So long, old friend ~ September 4, 2003

David Heiller

It was getting dark the other night when I paused from some chores to look at the house. The lights were on in the kitchen and upstairs, and they peered at me like a friendly face, but a wistful one.

I know it was my imagination, but the house seemed to wear a sad and crooked smile. I probably did too.

“So long old friend,” I said to myself and the night and the old farm house. “You  were my dream.”

Can it be 22 years ago that Cindy and I moved here? All our stuff fit in one 17-foot U-Haul truck. We had no kids, no jobs. But we had fallen in love with this house and its 35 acres of wild land in northern Pine County.

So we left our teaching jobs and pulled up stakes and got a loan at 17-1/2 percent interest and bought it.

I’m not sure why we liked the house so much. It had indoor running water (cold only), but that was about it. A basement with fieldstone walls and a dirt floor. Not even an indoor toilet. It was like walking into the 1930s. Somehow that appealed to me.

Family members thought we were nuts, most of them anyway. Grandma Schnick always seemed to understand the adventure we were on better than most. She loved to hear about the outhouse, and would give me advice on how to make it more comfortable. “Put a rabbit skin on the seat,” she wrote to me once.

We loved the property too, the beautiful garden spot, the woods, the big trees, the sugar-bush. Thirty five acres seemed like a kingdom.

Wow, the adventures those first years. January of 1982, when the wind chill hit minus 100 and the water in Binti’s dish froze solid in the kitchen. We sat up and fed the wood stove all night.

The next year we gutted the inside and insulated the downstairs. We put in a new kitchen. Over the years we added hot water. Added on to the west side. Built a sauna. Had a kid. Put in new flooring. Had another kid. Had a pond dug, a pole shed built.

Steve Popowitz built the perfect addition on the east side. Deane Hillbrand trimmed it out. Dave Landwehr built a beautiful kitchen. I mention their names because they are good friends, and the house seemed to soak up their friendship. It added more value than money could buy for us.

It absorbed the joyous spirit of Cindy’s family every Christmas too. Her mom and sister and brother and kids and dogs would all converge, and we would never quite know where to put everybody, but all the chaos made it even more meaningful.

How many songs has the old house heard? How many banjo tunes? How many Twins’ games and card games? How many doors slammed in anger or flung open in excitement? How many trips down the 13 steps to the bathroom? How much homework at the dining room table? How many earnest discussions, some bitter, but most ending in an embrace, a pat on the back, a hug, a kiss?

This old house was lucky. I know, it’s just a house. But it saw a young couple take up residence, give it some tender loving care, raise a family, fill it with fellowship and love.

Now Malika is in college. Noah has a job and is looking for an apartment. We are heading south, back home, trying to make Thomas Wolfe eat his words, starting over at mid-life but expecting no crisis. This old house taught us that much, and more.

We’ll turn over the keys on Saturday. Show the new owners a few quirks. Give them some advice, which they won’t really need, because that’s part of getting acquainted with a house. It happens slowly. A pan of cookies here. New wallpaper there. Moonlight slanting into the bedroom in January, so bright you can read a book.