Wish Box Notes

I found two handwritten notes yesterday in something of a hiding place.  The notes are nearly ten years old.

I wrote one of the notes.

My wife, Uyen, wrote the other.

Uyen had been told on March 20, 2011 (the first day of spring), she had cancer.  Terminal cancer.  The notes were written in early April and placed in a wish box.  Neither of us were allowed to tell the other what we had wished for.

My note:

       I wish Uyen would go into complete remission!

Thank you!

Uyen’s note:

1. Get well
2. Get cancer out of my body
3. Love & Peace

Thank you everyone!

On May 11, 2011, about a month after depositing our wishes in the wish box, Uyen lost her battle with cancer.

The notes, but not the wishes, survived.

 

—Mitchell Hegman

Lion Tracks?

I live in mountain lion country.  No doubt about that.  I have seen sign of their presence over three decades of living along the lake.  Back some years ago, my neighbor, Leo, called me on the phone.  “We have a lion,” he informed me in his ever-laconic way. “I found what looks like evidence of a kill down at your side of the place.”

I met Leo down near the lake later and he showed me the messy remnants of what appeared to be deer kill.  

While walking around down at my neighbor’s place yesterday (Leo’s son is living there now), we came upon some tracks in the snow that appear to be lion tracks.  The tracks were stitched straight through the crisscrossing tracks of mule deer.

In the snow, differentiating between dog prints and mountain lion prints can prove tricky.  But these were pretty big for a dog and spaced pretty far apart.  In one of the photographs posted below, you can see my footprint alongside the suspected cat prints.  

We found the tracks virtually everywhere we looked in the receding snow along the lake.

—Mitchell Hegman

Letter to 2020

Dear 2020:

I am going to be direct and unapologetic here.  You suck!

You kicked off January by interrupting my Desiree’s life in the Philippines with a volcano.  Seriously?  A volcano?

That has been followed by typhoons and health problems for her sweet mother.  And, just last week, the province where her parents live experienced the worst flooding anyone can remember. 

Question: What’s the point?

Let’s talk about the biggie now.  The Covid-19 pandemic.  You crushed the whole world, isolated us, killed some of us.  Weirdly, stupidly, fucked-uply, the response to this virus turned political all around the globe.   We remain under the thumb of this disease today.

Thanks for nothing, 2020.

And you are responsible for dozens of other bones caught in my throat.  Wildfires ravaging the states along our West Coast.  All around me the death of my friends and the family of my friends.  Sickness and injury within my own family.  My sister in the hospital today, suffering from dehydration. 

As I write this, hurricane Zeta is crashing through the United States by way of Louisiana.  Consider that.  We have been through the naming alphabet with two months of hurricane season remaining—that’s 26 storms when we normally see 12 in an entire season.

Next up: the ugliest election I have ever seen.  No matter which way the various races fall, the result will be division and discontent.

You have two months left in your scabbard, 2020.  Perhaps you might consider doing something nice with these remaining months.  Maybe, a complete cure for breast cancer.  You could toss some new battery technology our way so we can revolutionize energy storage.

You have time left to become less sucky.  How about giving that a try?

—Mitchell Hegman

Contemplative Epitaphs

Following are some epitaphs I found on a series of headstone photographs at boredpanda.com:

“Raised four beautiful daughters with only one bathroom and still there was love.”

“Now I know something you don’t.”

“When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.” (Chiseled on the tombstone of a gay Vietnam veteran)

“I came here without being consulted and I leave without my consent.”

“I see dumb people.”

“Here lies an Atheist.  All dressed up and no place to go.”

—Mitchell Hegman

How I Ruined One Line of An Entire Industry

I finally did it.  I wiped out one product line for an entire industry.  Well, technically, I only ruined things for the Northwestern region of the United States.      

Here is the dealeo.  I picked the wrong color: red. 

Over the last eleven years, the canvas cover for my pontoon boat, has sun-rotted to the point it rips apart when I attempt to stretch it into place.  I had no luck finding a replacement online.  Frustrated by that, I dragged the heap of canvas in to a local upholstery joint to see if they could use that as a pattern to make a new one.

Affirmative.  Yep.  Bingo.

I picked up the finished cover yesterday.  Seems the upholstery shop spent an inordinate amount of time simply trying find the red canvas required.  “You got the last of the red available in the entire Northwest,” the shop owner informed me.

“Is that a Covid thing?”  I asked.  A logical question given shortages of all kinds of products and services as a result of the pandemic.  Try to purchase canning jars, for example.  And I don’t even want to mention toilet paper again.

“Partially Covid,” the owner of the shop responded.  “The manufacturing plant normally shuts down for Christmas, but Covid has added to the mix.”

There it is.

The next poor soul who walks into an upholstery shop in Boise or Walla Walla seeking to make something from red canvas will need to thank me as they shuffle back out the door empty-handed.

—Mitchell Hegman

Rules For Safe (But Pleasurable) Operation

• Think twice—act once
• Read Steinbeck novels twice  
• Mistrust running water
• Don’t leave tools out in the rain
• Kiss your lovey-dovey at every opportunity
• Don’t randomly press red buttons
• Assume the janitor is the smartest person in the room
• Fill your child’s glass before filling your own
• Don’t approach dogs on chains

—Mitchell Hegman

On the Flip Side

Our abrupt crash into an Arctic winter has left me a little shell-shocked.   In a matter of three days, I went from skipping rocks at the lakeshore without need for a jacket to being locked inside my house by snowdrifts and single-digit temperatures.

My housecat has always blamed bad weather on me.  When I opened the door to driving snow and wind yesterday morning to let him out, he shook his head as if splashed with water, ran back behind me, and sat there, scowling at me.

“It’s not my fault,” I told him.

To make myself feel better about our seeming drop to the inside of the freezer, I have been trying to find the bright side.  Following are a few good things about our winter impulse:  

• The spiders outside are frozen in place
• No risk of wildfires
• Don’t need to mow the lawn
• No more boombox boats rattling my house with their music as they pull wakeboarders down the lake

Not much, I know.  But the glass is at least an eighth-full.  Oh, one last “good thing.”  Before the snow turned to drifts, I managed to write Desiree’s name in the snow on my back deck.  She has never experienced snow.  More on that when she does… 

—Mitchell Hegman

Blind Date with a Twist

Meeting someone for on blind date is, at best, an intimidating prospect.  On one hand, you may be meeting a perfect match.  On the other, you might be hooking up with a stalker and serial Justin Bieber listener.  Between these two possible outcomes we find the story of man with a surname of Liu from East China's Zhejiang Province. 

Liu’s mother had arranged a date for him with a woman he knew nothing about.  Liu agreed to meet his blind date for a meal at a local restaurant.  His blind date arrived for dinner along with 23 relatives and friends.

Awkward!

The woman later claimed she wanted to test the generosity of her blind date.  Her test amounted to some $2,964.00.  Faced with the bill for dinner, Liu fled the restaurant.

Later, he did agree to reimburse his date for the cost of two tables.

Generous, in my way of thinking.

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: www.globaltimes

Why Can’t We?

While I sat on my sofa watching TV, my cat trotted out onto the floor before me, stopped, contorted into a frayed knot, and enthusiastically licked his butt.  As I observed my cat, I thought: If he can do that…why can’t we achieve world peace?

—Mitchell Hegman

Another List of Good Ideas

1. Fleece blankets on a cold night

2. Looking up the meaning of new words when you encounter them

3. Bottles made of blue glass

4. Leaving a huckleberry patch at the first sight of grizzly scat

5. Retiring as early as financially feasible

6. Continuing some kind of work you love after retirement

7. Apologies

8. Giving kids from East Helena, Montana, nicknames

9. Cooking dinner over a campfire

10. Having a salad for dinner

—Mitchell Hegman

The Edge of Winter

 Well, here we are.  We have reached the edge of winter.  Looking at the long-range weather forecast, I see a high of 14° on Saturday and a low of -5° for Sunday.

Seriously, Montana?

—Mitchell Hegman

Fifteen Years

Over the last fifteen years, while wildfires have ravaged forests around me, while our soldiers have marched off to war, while the beloved have departed and left me in silence—throughout all of this—the single constant has been my housecat.

My cat, Splash, is messy, mostly ignores me, and is a poor financial investment.  But, every so often, he jumps up on the sofa and curls up alongside me, purring.  I then nest my hand in his soft coat.  Upon this we have based a satisfying life together.

—Mitchell Hegman

My Mask

The strangest of my dreams will usually feature some element of what is happing in my life at that time.  At present, obviously enough, Covid-19 is something of a constant in my days.

My latest dream found me in a crowded convention center teeming with hordes of people.  People in my face.  People at my shoulders.  People shoving past me.  Some people were wearing masks.  Many were not.

I am faithful about wearing my mask and in the dream I was doing so.  As I wandered through the crowd—sometimes talking with people—my mask kept slipping down below my nose and mouth.  This especially happened if I gestured or moved my arms.  And people were breathing on me.

Wading through a sea of faces, I battled and battled to keep my mask in place.  And then, dreams being what they are, I realized I had connected the strings of the mask to my arms instead of my ears.

I woke just then, feeling frustrated and appropriately confused.

—Mitchell Hegman

Watercress

Watercress is distributed worldwide.  Here in North America, the plant is deemed an invasive species.  Some 45 states have also listed watercress as an invasive aquatic plant.  I did not find it listed as such here in Montana.     

The plant, if you are unfamiliar, is an aquatic or semi-aquatic perennial herb.   Here in Montana, you may find watercress growing in and along the riffled edge of mountain springs and creeks in the western half of the state.  The plant grows low and tends to create something of a mat.  I often find it in small clusters here and there in freshwater springs.  The plant produces a small white flower when blooming.

Watercress, at the same time it is considered invasive, is considered a “superfood.”  This plant is also one of the more ancient greens regularly used by humans.  Watercress is packed with calcium, magnesium, potassium, dietary nitrates, and the antioxidant alpha-lipoic acid.  All good stuff.  Stuff that runs around inside your body tweaking functions back to normal.

When I was a boy my father and I sometimes gathered watercress from springs on our way home from hunting deer in the mountains.  The plant is somewhat fragile and crisp and is readily plucked from the water.  We used the cleaned sprays of watercress in salads.  The plant has a slight peppery taste.  Something close to the taste of a mild radish.  I like it.

On my ride to the mountains the other day, I spotted watercress in one of the small creeks prancing along beside us as we drove up a narrow ravine.  We stopped and gathered a bag of leafy sprays from the waters.  I cleaned the watercress upon arriving at home that night and have been adding it to salads ever since.   

I know of several areas within a half-hour of my home where I can find watercress.  I may make a few visits there in the coming months.

A Watercress Mat

Along the Creek

Cleaned Watercress

—Mitchell Hegman

Sources: https://www.fs.fed.us, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com, http://fieldguide.mt.gov,  http://fieldguide.mt.gov

Turned Back

Living in Montana, you need to take a jacket along wherever you go no matter what time of year.  To say our weather is fickle is an understatement.  Taking this a bit further, if you drive into the mountains, you are wise to take along a shovel and a chainsaw and you need to be prepared for anything. 

A shovel for snow or mud.

A chainsaw for clearing trees that have dropped across the road.  I have been forced to saw trees out of the road twice on trips to my cabin this year.  Once on the way in.  Once on the way out.

Anything means anything.

Yesterday, I rode into the mountains with a friend.  We started off following rivers through low valleys of pastures and hayfields.   Eventually, we found ourselves entering the Garnet Range.

Our entry to the range began amid gentle rolls and inclines of sagebrush and juniper.  Soon enough, we found ourselves switchbacking up into timbered mountains.  The first snow we encountered was little more than white brushstrokes atop deadfall and the occasional shaded patch deeper in the understory.

The road narrowed and became rugged.  Four-wheel-drive stuff.

Soon enough the upward inclines and the snow became fixed all around us.  Upon entering a swath of lodgepole pine everything changed.   Heavy rains preceding the snow had formed deep pools of water in the road.  Nearly two inches of ice had formed on the surface of these pools.  We also began to encounter—quite often—places where another rig traveling through ahead of us had used a chainsaw to saw apart and remove fallen lodgepole pines from across the primitive road.  A quarter-mile later, tracks in the snow revealed where the truck preceding us had given up, turned around, and backtracked out of the lodgepole forest.

We found ourselves breaking trail and quickly encounter several deep puddles.  Our rig crashed through them—bucking on the way in and the way out.  Not long after, we encounter trees across the road.

Out with the chainsaw.

The end came a few yards after clearing the second tree.  We came upon a frozen pool some thirty or so feet across.  No way around through the trees.  The puddle looked pretty deep.  My partner and I climbed out of the truck and assessed.  He busted through the ice with a shovel and tested the depth in a few spots.  The shovel went deep midway along the length of the pool.

“What do you think?  Try it?” he asked.

“Doesn’t look good to me.  I don’t want to spend the night here.”

“Yeah, the ice bothers me too.”

Back down into the valleys on the same road we went.  Sometimes you cross the mountains.  Sometimes you don’t.

Entering the Mountains

The Expanse Around Us

Sawing a Tree Out of the Road

—Mitchell Hegman

An Important Delivery

At 8:30 last night, headlights appeared on the hill above the stretch of prairie before my house.  The headlights quickly sailed down the hill and directed themselves toward my house.

I recognized the lights within a few seconds of seeing them: the UPS truck.

Over the last week I have ordered all sorts items from Amazon. 

Wow, I thought as the UPS van backed into my drive, what is so important it requires delivery at 8:30 at night?

I flipped on my outside lights and leaned out my door to meet the driver.  “Keeping you out a bit late tonight,” I remarked.

“Amazon Prime,” he simply replied.  He handed me the package.

Naturally, I wanted to see which of my orders was so important.  My razor blades, perhaps?  I opened the box as soon as I stepped back inside the house.  And there it was: rosemary spice.

—Mitchell Hegman

Garbage Dump

When I was a kid, riding my bike out to explore our city landfill—what we called the garbage dump then—was one of my favorite pastimes.  I think that habit paid off for me.  Junking up my house feels perfect now.

—Mitchell Hegman

Just This

Intellectual pursuits are fine so long as you have remembered to take out the trash.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Planet Formerly Named Earth

I am worried about something.

Names.

I am worried about names. 

Let’s start with rock bands.   Take, for example, “Death Cab for Cutie.”  Great music.  Strange name.  And let’s not forget “Toad the Wet Sprocket.”  Another oddly-named band that has also cut some nice tunes.

I recently came across a group called “Flowers Must Die,” a Swedish psych band.  Their music is something of a cross between pouring a bucket of marbles on guitar strings and beating a piano to death with pillows.  I guess what I am trying to say is: their name actually fits.  

I have previously carped about the names of paint colors.   We have, in this category, “Tornado Season” by Behr.  This color is something of a graying blue.  And, according to information I found posted on Farrow & Ball, the color “Arsenic” is a “lively mint green.”

“Question!!!”

“Yes, Mitch?”

“Why not call it mint green?”

So, I was thinking about planets.

What if the same folks responsible for naming rock bands and paint colors take over the naming of planets.  Perhaps me might end up with, “The Planet Formerly Named Earth.”   Maybe a future destination would be a planet named “Non-Committal Crickets” or an Earth-like discovery named “The Lawn Mowers.”

“Question!!!”

“Yes, Mitch?”

“Did Frank Zappa actually name his son Dweezil and his daughter Moon Unit?”

—Mitchell Hegman

On the Other Hand

-  The early bird (flying in a groggy state) strikes the window.

-  You should always have a full tank of gas in your automobile…in the event you need to evacuate.

-  A committee has the advantage of slowing down the process of making bad decisions.

—Mitchell Hegman

Camera

At the age of twenty-three I purchased my first 35mm camera.  Once I learned I could alter the light, I realized the world is not how you see it.  The world is how you imagine it.

—Mitchell Hegman

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning, a mouse rushed inside my garage from outside when I opened the overhead door to back out my car.

Upon seeing the mouse do this, I did what any sensible human will do when faced with such an event.  I screamed, “Aaaaaayyyyy!”

The mouse dashed under my car.  By the time I knelt down to scan under the car, the little bugger had flung himself of to an unknown hiding place within my garage.

I shoved aside a nearby propane tank and bag of water softener salt to see if the mouse was hunkering behind those.  No luck.  I had no choice but to leave the mouse in my garage.  I backed my car out and closed the overhead door.

Up on returning home later, I set a live trap baited with feta cheese on the garage floor.  Within two hours, I captured my quarry.  As I walked the mouse out onto the prairie to set it free, I gave it an appropriate scolding:

“The house is mine.  The prairie is yours.  And, I must tell you—I have a fat, but surprisingly fast housecat.  He does not practice catch and release.  I suggest you keep to your own.”

At mid-prairie, I let the mouse free.

What did you do on Tuesday?

—Mitchell Hegman

Alien Abduction

Back in the 1950s and 1960s a spate of “alien abduction” stories began cropping up.  I am talking about extraterrestrials swooping down in flying saucers and snatching up humans.

In the 1970s and 1980s these stories took on something of a more lurid tone.  People began claiming they would be abducted from their house (usually while in bed and wearing something sexy) and then be taken to a spaceship where the extraterrestrials would fiddle with them.  This “fiddling” often included big-eyed aliens using anal probes to examine their human subjects.

The aliens would return their human subjects after an appropriate level of poking and prodding.

I am in no position to question why aliens from outer space would want to anally probe someone, but I definitely don’t like the sound of it.

Honestly, I was, from beginning to end, fairly skeptical regarding these stories of abduction.  But I am now in a position to soften on my doubt.

Something is going on while I am sleeping at night.

Some mornings, I wake to find my bedding in a twisted-up mess and my body sprawled in an awkward position.

Obviously, I have been thrashing about violently in my sleep.  More and more, I am convinced I am fending off aliens from outer space.

What else could account for this?

I have posted a photograph of what my bedding looks like after I wake from a night of a near-abduction.

 

—Mitchell Hegman

The Last Walk

My sister, Connie, passed last year.   We later spread her ashes on a grassy hill overlooking Butte, Montana.  She and her husband, Tony, moved to Butte something over twenty years ago.

Connie loved Butte.  She loved the authentic but proud people living in Butte.  She particularly enjoyed her Granite Street home and the Painted Lady Victorian homes around her.

Two days ago, Tony and I took Connie’s four dogs for a walk.  Their final walk.

Seamus.

Max.

Phoenix.

Boogie.

Each of these dogs—some together—shared the house with Connie.  Each had their own stories.  Some tragic.  All loving.  Phoenix outlived Connie by a few months.

With sober purpose, Tony and I walked to the crest of the same open hill where the ashes of my big sister were spread.  I carried Max and Boogie.

Boogie was my favorite—a sweet collie mix who always sought me out and, more or less, fell against me as an expression of fondness.

There on the hill, with a fleet of blue mountains surrounding us, with Butte below us and filling her streets with shiny cars, with cured grasses wavering around our ankles, we spread the ashes of the dogs.  I put Boogie out first.

Ashes to ashes, my boy. 

Dogs to dust.

—Mitchell Hegman

 

The Last Best Place

In recent years, Montana has become known as “the last best place.”  I like that nickname.  In my mind, I have sometimes tried to decide which is my personal last best place in Montana.  Glacier National Park?  The Front Range?  The Upper Missouri River?

I could go on with a dozen more specific places.

Two days ago, while poking along at the lakeshore below my house, I literally found the last best place at the water’s edge of my very own property!

Posted today is proof of my find.

—Mitchell Hegman

Greed

Greed is the dark shadow that always leads.

—Mitchell Hegman

Together Apart

We are connected today in ways I could not have imagined even fifteen years ago.  From my remote mountain cabin, no more than fifteen minutes from the Bob Marshall wilderness, I am able to video chat with Desiree in the Philippines.

Really, most of the world is so connected.

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, while the entire world remained in isolation, Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters, connected superstars from around the world to record a new version of “Times Like These.”

I love the message and I love result.

Take a listen:

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GElP4YdrBE

In Mountain Light

Almost any Montanan you talk with will tell you this is their favorite time of the year.  Temperatures are cool at night but ideal in the afternoons.  In the mountains, the quality of light changes.  Grasses in open meadows turn golden.  The waters run clear.  Trees and brush blush with their final showy colors.

On a trip to my cabin, I drove far out of the way and stopped to take a couple short hikes so I might enjoy another fine day.  A subtle but earthy perfume filled the forests in which I walked.  The Sun followed me on a tumble-down path.

I have posted a few photographs from my day, including a (not particularly well-focused) photograph of a turkey.  I ran across six of turkeys and had to snap pictures quickly as they sifted away through the tall grass.

—Mitchell Hegman

Nightwork

I have been working with the moon at night.  The moon is a steady worker, which is good.  And our project is simple enough.

The moon, which is full at present, stands outside my bay windows late at night painting the entire firmament navy blue and painting soft light across valley expanse.

My part of the project is to stand at the bay windows inside my darkened house and study everything illuminated by the moon.

I have much to consider.

Who owns the artificial specs of light crossing the firmament above?  Why does this one blink and that one not?  Which fold of scattered pine and juniper cradles the coyote that cries when small airplanes cross low in the sky?  Where go the chickadees at night?  How many years before the lights from new homes, which now steadily creep across the valley floor toward me, reach these windows?  How long before Desiree?

And the moon steadily paints its way from one side of my life to the other.

And I do my part, just standing here.

—Mitchell Hegman

Kohlrabi

Posted today are a couple photographs from an excursion through rows of kohlrabi my neighbor’s garden yesterday.  Kohlrabi, sometimes called German turnip, is a vegetable in the same family as kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

As I walked through the rows, I was most struck by beads of water that had collected on the leaves following recent watering by a sprinkler.  Posted today are a couple images of water on the kohlrabi leaves.  When I brought my smarter-than-me-phone in for a tight focus, I captured something of an “otherworldly” image. 

    

—Mitchell Hegman

Risk and Reward

Reduce the risk by one quarter and the reward will be cut in half.

—Mitchell Hegman