Slithery serpents. Sunday is St. Patrick’s Day, with green everywhere and an Irish flavor in general. Details of his life are inexact, but St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and supposedly evicted snakes from that land. Modern science, however, tells us that snakes never were native to Ireland.

Yesterday’s route. The proposal for a “gateway” to downtown Conway brings to mind how highway travel in our town has changed over the years. Way back yonder, U.S. Highway 65 went through Conway south to north on Harkrider then Front at St. Joseph right through downtown Conway and jogged around the corner of Hendrix to follow Washington north toward Wooster, not Greenbrier.

Foolish gesture. A northwest Arkansas legislator has introduced a bill to prohibit federal enforcement of firearm restrictions if they involve Arkansas gun makers. We don’t laugh out loud, but we chuckle. Has this representative never heard of the outcomes at Appomattox in 1865 and Little Rock in 1957?

Attracting attention. In the college baseball world, people now know about the University of Central Arkansas. The Bears whipped the No. 3 team in the nation not once but twice and on Mississippi State’s home field. This takes the happening out of the fluke category and into the for-real ranks. UCA obviously is a baseball factor here and now.

Woven into the fabric. Death a day apart took away two major figures of the Arkansas Senate — Bobby Newman of Smackover and Bill Walters of Greenwood. They were involved in a number of key legislative items from the Clinton governor era through the Huckabee days to the Beebe times.

Good time of the year. When we have a March day of chilly morning then warm, sunshiny late morning and all afternoon, it is most enjoyable. That is, if the wind is not enough to mess up your crappie chasing or bream fishing. But it is March in Arkansas. Such idyllic days are with us, what, twice a week if we are fortunate.

“They (architects) have worked hard. Funny thing, the harder they work to get us a better price, the less money they are going to make. They work on percentages.”

—Frank Mitchell,

superintendent of Vilonia schools