Defining Excitement Down

Staying at home and avoiding people due to coronavirus, as I have for the last couple weeks, has forced my moments of excitement to new and unexpected places.  I guess you might say I have been “defining excitement down.”

The other day, the high point of my existence occurred when I found the final pesky edge piece of a 1500-piece jigsaw puzzle I have been assembling.  The thrill was enough to send me on a victory dance around my dining room table.

That, in turn, sent my 20 pounds of housecat off to shelter in place at an unknown location for the next two hours.

—Mitchell Hegman

Poor Connections and Killers

Newer studies of human brain performance indicate that some killers may be born to act on violent tendencies as much as directed to do so by faulted environmental pressures and dysfunctional social and familial influences.

The studies I mention look directly at the level of activity within the brain.  Killers, more often than not, have greatly reduced activity (as compared to the majority of people studied) within the frontal lobe of their brain.  This points to a lack of programming and function within the lobe.

The frontal lobe, most experts are coming to believe, works to suppress the array of (often bizarre) urges and impulses fired into our daily thought processes by the more feral regions of our brains.  In a real sense, the frontal lobe is the control panel for our personality and behavior.

If you stop and analyze yourself, you will recognize how often a crazy impulse is your first thought.  I must admit, I have had thoughts of smacking someone with a baseball bat.  And worse!  This is not acceptable behavior.  Most of us instantly resist these crazy impulses, thinking, “I can’t stab to death the kid behind the cash register because he shorted me a nickel in change—that’s insane.”

Unnaturally violent and murderous people, however, seem to have a frontal lobe which is inhibited.  They tend to act upon their feral urges.  They burn to the ground houses blocking their view.  They steal all those things desirable.

—Mitchell Hegman

Name Flipping

My brain has a mind of its own.  I am not entirely in control here.  One of my brain’s more annoying habits is something I call “name flipping.”

Name flipping is when my brain tweaks a name in some manner.  Once a name has thus flipped, my brain won’t let the altered name go.

For the most part, I am able to keep the flipped names internal.  On occasion, however, the flipped name will spew out in my conversation.

Following are just a few examples of my flipped names:

William = Bill-ee-um

Missouri = Misery

Milwaukee = Mill-lock-ee

Tennessee = Ten-same-letters-ee

Timbuktu = Tim-buck-three  

Butte = Butte, America

Thing is, the flipped names continue to pile up inside my brain.  More and more are added as time goes on.  Soon, I fear, my brain will be entirely filled with such nonsense.

—Mitchell Hegman

Stretching Their Bones

Desiree’s garbage man lives under a bridge in her Manila suburb.

He is not technically “the” garbage man.  As so many people in the Philippines, the garbage man invented his own job for a little money.

Early in the morning in Makati City, where Desiree lives, the garbage truck stops on the main road near her narrow side street.  One of the men from the truck then walks down the nearby streets blowing a shrill whistle—a call for citizens to haul their trash down to the waiting garbage truck.

Simple enough.

But that’s where the garbage man enters the story.  He pushes a cart down Desiree’s street collecting trash from doorways so he can haul the trash down to the awaiting garbage truck.  The residents often meet him at their doors and give him change or small denominations of bills for his work.  

As I said, the garbage man lives under a bridge.  He is not an old man.  He has a wife and young children.  Given that, Desiree pays him a little as often as possible.  She also gives him clothing.  Sometimes food.

When the coronavirus pandemic started washing through countries outside of China, I engaged in serious conversations with Desiree.  “I think you should start stocking up on dry goods and frozen foods.” I suggested.  “Maybe buy a little extra here and there.  This this is not looking good.”

Various forms of social distancing, hoarding, and shortages developed not long after.  Fortunately, Desiree was well-prepared.

I talk to Desiree early in her mornings; a time when her city is filled with sharp sounds.  A neighbor’s inner-city rooster is always crowing.  On many mornings, I also hear the city worker’s sharp whistle passing below her second story window calling for trash.   A few days ago, hearing the whistle, I thought about the garbage man.  “I worry about the garbage man during all of this,” I told Desiree.  “Do you think we can put together some food for him, too?”

“Yes.”

Over the next few days, Desiree put together a bag with some dry goods and canned food.  She will give it to the garbage man in a day or so.   We talked about that again yesterday.  “Thank you for doing that,” I told her.  Helping someone like that is the very best we can do.  In the wrong time, we could be the people under the bridge.”

“I like helping others,” she assured me.  “Especially when they are stretching their bones.”

“What does that mean: stretching their bones?”  I laughed.  

“It means they are trying as hard as they can.”

“Oh…I like that.  That’s an interesting turn of words.  And a good sentiment.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Homestead Rescue

My “sheltered-in-place” lifestyle is developing into evenings filled with me watching so-called “reality” television programs.   Last night, I binge-watched Homestead Rescue.   And I learned something from that.  Keeping chickens and turkeys in cages in your living room is a bad idea.

Chickens and turkeys should never be forced to live that way.

—Mitchell Hegman

Idiot Test

While watching a certain reality program on television, I caught a segment in which a young woman took a home pregnancy test.

In blunt terms, the test used by the young women required her to pee on a widget.  The widget detects the presence of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin. This particular hormone is produced by the placenta shortly after the embryo attaches to the uterine lining.  If the hormone is detected, these detection widgets will indicate in some manner—perhaps by displaying a “+” symbol or the appearance of colored stripes.

I got to thinking about the simplicity of that test.

Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if a similar test existed to determine whether or not you were an idiot?

And then I realized there is such a test…it’s called an electric fence.

If you pee on it, you are an idiot.

—Mitchell Hegman

Tragedy

We stood on a recently poured concrete slab, talking.  Just two of us.  Me and a sheet metal worker at the center of a newly erected red-iron and corrugated metal structure.

The sheet metal worker’s family had recently experienced a tragedy.  An untimely death.

“My family…”  The sheet metal worker tailed-off his conversation and shook his head, seemingly wounded by his own thoughts.  “It’s always been a struggle for us.  Last year, for the first time since all us kids grew up, we were all living together under the same roof at my sister’s.  She didn’t have any trees around her house, so we went and bought a nice pine tree.  We planted it, and then the neighbor’s goat came over and ate it.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Vectors and Elkhorn Ghost Town

As I write this, Covid-19 (coronavirus) is converting people all around me into vectors to carry the disease from one place to the next.  Vectors of this virus are often asymptomatic and have no idea they carry sickness and possible death everywhere they go.

I may be a vector.

A sobering thought.

As I watch events unfold today (from as much isolation as possible) I think about the many times I visited the graveyard at Elkhorn Ghost Town.  What remains of Elkhorn is nuzzled on the backside of the mountains you see as you peer out from my bay windows.  

Elkhorn, a mining town in every respect, reached a population of 2500 during the peak of silver production in the 1880s.  Though remote, Elkhorn grew quickly once a silver lode was discovered there.  Elkhorn, however, was different in that whole families of European immigrants came to populate the town rather than the usual flurry of single, raucous men.

The immigrants carved an honest community from the wood and stone of the nearby mountains.  At one point, the town boasted three hotels and a two-lane bowling alley.  Elkhorn bustled until the silver crash of 1893.  The saddest episode, though, befell Elkhorn in the latter half of 1888 and extending into the early months of 1889.

A deadly diphtheria epidemic swept through the mountain town.

The graveyard there—now overtaken by the forest again—tells of the end.  Mothers buried alongside their young children.  Infants buried alongside big brothers.  Many families lost multiple children—often within days of each other.  Dozens of Elkhorn inhabitants perished with only a few months.

I recall standing before some of the time-toppled grave markers in the mountains there…trying to imagine the fear.

That fear is a little easier to imagine today.

—Mitchell Hegman

PHOTO: Beatrice and Clara (age 3 and 5)

First Flower

Spring is certain with the arrival, first, of mountain bluebirds and, second, the sight of a stemless daisy in bloom.

Stemless daisies (Hooker’s Townsendia), are small.  The flowers grow to about the size of a nickel.  A tuft of the daisies rarely grows even as large as my fist.  But stemless daisy are tough specimens.  They flourish on open ground in the prairie and emerge in cold weather.   Only a little warm sun is required to bring forth the first flowers.

Yesterday, I saw my first stemless daisies while on an afternoon walk.  They are not the most spectacular flower, but they are certainly a happy face.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Last Best Place

And at the end of the day, I still live in the last best place.

—Mitchell Hegman

Your Sex Robot is Safe

I have been seeking some form of good news in the face of the grim pandemic we are all facing.

I finally found something.

I freely admit, my “find” may not be appealing to everyone, but at least it is something.

Here it is: RealDoll, the US manufacturer of sex robots (yes, we still make some stuff here), has sent out an announcement to the masses of people social distancing in an effort to cease the spread of Covid-19.

Sex with RealDoll robots will not only help pass time—such activity is safe.  According to a company statement: "All RealDolls are made from Platinum Grade Silicone and are naturally antibacterial and nonporous.”

And the dolls offer additional benefits:  "We blink, we move, we speak, and we do it all just for you. Our faces can easily be swapped to accommodate your desires.”

American ingenuity and safety brought together in troubling times.

—Mitchell Hegman

Image: Getty Images

A Man of the Chickadees

At the end of a bad day, closing a week of social distancing, I can always go out and stand by my bird feeder.  The local chickadees have learned to accept me.  They will flutter all around and take seeds from my hand when I offer them.

I talk to the chickadees.  They listen.

I am a man of the chickadees.

At this moment in time, there are far worse things than that.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Great Toilet Paper Rush

I like toilet paper as much as the next guy.  But the huge rush on toilet paper due to the coronavirus pandemic is unsettling to me.  The human reasoning (or lack of such) underlying the panic purchase of something that is neither wholly vital to life, nor likely to vanish due to the pandemic, points to worse behavior to come.

Yesterday, I needed to buy a few grocery essentials.  I stopped at two stores.  Though I have a pretty good supply of toilet paper, I whisked down the paper products aisle of the first store just to assess the stock.  I found the toilet paper, napkin, and paper towel gondola empty save a half-dozen packs of napkins on one shelf and a stack of about a dozen paper towel packs on another shelf.

Costco, my next stop was out of both toilet paper and paper towels.

The big empty.

More telling?  When I arrived at the store, I found a police patrol car parked directly in front of the store entrance.  Just inside the automatic doors, stacks of empty shipping pallets formed a kind of canyon.  The wooden canyon funneled shoppers into the store at the entry and prevented a mob from entering all at once.  Stranger yet, a police officer was stationed at the end of the string of check stands.

Apparently, some ugly brawls erupted at the store yesterday.

Are you kidding me?  Are we in Helena, Montana?

Just for fun, I decided to check Amazon for toilet paper when I arrived back home again.  Though I found a lot of brands and options, most were overpriced and out of stock.  Hilariously (dubiously), a few “used” options for purchase were available.

I am not sure used toilet paper is, or should be, a thing.

For further adventure, I clicked through a few of the available brands to see when I might expect delivery if I opted to purchase.  Delightful!  Everything I checked showed a delivery date of somewhere between the last week of April and the first week of May.

More than a month out.

This is getting weird and frightening.

—Mitchell Hegman

Nightfall

In the light, we have reshaped mountains, turned aside great rivers, and stomped our boots against the most distant reaches.  And, yet, when evening shadows merge into night and our dogs howl at the end of their chains, we pull blankets over our faces and hope all that is unknown simply goes away.

—Mitchell Hegman

Possibilities

I got to thinking about different possibilities.  You know, stuff such as the possibility Elvis is alive and living comfortably in the left slot of my toaster.  Or the idea time can be mixed into a pineapple smoothie and slurped down with a straw.

And then I thought about this: What if bigfoot is making all the crop circles we find?

—Mitchell Hegman

Handsome but Unnamed

I am losing me edge.

Yesterday morning, a dozen multicolored, sparrow-sized birds appeared at my sunflower seed feeder.

I don’t recall ever seeing this kind of bird.  They were not waxwings.  Not grosbeaks.

The birds were mix of black, brown, white, and a kind of red aspiring to be orange.

And they were hungry.

While one or two of them took turns at the feeder, the others popcorned on the snowy ground nearby, pecking at the seeds I had broadcast for my daily juncos, magpies, and occasional woodpecker.

The flock quickly gleaned most of the seeds from the snow and flew up to perch in the nearby bare trees.

I stepped outside and tossed handfuls of fresh seeds across the ground.  I expected the birds to flare out of the trees and vanish into the landscape, but the birds did not budge.  As soon as I ducked back inside the house, the flock rained from the branches and went to work again.

The mystery birds spent a better part of the day in my trees and on the ground near my feeder.  I fed them four times.

As I said, I am losing my edge.  Rather than trying my best to identify the birds as they tumbled about in front of my house, I simply watched them.  While my regular visitors, the juncos and chickadees, tend to be somewhat intolerant of one another when they are at the feeder, the flock birds got along remarkably well.

This morning, I spent a few minutes browsing resources to see if I could identify the birds.  No luck yet.

I am hoping they return today so I can get a photograph of the handsome strangers.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Road Home

After Something near a four-hour drive over an icy mountain pass and through ground blizzards brushing snow across several open valleys, I neared my final turn.  Only there, within two miles of my home, did the sun finally appear in the cloud-swirled sky above me.

The sun, by then, was descending toward the Continental Divide.

Home.

—Mitchell Hegman

Sad Turns

Yesterday, on a drive to Billings, I opted to route myself around what we call the “backside” of Canyon Ferry Reservoir and then up through Deep Creek Canyon.

A weird thing happened as I drew near the reservoir.  I became wholly pensive.  Soon enough, I found myself suffering from a penetrating sadness.

For some reason, nearly every hill and corner brought forth a memory.  Memories from years before.  Thoughts of a previous time I had been on that very hill or corner.  Each of these memories found me with either a deceased loved one or deceased friend.

At the top of Canyon Ferry Hill, I thought of the day my sister, Connie, and I browsed through rocks and related crafts under awnings and tents in an open field there.  An event sponsored by the Helena Mineral Society.

At the bottom of the hill, I thought about all those days my Aunt Jo cranked the steering wheel of her green Willys Jeep Wagon there, turning us onto West Shore Drive for the last leg of the drive to her cabin.  I spent weeks at the lake with Aunt Jo.

As I crossed the dam, I thought about the day my late wife and I stood near the edge of water not far off the dam just on the other side.  We had stopped to watch several big, purple-backed fish swimming in the deep waters held by the massive concrete structure.

For the next two corners, I sleeved tears from my eyes.

Then, I dipped down right alongside the lake near Penny Island—the place where Billy Barber drown when we were all kids.

On the backside, the highway proved straight and empty.  The dolphin-backs of the Big Belt Mountains, held steady to my left.  The lake to my right.

At Hellgate, I thought about deer hunting with my Father and my Uncle Stack.  Me picking up rocks I liked along the way.

At Avalanche, I recalled the time, during my sophomore year of high school, I hunted with my grandfather there.

Down the empty road I drove.  I drove until my memories faded into fenced pastures and open wheat fields.

—Mitchell Hegman

Scary on Paper

The stock market has taken quite a tumble.

A crash, really.

I have money invested (broadly) in the market.  I have had such investments for 35 years.  This is my fourth big crash, actually.   I have learned to accept—in the short term—the loss is on paper.

Not that scary.  Maybe scary in the same way a Steven King passage is.  Scary in the way an illustration of a grizzly bear is.

It’s on paper.

Close the book.  Scoop up the cat.   Watch the Food Network.

—Mitchell Hegman

Aerobics

Today’s wind menaces the grass and trees outside my house like one of those over-eager male high school gym teachers working his first freshman class through a session of aerobics.  You imagine him swaggering all over the place, shoving through reluctant students, batting their skinny appendages into the proper position for exercising.  “Bend here!  One...two...three.  Flex this way!  Upright!  Down again!  One...two!”

But the trees are not near as eager to submit as the grass.  They are the rebellious students.  Students who always stand aside.  They are more than disinterested, and just stand there— “one...two...yeah, whatever”—barely swaying at all.

—Mitchell Hegman

Montana Winterscapes

Last weekend, my drive back from a teaching engagement took me through Ovando and then over Flesher Pass.  While I have seen very little snow at my house this winter, the mountains all around have received quite a bit.

The drive home offered striking winterscapes from end to end.

Posted are three photographs I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.  The first two are rather low-quality “drive-by shootings” where I held my phone up and snapped a shot as I drove along. 

—Mitchell Hegman

Bested

In this day and age, men and women compete against one another in various sporting competitions.  And there is no surprise to find a woman as victor—unless the sport is wrestling and the man is bested by his own grandmother. 

—Mitchell Hegman

Blue Spark

Yesterday, near Ovando, a blue spark flicked up from the tall honey-colored grass alongside the highway.  The blue spark veered sharply against a backdrop of mountains still white with snow and, there, caught my eyes entirely as I whisked by.

Good fortune!

My first bluebird sighting of the year.

Spring officially.

—Mitchell Hegman

Where They Never Say Your Name

Eilen Jewell is a recent discovery for me.  I enjoy how she freely mixes genres in her music.  Posted is the first song of hers to catch my attention.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PFVuRyfMBU

Clearing Customs

If you ever have reason to mail a package to the Philippines, you should expect a bit of time to pass before the package arrives.  Not time measured in days.  Time measured in weeks.

I sent a package in early December that arrived in Manila in less than two weeks, but notification for arrival took another month.  I sent another package in February with similar results.

My packages track in a timely manner (days) until they reach Manila.  Once they arrive in Manila, the packages enter a somewhat dense and mysterious processing system.  Apparently, certain time delays are incorporated into this system.

Honestly, the packages seem to get lost for a while.

The Philippines is an island nation, of course, and this may account for some of what goes on.  Having visited several islands in my life, I leaned about what island residents refer to as “island time.”

No need to hurry, man.

At least a part of the reason for hang-up on the most recent package is a bit more conspicuous.  Apparently, someone in customs found the three jars of homemade huckleberry jam I sent to the islands a bit suspicious and worthy of examination.

Posted is a photograph of how the packed looked at the end of a long journey.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Right Tools for Dinner

I am pretty good about planning most aspects of my life.  This especially applies to long-term matters.  I started actively planning and saving a little for my retirement when I was only nineteen.  In another example, I started planning, and even collecting a few materials for my house a couple years before beginning construction.

But…I have a couple pretty big holes in my planning fabric.  I think dinner is my biggest hole.

I am not very good at planning dinner, either in the short-term or long-term.  Sure, I think about meals, but only in a fleeting manner—the same way I think about purchasing toilet paper or laundry detergent.  And, because I am presently living alone, making big plans is problematic.  Given all that, my planning is mostly on the surface.

As expressed in Mitch-speak, my planning is “surfacy”

Yesterday evening, same as every other evening, I required dinner.  This thought occurred to me a good twenty minutes before I normally eat.   Once the thought of dinner squirmed up through my maze of thought-blocking processes, I gleaned through the pantry and found: pasta noodles, catnip, chewing gum, plastic Solo cups (what?), and tomato paste.

In the refrigerator: apples, lemons, mustard, butter, olives, and something mysterious experimenting with itself in a sandwich bag.

My last hope?   The freezer. 

My lack of planning also extends to the simple task of freezing food for later.  Where a smart “single-ish” person might freeze leftovers in single servings, I usually throw big piles into my freezer.  Upon opening the freezer, I found: frozen butter sticks, cubed ice, sweet potato fries, more ice in a super-frosty bag, and a big chunk of frozen stew in a gallon zip-loc bag.

Stew, then!

The block of frozen stew was enough to feed an entire family.  After clunking the block stew on my kitchen counter, I realized I needed to break off only a small hunk.

After a few seconds of attempting to whittle at the frozen stew with a small and then big knife, my electrician’s instincts took hold of me. 

I needed some tools from my garage. 

Posted is a photograph (captured with my smarter-than-me-phone) of the tools I used break off a chunk of my dinner.

—Mitchell Hegman