An Unusual Thing Happened in Philly the Other Day

Imagine you are a Pennsylvanian.  Actually, you don’t need to be a Pennsylvanian.  You can be a Montanan.  It would even be okay to be from Rhode Island.

That’s kind of a funny story, Rhode Island.

Back in the day, I and my buddy Kevin ended up touring Mainland China with a guy from Rhode Island.  He was an honest-to-goodness film critic—the first and last one of those I ever met.

Kevin gave the guy a funny look when he first mentioned he was from Rhode Island.  “So,” Kevin says, “we are from Montana and we call ourselves Montanans.  What do you call yourself?  A Rodent?”

Fortunately, the guy from Rhode Island, Mike, had a decent sense of humor.

Now, let’s get back to Pennsylvania.  You can be from anywhere, but you are walking through a city park in Philadelphia.  Of course, you are minding your own business.  All shocking stories require this.  Then, of a sudden (because there is no other way this could happen) a five-pound catfish falls through a tree and knocks you on flat on your ass.

This really happened the other day!

A woman named Lisa Lobree was walking to a CoreFitness class through Fairmount Park when she heard something rustling through the trees.  Before she could look up, something smacked her on the head and knocked her to the ground.  The “something” then bounced off Lisa’s friend, Annie.

“Oh my God!  It was a fish!” Annie yelped.

At this point, both women clearly saw the dead catfish lying on the ground nearby.

Lisa could smell the fish as she reached up to feel a cut near her eye.

Before you get all freaky and imagine that the tree murdered the fish or imagine the fish lived in the tree and only fell out after having a massive fish-heart attack, you need to know that witnesses reported a large bird flapping away from the area.

Strange, but plausible.

Lisa suffered only minor injuries, but did not make it to her exercise class.  The women also managed to get cellphone photographs of the fish.  I have posted one of those for you.

By the way, you call people living in Philadelphia “Philadelphians.”   I think “Philidelphineans” sounds better.

Gotta have that “fin” sound.

--Mitchell Hegman

First Friend

Uyen, my wife, was my first Facebook friend.  That makes sense—especially considering that she walked me through the process of joining Facebook.  I recall whimpering about how silly “friending” and “liking” was as she tried to explain the whole process.

“What?  Are we back in seventh grade here?” I groused.

“You’ll get used to all this,” she assured me.  “And now you will be able to see what Helen is up to.  She posts on Facebook all the time.”  My wife turned out to be correct about that (read everything here).  Through Facebook, I recently found out that my daughter—after returning from the Olympics in Rio—has become a marathon runner!

After helping me set-up my profile, Uyen sent me the very first friend request I ever received and showed me how to accept.

My first friend!

That was back in 2009, if memory serves.  We soon began posting back and forth.

Uyen passed in May of 2011.  I didn’t pay much attention to Facebook for a while after that.  Gradually, I worked my way back in.  Eventually, I began sharing these daily blogs.

Somewhere, about a year after Uyen’s death I decided to view her profile and I realized that she was no longer among my Facebook friends.

She was gone.

I was only able to access Uyen’s profile though Helen’s profile or by searching.

I did not unfriend her.  What happened?

I continued to view her profile—especially on her birthday or on the date of her passing.  I even tried to seize administration of her profile on her computer, hoping I could share a post every so often.  Then, about two years ago, with tears in my eye, I sent her a friend request.

I knew it would never be answered, but I feel better having it out there in the ether.

I never wanted to stop being her friend.

--Mitchell Hegman

Bad Numbers

When Ava was five, she chased a pair of vesper sparrows into her father’s field of wheat.  The honey-colored wheat rolled to silver as she ran through, parting the rows.  Ava quickly lost the birds.  She stood there in the sun-cured wheat for a while, watching clouds gather like sheep in one corner.

Ava’s father had bad numbers.  “Really bad,” her father said.  The doctor had told him so.

Ava didn’t know any bad numbers.  She knew some big numbers. She knew some little numbers.

What was a bad number?

When Ava returned to her yard, she found her mother sitting in the swing hung from the willow tree.  Her mother sometimes sat in the swing when she wanted to be quiet.  “Do you want me to push you?” Ava asked her mother.

“Yes,” her other answered.

Ava tried to push her mother as high is the clouds. 

After a time, Ava stopped pushing and her mother slowly rocked to a stop.  Her mother spoke softly: “You need to stay out the wheat from now on, Ava.  Your father is going to start harvesting soon.”

When Ava was seven, she chased a single raven from a field of weeds. 

--Mitchell Hegman

A Survivor’s Tale

Howard Lutnick was standing with a crowd when he first heard the rumble.  Instinctively, the entire crowd scattered.  The people who ran to the left died.  The people who ran back died.  Howard Lutnick, for no thoughtful reason, ran to his right.  He lived as One World Trade Center (the north tower) crushed down into a heap on the street around him.

Mr. Lutnick was standing at the doorway of the north tower when the building collapsed.  Inside the collapsing tower, 658 of Howard Lutnick’s employees, including his brother, died.  Lutnick was then (and is now) the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald.  Cantor Fitzgerald, a brokerage and banking firm, occupied floors 101-105 of Tower One.  That’s just above where the plane struck on 9/11.  Nobody in the offices that day survived.

Howard would have been there, too, save for an important family event.  On 9/11, Mr. Lutnick had arrived to work much later than normal because he had taken time off to escort his son, Kyle, to his very first day of kindergarten.

Howard Lutnick lives today with an unrelenting survivor’s guilt.  His guilt is especially deep because Cantor Fitzgerald, by his own design, adopted a policy of hiring people who were related.  He wanted a close-knit company.  For that reason, many families lost more than one loved one when the tower fell.  Howard also had a sister working at the World Trade Center, but like him, she survived because she had a late starting time on 9/11.

Fortunately, the story of Howard Lutnick and the Story of Cantor Fitzgerald did not end in the rubble of the World Trade Center.  Howard has since rebuilt the company.  At the time of the attacks, Cantor Fitzgerald employed 960 employees.  Today the firm employs twice that many.

More importantly, Howard Lutnick and Cantor Fitzgerald have become leaders in charitable giving.  The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund (a non-profit) has given almost $280 million to the families of loved ones lost in the Cantor Fitzgerald offices on 9/11 and victims of more recent tragedies.  Each year, on or near September 11, the Cantor Fitzgerald offices and affiliates donate 100% of the day’s revenue to charity.

--Mitchell Hegman

Sources: NY Post, Daily Mail, History Channel

Stand Up 2 Cancer

Cancer.

Simply hearing the word sends an electric jolt of emotion through me.  A swirl of hospital rooms and pill bottles and grim faces comes to mind.  I recall, for the ten-thousandth time, the doctor telling my wife she had cancer.  “It’s terminal,” the doctor said.

All of the air rushed out of that room.

The air never came back.

Last night, an hour-long fund-raising event was aired on NBC for an organization called Stand Up 2 Cancer.  The organization helps fund doctors and clinical trials for groundbreaking cancer treatments.  Dozens of celebrities and dozens of cancer survivors participated in the event.  Celebrities even manned the phone bank.

That girl and I watched the entire event.  We were transfixed.  We are together now because we lost our spouses to cancer.

I found myself regularly wiping tears from my eyes.  Each time I closed my eyes, I saw the face of my wife, or that girl’s husband, or my father, my mother, Kevin’s mother, and too many children.

There are weird outliers of people who have not known the ravages of cancer.  An example is a small community of dwarfs in Ecuador who seem immune to cancer due to their altered genetic code.  But for the rest of us, cancer is the most savage beast yet stalking us.

What kind of animal is it that drags down a three-year-old child?

Cancer.

After recent revelations about fraud and impropriety in various charitable organizations, I stopped donating to all but a select few local groups.  It is not because I don’t want to help.

At the end of the show, Celine Dion sang a song called “Recovering.”  The song was written by Pink.  Celine lost her husband, her brother, and her father to cancer.  Celine.  Me.  That girl.  We were all greatly moved by the song.

I want to help.

--Mitchell Hegman

Pain

I have always been good at handling pain...so long as it is not my own.

--Mitchell Hegman

Up and Over

If I had my way, every Montanan would be required to drive from Red Lodge, Montana to Helena, Montana at least once in their life.  Such a trip would have a mandatory route up and over Beartooth Pass, through Cooke City, Montana, across the upper part of Yellowstone Park, through Livingston, Montana, and between the Bridger and Crazy Mountains in the Shields River Valley.  Optional, would be stopping to pee at Skidway Campground (at the top of Deep Creek Canyon).  Also optional would be driving a van with failing brakes.

I drove such a van yesterday.  Each time I pressed the brake pedal of the van I was driving, a sound akin to a pair of cargo ships grating against each other filled the van and all the surround.

On the brighter side, we experienced perfect weather as we drove the trip I have suggested here.  I cannot begin to explain the feel of traversing up and down the mountainsides, crossing through valleys filled with free-roaming bison, driving along the cottonwood river bottoms in open Montana.

Required: that’s the best I can say.

Today, I am posting a few photographs I captured from the trip.  They barely begin to give you the feel of the entire day.  The deer photograph is the very last picture I captured.  She was standing in the last patch of sunlight at Skidway Campground.

--Mitchell Hegman