Steve Perry’s Journey

Steve Perry, the powerful voice behind the band Journey's hits, left the band at the height of their fame. After years of touring and recording, he found himself in turmoil, struggling to reconnect with his true self outside the pressures of the music industry. Although success and fame initially brought him pleasure and satisfaction, the constant touring and turmoil of the industry eventually wore him down.

It takes an extraordinary person to step away from such fame, but Perry felt he had no other option. Once he left the spotlight, the rock star more or less withdrew within himself. During this time of introspection, he met a woman named Kellie Nash, a psychologist battling cancer. Their relationship quickly and profoundly impacted Perry, helping him rediscover a sense of purpose and emotional depth that had been missing in his life. Kellie's courage and outlook on life inspired Perry to open up his heart again. Her influence not only brought him personal healing but also rekindled his passion for music, ultimately guiding him back to the studio years later.

Steve Perry and Kellie Nash were together for only a year and a half before she passed away in December 2012. Their relationship was brief but deeply meaningful for both of them. If you were to ask Steve Perry today what has made his life remarkable, he would likely not say being the frontman for Journey; instead, he would tell you about meeting Kellie Nash.

Steve Perry and Kellie Nash

—Mitchell Hegman

Practical Rocks

I have an extensive rock collection—we’re talking two 6-foot-tall bookshelves filled with specimens, and more. Most of the rocks in my collection are there because I find them pretty or unusual in some manner. A few specimens may be of genuine value, but I don’t necessarily appreciate those any more than the others.

Over the years, however, a handful of rocks have achieved the status of “practical” in my life. For example, on occasion, a rock from the collection assumes the not-so-glamorous role of acting as a paperweight. But others have taken on more critical jobs. Below are three photographs of my practical rocks along with their purposes:

The Rock We Use for Scrubbing Ourselves in the Shower

Rocks for Holding Cedar Planks Submerged in Water While Soaking Them for Use When Grilling Salmon

A Door Holder

—Mitchell Hegman

Satisfying

These are satisfying:

• Watching the leaves of a quaking aspen shimmer in a light breeze.
• Sinking the first nail when beginning a construction project.
• My marriage.
• Finding an arrowhead on the open prairie.
• Sinking the last nail when completing a construction project.
• Catching a fish, then releasing it back into the water and watching it flick away.
• Prodding at the flexing coals of a late-night campfire.
• Splitting rounds of firewood.
• Cresting a mountain pass.

—Mitchell Hegman

Lost in Space

"Lost in Space," a popular 1960s science fiction television series, follows the adventures of the Robinson family as they journey through space on the Jupiter 2 spacecraft. Intended to colonize a distant planet, their mission is sabotaged, leaving them stranded in the vast reaches of space.

What interested me most as I watched the program as a young boy was the robot accompanying the family—an intelligent machine with a human-like appearance that aided the Robinsons by providing crucial information, detecting dangers, and often warning them with its iconic phrase, "Danger, Will Robinson!"

All these years later, it’s shocking how far legitimate humanoid robot technology has advanced. At the end of the blog, I am posting a short video featuring a robot you can purchase for $16,000.

Lost in Space

The Humanoid Agent

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzX1qOIO1bE  

The Mouse Nest (Not Dinner)

I have never eaten a mouse. Granted, if I were starving and eating a mouse was the only option: bon appétit, let’s eat. But I am not starving now, and I was not starving when I opened up my gas grill to cook a plank of salmon and discovered a mouse nest, complete with a mom and her babies, on the grill.

My intent had been to ignite and preheat the grill. Unfortunately, a look inside the nest revealed that the squirming little ones still had their eyes closed and were entirely helpless.

There weren’t many options for me. After taking photographs, I retrieved a square-point shovel, scooped up the nest with its inhabitants inside, and carried it off to a protected place under the propane tank.

Mouse Nest on the Grill

Mom and her Babies

Little Ones

—Mitchell Hegman

Don’t Pet the Fluffy Cows

I watched an hour-long program about human and wild animal encounters in our national parks, mostly in Yellowstone. I’m sure most everyone has seen a video or two of a bison tossing a tourist into the air when the tourist got too close. In fact, memes and t-shirts have widely appeared with the warning: “Don’t pet the fluffy cows.” "Fluffy cows" might sound cute, but in Yellowstone, it’s code for 2,000-pound bison that can flip your car if they feel like it.

So, selfies with a bison are not a great idea. And then you see videos of tourists surrounding bull elk (with pointy antlers), approaching a moose, or trying to pet a bear. These are all CLMs (career-limiting maneuvers), as my late friend John suggested.

Tourists can be pretty foolish when it comes to interacting with animals in our national parks. But to be fair, if my twenty-something-year-old buddies and I had ended up in Yellowstone instead of on Main Street in East Helena, Montana, after leaving Frank’s Place bar following several rounds of drinks, we probably would have tried to pet the fluffy cows or take a selfie with one.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Asparagus Patch

In late September of 2022, Desiree and I gathered seeds from some wild asparagus growing along the slow-rolling Musselshell River at the edge of Roundup, Montana. A few weeks later, we planted the seeds in a small plot we prepared along the fence on the east side of our house. A handful of plants sprouted last spring and pushed on (in rather spindly fashion) through the growing season. This spring, a host of skinny spears appeared, and we have been tending to them ever since.

Asparagus, a perennial vegetable, is a member of the lily family and is related to other spring crops like garlic, leeks, and onions. Though native to Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia, it has escaped domestication and thrives in the wild here in Montana. Asparagus spears can shoot up as much as 6 inches in a single day. When starting asparagus from seed, as we did, it usually takes about three years for the patch to become fully productive for harvest. If the spears are not harvested, the tips unfurl into a fern that can reach almost 5 feet. Female plants will also produce small red berries that attract songbirds, which then distribute the seeds through their droppings, explaining why asparagus often appears under fences. 

Asparagus is known for its diuretic properties, but I simply like eating it for the flavor, especially freshly emerged spears. I am hoping we will manage to harvest a spear or two next spring. Today, I am sharing two photographs taken at our personal asparagus patch.

Asparagus Ferns

The Asparagus Patch

—Mitchell Hegman

The Aspen Tree (and Lemon Tree Update)

I have posted a photograph of myself standing alongside a young quaking aspen tree. I want to make it clear that I am not cheating on my lemon tree. In fact, my lemon tree was right there on the other side of the sunroom when the photograph of me and the aspen was taken. For posterity, I wanted a picture of the aspen before Desiree and I take it up to the cabin for planting.

Since we’re talking about the lemon tree, I must say it is quite healthy and continues to gain height. The tree has actually reached a point where some selective trimming may be beneficial. I have also posted a photograph of myself standing behind the lemon tree. Once again, I am holding a can of Cold Smoke Beer as a reference for size.

The Aspen Tree

The Lemon Tree

—Mitchell Hegman

Pest Control

The mice are sleeping soundly now that I have unearthed the voles from our flower garden and sent them packing. The last vole I released scuttled off in the exact opposite direction I expected, but voles will confound you at every turn.

I have also captured and carted away for distant release five flower-and-berry-eating chipmunks. The last of those ate a blueberry I offered before I set it free in a juniper and bull pine thicket. "You’re luckier than you expect," I called after the chipmunk. "Read Sylvia Plath’s The Blue Moles sometime, and you’ll see what I mean…"

It’s not that I like the mice, but they have me by sheer numbers. I lack the energy to capture and move all of them. The voles I captured by day, the chipmunks in the early morning and late evenings.

The mice swarm through the night, and I set no trap.

I’ve lost all interest in killing things. I killed with glee when I was younger but found it less and less satisfying as I went on. Today, I capture and release every manner of creepy-crawly thing, and I often wonder how I ended up landing here on a planet where most living things, to survive, must kill and eat something smaller or less hapless.

A Vole in the Live Trap

—Mitchell Hegman

Maintaining Idiot Status

On a somewhat regular basis, I prove in some fashion that I am firmly maintaining my status as an idiot. Yesterday morning, I did it again, using my old-timey coffee maker (one more time) as a prop to help me display my stuff. I somehow managed to overfill the coffee maker’s water reservoir. Naturally, the overfill weep hole at the back of the machine began squirting water all over the kitchen counter.

As my friend Gary often reminds me, it’s never too soon to panic. With this as my guiding instinct, I thrashed out, reaching for a paper towel. I didn’t quite reach the paper towel dispenser, but I did manage to tip over a full cup of coffee from the previous brew in spectacular fashion. A tsunami of coffee splashed out over the kitchen counter and the floor below.

With this, I escalated the required clean-up markedly. By the time I was finished wiping up the floor, the counter, and all the items on the counter, I had four dishtowels that required immediate washing.

Another idiot job well done and documented. I am sharing a photograph I managed to take before I cleaned up the mess.

The Coffee Spill

—Mitchell Hegman

The Time Thing

I remember having conversations with my grandmother about time when I was still in my teens. She shared how, as you get older, memories and their place in time start to merge together. “Sometimes, things that happened fifty years ago seem like they occurred just yesterday,” she told me. “And events that happened a few days ago feel like something from the distant past.”

I had no real reference for what my grandmother told me. After all, ten years earlier, I was pulling the petals off flowers just to be a brat and running my toy trucks off imaginary cliffs. Now that I am roughly the same age my grandmother was when we had our discussions about time, I understand.

My memories have merged together. The events and memories registered in my mind no longer fall on a timeline in an orderly or logical fashion. Everything has jumbled and scrunched together. This is especially true of anything that occurred from the late 1980s until now. Furthermore, events with a frame of reference involving my house seem like a solid block—a singularity, if you will.

And, yes, it seems like only yesterday my grandmother and I sat in her kitchen talking about how weird time is.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Tallulah Bankhead Said

Tallulah Bankhead was an American actress known for her larger-than-life personality, deep, husky voice, and unapologetic wit. Born in 1902, she became a star on both stage and screen in the emerging days of Hollywood. Bankhead was also renowned for her wild, hedonistic lifestyle, openly embracing her bisexuality at a time when such openness was taboo. She is also responsible for providing one of my favorite quotes: “If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Late-Night Lesson

I learned a lesson between late last night and this morning: When you wake in the middle of the night and have a snack, don’t mix cultures while doing so. In my case, I ate a half-dozen pretzels (a Bavarian treat) immediately followed by a Medjool date (of Moroccan origin). This morning, my mouth tastes like a string of dust-covered camels stomping through the sweepings from the floor of a filthy bakery.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Twisted Storm

A fearsome storm descended onto the prairie two evenings ago. The lowest clouds twisted as they engulfed the mountains south of my house and rushed into the valley. The stormfront quickly swirled darkness into the light, and sharp winds elbowed the linden and mayday trees in front of my house. Soon enough, the bottom of the clouds fell away, and curtains of rain descended to the earth. Lightning thrust forth. Naturally, I felt compelled to run outside to the end of my drive and watch. I am sharing two photographs of the storm.

A Twisted Storm

Lightning inside Curtains of Rain

—Mitchell Hegman

More Twisted Maxims

•  When in doubt, make stuff up.
• Follow your heart, unless you're undergoing a heart transplant.
• Just be yourself, until the arrest warrants begin to pile up.
• The key to happiness isn't actually a key; it’s soup—warm soup on a chilly winter day.
• We have tomorrow for a reason, but you may not like the reason.
• Every dog has its day, but cats have taken hold of the nights.

—Mitchell Hegman

Desperation

I would guess that only a small percentage of the world’s population has seen a chipmunk with a look of total desperation etched on its face. Today, as a sort of twisted public service, I am posting a photograph of a chipmunk I captured in a live trap on my back deck. What you see in the photo is a chipmunk consumed by desperation and in a panic to be set free.

After taking the photo, the two of us went on a long drive before I stopped and let the little critter loose in a green gully bottom. “No more eating my purple whatcha-call-ems!” I admonished as the chipmunk darted off.

I Want Out!

—Mitchell Hegman

The New Quiet

A hawk scoured the sun-bleached grasses on the flank of a nearby hill as the honor guard cracked their three-volley salute. For a moment following the final volley, everything but the hawk stood still. The roving clouds paused. The wind failed to lift the nearby flags.

We came to green grass amid the bleached hills to commit to an opening in the earth another man, a friend this time. We recalled the high school days, his arrivals on loud motorcycles, the absences, and his joyous returns.

Speaking in softer tones than when we arrived, the lot of us dispersed back into the dry valley beyond. Only the hawk remained unchanged by the new quiet we assumed. I spotted it swinging from cloud to cloud, now a little higher in the air.

Rest in peace, Michael McVeigh.

—Mitchell Hegman

Perfect Calm

In the perfect calm of an August morning, Desiree and I joined friends for a boating excursion on Holter Lake. The placid waters offered flawless reflections of the landscape surrounding the lake as we sliced through its sun-silvered center. Though we are presently dry and amid an active fire season, the day proved to be exceptionally beautiful.

Desiree at the Launch

A Pair of Trees

Desiree Catching a Perch

Shoreline Reflections

A Twin Sun

—Mitchell Hegman

Splitting Wood

I have always had a need to stay busy. As a young boy, I twiddled with anything within reach if I wasn’t provided with something to occupy my time. I thought about this while loading up rounds of wood at the cabin to haul home for splitting.

During my preteen and teenage years, I spent considerable time at my father’s cabin in the steep and heavily wooded mountains outside of Plains, Montana. Alongside the cabin sat a stack of rounds—typically tamarack, which grew with a straight grain and split nicely. Nearby, you would find a large round, upright on the ground, which served as the block for splitting firewood. Generally, an axe could be found with its blade sunk down into the top block, so the handle extended out for easy reach. This is where I kept busy in those years: splitting rounds into the narrow chunks required for the wood-burning cookstove used for both cooking and heating the cabin.

I loved splitting firewood with an axe. I found deep satisfaction in driving the axe down through the heart of a cordwood length and watching the wood snap into two neat halves, emitting a sharp tree-scent as it did so. I enjoyed listening to the echoes of the axe-fall, tossed from tree to tree in the surrounding forest.

Split Firewood

—Mitchell Hegman

Weather Events

On Saturday, following an extended dry spell, heavy precipitation fell at various places in our region of Montana. I left my house for the cabin just as the rain started, but after driving only a couple of miles, I drove out of the rainfall. A half-hour after leaving the house, while climbing Flesher Pass, Desiree said, “Is that snow?” She pointed just off the highway.

“Kinda looks like it,” I remarked. Rounding the next curve, we encountered huge swaths of white. “That’s hail,” I said. Soon, the entire expanse around us was covered with about 2 inches of white hailstones. You could also see where running water had swept debris across the highway. Desiree snapped photographs as I drove on. The hail tapered off and vanished as we neared the top of the pass.

Driving home on Sunday, I saw signs of heavy rain on our country road as we neared our house. Running water had cut channels across some sections of the hardpack gravel surface. The ground was wet. Once we reached home, I checked my rain gauge. Much to my surprise, I found 2½ inches had accumulated. A chat with my neighbor, Kevin, confirmed that intense rain fell for about two hours after I left the house on Saturday. That’s impressive when you consider that we typically average only 1.2 inches of rain for the entire month of August.

Hail on Flesher Pass

Rain in My Gauge

—Mitchell Hegman

Loading Fir Rounds

Five years ago, some friends and I dropped two 90-foot-tall Douglas-fir trees that were dying due to a beetle attack and threatening to fall on my cabin. After felling the trees, we cut them into rounds and stacked the rounds in the forest behind the cabin to dry fully. Over the last couple of years, I have been splitting the rounds for firewood.

The Douglas Fir is a remarkable tree that can reach heights of up to 250 feet. Despite its name, it is not considered a true fir. This distinction arises from its cones, which hang down from the branches and fall off whole, a characteristic different from true firs. The Douglas Fir's needles are also unique; they are one inch long, flat, and notably friendly to the touch—flexible and not prickly.

To distinguish between spruce and fir trees, a closer look at the needles is essential. Spruce needles are sharply pointed, square in shape, and can be easily rolled between your fingers. However, these needles are sharp and can "bite" when handled. Fir needles, in contrast, are softer, flat, and cannot be rolled between your fingers.

The name "Douglas-fir" is often hyphenated to reflect that it is not a true fir. Due to its similarities with other species, the Douglas Fir has been mistakenly identified as pine, spruce, hemlock, and even a true fir. Eventually, it was assigned its own genus, Pseudotsuga, which translates to "false hemlock."

Upon arriving at the cabin last night, I loaded the last of the rounds into my truck to haul them home and split them there. Several of the rounds were nearly two feet wide, requiring me to split them with a wedge before loading them into the back of my rig. From beginning to end, this is hard work, but I very much enjoy it.

Resting Alongside the Fir Rounds

—Mitchell Hegman

Reasons I Cannot Be Trusted

 Following is a list of reasons I cannot be trusted:

1. I frequently forget to close at least one window (used for cooling at night) on the hottest days of summer.
2. Moments before I spill something, I usually say, "Don’t worry, I won’t spill this."
3. My math is often faulty, but I am still willing to run with it.
4. A lot of my insights into mechanical contrivances were gained from barroom conversations with men who worked at the smelter in East Helena, Montana.
5. I didn’t learn to properly pronounce "rotisserie" until I was in my 40s.
6. When in a hurry to finish cleaning, I am not opposed to literally sweeping things under the rug.
7. At any given time, the music I am listening to can influence my decision-making.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Dilemma

A problematic thought occurred to me—a dilemma, actually. As anyone close to me knows, spiders creep me out to no end, especially black widows (or “black weirdos,” as my friend’s son calls them). I want nothing to do with them. And then, this thought occurred to me: What if we discovered black widows were somehow key to curing several types of cancer?

What if?

—Mitchell Hegman

The Stunted Forest and the Walking Stick

Desiree and I do a fair amount of walking amid downfall and steep inclines while at the cabin. I like to use a walking stick when doing so. Several years ago, I chanced upon the perfect natural walking stick at the edge of our cabin property. The stick is lightweight, straight, and incredibly rigid and strong.

The stick is not a branch; rather, it is the entire length of a mature but greatly stunted lodgepole pine. In optimal conditions, lodgepole pines can grow to a height of 75 feet. Typically, such trees will reach a height of 6 feet in 10 or 11 years. But in cases where clusters of seeds germinate together, creating a tightly packed cluster of trees, the trees suffer from sharing limited resources and will remain stunted. I counted the growth rings of my stick as best I could and derived an age of something over 40 years. Most lodgepole pines will reach 30 to 50 feet in height at this age. I estimate my stick was something near 6 feet in height when it died.

I gifted the walking stick to Desiree. On my next trip to the cabin, I intend to scour the small section of stunted forest to find another for myself.

Growth Rings

The Walking Stick

—Mitchell Hegman

August Rain

A half-darkness came in the mid-afternoon; with the darkness came dusky clouds and rain. The rain did not start light; instead, it fell heavily, almost dangerously so. It swept against the long dry and sun-bleached expanse of the Montana prairie.

Our broad-valley summers are typically dry and hot. This year has been especially brutal. The last rainfall is so distant I cannot recall it, and the heat has been insistent. With the first report of rain against my windows, I ran out onto my portico to meet the storm face to face. Within seconds, the air chilled around me. The scent of damp earth and wet grass enveloped me.

Vital dirt-smell.

The sharp scent of sage.

Watching the rain splatter down before me, I began yelling at the sky: “Yes! Yes! Yes!” But August rains are fickle, if not strange. The rain eased up quickly, and the darkness lifted, leaving the prairie and me with only a taste of what we need.

A Storm Sweeping Across the Prairie

—Mitchell Hegman

Another Observation

Between chasing after shiny objects and writing sticky notes to myself, it takes me all day just to be half as organized as most people.

—Mitchell Hegman

An Especially Large Cricket

While splitting firewood at the cabin, I found an obese cricket in the stack of rounds. At least, it looked a bit chunky to me. I am not sure how a mountain cricket could get so obese. As omnivores, crickets will eat most anything, but they especially like being served a nice vegetable tray. A cricket with a carrot is a happy cricket.

Interestingly enough, as omnivores, humans can eat crickets, and eating them offers numerous benefits. Crickets provide a rich source of protein, vitamins, minerals, and fiber, while having a lower environmental impact compared to traditional livestock. Insofar as how they taste, crickets are often described as having a mild, nutty flavor with a slightly earthy taste, sometimes compared to toasted sunflower seeds or mushrooms.

I am going to leave eating crickets to the experts, but I will share a photograph of the cricket I found. While normally quite jumpy and camera-shy, this particular one seemed entirely unbothered by my presence.

An Obese Cricket

—Mitchell Hegman

Partisan Thinking

 I see it clearly now.

Our truths are not the same.

Mine are soft and yielding.

Yours are hard as granite and immobile.

 

Take, also, how we approach the cherry tree.

I am at the roots, watering,

pulling weeds, nurturing.

You are pruning kinked branches that displease you

and misting poisons.

 

How we share a common history is beyond me,

as is the math that predicts where stars fall

and the circular laws governing the color of sunflowers.

 

As a child, I had a terrible nightmare

about a giant who suddenly began shattering the sky

with a sledgehammer.

I didn’t trust sleep after that.

 

And now you tell me

that you have a better way to grow peppers.

It occurs to me this may be where

our daily lives veer out of control.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Machine Screw

PART 1

While sweeping up dust bunnies from the kitchen floor, I found a tiny screw. I have posted a photograph of the screw along with a pen for size reference. Normally, such a screw would baffle me. "Where," I would wonder, "did that come from?"

PART 2

If all goes well, FedEx will deliver a new laptop computer to my doorstep today. The new machine has a gigabyte of storage and is (for better or worse) manufactured to cozy up with artificial intelligence (AI).

My old laptop has become touchy. If, while working on a document, my palm inadvertently presses down on the left side of the machine near the touchpad, my cursor flies off and lands somewhere else on my document. The shell of my machine has developed a crack near one of the hinges for the screen, and it is literally falling apart.

PART 3

The screw on my floor? You guessed it. My computer is unraveling wholesale.

The Screw

—Mitchell Hegman

In Your Face

I don’t like it when grasshoppers fly into my face. It’s a weird sort of annoying, something on the level of breaking a shoelace or butt-dialing someone you really would rather not talk to. Although having a hopper strike your face doesn’t hurt, it’s startling. And given the size of grasshoppers' eyes, how does that happen? If we had eyes proportionally sized, they would be the size of saucer plates.

Just for fun, I queried the internet about a grasshopper’s eyes and visual acuity. It’s complicated. Grasshoppers possess a sophisticated visual system. As it turns out, they have more than one set of eyes. The big eyes are compound units comprised of what are essentially an array of motion detectors. Complementing these are three simple eyes on the top of their head, which are equivalent to light sensors. When put together, they provide a hopper with a wide field of view but not particularly great acuity.

Apparently, grasshoppers run into us simply because they are bad drivers.

PHOTO: https://orthoptera.org

—Mitchell Hegman

Vole Number 3

Pictured at the end of this blog is Vole Number 3. As the name implies, this is the third vole I captured in my live trap. The conservationist in me found Vole Number 3 rather handsome, especially for a rodent.

Nice hair, actually.

Vole Number 3 also displayed remarkable calm when I picked up the live trap. Most voles are a bit skittish, and mice tend to absolutely flail about in full panic. In another life, Vole Number 3 and I could possibly be chummy. Maybe we could share a Scotch and talk (in vole-speak) about how rude Mouse Number 2 can be.

But in this particular life, Vole Number 3 is in a bit of trouble for eating the swath of purple whatever-you-call-ems from our flower bed. He attacked from below ground, which is especially nefarious.

Bad vole.

So, down the road we went, on our way to be released among the juniper and sage in a gully twisting through the ranchlands.

In addition to sharing a photograph of Vole Number 3, I am featuring a photograph of Mouse Number 5 for comparison.

Vole Number 3

Mouse Number 5

—Mitchell Hegman