Small World

You know that old cliché “it’s a small world?”  Well, I have a story.

After my oldest sister passed away a couple years ago, my bother-in-law, Tony, a fancier of warm weather, traveled to the Cebu in the Philippines.  Cebu impressed him when he had taken military leave there many years before.

Eventually, Tony ended up in a small town called Bayawan on the island of Negros.  As fate would have it, he found himself stranded in Bayawan at the beginning of the pandemic.  He ended up having to stay much longer than expected.

But Tony really liked Bayawan and he met a girl.

Partway through the pandemic, he made his way back to Montana and suffered through our weather.  While back in Montana, Tony made arrangements to return to Bayawan for the long term.  He even managed a long-distance marriage to Erica, the island girl he met.

A couple weeks ago, I rode to Great Falls with Tony to ship some boxes of his belongings to the Philippines.  Later that same week, Tony flew finally back to Bayawan.

Let’s do some math here.

First, Bayawan is 7,300 miles from Butte, where Tony originated.  Secondly, we are talking about one island amid more than 7,000 comprising the South Pacific nation. 

This is how small the world is: Bayawan is the very little town where my girl Desiree grew up.   More astonishingly, Tony now lives within two miles of Desiree’s father, a brother, and two bazillion other relatives.

Two days ago, the gap between all of us closed.   Desiree, back on her home island to visit family, stopped to meet Tony and Erica.  Desiree video-called me while there and we all chatted.

—Mitchell Hegman

What Desiree Wants

Desiree and I have discussed everything.

She wants to live where sun showers sweep rain across big country.  She wants five-alarm sunrises and perfectly symmetrical snowflakes melting against the palm of her hand.  She wants to give names to deer bedded down in her yard.  She wants to see the places where queen’s cup and huckleberries share the crosshatch light of conifer forest understories.

As good fortune has it, my corner of the Rocky Mountains is just the place for all of that.

We filed our first paperwork to bring Desiree here on a visa in December of 2019.  Covid-19 froze the process solidly.  Only now, in the early days of 2022, are visas once again getting pushed through the U.S. Embassy in Manila.  We think Desiree’s visa packet may see daylight within a few weeks.

If this is so, she will be here before the first tufted phlox blossoms outside my door.  And then sunrise and all the rest.

—Mitchell Hegman

Shrinkage

Well, boys, this one might hurt a little.  We need to talk about Covid and your little manly extension.

I chanced upon an article about a young man who caught Covid-19 last summer and ended up hospitalized before beating the bug.  He recovered, more or less, but he is not the same man now.

He claims that as a result of his infection his penis shrunk by 1½ inches.

I am going to call 1½ inches a critical loss.

The frightening part?  Such a thing is plausible.  Last year, researchers studied the possibility of coronavirus impacting penile function.  They had already discovered former patients with evidence of blood vessel damage in their appendages.

Vascular damage in erectile tissue is not so far off track.  Furthermore, the loss may be permanent.

There will be no photographs for today’s blog.  

—Mitchell Hegman

Times Like These (Again)

 I have always contended there are levels of beauty that may be equaled, but not exceeded.  In natural landscapes I have personally seen many places fitting this description.  Glacier National Park, Bryce Canyon, Ha Long Bay (Vietnam), the Li River (China), and any forest of giant sequoia trees are examples.

Not just good stuff.  The best stuff.

In music, I find a similar level of beauty in certain songs.   Ghost Riders in the Sky fits the bill.   House of the Rising Sun is there.  And how can you get any better than Patsy Kline singing Crazy?

Recently, another song crept up onto my list of perfect songs.  The song was remade into a multi-artist video in response to the Covid Pandemic.  That version, in particular, reaches me.  I find myself regularly pulling up the video on my computer.  I have also posted this video here once before.

This song makes me feel good:

— Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GElP4YdrBE

The Beginning of the End

Today is my birthday.  At 4:55 PM this afternoon I will be receiving a most amazing gift.  The gift?   My second Covid vaccination shot.

I never imagined I would be thrilled by the thought of someone poking me with a needle, but here we are. 

Covid is just weird enough to scare the hell out of me.  Some people I know waltzed right through Coved infections.  Others, had their asses handed to them.  All of us know the stories.

For the last year, I have altered my behavior and sacrificed to avoid either catching or spreading Covid.  Today marks the beginning of the end of that.

— Mitchell Hegman

Ink: Another Casualty

I regularly purchase my printer ink at Costco.  Yesterday, I stopped there to do little shopping.  Knowing my printer cartridges are on the verge of winking out, I blasted down the aisle where ink cartridges are found.

I walked the aisle twice but failed, both times, to spot my required cartridge type on display.

As luck would have it, two Costco employees were nearby—busily screwing up the store.

Okay, before I go on, I need to explain the “screwing up the store” thing.  That’s what I call it when store employees move stuff to a new location in the store so I can no longer find it.  And that is exactly what these two fellas were doing.

Anyhoo…I asked about the ink cartridges.

“Can’t get ‘em,” says the 7-foot-tall employee.  They are having trouble making them.  The ink isn’t the problem.  It’s the chips they use.”

“Huh.  Weird.  Thanks,” I said.  I plodded off to the wine aisle.

The Covid thing has created some strange shortages.  Toilet paper.   Are you kidding?   Cleaning supplies.  Canning Jars.

And now, the little wafer brains needed for commanding my printer’s ink cartridges.

— Mitchell Hegman

Covid Refugees

Since early last fall, and all the way through winter, the same collection of us—weather permitting—have gathered regularly near a campfire at the lakeshore.   We began as Covid refugees and have carried on.

The lot of us gathered again yesterday.

Though temperatures remained below freezing, the bluebird sky and perfect calm made for ideal campfire conditions.  We told our stories again.  Some of us gathered up branches knocked from nearby golden willows by wind and tossed them into the fire.  Three old wood pallets were submitted to the fire.  

We can tolerate both pandemics and winter provided we have a campfire.

Tad Hauling Wood “Hillbilly” Style

The Campfire Crew

—Mitchell Hegman

New Year’s Day (More Fire)

I cannot think of a better way than having a bonfire in the mountains to begin a new year.   I managed to have just that yesterday.

My good friend, Arnold, offered to help finish limbing the monster trees we dropped in the meadow below my cabin.  We arrived at the cabin at about 8:30 in the morning and immediately got to it.

Arnold is a rare friend, willing to work all day long for no other reason than I need help.

Any work in the mountains is good work as far as I am concerned.  I enjoyed the day immensely—swashbuckling along the lengths of the downed trees, knocking off limbs, and feeding them to the fire.  A big fire with scissoring flames.

And a good riddance to Corona-infected 2020.

First Fire of 2021

Me Near the Fire

Cleaning Up the Meadow

—Mitchell Hegman

Thanks, Dolly!

I will admit, I Dolly Parton’s voice sometimes scares me.  When she climbs way up there on her singing register, I am afraid either something inside her is going to come unglued or something near me will explode.  There are also times when I need to thank her.

Her song Jolene is thank-worthy. 

I would like to thank Dolly for the movie 9 to 5.  I enjoyed that one.

Today, I would like to thank Dolly for donating money to Covid-19 research.  She did not give a little.  She gave a lot.  A million dollars a lot to be precise.  A chunk of Dolly’s money funded the development of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine.  Just this week, Moderna announced their vaccine achieved 94.5% effectiveness against coronavirus, according to their data.  The company determined this by means of a 30,000-patient study.  Moderna will file for an emergency use authorization with the Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks.

This is good news.

I could listen to this all day long.

Thanks for everything, Dolly!

—Mitchell Hegman

How I Ruined One Line of An Entire Industry

I finally did it.  I wiped out one product line for an entire industry.  Well, technically, I only ruined things for the Northwestern region of the United States.      

Here is the dealeo.  I picked the wrong color: red. 

Over the last eleven years, the canvas cover for my pontoon boat, has sun-rotted to the point it rips apart when I attempt to stretch it into place.  I had no luck finding a replacement online.  Frustrated by that, I dragged the heap of canvas in to a local upholstery joint to see if they could use that as a pattern to make a new one.

Affirmative.  Yep.  Bingo.

I picked up the finished cover yesterday.  Seems the upholstery shop spent an inordinate amount of time simply trying find the red canvas required.  “You got the last of the red available in the entire Northwest,” the shop owner informed me.

“Is that a Covid thing?”  I asked.  A logical question given shortages of all kinds of products and services as a result of the pandemic.  Try to purchase canning jars, for example.  And I don’t even want to mention toilet paper again.

“Partially Covid,” the owner of the shop responded.  “The manufacturing plant normally shuts down for Christmas, but Covid has added to the mix.”

There it is.

The next poor soul who walks into an upholstery shop in Boise or Walla Walla seeking to make something from red canvas will need to thank me as they shuffle back out the door empty-handed.

—Mitchell Hegman

My Mask

The strangest of my dreams will usually feature some element of what is happing in my life at that time.  At present, obviously enough, Covid-19 is something of a constant in my days.

My latest dream found me in a crowded convention center teeming with hordes of people.  People in my face.  People at my shoulders.  People shoving past me.  Some people were wearing masks.  Many were not.

I am faithful about wearing my mask and in the dream I was doing so.  As I wandered through the crowd—sometimes talking with people—my mask kept slipping down below my nose and mouth.  This especially happened if I gestured or moved my arms.  And people were breathing on me.

Wading through a sea of faces, I battled and battled to keep my mask in place.  And then, dreams being what they are, I realized I had connected the strings of the mask to my arms instead of my ears.

I woke just then, feeling frustrated and appropriately confused.

—Mitchell Hegman

Together Apart

We are connected today in ways I could not have imagined even fifteen years ago.  From my remote mountain cabin, no more than fifteen minutes from the Bob Marshall wilderness, I am able to video chat with Desiree in the Philippines.

Really, most of the world is so connected.

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, while the entire world remained in isolation, Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters, connected superstars from around the world to record a new version of “Times Like These.”

I love the message and I love result.

Take a listen:

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GElP4YdrBE

Social Distancing in Perfect Places

The Wedll family drove up for a night of camping just outside my cabin door.  Becky is a first cousin once removed, or, as we say in East Helena where she lives, she is my cousin’s daughter.  We socially distanced, but still managed a pleasant walk in the woods (with a few huckleberries).  We also had some great burgers cooked on a camp stove near my fire pit.

“This is how I always imagined time at the cabin,” I remarked to Becky as we sat near the fire.

The only strange part was not sharing my cabin spaces with anyone.  On a normal year we would have all been in the cabin.  But the Wedlls have been cautious throughout the Covid pandemic.  The 60ish miles the family drove from East Helena to my cabin was, according to John, the longest drive they have taken since the very beginning of the Covid outbreak in late January. 

I really appreciate that.

Mostly I appreciate the time we managed at the cabin.  The cabin provides good places for distancing.  Perfect places.

The Wedll Family

—Mitchell Hegman