Know Your Enemy

As a country, we rather cycle our “enemies” in and out of fashion.  The list is ever-changing, if not fickle.  Some countries on the list (Iran) make perfect sense to me.  At the same time, some not making the list (Saudi Arabia, I am talking to you), I am less certain about.

And there was that time—pretty much the entire time I was growing up—when Red China was one of our most looming enemies.  But in the late 1970’s our stance softened considerably.  In the 1980’s the first tourists from the United States were welcomed into China.  In 1985, I and my buddy, Kevin St. Clair, traveled to Mainland China to see it for ourselves.

I took a bunch of photographs, too.

In recent years, China sems to be clawing back up to enemy status.  This is, for lack of a better word, unfortunate.  I enjoyed China and liked the people I met there.

Just to be informative, I thought I might post a couple images from July 9, 1985.  Kevin and I were in Huaxi, China, at the time.  This, my dear friends and family, is what our enemy looks like up-close.

—Mitchell Hegman

Eating Dinner Alone

I have eaten my simple dinner: a chicken drumstick, carrot sticks, and a quartered gala apple.

Eating alone, as I have for longer than I care to remember, I thought about one of the times when I was especially stupid.

Several couples were playing Pictionary—you know, the game where clues for words must be drawn on paper in the form of pictures.  On an “all play” I was given the word for our team and one of the girls from the other team was given the word to draw clues for.

I thought about the word and tried to devise the best way I could sketch my clues.  As soon as we started, I drew out a saguaro cactus with three arms.  I then started to sketch a mountain behind the cactus.  As is always the case, both teams were paying attention to both drawings.  Everyone quickly noticed something amiss about our drawings. 

“Wait a minute.  Stop!” the other picturist suggested.  “Let me see the card again.”

She picked up the word card, read it, and laughed.  “The word is ‘dessert’ not ‘desert.’  You know…like pudding.”

I looked at her fledgling drawings of a bowl and a spoon.

For dessert?  Humble pie.

Richard Brautigan wrote a poem about eating dinner alone.  His final lines are these:

“God, I hate eating dinner alone.  It’s like being dead.”

—Mitchell Hegman

More Wine and Cheese

I have been waiting my entire adult life for this.  Finally, the news has arrived.  Eating cheese and drinking wine may be good for you!

Allow me to express that in a formula:  Wine + Cheese = Healthy

Turns out, eating more cheese and drinking more wine helps reduce cognitive decline and even helps ward off Alzheimer’s disease.

This stunning news comes from a long-term study of nearly 1800 participants, aged between 46 and 77 years.  The members of the study, all from the United Kingdom, underwent assessment and cognitive testing between 2006 and 2010 with follow-up assessment twice after the original study.  The final assessment was completed in 2016.

The study essentially documented the food and alcohol consumption of each participant and placed that alongside results of fluid intelligence tests.   

According to the article I read:

The results reveal a surprising diet that may form an unlikely defense against cognitive decline later in life. Researchers discovered cheese provides the most protection against age-related cognitive issues. Its impact is significantly greater than any other food in the report.

The study also finds consuming alcohol daily, particularly red wine, can improve cognitive function as you age.

Interestingly enough, I started drinking red wine in the evenings many years ago on advice from my doctor.  The idea, then, was to balance my cholesterol levels.

Good medicine, that red wine.

And cheese.

—Mitchell Hegman

SOURCE: https://www.studyfinds.org/wine-cheese-reduce-cognitive-decline-alzheimers (Chris Melore)

Questions That Keep Me Awake at Night

• Is yo-yo a sport?
• Is it wrong to make judgements about people based solely on the color they have painted their house?
• Would I be taller if my parents had named me Paul as they once considered?
• If we are being monitored by aliens from outer space (as many suspect), will they consider us intelligent lifeforms after witnessing one of our beer can melting guild meetings at the campfire?
• Is it okay if I start believing in Santa Claus again?  Just for this year?
• What is another word for “Aaayyy!”

—Mitchell Hegman

Then and Now

I have, as mentioned in previous blogs, been spending time converting old film slides into electronic (jpeg) files.

The process has been pleasurable.  Sometimes, a photograph or series of images will flood me with sparkling memories.  On many occasions, I have paused, sat back in my chair, and allowed myself to drift away to times and places certain.

Most interesting are the slide carrousels I put together years ago for the purpose of telling a complete story.  I have nearly 200 slides, for example, capturing the construction of my house—from the first scoop of earth to the final piece of trim.

Today, I am posting several images of my house.  A few nibbles of the story.   The first images are from the construction process in 1991.  The later images are from the last couple years.

—Mitchell Hegman

100 Beer Cans = Terry

We have established a beer can melting guild out here at the lake.  Well, mostly the “guild” is Tad St. Clair stuffing a small crucible into our lakeside campfire and melting down aluminum beer cans.  The other day, however, I took a more active role in the guild.  “Let’s see if we can melt a hundred cans into one pour,” I suggested.

Oh, yes, that’s the other half of the deal, we (read Tad here) pour the molten aluminum into various makeshift molds, including a rusty cast iron frying pan. 

“A hundred cans,” Tad ruminated.  “Okay.  You have to count the cans.  I will do the melting.”

“Deal.” I agreed.

Melting down one-hundred beer cans sort of turned into actual work (for Tad).  But, after something close to two hours, we reached our mark and stoked the fire to build up heat and get the metal juicy enough to pour into the frying pan.

After cooling down our pour on the lake ice, Tad presented our work to everyone.  That’s when someone remarked: “Hey, that looks like Terry!”

Sure enough, one-hundred melted beer cans turned into Terry’s profile.

Posted is a photograph of me holding aluminum Terry alongside our authentic Terry. 

—Mitchell Hegman

The Starlink Chain

On Saturday, I and several others had a social-distanced campfire gathering at the lakeshore.  Not long after full darkness enveloped us, I turned away from the fire to allow the flames to warm my backside.  That’s when something unlikely caught my attention.

Amid the stars stationed above me, I saw a string of lights stretched across the sky.  The lights—all spaced apart at fairly uniform distances—were moving as if tethered together and being dragged along by forces unseen.

Wondering if I might be imagining what I was seeing, I called out to someone else.  “Tad, come look at this.  Am I seeing what I think I am seeing?”

Tad walked to my side of the fire and peered up into the darkness.  “What is that?” he asked.

“I am not imagining that, then?

“No.”

“I know what it is.   It’s Elon Musk.  It’s his satellite array.  I have been reading about it, but have never seen it.”

Before long, everyone had turned away from the fire.  We all watched the array slide across the sky.

We were witnessing the march of the Starlink chain of satellites.  Mr. Musk has been using his SpaceX Starships to plant satellites in the firmament.  The chain we saw will be part of a massive network of 12,000 satellites swarming high above us to provide new high-speed internet connections across the world in the future.

My first sight of the array left me a little bewildered.   I am not convinced I like it.

Posted below is a YouTube video of the string passing overhead.

—Mitchell Hegman

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgysWWwESfU