LOOK UP: James Sherwood of Turtlepoint phoned Monday and
reported seeing three Eastern bluebirds. And about a week ago now,
Mike Cedar of Derrick City saw a half-dozen robins in a pine tree
behind the Derrick City post office.

So look up; there’s new arrivals every day. Before you know it,
there will be a red-winged blackbird in your yard and spring will
have arrived.

Incidentally, we learned a great piece of news the other day.
Daylight Savings Time returns this year earlier than ever – March
9. Less than three weeks!

SNOW NOTE: Sal DiMaria passes along this note a week ago from
Sebring, Fla.: “The Hess Station in Avon Park, Fla., is selling gas
for 289.9/gal. That’s eight cents lower than the rest. Miss the
snow and the ice and the slippery roads and the heavy clothes but
most of all I miss the slush. Good luck.”

OK, Sal, we get your point. We noted that the weather in Daytona
was gorgeous for the running of the 50th annual Daytona 500.

On the other hand, Sal, you missed our recent expanse of
unbroken snow which, with a little sunshine, sparkled like
diamonds.

NOT QUITE: We were a little off the other day when we wrote
about that Hollywood writer’s connection to Bradford.

Martha Anderson writes Friday, “In RTS today, George Howard was
given some wrong information. My sister, Margaret Anderson
Hartnett, is the mother-in-law of Jeff Melvoin, one of the writers
of Northern Exposure. He is married to her daughter, Martha
Hartnett. Right family, wrong connection.”

We also had a phone call telling us that this Mr. Melvoin had no
connection to the movie, “Spartan,” in which there’s a Bradford
reference.

ONE MORE: Nancy (Wolcott) Vreeland of Visalia, Calif., can also
tell us a little more about World War II’s “potato masher.”

Nancy, whose father, Norm, we interviewed about a connection to
famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle, writes: “A ‘potato masher’ was
the Model 24 Stielhandgranate (in English: stick hand grenade). It
was the standard hand grenade of the German Army from the end of
World War I until the end of World War II. The very distinctive
appearance led to it being called a ‘stick grenade’ or ‘potato
masher’ in British Army slang, and is today one of the most easily
recognized infantry weapons of the 20th Century.”