Talking with Connie

My big sister, Connie, passed on last year.   I miss her.  I miss talking with her.

Following is my journal entry from December 7, 1995:

My sister Connie called.   We talked about all the usual stuff: beads made from the glass of Vicks Vapor Rub jars by members of some tribe in Africa, UFO’s, alien abduction, bigfoot, fish.

Talking about fish was my idea.

She’s a twist, Connie is.  She’s astoundingly intelligent, a speed-reader, and frighteningly intuitive.  I really think she has a kind of connection to a sixth sense—a single wire perhaps, one upon which only an occasional signal arrives.  At times, however, some of the signals serve only to confound the rest of us.

Recently, to site an example, my nephew mentioned to Connie that he felt very apprehensive about a geology test he had to take in one of his college courses.  Much of the test required accurately identifying a slew of mineral specimens and their properties.  My nephew heard from the professor’s previous students that an elevated number of students failed the test.  At some point near this time in the conversation, Connie apparently captured something of a signal on her wire.  “If you listen to the rocks,” she told him, “they will tell you what they are.  Listen to the rocks.”

Well, I’m here to tell you that a person could take that sort of advice to a lot of places and be forced to take some other kinds of tests while under the strictest of supervision.  But my nephew did listen to the rocks.  And he scored quite well on the test.  If you’re willing to dance pretty fast, you can keep up with my sister...and you just never know where you might go.

Talking about fish?  Well, I’ve been having these dreams where huge rainbow trout are swimming under my blankets at night.  In my dreams, I wake to find these enormous humps migrating around under the blankets.

All I ever wanted was dreams where I go fishing and actually catch a fish or two.

—Mitchell Hegman