Everyone needs some time –

We took a break from the newsroom last week for a trip to the Gulf Coast. Our first stop was Baton Rouge, a fairly featureless but picturesque six-hour drive from Arkadelphia and home to the tallest state capitol in the U.S. The 34-story capitol towers 450 feet above downtown Baton Rouge and is an impressive landmark, but the exterior could use a good cleaning; a good power washing, perhaps? At one point during our brief stay, we looked out of our hotel at plumes of smoke rising from an unspecified point northeast of the capitol—behind it, from our perspective, and in the general vicinity of the governor’s mansion. We deduced that the governor was hosting a book-burning party, possibly with the Arkansas governoress. Baton Rouge was okay, but not somewhere we’re likely to return to anytime soon.

The husband was convinced that the Buffalo River south of Natchez (and east of the mighty Mississippi) was the same Buffalo River in Arkansas. She is blonde.

As we left Baton Rouge we saw a road sign that said “Wipers on, lights on, that’s the law”. We drove the next 100 miles under clear skies with our wipers and lights on — we had no intention of breaking the Louisiana law. Yours Truly was once blonde.

This week last year we reported that Chancellor Chuck Ambrose left Henderson State University. Good to see you go. CLICK HERE for the story.

Lots of interesting city names in Louisiana: Natchitoches, Thibodaux, Ponchatoula, etc. And then there’s Robert. We think it might be pronounced the French way, like Ro-bear. We didn’t stop to ask because we had Florida in mind.

Medium-rare with Münsterwould be nice.

Children, teachers and parents of Arkadelphia: Count your lucky stars that you are still enjoying summer vacation, because our friends at magnoliareporter.com reported last week that schools in Magnolia started back up on July 25th, as the school district there has started a 12-month school calendar.

We would like to thanks Bill Sutley (our readers should too) for writing local stories while we were hanging out on the beach.

Ozzy S. Thompson says: We were somewhere near Penshacola, on the edge of the beach, when the treats made their entrance. We had two bags of Purina, 75 pellets of hemp chews, five powerful bully sticks, a salt shaker half full of vitamin litter, and a whole universe of multicolored Greenies, Blue Buffalos, Milk-Bones, Pup-Peronis… as well as a gallon of rum and a case of Busch Light for Diddy. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you have a serious treat collection, the tendency is to push it as far as it will go.

Ask us about seagull meat pies.

Word problem: A deadly dog ​​attack in Arkadelphia has news stations in Little Rock reporting <, >or = the news value of closing ~100 yards of a minor thoroughfare in Arkadelphia. Answer below.

Crab traps for $6!

We named this column after a Guns N’ Roses song lyric for two reasons: because everyone needs some time off of work, and in tribute to GNR guitarist Slash, who made headlines this week after announcing the death of his 25-year-old stepdaughter. It wasn’t too long ago that Slash appeared in our newsfeed to celebrate many years of sobriety. While he’s not a die-hard Guns N’ Roses fan, we hope this iconic guitarist stays on the straight and narrow in the wake of his loss.

Back home, in time for the weekend and a few more days off, we traveled to Hot Springs to Whirlwinds on the big screen. Going to the cinema is a rarity for us, but our nostalgia for the 90s drove our curiosity to check out the hype. Unfortunately, we left the cinema unimpressed. Whirlwinds followed a similar storyline to its predecessor, but it didn’t hit the right notes. The magic just wasn’t there. We kept waiting for comic relief or even a Van Halen or Goo Goo Dolls song; we found no humor and the soundtrack left us wanting. Should have bought a ticket for Deadpool and Wolvernine instead of.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we have at least a cubic meter beach sand to remove from the interior of our vehicle.

Joel Phelps is the editor and publisher of arkadelphian.com. Opinions expressed in Bits & Pieces are his own. Contact him at [email protected]. Answer: