  All he can handle with his golfing schedule are tomato plants.  So this year so he got out the post-hole diggers and dug four holes.  Around the holes he put plastic (that's the blue stuff shown below) so that there would be a minimum of weeds for him to contend with. He purchased four tomato plants and put them in the holes along with four NAILS. The nails, he says, is to keep the cut worms from eating his plants.  The ... 05/17/2009

      A recent newspaper article pointed out that cell phones have now surpassed the households opting for landlines.  Fewer and fewer families are having landlines.  They are dropping the landlines and choosing cellphones only.  Verizon Communications Inc reported 39 million landline customers in March 2008 and 35 million a year later. Over the same period Verizon's wireless customers grew from 67 million to 87 million!  Some of those came from the company's acquisition of Alltel Crop.  But the amazing thing is that many are going cell phone only.  It saves money. I hate that I can't go to the phone book and find old Joe Blow who lives at 800 Doe Street.  How do we search for a cell phone?  And that brings up the picture above.  The phone numbers for this Duncan New and Used Cars were ... 05/16/2009

Here's another great old picture taken at Armstrong Springs, White County Arkansas.  Armstrong Springs had a hotel where people came and stayed to drink the healing waters of the springs.  Ruby Nell Woodson Moye loaned me the picture of this picture of the Armstrong family, Ruby's relatives on her mother's side.  It is taken on the front steps of a house that still stands there.  Ruby said that her grandfather bottled and sold the water!  Sounds like he was way ahead of his time in selling bottled water.  He is the 4th from left, middle row.  Armstrong Springs became Morris School and the road is now called Morris School Road. 05/15/2009

    This photograph of our old Smyrna Church on Highway 36 West taken in 1981 ? by one of the Armstrongs from Armstrong Springs was loaned to me by Ruby Nell Woodson Moye.  She found it as she was cleaning out her desk and going through things long forgotten.  The church is now undergoing restoration.  The photographer's composition is very nice.  Most of us would have centered the church, wouldn't we?  For another view and a little history of the church, click here.  From this link you can find out a lot of White County history.  Go for it!! 05/12/2009

The Woodson family from Searcy Arkansas is shown in this portrait.  There were three girls and 2 boys.  The girl on the left is Ruby Nell's mother.  Her mother was an Armstrong from Armstrong Springs, a community that had a hotel and lots of activity around the 1917 era. The detail in this picture is fantastic.  The picture was loaned to me by Ruby Nell Woodson Moye.  I've been posting a few old photos of her family. 05/06/2009

    What is this?  A keg party?   Surely not but that little child is sitting on what looks like a keg! This picture was shared by Ruby Nell Woodson Moye and shows some sort of gathering at Armstrong Springs, White County Arkansas.  Armstrong Springs was a community of some size with people coming for health purposes to stay at the hotel and bask in the healing spring water. Ruby's dad is in the center with the hat.  I like the fun looking girl on the right who appears to be having some fun!  Probably circa 1917. 05/05/2009

    One of our RE/MAX agents was going through her desk and found several great old pictures of her relatives.  She said I could share them on my blog.  This first one is the Armstrong Springs Ball Team from 1917.  Her dad, Noel Woodson, is the one on the right on the back row.  The agent's name is Ruby Nell Woodson Moye. Armstrong Springs is not even known as a town at the present time but then it had a hotel which had healing springs and folks came for the healing waters, so Ruby reported.  Later on it became what we knew as Morris School Road because the old hotel became a Catholic school for boys called Morris School.  The ball players look tough!  05/03/2009

This picture of the old Plaza Theatre in Searcy, AR, also known by kids as the cheap ticket theatre is featured so nicely in this old photograph. The band is in perfect order.  But look above at the brick detail.  And now look at the picture of the same building today.  It has been updated and the street looks lovely.  I love most the way they kept the brick architecture!  In this picture we can also see how small the theatre really was!     04/30/2009

When conversation gets strained, what can you talk about? The weather, of course!  Why do so many salesmen (men are worse than women) start every conversation with a weather observation or question?  It's a non-controversial subject! So today in Searcy Arkansas, I'm talking about the weather.  Here are the fog pictures from my house this morning. One is the golf course and one is from the front door.  My kids used to love foggy nights and called them "Jack the Ripper" nights and shivered with fear as they went safely about their way.  In London once on a vacation trip I saw one of those nights and it was pretty scary! 04/29/2009