Archie Bray Foundation

If you strongly believe in the Bible or the Qur’an, Adam, the first man, was pinched together from clay.  The name and the medium are important.  Adam means “to be red” in Hebrew.   Red clay is the precise interpretation in the Qur’an.  In this sense, God was the first potter.

Here in Helena, Montana, all these years later, we have the Archie Bray Foundation.  The founder, Archie Bray, according to the official Bray website, was an avid patron of the arts.  He wanted to “make available for all who are seriously interested in the ceramic arts, a fine place to work.”  With that vision in mind, Bray set up a studio on the grounds of what was once Western Clay Manufacturing Company, a brick making company. 

Western Clay Manufacturing began producing products on the grounds three miles outside the City of Helena in the 1880s and operated continuously until 1961.  The company made both brick and clay tile products.  Members of the Bray family were involved with the company for most of the seventy-five years of operation.  Many of the buildings in Helena and the towns around are constructed with products manufactured by Western Clay Manufacturing.

Archie Bray set up his studio in 1951 and almost immediately attracted worldwide attention.  Dozens upon dozens of famous artists have been drawn to the Bray since 1951.  The Bray is known for the “free” treatment of clay.  The only limits are those found within the artist’s imagination.  Archie Bray Foundation hosts both long-term and short-term artists in residence from all across the globe.

Yesterday, that girl and I spent part of the afternoon wandering around the old brick making facility.  We wandered through the red bee hive kilns, gas piping, leaning wood structures, antique wheels, belts, wooden boxes, stacks of brick.  We also visited the classrooms and studios.  The Bray continues to make clay for artists and ships to all points. 

I am fascinated by how differently each artist treats the clay.  The diversity of imagination is breathtaking.  I have posted only a few of the photographs captured from our wanderings through the Bray.

You must see, feel, and hear the Archie Bray Foundation to fully understand it.

--Mitchell Hegman

A Road in Montana

I cannot speak to the sensibilities of a cartographer.

I wonder, what sort of map might a cartographer prefer?

Consider the Midwest.  It’s a grid of roads out there.  The land, from flat to gently rolling, is often parsed into perfect squares, rectangles, triangles.  Country roads cover the entirety in perfect grids: section and quarter-section.  At regular intervals, where section roads meet, small towns appear like pools of colorful rainwater.  Giant cities sprawl with veins here and there.

Is that a cartographer’s dream?

Consider the difference here in Montana.  This is where you find my kind of road.  Narrow but perfectly defined, my road is drawn singularly across a vast expanse.  Out there somewhere in the expanse, maybe where a sweet-water creek intersects the road or a sudden elevation change has occurred, a small town is tied to the road like an incidental knot.  On a map, if you continue to trace this road, you soon find your finger squiggling about where the road has been flung up and over mountains and through valleys.  Then, abruptly, the road ends with no other road within many dozens of miles. 

Perhaps you are at the edge of a river.  Maybe a mountaintop.  Just that one little town far behind you.

Last night, in my non-cartographer’s dream, I reached a river.

--Mitchell Hegman

The Story of a Guy

I met a guy yesterday.  Not just any guy.  This guy was effervescent, barrel-shaped, longhaired, and loud.  He burst into the waiting room at a quick oil-change place and began bellowing at me and another quiet man sitting there waiting for our vehicles.

The guy lived “along the Continental Divide south of town.”  He did not normally like people, but he liked us.  His place is surrounded by eight-hundred feet of fence.  Not ‘something near’ or ‘about’ eight-hundred feet.

Eight-hundred feet, exactly.

Boom, there it is.

The guy was having oil changed in a car he had recently purchased for $2,200.00 and he keeps three wolves inside his eight-hundred feet of fence.  The fence is made of cedar, by the way, and one of the wolves is mean.

A female.

He normally does not like females, but he loves this wolf.

One of the guy’s neighbors—who used to poke around the outside of the fence—is missing part of a finger.  That’s not a coincidence.  

--Mitchell Hegman

Five Montanans and a Scotsman

Granite Butte Lookout sprouts up atop the Continental Divide at an elevation of 7,587 feet.  The fire lookout tower was first constructed in 1932 and rebuilt in the 1960s.  At one time, people manned the tower all summer long, conducting fire watch for the spectacular radial view of the mountains that surround.  Today, you can rent the tower from the National Forest Service for an overnight stay. The Continental Divide Trail, which runs 3,100 miles along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, from Mexico to Canada, lies within in the shadow of the lookout.

We arrived at Granite Butte Lookout late yesterday afternoon, five Montanans and a Scotsman.  We arrived by means of two hulking trucks and a Rent-A-Wreck Subaru.  The road to the lookout is bad.  Really bad.  You can expect to scrabble through car-eating ruts, navigate over huge humps, side-hill stretches of solid rock, and ascend steep inclines strewn with loose throwing-rocks to reach the lookout.

We—my sister and brother-in-law in their truck, that girl and me in my truck—first met Cindy, from Whitefish, Montana, and Kevin, from Scotland, in their Rent-A-Wreck, at the very bottom of the final access road to the fire lookout.  They had spent part of the day lost in the impossible splay of rugged roads in the mountains all around us.  My brother-in-law volunteered to lead them to Granite Butte Lookout, which they had rented for an overnight stay.

All three vehicles climbed up the steep mountainside in a tight group.  Frankly, I was impressed Cindy was able to make it all the way to the fire lookout in her Rent-A-Wreck.  Once there, all of us climbed up the tower and helped the couple remove storm shutters from the windows of the lookout.

Even given the smoke from our worse-than-ever fire season, the view was spectacular.  Mountains and valleys stacked together in blue layers in every direction.  We could see the plume of smoke from the Alice Creek Fire above the Blackfoot Valley.  That fire recently exploded from a few dozen acres to thousands of acres.

Kevin, we gleaned from conversation, crashed in Montana.  Literally.  He was touring with a group of bicyclists and broke his wrist in a nasty tumble.  That was back in June.  He stayed and made a grand adventure of it.  He was pretty impressed with the lookout.

We visited with the couple for about ten minutes and then crawled back down the mountains into the cooler forests once again.

Posted are a few photographs from the Granite Butte Lookout I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone, including one of that girl removing a storm shutter.

--Mitchell Hegman

What Are You Wearing?

I need to share a conversation with you.

I’ll begin with a bit of background. 

You already know I am functionally incapable of dressing myself.  Oh, sure, I can pull socks onto my feet with the best of them.  I am able to jump into a pair of pants.  I fling on shirts with the ease of a seven-year-old heading to the swimming hole.  But I do have some issues.

My problems with dressing generally fall into one of three categories: mismatching, inappropriate for the occasion, or inside-out.

On some occasions (not as rare as I would like), I may mismatch inside-out or dress inappropriately and mismatch.  Additionally, I have within my closet a few just-plain-ugly and a few outdated articles of clothing that sporadically filter out onto my person.

Late yesterday afternoon, that girl and I were invited to a poolside barbecue.  I leapt into a pair of swimming trunks and pulled on a polo shirt as we prepared to leave the house.  I was standing in the kitchen when the following conversation occurred:

THAT GIRL (entering the kitchen): “When will you be ready to go?”

ME: “Whenever.”

THAT GIRL: “What shirt, other than THAT one, do you plan on wearing?

ME (squinting as I scanned down at my belly): “This is not good?”

THAT GIRL: *

ME: “My plan is to wear whatever shirt you are about to pick out for me.”

--Mitchell Hegman

* You know the look I am talking about….

Clear Sky

This morning, I woke just as first light began to blue itself above the Big Belt Mountains.  I started my coffee and then stepped outside to soak in the hot tub.  Pretty soon a flight of geese came squawking right over me, close enough I could have read their nametags had they been wearing them.  Only then did I realize—for the first time in days—my sky was clear enough to see mountains in all directions.

You have no idea how much I needed that.

--Mitchell Hegman

A New Kind of Fear

This is a new kind of fear.  Overwhelming.  Constant.  Fear eating at the whole of you like a viral disease.

Yesterday, while poking at my computer in the house, I heard, off in the distance, the rumbling of thunder along the mountainous southern rim of the valley.  I could not see the storm coming for the wildfire smoke constantly flowing through the valley from the plethora of fires to our east.

Wanting rain, I fetched a folding camping chair from my garage and dragged it out my front door.  I unfurled the chair and sat on my front stoop.  In my own small way I hoped to urge rain to fall all around me.  I wished to bear witness if it came.

As of this morning, we are 40% behind our normal rainfall for the year.  We have not experienced an honest rainfall here at the house for well over a month.

The prairie in front of my house is fully cured and dry.  The grama grass and bunchgrass crackles as you walk through.  Pine trees have begun to sacrifice needles.  Every car or truck driving along the nearby ranch roads produces plumes of dust that rise up like fists and arms before they merge with the constant pall of smoke.

The thunderstorm grew bigger in the distance as I sat there.  I heard more substantial rumblings, felt pressure concussions against my shirt.  Then came thirty seconds of light pattering rain.

Thirty seconds.

First, a single drop darkening the concrete at my feet.  Then a dozen drops rattling through the leaves on my linden tree.  Then rain smell. 

I stood, walked out into the open.  A single drop struck the back of my hand.  Another dozen darkened the concrete at my feet.

At once the rain stopped.

Tease and withdraw. 

By the sounds of the thunder, by the feel of deep vibrations, I knew lightning was stabbing into the dry forests beyond me.

I dragged my folded chair back inside the house, feeling hopeless.  A few minutes later, my cellphone chirped.  I answered.  

“Lighting sparked a fire in the South Hills,” a sober voice on the other end said.  “Sounds like it’s heading for the subdivisions.”

There it is.

The fear.

--Mitchell Hegman

Bottom of the River

A song by Delta Rae.

--Mitchell Hegman

Video Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5y9NF8rXg

Important Adult Lessons

—You cannot control where the garbage truck drives.

—All good things come to an end, but the really gooey stuff will stick around and eventually clog your sink.

—Generosity is not a form of self-sacrifice.

—The most difficult to reach light bulb will burn out first.

—Good neighbors raise less dust.

--Mitchell Hegman

My Solar System, My Eclipse

Yesterday, here in Helena, we watched the moon slide overtop the sun until something near 93% of the sun had vanished.  At one time, the Arapaho Plains Indians thought all the celestial bodies were brothers and sisters.  When, on rare occasion, they witnessed a solar eclipse such as this, they were appalled, thinking that brother sun and sister moon might be having sex right there in the sky above them.

We had none of that here, but we also did not experience the level of darkness I expected.  At peak coverage (11:34 AM) we fell into a sort of eerie twilight—something near what you see 15 minutes before the sun is swallowed by the mountains each night.  But this twilight lacked the long shadows projecting from all things upright.

The strangest sensation was temperature. My arms and face chilled considerably as the moon blocked direct irradiation from the sun.

Mosquitoes, shunners of sunlight, emerged from a nearby field, thinking it was time for an evening meal.  I slapped a few of them silly.

Late in the afternoon, long after the eclipse, I received an email from my friend Dan.  He informed me that a mutual friend, Troy, was watching his solar PV power output during the eclipse.  The array output dropped to zero at 11:34.  That makes sense.  PV system output is directly related to the level of irradiation received from the sun.

My array reports daily output for me.  Posted is today a photograph of my solar PV array (taken two years ago) and a graph of my total power output from yesterday.  Each of bars on the graph represents average output over a 15 minute block of time.  You can see the valley in production produced by the array over the 2½ hour stretch of time the moon wiped across the face of the sun.  Though, at the bottom of the valley, 91 watts of output is shown, I assume my system fell to zero at the darkest point.

--Mitchell Hegman

The Downside to Ingenuity

If you study the photograph posted at the outset of this blog you will surmise you are looking at a cellphone and a flashlight (torch for those of you from England) duct-taped to broom handle.  But that is only the beginning.

What you are really seeing is pure ingenuity.  And no beer was involved.  Not at this point.

Ingenuity is a difficult and unlikely animal.  On one hand, ingenuity ultimately placed on your lap your laptop computer.  Ingenuity placed a Veg-O-Matic onto your kitchen countertop.

Good stuff, for sure.

On the other hand, ingenuity often turns some hapless (beer-drinking) soul into the next Franz Reichelt.  Franz, for those of you still ruminating about the Veg-O-Matic, was a tailor and early pioneer in the practice of parachuting.  In 1912, Franz climbed up Eiffel Tower, strapped himself inside the world’s first “parachute suit,” and leapt from the tower.

You can find (on YouTube) a surprisingly clear black and white movie of Franz plunging from Eiffel Tower.  If you are the slightest bit squeamish, you might want to find a video of puppies licking kittens instead.            

Getting back to the contraption at the beginning of this blog.  First, I am not going to compare this to the great Veg-O-Matic.  One of the supreme inventions of all history.  When I was seven or eight I gave one to my mother for Christmas.  She was SO impressed.

I can claim that, yesterday, with our duct-taped invention, my young friend Randy and I explored otherworldly places where most men fear to go: the inside of an active septic tank.  If you have ever imagined what the inside of a septic tank looks and smells like, it is much worse than that.

The video we captured begins in the sun and trees and then slowly descends into a hole in the earth.  I will spare you most details.  I can tell you this much.  The inside of a septic tank is an inky and starless universe.  Strange and ugly things suddenly appear before you at each twist of the broom handle.  Frankly, the video we captured is more disgusting than that of Franz Reichelt jumping from Eiffel Tower.

And I can tell you this.  I am looking for drawings of the world’s second parachute suit, because I am going to try that instead of a septic tank should such a proposal arise anytime in the future.

--Mitchell Hegman

Where there’s Smoke

I am sure you have heard the expression “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” more than a few times.

I would like to amend that expression. 

Here is the new: “Where there’s fire, there’s smoke.”  Sometimes a lot of smoke.  So much smoke, my brother-in-law (who often requires an inhaler to help him with his compromised breathing), is on the verge of visiting Urgent Care.

The West is ablaze.  Not just Western Montana.  Bigger.  Fires are presently scouring through all the Northwestern U.S. as well as British Columbia.  The monster fires, the type that throw six-foot logs up in the air, create their own weather patterns, and cause trees to explode into flames like rags dipped in gasoline are, in fact, roiling through the mountains of British Columbia.

This year, with the table set for plenty more fire season, British Columbia has seen something approaching three million acres scorched.  That’s already a grim record.

And that’s a lot of smoke.

Clouds, veils, walls of smoke, and sometimes ash, have invaded our valley over the last few weeks.  Much of the smoke has swooped down from British Columbia.  Some from across the Continental Divide here in Montana.  Some from other states to our west.

We have experienced hours where we cannot see for more than a mile or two.  Our mountain views come and go.

It’s awful.

Most mornings have, fortunately, arrived fairly clear.  As soon as I wake, I scamper from room to room opening windows to let in sweet, cool air while it lasts.  Last night, the smoke in the air was thick as pudding.  I woke this morning to a view of the Big Belt Mountains behind my house and only a light gauze across the expanse.

My windows are open.

I now sit drinking coffee, waiting for the next wall of smoke to arrive.

--Mitchell Hegman

Attack (Almost) of the Sun Spider

While sitting together in the living room last night, I noticed an expression of bewilderment developing on that girl.  “What’s going on?” I asked.

She pointed to the floor.   An inch-long pale, leggy thing stood facing her on the carpet about four feet away.  “What is THAT?”

We have some creepy spiders and bugs around here.   Topping the list of creepy, in my estimation, is the black widow spider.  Those, I see regularly along the foundation of my house and sometimes in my garage.  They are black and shiny as a new lethal weapon and their long legs shift them along like fast wings.  Everything about them is sharp-looking and deadly.

Second on my list of creepy is the thing that girl claimed (after I captured it my wadded sock and released it outside) “was running toward me really fast.”

This creature has many names: sun spider, wind scorpion, camel spider, solifugid, or what is THAT!  These little monsters are members of the order Solifugae, which means “those that flee from the sun.”  They are not exactly spiders, but they look just as disturbing—coming equipped with eight long legs and inordinately large jaws (chelicerae).  They tend to live in deserts, but are widely distributed around the entire world.  In some regions, sun spiders can reach up to six inches in size. They are extremely fast movers.  Some are said capable of reaching half the speed of a running man.  This is not a claim I wish to test anytime soon.

Sun spiders are both ambush hunters, feeding on insects or small animals, and plant eaters.  They are normally tan in color.  Solifugids do not like direct light.  They are mostly nocturnal and they tend to keep to the ground.

Technically, they are harmless to humans.

Today, I am not feeling that technical.

They scare me.

And, as a point of fact, they can give you a nasty bite if you pester them enough.  Posted is a photograph from sydkab.com.  Also posted is a really creepy video.  If you watch the video, make sure you place another person nearby so you can hug them once the video is done playing.

Sources: Wikipedia, https://sydkab.com/2014/10/08/arachnids-solifugids/

--Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-6K7YS4HH4

List of “I Brake For” Bumper Stickers You Don’t Want to See on Automobiles in Front of You

1. I Brake for Pretty Much Anything

2. I Brake for Those Weird Purple Leggy Things I See When I Take LSD

3. I Brake for Pumpkins…What?

4. This Car Actually Brakes and Comes to a Full Stop at Stop Signs

5. I Brake for No Apparent Reason

6. I Brake by Running into Things

--Mitchell Hegman

About Computers

“A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.”

--Emo Philips

“Computers are like Old Testament Gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”

--Joseph Campbell

“In short, software is eating the world.”

--Marc Andreessen

Coffee (A Condensed History)

According to the National Coffee Association, Ethiopian legend holds that goats were the first to discover the joys of coffee.  This occurred somewhere prior to the year 1000.  The goats did not brew up a batch of “cowboy coffee,” of course, but rather ate a bunch of the berries and then danced and bleated around the bush all night instead of sleeping.  The goat herder tending the goats, a man named Kaldi, reported this to the abbot of the local monastery and handed over some of the berries.  The abbot threw the berries onto a fire and found the scent they emitted “heavenly.”  The abbot then gobbled up some of the berries.  Next thing you know, I and my friend Sandi are totally addicted to coffee.

At this point, I cannot imagine a day without coffee.  The thought of that causes me to break into a cold sweat.

Early drinkers of coffee considered coffee a medicine.  Moreover, the Muslim regions took to coffee immediately, having eschewed wine and other alcoholic drinks.

The first documented coffee house opened in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1554.  Worldwide expansion of coffee drinking began with Turkish conquests and the influence of the Ottoman Empire.  It must be noted, however, that Sultan Murad IV, a ruler of the Ottoman Empire, attempted to ban the consumption of coffee.  He made the consumption of coffee a capital offense.  He is said to have wandered the streets of Istanbul posing as a commoner and carrying a hundred-pound broadsword.  When he found someone drinking coffee he would decapitate them immediately.  His successor was somewhat more lenient.  A first offense was punishable by a cudgeling (getting beaten with a stick).  A second offense saw offenders sewn into a leather bag and tossed in the river.

The consumption of coffee could not be stopped.  Coffee soon found its way to Europe and from there it traveled in all directions.

Today, Brazil is the largest producer of coffee in the world.  Coffee in Brazil owes its existence to the Governor’s wife of French Guiana.  In 1727, a certain Francisco de Mello Palheta was sent from Brazil to French Guiana to get coffee seedlings.  The French refused to give any seedlings, but the Governor’s wife—captivated by the envoy’s good looks—gave him a bouquet of flowers with coffee seeds hidden inside.

From those seeds an industry.

--Mitchell Hegman

Sources: National Coffee Association, The Atlantic, www.npr.org, www,childrenswritersguild.com

Ants

I find ants appealing.  I am fascinated by their social behaviors, their industrious nature, and their speed of movement.  Perhaps, most of all, I admire their physical strength.  Imagine yourself hoisting up a mid-sized pickup and packing it around with you as you shop for your groceries.  That is pretty much an equivalent of what an ant can do.  And, by the way, you cannot use your arms to carry the pickup—you have to lift and carry it using your teeth.

Some mornings, as yesterday morning, I pour my first cup of coffee and then go outside so I might sit and sun on the steps and take in the day.  More often than not, I end up watching ants as they arrive and depart, as they weave and scurry along the concrete.  A significant population of them lives down inside the cold-joints and cracks in the concrete of my drive.  Every so often I pick out a single ant and try to follow that single journey as I sit there in the sun—a dizzying project I assure you.  A typical ant bolts ahead, halts, loops around a few times, hooks over to an interesting grain of sand, whisks off to greet another passing ant, circles again, and on and on and on.  Once more than three ants gather in a single location, and begin whisking about more-or-less together, keeping track of just one is nearly impossible.

More than anything, ants are tenacious to a fault.  They will work to their death, ignoring all manner of threat.  Beside them, we are slow and dull.  Across my drive, the ants drag grasshopper wings, detached beetle legs, whole beetles, seeds, and anonymous flecks from faraway places.

Ants are builders of good dirt.  Those living underground aerate the soil.  They contribute to the clean-up and decomposition of all organic material that falls to the earth.

I have on my property perhaps seven or eight huge red and piles, which I do not disturb in any manner.  I have forgiven the red ants for their transgressions against me in my childhood years (on two occasions one of their soldiers climbed up my pant legs and managed to bite what I can only describe as a very tender spot).   I assume, at the same time, they have forgiven me for stirring them up with a stick.

As I write this, a new ant pile is forming very near our lake patio.  While my neighbors would most certainly poison-out the colony, I am pleased.   I caution all visiting children to be careful of this new nest.  I tell them they are more than welcome to go visit the ants, then add: “but don’t mess with them...they may well have something on us.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Making Ends Meet

You cannot make ends meet by clinging to just one end.

--Mitchell Hegman

Nighthawk Coffee

I woke this morning feeling muddled.  First thought: coffee.

My coffee maker (because I believe simpler lasts longer) is one with zero frills.  No digital clock.  No automatic controls.  I prep my coffee maker in the evenings so all I need to do in the morning is pour water into the machine and turn on power.

After waking today, I shuffled off to the kitchen, poured water from the carafe into the machine, and walked off to soak in the hot tub.

This time of year, I can hear my coffee brewing through the open window above the kitchen sink as I relax in the tub.  This morning, I thought to myself: “Geez, the coffee sounds different today.  More like nighthawks swooping and calling off dives all around me.”

I laid my head against the rim of the hot tub and listened to my nighthawk coffee brewing.

Following my soak, I dressed and waddled off to grab a cup of coffee.

When I arrived at the machine, I discovered that I had neglected to turn it on.   The carafe was empty. 

--Mitchell Hegman

That One Thought You Cannot Escape

I would guess that most people are like me.  Specifically, we all have one or to two recurring thoughts that constantly pop up in our minds.  I have this question nearly every time I enter a room crowded with people: “I wonder if I am the only one not wearing underwear?” 

--Mitchell Hegman

Torn Together

When he hugs her, she becomes a fencepost that still recalls how winter's chill ravens used her, how they sunk their sharp claws into her softest skin, squawked, sharpened their metallic beaks against her cheeks.

She raises full‑bred dogs now, those so pure their blood is thin.  She clips the ears of males for show perfection, pampers them with soft foods.  They are like growling babies.  Sometimes frightened of noise.  Sometimes incontinent.  Sometimes they attack each other.

Sometimes she attacks him.

He is a stone, river‑cold and smooth from years of rolling along the bottom.  He recalls a time before the waters uprooted him from a wide green valley that shaped clouds with fat bellies.  He has never appreciated the dogs.

She is convinced that a tea of boiled bees will cure nausea, that a two‑inch crystal of quartz knows a bleak future.

When they make love, he feels as though drowning.

--Mitchell Hegman

The Hour Before

The hour before first light has always been mine.   Mine for assessing the stars.  For measuring the moon against my upraised thumb.  For making sense of the pewter lake below, the black trees.  For indulging my last frayed emotion from the previous day.

Today is different.  Today, I give the first hour to the lone fox I heard crying out from the dry gully below my house.  His is a desperation bigger than those I have conjured for myself this morning.  The fox cried incessantly, the sound of it fading as the animal fled up the gully and into the juniper and pine hills.

Last night, that girl and I watched Night of the Grizzlies, a documentary about two fatal grizzly bear attacks that occurred on the same August night in Glacier Park in 1967.  Both victims were young women camping in the backcountry.  Both were dragged away in their sleeping bags by the bears.  Fellow campers located one of the victims, Julie Helgeson, in the darkened woods sometime after the attack.  She was still conscious but fading.  As the would-be rescuers carried her to remote Granite Park Chalet, Julie told one of the men she was scared.  She asked him to hold her hand.

This morning, I give to the fox.  The fox knows how this ends.

--Mitchell Hegman

Remembering Glen Campbell

Glen Campbell contributed more to rock and popular music than most people realize.  As a member of the famous “Wrecking Crew,” a group of session musicians working from recording studio to recording studio in Los Angeles during the 1960s, Campbell played with Phil Spector, The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, the Monkees, Elvis Presley, and dozens more.  Striking out on his own, Campbell became an international success.

Campbell died yesterday following an extended battle with Alzheimer’s.  Rather than playing one of Glen’s songs, I thought I would play a tribute written and performed by his daughter.

The song is quite touching.

--Mitchell Hegman

Video Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEKdambx6gg

Woman Finds a Hat in a Tree

Following is an actually news story I found on a BuzzFeed page filled with “underwhelming” local news stories:

A hat has been found up a tree in Bilton.

The woolen head garment, which is red and has a bobble, was discovered on Tuesday by Bilton Lane resident Sharon Bromance, 43.  “I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw it up there,” she said.  “I got it down with a stick and put it on a fence post.”

The owner now has until April 10 to reclaim the hat, after which it will be destroyed.

You should probably thank me for not sharing the story about a roll of tin foil lifted from a store in the U.K.

--Mitchell Hegman

Dirty Butterflies

Cabbage butterflies are sloppy fliers.  They often look as though they are blindly tumbling about.   Just the same, they cover a lot of distance in a hurry.  It’s hard to follow their moves, let alone chase them down to figure out what they are doing.

Considering this, I am pretty certain I saw what I think I saw yesterday.  Given all the swirling, pirouetting, swooping, frantic fluttering and grappling, I saw three white cabbage butterflies engaging in a wicked mid-air, across-the-lawn threesome.

--Mitchell Hegman

If I Could

If I could be elemental, I would be water in a dry place.

If I could be a sound, I would be the sound of aspen leaves in a soft wind.

If I could touch anything in the firmament, I would touch the Sun.

If I could dance atop the point of a knife blade, I would do it.

--Mitchell Hegman

DFS

My 20 pounds of housecat is afflicted with DFS.  Not many people are familiar with DFS, owing mainly to the fact this affliction is localized to an area of precisely my house.

DFS is an acronym for Debbie Feeding Syndrome.

I began to notice the hideous symptoms of DFS the first time I left my 20 pounds of housecat under the care of my sister Debbie when I traveled for an extended period of time.  Really there is only one symptom: my cat thinking he should be fed every time he comes in the house or makes eye contact with me.

With many cats you could solve this problem by leaving a giant bowl dry cat food out so said cats could eat whenever they had the urge.  My 20 pounds of housecat is different.  By different I mean bungling and piggish in eating habits.  He would eat without stopping, eat until he got sick.  For this reason, his eating must be regulated.

My regimen for feeding includes a feeding when I first rise in the morning, a feeding between 4:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon, and a final small bowl of food at about 9:00 in the evening.  I will admit to an occasional snack near the 4:00 mark in the afternoon.        

When Debbie takes care of my cat for me, she also stays out here at the lake.  She is a softy when dealing with cats.  In addition to my normal regulated feedings, she provides snacks, pre-snacks, morsel drops, and some kind of nameless thing in-between all of those.

Whenever I come home after an extended absence, my 20 pounds of housecat is closer to 22 pounds of housecat and pretty much any move I make is interpreted as a signal he will be fed.  He trots off to his food bowl with great expectation at the first sign of me walking in that general direction or opening a cupboard.  When I let him in if he has been outside, he races to his bowl in anticipation.  DFS for sure.

Having recently returned from a trip to Ohio, I noticed something of an uptick in my 21½ pounds of housecat’s DFS.  Raising a cup of coffee for a drink is enough to launch him toward his bowl.  On the plus side, he will lose some weight quickly with this increase in activity.  

--Mitchell Hegman                                                               

NOTE: Kidding, Deb!  Thanks, for the cat care.

The Scotch Stipend

I enjoy a glass of Scotch—especially a Speyside.  My favorite is Glenlivit 18 year old.

The problem with Scotch whisky (not whiskey) is the price tag.  Here in Montana, thanks partially to steep taxes on alcohol, you are going to plunk down more than $100.00 before that kid with the long face at the liquor store will slide you a bottle to take home.

Back in the late 1980’s, my late wife and I created a simple investment scheme.  Part of that plan saw each of us setting aside $50.00 every month.  We faithfully set aside this money for many years.  Eventually, we converted the fund to individual Roth IRAs.  Following the passing of my wife, I rolled the IRAs into a single fund.

Recently, I got to thinking about this Roth IRA.  For the last few years, the IRA has consistently provided between $200.00 and $350.00 of income (which rolled back into the IRA) every month.  “What if,” I wondered, “some of the tax-free income rolled out of the IRA and into my pocket instead?”

This week I made my move.  I created a permanent Scotch stipend with this IRA.  Each month from here forth, $200.00 will automatically be deposited in my personal bank account from the Roth IRA.  At such a rate, the IRA should still grow a little, but I will be provided a permanent source of money for a bottle of Glenlivet 18 and a bottle of Balvenie Doublewood 12.

Now I simply need to figure out how to cover my living expenses.

--Mitchell Hegman

Tick

Ticks are attracted to the odor, breathing, and heat signature of “host” animals (read Mitch Hegman here).   Because they cannot fly, ticks crawl up onto low brush and grass and extend a few of their eight legs in hopes of attaching to a host passing through.

In early spring, ticks are often successful in catching a certain Mitch Hegman.  Knowing this, I tend to shy away from tall grass and brush.  When, in spite of efforts to avoid them, I find a tick on me, I like to totally freak out.  The end result is something of a marriage between breakdancing any yodeling.

It’s not pretty.

Ticks in Montana become inactive somewhere in mid-July when our forests begin to dry out.  This is especially fortunate because the expiration of tick activity coincides with the ripening of huckleberries.  This is good because I pretty much wade and swim through heavy brush, grass, and tall whatnots as I pick huckleberries.

I have never found a tick on me in August and have never found one after a day of picking berries.  Yesterday, while soaking in my hot tub to ease the aching from a hard day spent swimming in the woods, I felt something on my leg.  Absently, I reached down to scratch free a small tickling speck.

Next thing you know I am water-bugging around the hot tub, yodeling.

--Mitchell Hegman

Natural Laws for Household Appliance

—A microwave carousel plate will always stop when your coffee cup has reached the far back.

—When you place your toaster exactly where you want it on the counter, the power cord will be three inches shorter than required to reach the nearest receptacle.

—The last button you press when trying to set time on an appliance will invariably force you to start over.

—The vibration of opening an oven door is just enough to assure the contents of whatever you are baking will spill over the sides of the dish.

—The rate of failure for appliances is directly proportional to the number of guests you are entertaining.

--Mitchell Hegman

Don’t be Yourself

Common advice is to “be yourself.”   Honestly, I consider this bad advice.  If I was to be myself, I would spend my time snooping through my friend’s belongings whenever visiting their houses because I am naturally curious.  I would run about freeing dogs from chains and pens.  I would hand out small wind-up toys during serious business meetings because I am convinced seriousness is often too limiting a thing.  And I would constantly outburst.

So far as advice?

My advice is: “be the you your grandmother liked” (unless I am your grandmother…and I am not).

--Mitchell Hegman