Guitar Lessons for Nikola Tesla

After inventing the future, Nikola Tesla determined that he needed to abandon celibacy and find a companion.  To that end, Tesla sought advice from Jimi Hendrix.

“Women did not notice me until I took up the guitar,” Hendrix noted.

“Are you suggesting I should learn to play the guitar?” asked Tesla.

“Absolutely.  I can teach you a few cords and some flowing riffs.”

“It has to be an electric guitar,” insisted Tesla.

“You came to the right place, baby.”

A few days after this conversation, Nikola stopped by to visit with Jimi Hendrix again.  Tesla held in his hand a new electric guitar.

“Are you ready for your lessons?” Jimi asked.

“Yes.  But watch this.”  Without plugging the guitar into an amp, Tesla struck a loud cord and belted out in a high, raspy voice: “We’re on the highway to hell…”

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes,” answered Tesla.  “Bon Scott is in the same apartment building as me.  How can I go wrong with AC-DC?”

--Mitchell Hegman

Two More Random Thoughts

—Good advice is not for everybody.  The suggestion to “treat others as you would like to be treated,” for example, is probably not something you want to share with a masochist.

—Is it a good thing if you are an actor auditioning for the part of a kindly therapist in a movie but the casting director insists you are perfect for the unhinged serial killer instead?

--Mitchell Hegman

Mayday Tree

The Mayday tree in front of my house is a few days from blooming.  The blooming Mayday is wholly spectacular.  The entire tree flares a conspicuous white overnight and scents the air with a sweetness that draws in bees by the hundreds.

I have a history with that tree.  Uyen and I purchased the tree—then only about six feet tall—at a local nursery and brought it home sideways in the backseat of our car.  That was something near 24 years ago.

A couple years after we planted the tree, a bitterly cold late spring snowstorm swept down from the Rocky Mountains just after the tree put forth leaves.  The tree was still small enough that I managed to build a wire and pipe cage around it so I could cocoon the tree in blankets.

I saved the tree from the cold, but I could not save my Uyen.

The blossoming Mayday is today the brightest reminder of Uyen.  Six years ago, one of our last beautiful hours together occurred underneath that tree during full bloom.  Uyen, though we did not know it exactly, was only a handful of days from death.  She was by then bound to her wheelchair.

Uyen wanted to feel warm again.

I pushed her out into the sunny side of the blooming Mayday tree—into the impossible sweetness of the blossom perfume.  Facing the sun, she closed her eyes, smiled.  A chorus of honeybees performed their single-note song all around us.

Something old…  Something new…

Uyen’s smile shone like a night beacon below the tree.  She was as stunning as ever, I swear she was.  And for an hour or so I thought the sun might be able to hold her there forever.

--Mitchell Hegman

Something You Don’t Want to Hear

Doctor explaining the surgical procedure he is about to perform to his patient:

Doctor:  “I am going to make a small incision, something about the length of a butter knife, just below your belly button.”

Patient:  “That sounds pretty big.”

Doctor:  “I have made much bigger.”

Patient: “Oh…that’s, um, good, I guess…”

Doctor:  “Once I have made the incision—”

Patient:  “Before you go on, I have one more question.”

Doctor:  “Go ahead.”

Patient:  “Is belly button a term you really use in anatomy?”

Doctor:  “I like to use it.  So, after the incision is made, we are going to explore inside a little to see if we can find something.”

Patient:  “By something you mean…?”

Doctor:  “Something unusual.”

Patient: “By unusual you mean…?”

Doctor:  “That’s a good question.  At that point we are going to start conducting some Google searches on a computer to see there is any stuff out there that might help.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Bad Sleeper

My friend Oonie once accused my friend Kevin of being a “bad sleeper.”

“What’s a bad sleeper?” I asked.

“He doesn’t breathe well.  It sounds awful.  Sometimes, he stops altogether.  It’s actually scary to listen to him.”

Oonie happened to find Kevin sleeping on my sofa one morning—that’s the story behind that.

Seems I am not a particularly good sleeper, either.  I am not sure exactly what I do when I sleep, but it is not all sleep.  I know I dream of planes crashing, of loved ones, and fish.  Lots and lots of fish.  But, evidently, much more is going on.  In my sleep, something bigger is happening.  Maybe I am fighting giant aliens with six arms from outer-space.  Perhaps I am moving mountains made of solid granite.

Here is the evidence: I often wake in crazy positions with bedding twisted around me like thick jungle vines and my pillows far flung.

Last night, I woke in a sweat.  My bedding lay in a heap atop me.  One of my pillows was at my feet instead of at my head.

That might be kind of normal for me—except for one thing.  I was clutching the pillow case in my hands.  Somehow, I had squirted the pillow from its case and then kicked the pillow down to the other end of my bed.

Mitch: 1

Six-armed aliens from outer-space: 0

--Mitchell Hegman

Doings

Evening last, as shadows grew long, cumulus cloud X538 bumped into cumulus cloud B355 high above the prairie in front of my house.

A soft collision, that.

I watched the two clouds quietly merge together where they met; mists swirling white and Wedgewood blue.  Within a few seconds, the brace of clouds flourished into a single new cumulus cloud: cumulus XB893.

After watching cumulus XB893 slide off toward Townsend and darkness, I got naked and climbed into my hot tub, awaiting first stars.

You’re welcome.

--Mitchell Hegman

What Ranchers Know

Eventually, all the cows come home again.  Some on hoof.  Some in rattling stock trucks.  Others inside a white bag alongside onion rings or french fries.

--Mitchell Hegman