I will be taking a break from blogging for a while to pursue other stuff. Hope to see ya’ soon!

If that name in the title sounds a little familiar well it should I suppose. That was the name of the business associated with the 1980’s hit television show “Designing Women”. And speaking to the point of the business being for sale, well not really of course because we all know it was only a “make believe” business anyway! But nevertheless it is being sold….. sorta!!

(Designing Women)

 If you can recall the opening credits of the popular television show you will remember perhaps the elegant Victorian home portrayed as the location of their designing business in Atlanta, Georgia. I have included below a couple of screenshots from a couple of typical episodes from their television show which were used in those referenced opening credits….

(Television Screen Shots – Sugarbaker & Associates Interior Design)

In actuality, the structure they were showing and portraying as their business is actually an old home located in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is known here as the “Villa Marre” and was placed on the state’s “National Register of Historic Places” in 1970. Perhaps a brief history at this point would be in order….

The elegant Victorian style home was built in 1881 by Angelo Marre. Angelo died in 1889 and his wife continued to live in the house until her death in 1904. After that the house had a sordid history being sold to various owners and for various purposes to include a nursing home, dance studio, Alcohol Anonymous meeting hall and rental property. Beginning to suffer from major deterioration due to lack of upkeep and neglect over those years, in 1964 it was decided by the city to bulldoze the property but fortunately a buyer named James Strawn Jr. stepped in and bought the property for $11,550 (not a typo) in January of 1964. Mr. Strawn was a prominent Little Rock businessman concerned over the loss and tearing down of so many of the cities old historic homes in the name of urban renewal.

After two subsequent years of renovations to the home, Mr. Strawn christened the home “Villa Marre” in honor of its builder. After its completion he sought a guardian who would insure the home never again fell into neglect. In 1974 he gave the home to the “Quapaw Quarter Association“ who assumed the responsibility for its preservation.

In 2002 the home returned to private ownership when it was sold to Michelle and Grady Trimble for $233,000. The many historic furnishings in the home were sold at public auction at that time. And now we have come full circle and arrived back at December of 2011. And once again the home has entered the real estate market and the current owners are asking $450,000 for the stately old place. I won’t lie and say I wouldn’t like to have it but I have always assumed that owning one of these stately old homes and the associated energy and upkeep costs can be easily compared to Mr. J.P. Morgan’s quote regarding the same for yachts, “If you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can’t afford it!”

But even I can boast as to having had at least a small amount of personal history with this magnificent home myself. For me it all began in the mid-fifties with the onset of the birth of Rock & Roll. My young life would intersect with the Villa Marre when….

A prominent Little Rock dance instructor named Dorothy Donaldson had moved her dance studio into the old home in the early to mid-fifties. One of my sisters was taking ‘tap dancing’ there from one of her other teachers during that time and it was also during the time when Rock & Roll was taking the kids by storm. I was having a heck of a time trying to master the latest dance moves as part of the associated “jitterbugging” craze. We found out that the dance studio was also offering classes on jitterbugging – the perfect place to hone my “cut-a-rug” skills.

At this same time there was a nationally popular television show called “American Bandstand” which almost anyone will be familiar. And here in Little Rock one of the prominent TV personalities, Steve Stephens, thought we needed a similar show here locally so the television studio he worked for, KTHV, created a dance show named “Steve’s Show” which aired around four or five in the afternoon.

After a few weeks of honing my jitterbugging skills my instructor, who was a young girl herself, and I decided to get tickets to be on Steve’s Show and go down and show our stuff. Now, one of the things they did on the show each day was have a dance contest and award the winning couple a carton of Coca-Colas. We quite honestly had no high expectations but nevertheless we gave it our best and lo and behold – we won the carton of cokes that day! It wasn’t the Academy Awards you understand…. but perhaps at that age it was reasonably close.

In addition to the association with the home I had as a young teenager, the home also found its way into my photographic passion for architectural structures. Below are a couple of renditions of the old home reflected in a photograph I took of the home back in 2006. Architecturally speaking, of all the old homes still alive and well in Little Rock, it has always been a favorite of mine. The second photograph is something I created using a special rendering technique using the graphic’s software program Paint Shop Pro.

(Villa Marre – Click to Enlarge)

(Rendered Version of Villa Marre – Click to Enlarge)

Well, I think I have milked this subject for about as much as I can. But I do so enjoy and appreciate these old stately homes that can be found here in Little Rock. I’m sure they attracted much attention in their heyday and for some of us, they still do. Anyway, the main thing here was to give everyone a heads-up in case anyone was interested in purchasing a little memorabilia from the Designing Women television show for a measly $455,000!

In the next few weeks I plan on putting a new section on the menu listing on the right side of my blog webpage under “Just Some of My Stuff” which will be titled “Some of My All-Time Favorite Things”. One of the things I currently intend to list under that section are my all-time favorite music videos. One of those videos destined to be right at the top of that list became so very special that I felt it deserved its own little post.

Perhaps many of us can remember that first boyfriend or girlfriend and the terrible crush that accompanied that moment in time. I have never forgotten mine or even the girl’s name. We were in Mrs. Dunn’s fourth grade class together. Below is a picture of Jeanette and myself I cut and pasted from our fourth grade class photo…..

(4th Grade Class Picture – Jeanette & Alan)

She only lived about four blocks from me and there were times after school when I would go to her house for a brief visit. On one particular afternoon we were in her garage looking at something on a work bench and when she wasn’t looking I reached over quickly and gave her a stolen kiss on the side of her cheek. As I recall she wasn’t all that happy about the move.

At some point during the torrid love affair we were allowed to go to a Saturday matinee together one Saturday afternoon at the local neighborhood theatre. That would be my first date ever. I just mostly remember we held hands walking back home from the movie and that was the highlight of the afternoon for me.

But sadly, not long after that day she informed me that her father’s work required that they relocate to Mississippi and so my little heart would be shattered one afternoon as they pulled away from their empty house and drove away. I would never see my little Jeanette again.

If you watch the music video by Phil Collins titled “Do You Remember”, I think after reading the above you will know just why this particular video is so very special……

An advertisement in this morning’s newspaper struck me as a bit humorous as well as stimulating some of those old memories from the past. Beginning with the advertisement itself, I have posted it below….

(Timex Sale Advertisement from local newspaper)

It struck me that although the ad seemed quite definitive to a large degree, it left out one small but yet very important detail – where the hell was the sale located?

The humorous, yet questionable ad is one thing but Timex itself is quite another since I had a personal direct relationship with the company many long years ago. After being discharged from the Air Force while stationed at Warner-Robbins Air Force Base near Macon, Georgia in November of 1968, I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia where I worked for a very brief two month period. But wanting to return to Arkansas after 7½ years in the military, I left the job after that very short period and did indeed return back home to Arkansas.

Fortunately I found a job in Little Rock in a relatively short period of time and that job was with none other than the Timex Corporation. At that time, 1969, Timex Corporation, whose home office was located in Middlebury, Connecticut, had two manufacturing plants located in Little Rock where they manufactured numerous models of the Timex watch but unknown to many individuals was the fact that Timex also manufactured the Polaroid camera for Polaroid Corporation. All the Polaroid cameras manufactured during that time were manufactured at the plant where I worked with one exception. Polaroid made a relatively low-priced camera called the “Polaroid One-Step” which was manufactured by Bell & Howell at a plant location near Chicago, Illinois.

Digging through some old memorabilia I was surprised to find that I still had the old ‘New Hire’ slip showing my start date and starting salary. I was hired basically to handle their electronic drafting which meant I would mostly work with the plants Polaroid camera manufacturing responsibilities.

(Timex Corporation New Hire Pay Slip)

Anyone who watched any television from those days will probably well remember the many Timex watch commercials that filled the airways. Most will remember John Cameron Swayze as their primary spokesman along with his familiar buzz line at the end of most commercials, “It takes a licking but keeps on ticking”. Below are a couple of those old commercials from those days. I should add that the first one shown is a collection of commercials but it is the “first” one of the series which is truly one of the classics….

I worked for Timex from March of 1969 until July of 1970 at which point I was laid off due to a mild recession affecting the entire country and a large slump in the sales of the Polaroid camera. I had really liked that job and was very disappointed when I got laid off. But as often happens in those cases, that caused me of course to look for opportunities elsewhere and in September I began working for Bechtel Corporation involved in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Russellville, Arkansas and that career change in the end carried me through a successful career until semi-retirement in 1990.

In closing, curiosity got the best of me this morning so I dug a little deeper into the location of the Timex watch sale reflected in the ad posted at the beginning of this post and found that it was actually at what is called a “Timex Outlet Store” which as it turns out was located only a couple of miles or so from where I lived. I drove over there and the store was actually part of a much larger Timex facility of some sort. I went in and talked with a receptionist in what appeared to be the main office, informed her of the ad with no address and asked just what Timex related work the facility did. Turns out the location is the central United States distribution center for Timex watches which, and this will probably not come as any big surprise, are “all” now manufactured in the Philippines and shipped to this facility for said distribution. The facility also houses the main authorized repair center for Timex watches.

So there – now you and I have the rest of the story!