The East Hampton Town Police Department’s planning for security at the Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick’s Day Parade, to be held on March 30, begins early in the new year and continues until a week before the parade. But after the attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day that killed 14 people, there is an even greater focus on safety this year.

Warning that it could be a false alarm, a police dispatcher alerted officers on the evening of Feb. 25 that a caller had reported “a man with a possible bomb attached to his chest” on Main Street. Police found no such man nor any witnesses to the person described.

A Sag Harbor man was riding a motorcycle on Route 27 near East Lake Drive in Montauk on the evening of Feb. 26 when, he told East Hampton Town police, a deer ran out into the road.

What is most significant about this 1787 deed is the grouping of human lives — enslaved people — with real estate.

James Leo (Buddy) Burke, a lifelong Montauker who owned and operated Burke’s 24-hour Oil Burner Service, died in his sleep on Feb. 5 at the age of 95.

Helga Koegl Coppola, who began summering in Montauk in the 1970s and moved there full time in the 1980s, died of respiratory complications on Feb. 6 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. She was 88.

Donald D. Wells Jr. of East Hampton, who ran his own company, Action Irrigation, for 30 years, died at home on Feb. 15. He was 77.

The good old days? How about 1975, when Sag Harbor was “the last village on Long Island to still discharge raw human wastes into its surrounding waters.” And much more from our past pungent pages.

The first half of Sunday’s county Class D high school boys basketball championship game between Bridgehampton and St. Pius V of Melville — which the Bees ended up winning 53-42 — was more akin to football at times, with as many as three or four players splayed out on the floor grappling for possession.

The Hackers Hockey Club’s manager, Tim Garneau, who took the baton from one of the club’s founders, John Battle, six years ago, grew up with winter sports in suburban Minneapolis, and, at 59, remains active athletically here during January, February, and March.

The Hackers Hockey Club and the Hamptons First Responders squared off at the Buckskill Winter Club Sunday night and on the night of Feb. 26, with the Hackers prevailing 4-3 in the first one and the First Responders edging the Hackers 10-9 in Sunday night’s finale.

Bronco Campsey, East Hampton High’s standout 108-pound wrestler who is a Pierson High sophomore, was a finalist last weekend in the state tournament in Albany, losing 12-4 to the division’s top seed, Will Soto of Newburgh.

More comment, lots of it, from our valued readers.

State and local officials are making progress on a regional approach to wildfire risk elevated by the infestation of the woods by the southern pine beetle, but there is more to be done.

Instead of town halls in which voters can face their elected representatives and ask questions in person, uncensored, House Republicans are encouraged to hold “tele-town halls” or Facebook Live events instead.

After months of study, a town committee worked out a new formula for maximum floor area, a key determinant in how large houses appear, and the town board has debated it and arrived at a proposal we believe is a reasonable response.

The strong-arming to remove a street mural in the District of Columbia is part of a push by the right to erase Black Americans’ legacy and humanity.

Hyper-nostalgia may be a foolish game to persist in playing in 2025, but it is an ingrained part of our local culture.

Realty transactions hereabouts.

A governor plays tit-for-tat with the White House.