Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller Last Saturday I went out to my one bee hive to take their honey. I started the year out with three hives, but two of them died in a cold spell in late April. That was a sign of things to come. Before I went to the honey bees last week, I made a side trip to a nest of yellow jackets. I discovered them when I was moving an old brush pile about a month ago. They came bub­bling out of the ground so fast I literally ran away. Bees are a lot of work, especially in a bad year. But with my bee suit on and a spade in hand, I dug them up on Saturday morning without a sting. I found their eggs and squished them between my fingers, and found the queen and squished her too, and I hate to admit it but it felt good. We play God all the time. It’s just more noticeable with bees and wasps. It must be man’s baser nature that if it’s a threat to people, it has a lesser value. Those yellow jackets pollinate flowers and vegetables and apple trees just like the honey bees. They...

David Heiller It must be about 1963 that my Houston County Fair memories begin. They are all jumbled together now, and I’m not sure how accurate they are. But a few things stand out that I’d like to share, in the hope that they strike a chord with you. New blue jeans went hand-in-hand with the fair. The smell of new denim has ever since reminded me of the fair. Of course they were about four inches too long, a concession Mom made to the growth spurt that was sure to come before the jeans wore out. I tried to roll the legs of the new jeans into a respectable cuff, but they never looked right. They were all wrinkled and bulky. It wasn’t cool, man, and already at age 10 I knew what cool was. Mom would work her magic on them and quickly get the perfect cuffs. Cool cuffs. Wearing those blue jeans was kind of like wearing two stove pipes. The legs were stiff! We bought our tickets for the fair rides in advance at Bissen’s Tavern. They were a bargain, something like 12 for $2. M...

David Heiller “I’m going on vacation next week,” I told people last week. “Where are you going?” they asked. I braced myself. “Texas.” “Texas! Why in the world would anyone go to Texas in August?” Mary Ellen and Emily, one half of the reason for an August trip to Texas. “You see, I have a sister there, and my wife is a teacher, so it’s now or never,” I answered with a nervous laugh. “Oh,” they responded with an uneasy look, and edged away. I discovered that people do not go to Texas in August. People who have been to Texas know that. It would be like people from Minnesota going to the Canadian wilderness in January to get away from the cold. Even my sister, who I love dearly (remember, I’m going to Texas in August to see her), seemed a bit surprised to hear we were coming to visit. “What should we bring to wear,” I remember asking her. There was Texas-sized cousin fun for this trek. “Don’t worry about any cold weather clothes,” she answered simply. “A cold...

By David Heiller The night was cool. A heavy mist, just short of a fog, hung in the air. Buildings seemed covered in a light, light gauze. The cobblestone street shined, slippery, reflecting light from shop windows, doorways. David in Sidi Kacem, Morocco in the Peace Corps The place was Morocco, the city of Fez, the year 1979. Four Americans walked up the steep street of cobblestone, streets so narrow an American car would barely pass through. But there were no American cars here, not even during the bustling days when horses and drivers would crash through, shouting “red bellick, red bellick!”—“look out, look out!” Now, on this misty spring night, even the bustling crowds were gone, sitting in their homes, talking, or watching the single channel on Moroccan TV, eating hirara, the soup made from leftovers on Sunday night. The four Americans had rendezvoused in Fez for some fellowship. Each lived in different parts of the country, in smaller cities. They taught ...