The Tubman $20

In May of 2019, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that a major change in the design of $20 bills would be delayed.  They delay—which Mnuchin blamed on new security features—will push development out an astounding six years.

The new bills under design will feature a portrait of Harriet Tubman; replacing a certain president Andrew Jackson.

Harriet Tubman was a black woman born into slavery in Maryland in 1822.  She fled to freedom in Philadelphia in 1849, but immediately returned to Maryland and rescued her family.  She went on to work with John Brown and the Underground Railroad, freeing more slaves.  When the country fell into the Civil War, Tubman served for the North, eventually becoming a scout.  She was the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war when she guided a raid which freed some 700 slaves at Combahee Ferry.

As you might imagine, some people were disappointed in the delay in production of $20 bills featuring Harriet Tubman.

Well, I have some good news for those folks.  Somehow, a Harriet Tubman $20 made it to an ATM here in Montana.

The note is not a counterfeit.  The bill, instead, has been altered by someone.  The image of Harriet Tubman has been stamped overtop Andrew Jackson.

Federal law makes currency defacement a crime.  Defacement, according to the provisions of law, occur when someone “mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together” a bill.  But it is generally accepted that you can stamp currency or write on notes so long as you don’t alter the denomination.

My buddy, Kevin, pulled the bill from the ATM in a recent transaction.  I am surprised the bill made its way to an ATM.  I assumed currency was screened to some extent before distribution in such machines.

The romantic side of me imagines the bills are vetted to remove old or altered bills from circulation before issue in ATM machines, but somehow this one escaped to freedom.

The Proposed Harriet Tubman $20

The ATM $20

—Mitchell Hegman

The Phases of My Grief

I don’t think you “get over” the loss of a spouse to cancer.

In the time since I lost my Uyen, I have experienced three phases of grief.

The first phase following Uyen’s passing was a kind of mix between numbness and a weird, almost romanticized, state where I felt as if captured in a sad movie.  The near constant attention from friends and family helped.

My next phase was anger.

Big anger.

My sweet girl suffered pain and wholesale indignity in her last weeks.  How was that possible?  No.  Why so?  What kind of wrongly twisted reality allowed for that?

I was consumed by these questions for nearly a full year.

The third stage—the place where I am now—is acceptance without, for lack of a better term, judgement.  More importantly, the anger and hurt is gone.  When I think of Uyen, I am thankful for all the years we shared.  I often catch myself smiling.  Sometimes, I mutter “thank you” aloud.

It has been nearly nine years.  Even given that, a thought or two of Uyen strikes me virtually every day.  We spent nearly thirty years together.  Much of my life was shaped around her.

Night before last, a sudden and enormous grief struck me as I walked back toward my bedroom.  I stopped at the door to the room Uyen called her “recovery room.”  The room started as a spare bedroom, became Uyen’s craft room, her recovery room, and is now mostly used as my business file room and library.

Obviously, Uyen did not recover.  She drew her last breathe in that room and left Helen and me standing there.

All three phases of grief impaled me on the spot as I stood at the door.  Staggered by sheer emotion, I leaned inside the room.

Just simple darkness and tears on my face.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Shift in Thinking

I have become decidedly practical in my thinking at this late stage of my life.  I am beyond concerning myself with big stuff.  No more schemes for achieving either fame or fortune.  That ship has sailed.  At present, my biggest worry is the more immediate possibility I might run out of toilet paper.

—Mitchell Hegman

Penis Bones and Confetti

I learned two things on New Year’s Eve.

First, I learned about raccoon penises.  They are much more popular than I expected.  Well, the penis isn’t such a big deal—it’s the bone from the penis that makes a stir.

And, yes, raccoons are equipped with a penile bone.

This type of bone—also called the baculum—is found in most male mammals, including primates.  We Humans are an exception.

Raccoon penis bones are readily available should you want to purchase one.  Weirdly enough, people make stuff out of the raccoon penis bones.   Earrings and necklaces, for example.  They are considered lucky charms by some Southerners.  Occasionally, a raccoon penis bone will even find its way into a bridal bouquet. 

The baculum of a raccoon is a bit special.  It’s rather pretty for a penis bone.

Technically, a raccoon’s baculum is not a bone.  Some internet sources identify a raccoon’s baculum as a form of ivory.  Neither of these are correct.  The baculum is, instead, a form of cartilage.

The second thing I learned on New Year’s Eve is somewhat more practical.  I leaned that shooting confetti guns throughout your house at the approach of midnight on New Year’s Eve is much more fun than cleaning up the confetti early the following morning.  It’s sort of like having a paper and glitter hangover.

Raccoon Baculum

—Mitchell Hegman

New Year’s Resolution

I have but one New Year’s resolution.  A serious one.  This year, I want to teach myself to stop, think, and modify before I speak in anger.

Less stupid and hurtful things said.

That is all.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Decade of Lessons

Here we are, standing at the end of another decade.  I have learned some stuff over the last ten years.  Following is a list of things I figured out in these last ten years:

  1. The age of 60 is not the new 40.  It’s more like the new 58½.

  2. Common sense (literally) needs constant technological upgrades nowadays.

  3. Caulking.

  4. There is no reasonable psychological substitute for hand-feeding chickadees.

  5. Applying the same logic that created my problems to repair them never works but sometimes it can be surprisingly entertaining just trying.

  6. Flawed people make for the best friends.

  7. You cannot have too many gallon-size Ziploc bags.

  8. Crazy never goes out of style.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Festina Lente

On my last full day in San Francisco I was fortunate enough to experience the San Francisco Bay aboard the Festina Lente, the sailboat owned by Helen’s friends.  The invitation was contingent upon our arrival at the boat slip by 5:15 in the morning.  Timing was important.  The idea was to push the sailboat out into ebbing tide waters and, more or less, allow the boat to be carried out beyond Golden Gate Bridge by the strong outrushing current.

Though leaving in the dark of a late December morning required layers of clothing, the views proved fantastic.  The city of San Francisco seemed as if constructed entirely of streaming automobiles and light as we slipped away in the dark water and slowly skirted below the tall towers and bridges.

I have a fairly small and very specific list of events that have lived up to my full expectations.  For example, driving over Going to the Sun Highway in Glacier National Park, Montana makes my list.  Walking amid the giant redwoods makes my list.

Near dawn, just as the skyline blushed with the first hints of pink and red, we skimmed below the Golden Gate Bridge on the Festina Lente.

This has been added to my list.

After anchoring beyond the bridge, crab pots were tossed out.  We sat on the boat and chatted as the sun cleared the Golden Gate Bridge and waves broke against some nearby sea cliffs.  After a soaking for a while, the pots and a few rock crabs were hauled in from forty feet of water.

We returned to the city and a warming sun.

The city now constructed of blue sky and glass.

San Francisco at Night

Crossing Back Under the Golden Gate

Sun on the City

The Festina Lente

—Mitchell Hegman