Reading the Newspaper

I am, in a sense, standing on the deck of a sinking ship.  While most people have abandoned ship, I (stubbornly) remain in place.   I am talking about the newspaper.  I can’t seem to stop receiving and reading the paper and print version.

I have tried to convert to reading the local news online, but something about scrolling on my computer leaves me dissatisfied.  I feel a need to hold all the news in my hands at once.  I enjoy leaving a newspaper spread open on the counter so I can flutter about doing other things while occasionally stopping to flick through the pages.

There can be no doubt newspapers are vanishing.  Following are some statistics from an article by Milos Djordjevic:

• In 2020 alone, more than 300 US newspapers closed.
• Print and digital ad revenues saw double-digit decreases in 2020.
• 20% of US news readers pay to access online editions of their favorite newspapers.
• The Wall Street Journal had the highest circulation of all US papers in 2020.
• Only 3% of US adults cite print newspapers as their primary information source.
• The number of newspaper newsroom employees has dropped by 50% since 2008.

At some point, I suppose I will need to give up on my printed news.  Once I do, how will I start fires at my cabin?

—Mitchell Hegman

Having a Bad Day

With my walking stick, I stumble through tide pools and dry stalks in ocean brine.  Beside me, the ocean shuffles white over green, dark over oyster beds.   Late sunlight struggles down through a talus of clouds.

I am hated by fiddler crabs scurrying click-clack over yellow strokes of wet sand, and I am no hero to the terns unwinding the blue threads of sky.

Listen, I am not wrong about the world being against me.  The sales clerk at my pharmacy winks at everyone but me.  On my last visit, she smashed by box of Band-Aids.

And there is more.   My boss forced me to a remote corner of the office.  “You lack zest,” he says.

I don’t know “zest.”

Walking slowly and without direction makes sense to me.  Sand, cumulous cloud, rafts of driftwood: these things are liquid.

The dull roar of miles of waves breaking against shore is the sound of me letting go.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Lost

A partial list of something lost to the passage of time:

• The artwork and notes found on LP record covers
• Wing windows drawing cool air into the front seat of a car
• The mechanical sound of someone dialing a rotary phone in the other room
• Pockets filled with change
• The absolute cool of Dean Martin
• Chains made from the pull-tabs on aluminum cans
• Pet rocks
• Everyone wearing bell-bottom pants

—Mitchell Hegman

What’s in Your Burner?

If my father were still alive, he would say: “Your yard is lousy with chipmunks, Mitch.”

The expression “lousy with” was his way of saying you are being overrun.

I really do have a lot of chipmunks hanging around my house this year.  I have never seen so many, actually.  At times, I may see three or four of them at once.

The chipmunks love streaking along the brick ledge of my house and scampering along the rails of the surrounding post-and-pole fence.  Several of them hang around my back deck.  A couple weeks ago, when I dried my clothes, the dryer huffed a chipmunk nest out from the dryer vent.  That chipmunk had figured out how to open the flap and get inside the vent.

More recently, I spotted a chipmunk with nest-building material in its mouth hanging around my barbeque grill.  It occurred to me that I might want to inspect the grill.  Posted today is a photograph of a chipmunk nest I found in the burner affixed to the side of my grill.

I never use the burner.

I left the nest as I found it and covered the grill again.  I can live with the nest in the burner.  I am not sure if the chipmunk can deal with me using the other half of the grill from time to time.

Chipmunk Nest

—Mitchell Hegman

Start to Finish

In September of 1991, Dave Gruber and crew laid the brick wainscot around my house.  Yesterday, almost exactly thirty years later, Dave Gruber and crew laid the brick around the knee wall supporting my sunroom glass.

The structural and exterior work on my sunroom is now complete.

It’s fitting to complete this project using the same brick I removed as the first step in the process of adding my sunroom.  Moreover, it’s deeply satisfying to complete the project with the help of the same contractor and friend who laid the brick when I first built the house.

Brick in Front, 1991

Sunroom, August of 2021

Dave, September of 1991

George, August of 2021

Sunroom End Wall, 2021

—Mitchell Hegman

The Drummer

As much as I love rock and roll music, there are but a handful of musicians who impressed me with their lifestyles after they stepped outside the spotlight.   Charlie Watts, the drummer for the Rolling Stones, was one those rare people who impressed me.  His passing the other day (at the age of 80) leaves a hole in rock and roll that can never be entirely filled.

Watts joined the Rolling Stones in 1963 and managed to remain in the group until his passing almost 60 years later.

That alone is an incredible feat.

He was a calming spirit for everyone.  His tranquil and cool demeanor, and his ability to avoid clashes of ego, are much of what held the band together through the decades.  In spite of his mega-stardom, he remained humble, if not self-effacing.

Both Keith Richards and Mick Jagger considered Watts the backbone of the rolling stones.  He managed to do this while using a small drum kit and purposely eschewed flashy displays or solos in his drumming style.

Most impressively, he married Shirley Ann Shepherd in 1964 and remained married to her until his passing.  He always put his family life ahead of his rock and roll life.  In my way of thinking, you can’t do better than that.

—Mitchell Hegman

My Stolen and Recovered 8-Track Tapes

During my high school years in the early 1970s, my main body of friends were the long-hairs and party kids.  While my immediate friends were not inclined to criminal activities and mischief, we regularly circulated around and partied with the “bad element” within our generation. 

There were times, oddly enough, when having connections to the darker side proved helpful.  One incident from my junior year always comes to mind when I consider this.

One weekend, while “cruising the drag” as we regularly did, I left my car in a parking lot and hopped into another car to ride around with some friends.

When I returned to my car, I discovered someone had stolen two of my 8-track tapes.

A great loss at the time.

While in school the following week, I complained to one of my sketchy side friends about the loss of the tapes.

“Where was your car?” he asked.

“Capital Sports parking lot.”

“What tapes were stolen?”

“Steely Dan and Edgar Winter.”

“I’ll get them back for you.”

“Okay,” I said, not truly thinking I would see my tapes again.

A couple days later my friend found me in the school parking lot and handed me my 8-track tapes.

“Where did you get them?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “And it won’t happen again.”  

 “Okay,” I said.  “Thank, man.” 

—Mitchell Hegman

Best Things

Here, a list of best things:

• The sound of the blade on my miter saw singing for a full second after I cut through a piece of hardwood
• Spelling Kisssing with an extra “s” (because that’s how it should be spelled if the kiss was especially good)
• Rocks you can see through
• Coffee in the cabin on a rain-mist morning
• A pair of eagles spiraling up into the clouds inside a thermal
• Proving myself wrong
• Takeoff
• White butterflies on red flowers
• Walking across a frozen lake to reach a burning campfire
• Doing your best work even when nobody else will see it

—Mitchell Hegman

The Urge to Write Poetry

I have been feeling the urge to write poetry again.  Writing poetry is not practical.  I spent the better part of my twenties trying to write a good poem.  I filled notebooks with bad poems.  Daily, I read Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Richard Hugo.

From that, I have piles of notebooks that are going nowhere.

The urge to write a poem can be a terrible and all-consuming thing.

Really, I am fighting the urge to write a poem.  I think Don Marquis said it best: “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Repairing the Human Brain

Normally, I avoid posting anything that will occupy anyone for more than four or five minutes.  Today, I am making a notable exception.

If you don’t have time to watch this when you first land here, save the link and watch the posted video when you have fifteen minutes.

The video, a TED presentation, is about the human brain.  The presentation is stunningly crisp.  The information gives me hope we may find a better way to overcome a lot of our most severe problems.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esPRsT-lmw8 

Game Camera Captures

A couple weeks ago, I strapped a new game camera I purchased to a tree near my cabin.  Yesterday, I grabbed the camera to see what it had picked up over the last two weeks.  The camera captured a couple dozen images of deer and one final shot of me walking up to retrieve it.

After clearing the images from the flash card, I hiked up the mountainside behind my cabin to place the camera at a new location. 

Today, I am posting two images I pulled from the camera.  One features a pretty impressive buck.  The other photograph reveals set of triplet deer with their mother.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Thought Stream

All day, ravens have been crashing up against the low clouds.  Now the clouds look ragged and bruised.

No matter what you claim, I know ravens are only a little smart.  They can be fooled.  They are convinced, for example, the reflection on the moon a lake is as real as the one in the sky.

For some reason, that reminds me of the time a kid I knew swallowed pretty rock because he thought it would make him more valuable.

Sometimes, we seem awash with silly ideas.

And I have two questions:

First, why does snow smell so much better than rain?

Second, is kindness more important than hard work?

I suppose neither question will garner a satisfactory answer and, in the end, I will be happy if a bunch of small birds mob the ravens and chase them the hell away. 

—Mitchell Hegman

Two Days of Rain

After nearly three months without rain, two days of rain and cool weather has turned the ground soft and sent butterflies dancing across the alfalfa fields.

It’s not much, but it’s better than drought.

—Mitchell Hegman

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

When I was kid, I pestered a slightly older (and much smarter) kid to teach me how to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

The word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, according to Mary Poppins, the Disney character who first used it, is a word you use when you say nothing at all.

In my home town of East Helena, Montana, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is what we would call a five-dollar word.  I would also add that as I became a bigger kid, I swapped five-dollar words for a handful of choice swear words.

Curse words are also good words to use when you say nothing at all.

I arrive today with a new word: paraskevidekatriaphobia.  It’s five-dollar word for “fear of Friday the thirteenth.”

According to Dr. Donald Dossey, the psychotherapist specializing in phobias who devised the word, you get over the fear of Friday the thirteenth just by learning to pronounce paraskevidekatriaphobia.

I don’t know about that.  At this point, I am sticking with my curse words.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Heart-Shaped Rock

In the long run, rocks can be distilled down to only two types: heart-shaped rocks and rocks that are not shaped like hearts.

It really is that simple.

I am a collector of rocks.  Always have been.  I constantly look for rocks as I walk through this world.  Over the years, I have found my share of heart-shaped rocks and dragged them home.  

Posted today is a photograph of my favorite heart rock.  This rock exhibits a shape somewhere between that of an actual heart and the cartoonish version of a heart.  Something about the shape and coloring of this rock particularly appeals to me.

I like the rock so much, I need to give it to someone.

Today, in digital form, I give this rock to my Desiree with all appropriate love (and more) attached.  And on the day when Desiree finally arrives here in Montana, I shall place it in her palm.

—Mitchell Hegman

Observations from a Hotel

I have been teaching electrical licensing exam preparation in a small conference room at a Hotel in Helena for the last couple days.  In doing so, I have managed to observe three different men on the maintenance crew for the hotel.  Apparently, the better part of being a maintenance man there is the ability to suck in your belly and flirt with the cute young woman working at the lobby desk.  

—Mitchell Hegman

How Babies Are Made

 

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yleO8Mn3G14

Shooting Holes in Signs

I can’t say it’s a constant issue, but signs posted along our country roads sometimes end up with bullet holes in them.  As a general rule, I and the nearby landowners get a little twisted up about this kind of thing.

A parcel of property adjacent to me recently sold to a gentleman who opted to beat the sign-shooters to the quick.  Yesterday, upon hearing what I thought was something banging against me house, I peered out my bay window and saw my new neighbor shooting holes into his own sign with a pistol.

I’m not sure what to make of this approach to things, but the sign and the property are his.  So, he’s got that going for him.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Robert Frost Said

—"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”

—"The best way out is always through.”

—"Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”

Ava’s Hair

One night, when Ava was thirteen, she fell asleep with the window near her bed wide open.  Early the next morning, she woke with the half-moon caught up in her long dark hair.  She lay there blinking for the longest time.  It’s a curious thing to have the moon caught in your hair.

If she tried to get out of bed, Ava wondered, would she find herself anchored there by the moon?

Worse, if she got up and walked away, would the moon remain caught in her hair?  Would she pull the moon from the sky?

Luckily, Ava kept a pair of scissors in her nightstand.  The scissors were easily within reach and, grasping them, Ava cautiously snipped her hair from around the moon.  Once she had freed herself from the moon, Ava went on with her day as if were any other.

“Ava!” exclaimed her mother when they met at the breakfast table, “What has happened to your beautiful hair?”

“I cut the half-moon from it,” Ava explained.  “It’s beautiful in a different way now.”

—Mitchell Hegman

A Better Writer

 A better writer would have written this using nine words.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Crack in the Algae

For the last few weeks, my lakefront water has alternated between clear and covered with algae.  Yesterday, on a walkabout, I found a layer of algae all along our shoreline.  I also noticed what looked like a crack of clear water running for at least two-hundred feet through the becalmed green layer on the surface.

I stood near the shore for a moment, wondering what caused the algae to crack.  And then it struck me: I was seeing the trail left by one of our local muskrats swimming along the shore as they regularly do.

—Mitchell Hegman

When a Problem is not a Problem

 If you read a bio on Clint Pulver, the subject of the video posted, you will find he is a motivational speaker, author, actor, professional drummer, and workforce expert.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p5286T_kn0

Glitchy Thinking

I am regularly subject to silliness and absurdity in my thought processes.  I think this may be the result of kind of operational glitch in my brain.

I think I can explain the problem using an analogy.

Imagine the brain as a series of chambers for storing information (which is in the form of a kind of fluid).  The chambers are all interconnected with a complex array of pipes and valves.  When processing thoughts in a standardized manner, various valves will open and close to regulate the transfer of the appropriate information between the chambers.

My brain does all of that reasonably well, but, repeatedly, a valve in one of my chambers remains partially stuck in the open position and a single bit of unnecessary information is continuously pumped throughout the other chambers.

I can cite a perfect example of what results from this sort of glitch.

For the last couple of years, I have been placing daily calls to Desiree in the Philippines.  My brain chamber containing the Philippines is glitchy.

The Philippines is always circulating though my brain.   As a result, when I see my bottle of Cetaphil moisturizing lotion, it becomes “Cetaphilippines.”

Philadelphia becomes “Philaphilippines.”

Philosophy becomes “Philosophilppines.”

And on it goes in my overphilled brain.

—Mitchell Hegman

Making Exceptions

I would not tolerate living with person who occasionally and inexplicably piddled or defecated on the carpet and rugs inside my house.

But I tolerate that from my 20 pounds of housecat?

—Mitchell Hegman

The Mule Deer Zone

I have a zone of elevation around my yard I call the mule deer zone.   The zone starts at ground level and extends to five feet above the ground.  The zone indicates the range of reach for browsing mule deer.  The branches of trees and bushes within the zone are regularly stripped free of leaves by foraging deer.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I decided when I first moved to the country not to constantly push against the natural landscape and not to fight the indigenous animals.

Some of the trees and bushes wear the look of living in the zone fairly well, others appear somewhat spindly.  But they survive.

The deer survive.

I survive.

Mayday Tree

Chokecherry Bush

—Mitchell Hegman

A Beat-Up Swallowtail Butterfly

It’s a rough and tumble world for butterflies.  They might look pretty, but butterflies are both tough and sometimes abused.  On a recent walk into the mountains, I spotted a swallowtail butterfly fluttering around a lush and narrow swale near a small creek.

The area was already swarming with dozens of dragonflies and a horde of orangish butterflies I think are variegated fritillary butterflies.  When the swallowtail attempted to land on the head of a musk thistle for a snack, three of the orange butterflies immediately mobbed it.

The swallow tail circled about and tried again.

Same result.

On the third attempt, the swallowtail landed successfully on the thistle flower and remained there long enough for me to capture several images.  Only in looking at the images later did I notice the damage on the right wing of the swallowtail. 

Obviously, the butterfly has been in a few skirmishes of some sort.   

I have posted a photograph of the swallowtail along with a fritillary (found online) and two other images I captured on my hike.

Swallowtail Butterfly

Variegated Fritillary (Photo: Megan McCarthy)

Tall Tamaracks

Arctic Aster

—Mitchell Hegman

Western Tiger Salamander

A smallish motion in the middle of my country road near the cattail pond and mailboxes caught my attention.

Strange motion.

At first, I thought I was seeing a fish flopping.   Then I thought wounded bird.  I drew to a halt near the mystery critter and exited my car to investigate.

To my amazement, I discovered a western tiger salamander slowly inching across the road in its wracking back and forth walking style.  This is the first tiger salamander I have seen in my life.

After capturing a few images of the salamander, I scooped the reptile into my hand, walked it across the road, and placed it near the cattails where it was headed.  The salamander did not struggle against me at all and felt surprisingly solid and muscular when I picked it up.

Western tiger salamanders range throughout Montana on the eastern side of the Continental Divide.  According to the Montana Field Guide: Adults are found in virtually any habitat, providing there is a terrestrial substrate suitable for burrowing and a body of water nearby suitable for breeding.

Adult western tiger salamanders tend to remain underground in burrows in prairie or agricultural habitats and only emerge for any length of time to breed in the water available to them.

Western Tiger Salamander

—Mitchell Hegman

Love and Rain

Yesterday, finally, the first rain reached my house.  It has been two hot months without moisture.

The rain fell for several minutes, thrumming down through my rain gutters and ushering forth the scent of the prairie sagebrush, cured grass, and earth.

Rain is life.

As good fortune would have it, the rain fell while I was video chatting with Desiree in the Philippines.

Vital these: love and rain.

After standing on the porch to watch the rain with Desiree, the thought occurred: “Des,” I announced, “We need to experience our first rain in the sunroom!”

“Yes,” she answered.

Off to the sunroom I pranced with my smarter-than-me-phone held before me.  Together, by means ten-thousand various modern inventions, we shared the first rainwater streaming down the glass of my new sunroom.

The rain did not last long, but it was worthy of celebration.

First Rain on the Sunroom Glass

—Mitchell Hegman

Smoke and Ash

I wipe down the top of my hot tub cover on a fairly regular basis and then apply a protectant to shield the cover from sun and weather damage.  Over the last couple of weeks, the constant smoke from surrounding wildfires deposited a notable grime on the cover.  More recently, flecks of ash have drifted down from aloft.

Yesterday, I wiped down the cover.

The results made me hope I have not been breathing in a lot what has been sifting through our skies recently.  I have posted a photograph of the first in series of wet paper towels I used to wipe down the cover.

—Mitchell Hegman

Scary, Not Scary

Scary: A poltergeist throwing chairs and breaking glasses in your kitchen.

Not Scary: A poltergeist reorganizing clothes in your closet.

Scary: Running out of toilet paper.

Not Scary: Running out of note paper.

Scary: Spiders with wings.

Not Scary: Butterflies that glow in the dark.

—Mitchell Hegman