I saw on Yahoo News that Alice Ghostly died today. For those of you who don’t know who that is, she played Bernice on Designing Women. I always loved Bernice…she was always so random, funny, and scatterbrained. She always made me laugh. When I get old, I can see a little of myself in her.

Thinking of Alice Ghostly’s passing, just reminds me of how much I always loved that show as a kid. I noticed that Designing Women still comes on – on Ion television station. I loved Julia for her strong, outspoken nature and Charlene for her goofy, country humor. Mary Jo always seemed the most “real” one to me and well, Suzanne, she was just the snotty, pre-Madonna one that always made me laugh. I also liked that it was a “Southern” show and showed strong, smart, independant southern women who were creative and witty and took care of themselves without men (though, Anthony did do his part – though I always questioned his straightness – he seemed to be one of the girls, too, didn’t he?). My favorite episodes always usually ended in a rant by Julia (remember her going off on Suzanne’s former classmates at her reunion) or the poignant ones that made me cry (the one where Suzanne had to give the little girl up that she was trying to adopt, or the one where Charlene had her baby with the old 100+ year-old lady dying at the hospital at the same time and Dolly walking her down the hallway). After the cast changed, I stopped watching it. I just think the dynamic wasn’t the same and even though Jan Hooks and Julia Duffy tried to evoke the spirit of Charlene and Suzanne, it just didn’t work.

I would have loved to hang out at Sugarbaker’s, designing with all of them. I actually want to find that house the next time I go to Atlanta to get my picture in front of it. That would be fun. I guess that will be the closest I get to actually being there with them.

Note: After I looked on Wikopedia, I found out this (bummed): The exterior of the house seen in the series as the location of the Sugarbaker design firm is the Villa Marre, a Victorian mansion located in the historic Quapaw Quarter district in Little Rock, Arkansas.