PAPER TRAILS: Cornering the past in Little Rock

REWINDING TIME:

There’s a corner in Little Rock where, inside a small strip mall, a snippet of time stands still as 2010 continues whizzing by in modern vehicles, some of them hybrids.

Call it the intersection of Past and Present.

Those stopping to grab breakfast at the doughnut shop at the corner of Cantrell Road and Keightley Drive collide with a piece of the past;

they really just braked for a chocolate-covered glazed with sprinkles but instead unwittingly became time travelers.

First, there’s the doughnut shop itself - Shipley Do-nuts, founded in 1936 - with its oldschool signs, spelling of do-nuts, and classic slogans and taglines like “The Greatest Name in Donuts” and “Make Life Delicious.” The plain white menu board with its black and red lettering harks back to a simpler, less choice-laden time - there’s glazed, cake, variety/filled and rolls, coffee, milk, juice and soft drinks. That’s all, folks.

And not much on that menu over $1.59.

What completes this vignette of a bygone era?

Broom and mop peddler Melvin Pickens, standing outside the shop’s front door, greeting customers and inquiring whether they’d like to buy some of his wares. Pickens, partially blind and now in his late 70s, has been selling his brooms and mops in the Heights for about half a century now; baby boomers who grew up in the area remember him from their childhoods in the 1960s.

Nearly all who enter the shop pause to speak with Pickens, if not buy a broom:

“They made ’em too good,” one man in a business suit who’d earlier bought one from him tells him. “Mine’s still working.” Maybe some things are just destined to last longer than others ...

MAKING THE GRADE:

Brinkley native Herbert “Flight Time” Lang, who earlier competed on CBS’ Amazing Race, is set to join four of his Harlem Globetrotters teammates as they take on some elementary school students on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? The special Globetrotters celebrity week airing today through Friday at 5 p.m. CDT on CW’s KASNTV, Channel 38, benefits charity, with all of the winnings donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Lang appears on the week’s final episode Friday. Look for him and the rest of the Globetrotters to bring their tour next year to Central Arkansas on Feb. 8.

PERILS OF NATURE:

It’s not just Little Rock’s Pleasant Valley and North Little Rock’s Levy - both long-established neighborhoods - where coyotes are now on the prowl. Earlier in the summer, coyotes were spotted in Cammack Village, and just last week a coyote was seen in Little Rock’s Hall High neighborhood where one resident’s 15-year-old Siamese cat was killed and eaten.

Paper Trails appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact Linda Caillouet at (501) 399-3636 or at lcaillouet@arkansas online.com.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 09/27/2010

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