Some Assembly Required: Final Report

The assembly of my brother-in-law’s fireplace is complete.  Perhaps, more importantly, it functioned properly when we plugged it in.

As mentioned in a previous installment here, the very first line of assembly instructions suggested two adults would be required for the project.   In my way of thinking, three adults would be better.  One adult to read the instructions over and over and over (perhaps while stomping their feet).  One adult acting as an interpreter to convert the instructions into a language comprehensible to normal Montanans.  And, finally, one adult with a complete set of Philips screwdrivers and plenty of beer.

Five days ago, at the outset of this undertaking, I never imagined I would be the second adult involved in the electric fireplace assembly, but there I was, late yesterday afternoon, with screwdriver in hand.  Terry and I burned up some 45 minutes installing the cabinet doors and fastening into place the actual fireplace insert.   

The 45-minute mark is interesting.  The instructions suggested the entire fireplace assembly would take that amount of time.  While we were sipping on a celebratory glass of Scotch at job’s end, I asked Terry how many hours he had into the project.  “What do you guess?  Eight hours or so?”

“More,” he said.  “Maybe ten hours.”

“Well, it’s a done deal, now.”  I tasted a bit of my Scotch, still somewhat haunted by my sister’s outlandish suggestion a few days ago that drinking less beer might make for a smoother assembly.

Posted today are two photographs I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone yesterday.

--Mitchell Hegman

A Dog and his Person

I saw an interesting thing on my drive home yesterday.  Halfway through the valley, out where fenced alfalfa fields squeeze so tightly against the roads you feel as though you are driving within the cracks of a sidewalk, I chanced upon a big, furry dog out walking his person.  The person, a woman much younger than me, but definitely older than a day-old donut, was struggling to keep up.

The dog was leading—dog-sled pulling against a long leash, actually—dragging along its person like tattered pinwheel; a pinwheel that occasionally flagged an arm here, a leg there.

No saving that pinwheel, I thought as I caught and then whisked past the pair.  The dog, however, pranced with many miles of energy left in him.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Finley the Not-So-Quiet Fish

Most fish are very quiet.  They swim under the water silently and whisper to one another when they meet.

Not so, Finley the catfish.

Finley was almost never quiet.  He preferred talking loudly.  And he liked splish-splashing around the surface of the water instead of swimming silently underneath.

Finley lived in the little pond near Kindly Castle in Kindly Kingdom.  The pond was surrounded by tall yellow flowers.  Frogs brip-bripped at the edge of the water.  In the spring, fuzzy baby geese wagged their feathery tails and curly-cued around in the water, quack-quacking.

Best of all, Princess Mackenna lived in the nearby Castle.   Finley and Princess Mackenna were friends.

One warm summer day, the little Princess came to the pond for a picnic with her father and mother, the King and Queen of Kindly Kingdom.  While the King and Queen spread a blue blanket on the green grass, Princess Mackenna walked to the edge of the pond.

When Finley saw her from the other side of the pond, he splashed all the way across the water and shouted “HELLO!” from as close as he could swim to the little Princess.  He remained in the shallow water there, splashing up a storm.

“Hello, Finley,” said the little Princess.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY?” Finley asked

“We are having a picnic.”

“SPLENDID!” bellowed the fish.  “I LOVE A PICNIC!”  He swam backward and forward, spraying water in all directions.  “WILL YOU BE EATING RED LADYBUGS WITH BLACK SPOTS AT YOUR PICNIC?”

“No,” said the little Princess, “I could not imagine eating those!”

Finley the fish dove under the water and then jumped up into the air and made a big splash when he landed.  He wiggled his long whiskers.  “MAYBE YOU WILL HAVE PURPLE LADYBUGS WITH WHITE SPOTS,” Finley suggested.

“No…”  The little Princess shook her head.  “I like purple and white.  I like red and black.  But little girls don’t eat ladybugs of any color.”

“SPLENDID!” Finley said again.  He liked that word.  “MAYBE YOU WILL EAT SOME OF THESE FINE YELLOW FLOWERS.”  He swam near a bunch of the flowers along the edge of the pond and splashed at them.

“No,” said Princess Mackenna.  “Little girls don’t eat yellow flowers, or tall flowers, or small flowers, or any kind of flowers at all.”

“GOOD HEAVENS,” Said Finley, “WHAT WILL YOU EAT?”

“I don’t know for certain,” she admitted.  “I must go see.”

“GOODBYE!” shouted Finley.  He quickly splashed back across the pond.

The little Princess said “goodbye” and ran back to where the King and Queen had set out food on the blue blanket.  She saw red apples and green grapes and yellow cheese and three glasses of cold milk.  When Princess Mackenna was a very small girl, she called milk “money.”   She liked drinking milk very much.

“I am glad we are not eating red ladybugs with black spots or purple ladybugs with white spots,” Princess Mackenna told her mother.

“I have seen red ladybugs with black spots,” the Queen said, “but have never considered eating one.  I have never seen a purple ladybug with white spots, but I should like to.”

“Me too,” said Princess Mackenna.  “But for now, I am ready for a picnic!”

-- Mitchell Hegman

Some Assembly Required, Part 2

Yesterday, I saw my sister and brother-in-law again.  “How is the electric fireplace assembly going?” I asked Terry.

“Since today is the Sabbath,” he said, “I thought I might rest and not work on the project.”

“Probably a wise choice.  Just leave it right there at step five-and-a-half and give your mind a break.  I’m sure the final assembly will gel when you get back at it.”

Terry rubbed at his chin thoughtfully.  “I am a little concerned about one thing.  Part of step five required me to drill some holes.  I’m worried those will come back to haunt me somewhere around step fourteen-and-a-half.”

At this point, my sister Deb chimed in.  “Maybe,” she suggested, “you could try drinking less beer when you work on it again.”

Terry and I exchanged glances of disbelief.

“I don’t know where that came from,” I told Terry, “but it’s just crazy-talk.  You and I both know beer is a necessary part of building fireplaces.”  After a moment of reflection I added: “It is a little weird that you have to drill holes.  I wonder why they don’t drill all the holes at the factory.”

Terry shrugged.  “No idea.  The more I see, the more I think they could hire me to help them write the assembly instructions.”

I nodded.  “You may be onto something.  Write them the way you talk.  A few swear words here and there might be helpful as you’re reading along.”

-- Mitchell Hegman

Some Assembly Required

My brother-in-law, Terry, and I have in common the same problem.  No, my sister is not the problem, but thanks for asking.

Our problem: following instructions to assemble something we purchased unassembled in a box.

The problem we experience is twofold:

    1. We are required to read and follow instructions.

    2. We are required to assemble something from a bunch pf parts.

At the end of the week, Terry purchased a free-standing electric fireplace.  Apparently, the thing is pretty realistic when properly assembled and plugged in.  Terry started the assembly process yesterday morning.  I stopped by his house yesterday afternoon to check on him.  The living room was strewn with cardboard, wooden panels, metal widgets, and small (easily misplaced) parts awaiting assembly.

The place looked like what you might expect an assembly line to look like following a totally devastating earthquake—things were generally going in the correct direction, but parts seemed a bit far-flung and overturned.

“So how’s it going?” I asked, kicking at a packet of odd-looking brackets and screws on the carpet.

Terry made a clicking sound with his tongue and said: “I kinda figured this might be a bit difficult when the first line of instructions said two adults would be needed for assembly.”

“Well, I think you’re easily adult enough for two people,” I mused.  “Wonder why you need two people, anyhow.  How’s that work?  Is one guy supposed to throw temper tantrums and watch while the other guy tries to put this stuff together?”

“Beats me.  Also says it can be assembled in forty-five minutes.”

“Yeah?   How long have you been working on it?”

“I’m on step four and I have about four hours into it.”

I found the instruction guide and quickly thumbed through.  “Hell, I think you’re doing great.  Says here there are only fifteen steps.”   I flopped the guide back down on the arm of an over-stuffed chair.  “You don’t need my help.”

Terry called me a few hours after I returned home.  “I made it to step five-and-a-half,” he informed me.  “I have about six hours into it.”

“You make me proud, buddy,” I told him.  “You’ve got this!”

-- Mitchell Hegman

Pushing Someone Away

An interesting path to success…

-- Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT2S1OkSld4

Thanksgiving Dinner

Following is an actual conversation from my Thanksgiving dinner at a local dinner club:

Mitch: “The turkey and ham are very good.”

Terry: “My asparagus does not taste all that great.”

Kevin: “I think I can explain that.  Those are beans, Terry.”

Deb: “Yep, those are beans.”

-- Mitchell Hegman

Truth with Charity

PART I

I’ve got my truth.

You’ve got yours.

Between those

we have conceived an ugly baby.

PART II

Bukowski was reckless,

combative,

but said it best:

“Love breaks my bones

and I laugh.”

PART III

I need someone in my life to tell me to “stop.”

I can’t go on obsessing about finding that exact word,

flinging whole stacks of magazines to the floor,

jerking open drawers,

flipping over yesterday’s clothing

and newspapers I should have thrown out,

opening and closing doors,

scratching a mess into my hair,

reading Sylvia Plath poems over and over again.

Looking.  Groping.  Grinding my life away.

Obsession is a dreadful word,

but it’s close.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Charolais Cattle

Driving a gravel road through ranchlands the other day, I whisked past some twenty Charolais cattle in various pose at center of an otherwise empty pasture.  Some were standing.  Some were lying down.  But all were strung into a somewhat orderly row that, at first glance, looked much like the final crumbling marble remnants of an ancient Greek structure.

Charolais cattle—not surprisingly given the name—originated in France.  Interestingly, the breed came to the United States by way of Mexico (not France), in a 1936 shipment to the famous King Ranch in Texas.  King Ranch, for those unfamiliar, is the largest ranch in Texas, today comprising over 800,000 acres—an area greater in size than that occupied by the State of Rhode Island.

So here we are.  We have all arrived together at the third paragraph.  I began this writing with a firm thought I would tie all of this up in three neat paragraphs.  Right about now, I imagined, I could end with a pithy statement.  But now that we are here, I must admit: I got nuthin’.  You're free to go now.  Please, have banner day!   

-- Mitchell Hegman

Princess Mackenna and a Walk into the Woods

One day, while still a very little girl, Princess Mackenna decided to go for a walk into the woods near her castle in Kindly Kingdom.  Her two dogs followed along.  When she stepped out the castle door, she said “goodbye” to Hedgy the hedgehog.  Hedgy always stood just outside the door, waiting to say “hello” and “goodbye” to Princess Mackenna.

Often, Princess Mackenna touched Hedgy’s cold nose and said “nose” to remind Hedgy where his nose was.  Hedgy was forgetful about most everything, including where his nose was and which color was blue and which yellow.  But he always remembered to say “hello” and “goodbye” to the little Mackenna!

Princess Mackenna had named one of her dogs Gentle.  The other dog was Bear-Bear.

Bear-Bear was a big, grumpy dog.  He woofed at bumps in the night.  He woofed at leaves blowing in the wind.  He spent most of his days sitting near Princess Mackenna, protecting her, because even grumpy dogs loved the little Princess.

Gentle was a very small dog with pointy ears and a waggy tail.  Gentle bounced from place to place.  He ran in circles and always wanted to play.

When Princess Mackenna and her two dogs reached the woods, they found a path.  Walking along the path, they soon came upon an orange and green turtle.  The turtle spoke to Princess Mackenna.  His words came out slowly: “How  -  old  -  are  -  you?” the turtle asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” she said.  “I am little.  That is all I know.”

“In  -   the  -   forest  -   you  -   will  -   grow,” said the turtle.  “Everyone  -   here  -   grows.”

“Thank you,” Said Princess Mackenna. 

She and the dogs said “goodbye” to the turtle and continued down the path.  Soon, from above, in green leaves and silver coins of sunlight Hoo-Hoo the owl called down.  “Hoo-hoo,” he said.  “Who-who goes there on the path?”

“Me, Princess Mackenna,” answered the little Princess.

“You are very pretty,” said Hoo-Hoo, “and I should know, because I have very big eyes.  I see everything.  How old are you to be so pretty?”

Princess Mackenna held up three fingers.  “I am this many,” she said.

Hoo-Hoo counted: “One…two…three!  I see three fingers.”

Princess Mackenna said, “I know three!”  She counted her dogs, “One..two...” and then counted herself, “three!  We are three travelers in the woods.”  Only then did Princess Mackenna realize that she was not so small anymore.  She had grown a little!

She was three!

The three travelers said goodbye to Hoo-Hoo and walked along the path once more.  Before long Bear-Bear began barking.  Princess Mackenna stopped walking.  Gentle bounced in circles around her.  Above them, ooh-oohing and swinging from branch to branch in the trees, were three monkeys.  The monkeys stopped and hung there just above.  “How old are we, little girl?” asked the three monkeys in unison.

“I have grown.  I am five now,” said Princess Mackenna   “But I am not a we.  I am a me.”  She held up one finger. “One makes a me.”  She held up all the fingers of her other hand.  “It takes two or more to make a we.”

“Five, you say!” called out the three monkeys at the same time.  “One more than four!  One less than six!”

With nothing more said, the three monkeys swung away high in the trees, ooh-oohing.

Princess Mackenna realized she had grown into a bigger girl than before and the afternoon had grown late.  She was getting a little sleepy.

Everybody knows big girls don’t take naps.  Princess Mackenna wanted to take a nap and pondered what to do.  She was too big in the woods to take a nap.  “Maybe we should go back,” she said to her two dogs.

Bear-Bear sat there grumpily, thinking how curious the monkeys were, always saying the same thing at the same time and always ooh-oohing in trees.

Gentle bounced and bounced, wanting to play.

Soon, the three travelers were walking back home along the path in the woods.  Mackenna grew smaller and smaller as she walked back through the green trees.  By the time they reached the castle again she was the same little girl as when she left.  And she was glad because she wanted to go inside and sleep.

Before Princess Mackenna opened the door and went inside, she touched Hedgy and said “Nose.”

Hedgy said, “hello…or goodbye…there it is, my nose!”

-- Mitchell Hegman

(From Papa to Mackenna)

The Person They Love

Consider this.  There are people out there who know and love you only for the person you are now.  They don’t love you for the person you want to be, the person you used to be, or the younger you with a wider smile.

Look in the mirror. 

That’s the very person they love right now.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Optical Illusions

I am still on the road to recovery from whatever bug got hold of me the other day.  I woke pretty early this morning, made coffee, and have since been sipping at fresh coffee while surfing through videos of optical illusions.  I could spend all day watching these videos.

Thought I would share one of the videos this morning.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Nightlights

Things are not going well over here.  My stomach started acting up at about 10:00 yesterday morning.  By 1:00 in the afternoon, I had gophered under a pile of blankets and pillows on my sofa.  My gut felt as if occupied by a python snake trying to find a way out.

When I got up at about 4:00 to drink some water, I ended up vomiting in the nearest toilet.

I flopped back on the sofa and I stayed there the entire night, drifting in and out of sweaty dreams and twisting into and untwisting from the blankets.

It occurred to me, each time I awakened in the darkness, that we have an inordinate number of nightlights in our house.  The authority having jurisdiction (a person formerly known as that girl) has an affinity for nightlights.  These lights are plugged into receptacles at floor level, fixed on shelves, plugged into countertop receptacles, and one is high atop the hutch in our dining room.

Waking to all of these lights fixed at various elevations all around me was not unpleasant—just notable.

My stomach is still unsettled this morning.  I didn’t even make coffee.  I don’t think my stomach will tolerate much beyond a sip of water.  Eating is still entirely out of the question.  Just me and my 20 pounds of housecat sharing sofa space and waiting for the sunlight to wash over the nightlights.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Princess Mackenna and Kindly Kingdom

Princess Mackenna lived in a castle of stone in Kindly Kingdom.  She lived with her father, King Da-Dee, and her mother, Queen Ma-Mee.  Milk was money in Kindly Kingdom and Hedgy the hedgehog stood at the castle door so Princess Mackenna could say “hello” and “goodbye” to him each time she came and went.

A pond surrounded by tall yellow flowers lay alongside the castle in Kindly Kingdom.  Grass carp and polka dot koi fish swam without a sound in the water but frogs there splashed about and sang like birds.  In leafy green trees near the pond lived an owl named Hoo-Hoo and three noisy monkeys Princess Mackenna could count: “one…two…three.”

Princess Mackenna liked to walk near the pond and she liked reading story books with King Da-Dee and Queen Ma-Mee and she knew magic words.  When she said “up” a gentle wind swept her up into the air and carried her near the monkeys in the trees so she could count them, one…two…three, and she could call out “Hoo-Hoo” and see the owl.  When she said “helloooo,” the tall yellow flowers and frogs sang back to her “I love you, won’t you tell me your name?”

“Love,” the most magical word of all.

-- Mitchell Hegman

An Earnest Man Walking

I enjoy watching people while walking amid the masses in airport concourses and while waiting at gates to catch flights.  You tend to see every sort of person.  I sometimes make a game of it and try to spot a full-on cowboy, a biker-dude, a tiny woman with crazy-high spike heels, a girl with pink hair and black lipstick, and a man approaching seven feet in height.  That tends to keep me pretty busy and occupies my time fairly well.

Yesterday, I flew back to Montana from Ohio with layovers in Detroit and Minneapolis.  While in Detroit, I saw something new: an earnest man walking.  I’m not sure what motivated this man, but this man was walking very fast.  Sure, I have seen lots of people walking fast in the airport before.  I have done so myself.

This guy was different.

He was on a moving walkway and cranking his legs like a man walking through a pit of fire.  Only thing is, he was barely making progress because he was walking the wrong direction against the moving belt.  A brisk walk barely made him advance forward.

I stopped and watched him walking against the current for a while, amazed by his efforts.  Head forward, grimace on his face, he reeked of resolve.

Honestly, his determination impressed me.  We could use more of that kind of stuff in this world, but I am a bit uncertain of the mental abilities that placed him going the wrong way on the moving belt.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Crows at Work

Crows are credited with having great intelligence.  Studies have shown that your average crow can count to six.  That’s not bad, actually.  In my hometown of East Helena, Montana, that level of proficiency in math will get you advanced into eighth grade without further testing.

In addition to the ability to count, some crows exhibit astonishing skills at using tools—especially when foraging for food.  Crows have been observed, for example, manipulating sticks with their beaks.  Sometimes, they will use sticks to probe into deep, otherwise inaccessible holes in trees, in efforts to extract insects.  While crows have not shown any particular talent at using open-end wrenches, ratchets, or pneumatic tools, their use of simple tools is notable nonetheless.  Perhaps, more importantly, studying crows at work has proven a gold mine for a slew of geeky, fast-talking researchers seeking reasons to fly to remote and exotic locations so they might observe a bunch of birds while sipping on pina coladas.

A few crows have even shown a more complex understanding of water displacement.  These crows are purposely confronted with a desirable morsel of food floating in a tube partially filled with water—where the water is deep enough down inside the tube they cannot reach the morsel with their beak.  So challenged, the birds will drop solid objects of the proper size down inside the tube, displacing the water and causing it to rise until such a point where they can reach the food floating atop the water.  This is the sort of behavior that causes scientist to rethink our entire place in the world.  These same experiments have been informally conducted with beer and floating pretzels in several bars in my hometown.  Success in retrieving the pretzels was mixed, but local tavern-goers were more than a little amused that researchers had never heard of a “whiskey ditch” and had never been “fishin’ in a crick.”

Work with crows and the use of tools is ongoing as of this writing.  Studies in East Helena, Montana, have long since been terminated.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Crow in the Maple Tree

Whether or not the crow cawing in the maple tree outside our window has damaged crops or overturned nearby garbage cans is no concern of mine. 

Caw

                            Caw

                                                       Caw

The crow in the maple tree is conspicuous, insistent.  The bird is in my ear. 

Caw     Caw     Caw

I read somewhere that crows can be kind and will help injured brethren.  I have also read they are capable of murder without apparent motive.  Many will gather to mob the weak.

Get out of our tree you stupid killer bird!  I still want to go back to sleep.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Candy with a Twist (and a Stinger)

As a general rule, I don’t begin sentences with the phrase “as a general rule.”  Today, I make exception.

Here goes.

As a general rule, scorpions are not my first craving when I think of sweets.  I am a more traditional, REESE’S Peanut Butter Cup guy.   I will admit to an occasional yen for black licorice ice cream—something that induces shuddering in more than a few people around me.

Scorpion candies are, as they say in my hometown of East Helena, Montana, “a whole ‘nuther thing.”

Yesterday, while I, that girl, little Miss Mackenna, and her parents were on an outing in the city of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, we stopped at a candy store called Mr. Bulky’s Foods.  The place was wall to wall candy.  Most of the candy is sold in bulk form and is measured by the pound.  You stroll amid bins filled with hard candies and chocolates and toffees and anything you might imagine.  All arranged in festive rainbows of color.

Until you reach the bugs.

Bam!

There they are, right in your face.  Crickets.  Mealworms.  Ants.  Scorpions.

I am not opposed to eating bugs (feel free to step in with a comment here, Alan B).  I have, at various points in my life, eaten: common house flies, ants, moths, crickets, coconut worms, and I once got the taste of a boxelder bug when one inadvertently crashed inside my open mouth.

Note: boxelder bugs are wholly unpalatable.

I must admit.  I was tempted to purchase a box of crickets.  They are not bad eating.   And, for a minute, I even debated buying a scorpion sucker just because the opportunity seemed so rare and exciting.

In the end, I settled for capturing some photographs with my smarter-than-me-phone.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Xylophobia

For devout Christians, as proclaimed in Proverbs, “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  For a bumbling troll like me, misspelling the word xylophone is also a pretty good start.

When I threw myself at the internet to check out “xylophone” the other day, I discovered “xylophobia” and, in the process, learned something.

Xylophobia is, by definition, “the irrational fear of wooden objects or forests.”

“Irrational” is the tricky part here.

Maybe fearing a child’s wooden rocking horse or a highly polished mahogany salad bowl is somewhere in the range of irrational, but I think the haunted forest in the Wizard of Oz was pretty darned scare-worthy.  I would place a “rational” sticker on fearing that.   I am also not crazy about wooden marionettes.  I especially dislike dancing skeletons because—you know what?—they are skeletons and they are dancing.

That just ain’t natural!

As I sit here thinking about this, I am also afraid of a certain kind of stick.  I discovered one of these sticks in a pine forest many years ago when, for reasons not clear to me now, I and my friend, Mark, engaged in a stick-throwing war.  Clearly, we should have better defined the size of sticks allowed for throwing long before our first (and last) battle.  I really wish I could tell you that I “was just a dumb kid” and didn’t know better, but I was nineteen or twenty at the time.

For a while we had big fun.  We flung sticks at the trees behind which each of us stood in tight profile, hiding.  Some sticks cracked solid against our trees, shattering into a spray of splinters.  Hooray for that!  Some sticks whoof-whoofed past our protective trees, end-over-end, and fomped harmlessly against the understory at some distance beyond.

I discovered the sort of stick that scares me when I decided to peek out from behind my tree and see if Mark had slipped behind a new tree.  The sort of stick I am talking about is about eighteen inches long, a bit under two inches in diameter, and it is three feet from your face—streaking at you—when you poke your head out from behind a tree.

The stick caught me square in the forehead, end first.  I don’t recall any particular sound upon impact.  I simply recall gasping before I fell into an enormous black void.

Mark was very excited when I fluttered back up into the light from the void.  “You broke the stick with your head, Kidd!” he exclaimed.  He held the stick before me.  He may even have been a little concerned for my welfare.  “But you have a cut on your forehead.”

Sure enough, I was bleeding.  I had broken the stick.  My head thumped with pain.  In a normal setting I likely would have gone to the emergency room for stitches, but we were hours from town.

Here we are, all these years later, and I still have that damned stick.  I carried it out with me that day.  Today, you can find it at the bottom of a dresser drawer in what was once my daughter’s bedroom.  I keep it as a good reminder of something…I just can’t remember what.      

-- Mitchell Hegman

Welcome to Mackenna World

We stayed last night with little Miss Mackenna.  I slept on a sofa in the living room (by choice, thank you).  This morning, before I begin my day with her, I thought I would post a photograph of exactly what I saw when I first opened my eyes this morning.

Welcome to Mackenna World!

-- Mitchell Hegman

Here’s What We Did Yesterday

We poked a big cow-shaped button that makes “moo” sounds.  We bounced airy balls off our heads.  We climbed two steps and came backwards down.  We said what pigs and owls say—this we did many times.  We played a pull-behind xylophone and a ting-a-ling metal triangle.  We read all kinds of books, some with pages thick as spoon handles; some with flip-ups: some with pull-downs. 

And THAT’S A BIRD!   

Some of us took photographs while some of us wore our boots on our hands.

We drank “monee,” which you call “milk.”

We played with the dog we named “Gentle” because that’s what Momma and Daddy say when the dog comes near.

These are the things we do on our very best day.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Awakening

I come awake amid a pile of fluffy bedding that might be first cousin to a French dessert.  The room is under assault from full daylight.  The lamp normally at my bedside has been removed.  Gone, too, the nightstand.  Walls the wrong color.

I cautiously rub at my eyes which feel, peculiarly enough, like rough gravel underfoot.

Only then does a wave of recognition wash over me.  I have come alive in Ohio this morning.

Ohio is quite handsome in its own way.  Fifty degrees warmer than the one degree and heavy snow I experienced on the mountain pass before I descended to my cabin only two mornings ago.  Half the trees still display patchworks of leaves twirling from red to orange.  Tended green lawns from end to end.

But Ohio is also strange.  Driving from place to place after our arrival last evening, we whisked past a fast food drive-up at regular two-minute intervals.  Highways assault highways here.  Sometimes, you might look up in the air and see the Goodyear blimp.  Birds here are incurious and fly away from you instead of toward you.      

Soon we will drive amid the trees and lawns and fast food outlets and assaulting highways to see the brightest, smartest, cutest granddaughter on this side of wherever I am.

Thing is, she is talking now, and if she calls me Papa I am likely to melt and stick there for good.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Winter at the Cabin

I have a confession to make.  Some of you may not like it, either.

Here it is: I like winter.

I love how snow stacks atop fenceposts creating tophats made of pure cotton.  I like how the whole landscape becomes whitewashed, how the sky color-shifts so blue you want to poke it to see if it’s real.  I like seeing small creeks grow scales of ice before they burrow themselves underneath crescent drifts of snow.  I love how sounds are hushed.  I enjoy seeing the crisscross tracks of animals where they have come and gone.

Sure, I tire of the cold.  I would like a month less of winter.  But I love it just the same.

Yesterday, I drove to the cabin where winter has arrived in full.  I had to drop my truck into four-wheel drive and then kick and buck my way in from the main road.

Once there, I took the opportunity to burn a chest-high tangle of branches I stacked in the meadow after knocking down a couple snags this summer.

A chickadee flew in and perched in a nearby tree and watched for a while.

Fire, sky, snow, and occasionally a bird.

These are elements in the winter.

-- Mitchell Hegman

Russian Olive

The note said only this:

Knock down the tree.

You read the note,

pressed it into the palm of my hand, asking,

“Which tree?”

I considered.

We had a job to do. Saws, axes, fuel, shovels in the bed or our truck.

“One of the three trillion trees inhabiting this planet,” I suggested.

We debated while sitting in our work truck.

Living tree or dead?

We started a list: sugar pine, magnolia, quaking aspen,

White oak, golden willow, yew…

“Maybe something with thorns,” you suggested.

Russian olive.

We drove ‘til we spotted one,

off-green, branches distorted as if one-hundred years arthritic.

Maybe ugly.

You tore into the gnarled trunk with your chainsaw until,

with a cracking noise,

pure sunlight pushed the olive down.

We further disassembled the tree,

Snapping off smaller branches with gloved hands, axing the bigger.

“Is it the thorns that made this tree bad?” I asked.

“Nope.  Was the boss that made it bad.  Maybe us.”

-- Mitchell Hegman