Singing the praises of Jane Doe ~ June 13, 1991

David Heiller

This is a true story about babysitting. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Babysitters. They come in all shapes, sizes, sexes, ages, and abilities, and we’ve run the gamut over the past eight years.

Some have been good with the kids and do some of the “extras” too, like picking up the house and keeping the dishes washed. Others have been good housekeepers but chained the kids to their bedposts. Then there are those who don’t even wipe the table and get chained to the bedposts themselves by the kids after falling for that fatal line: “Mommy and Daddy let us do this to them all the time.”

We’ve had some very good babysitters, including Jane Doe, who we have hired for the summer.

Babysitters... the good ones make
life so good, and the great ones fill us
with gratitude, even decades later.

Jane Doe watches Noah and Mollie one day a week, while Cindy and I put together this newspaper. Jane started last week. She had watched them before at night, but never for a whole day.

When we came home that first evening, Mollie raced down to greet us. I asked how things had gone. She said fine. Jane had played with them, had walked with them to the culvert to see whether Noah’s turtle egg had hatched yet, had fed them a good lunch and supper, had gotten them washed and brushed and “jammied” and up to bed, after reading a story (of course).

I noticed that the living room seemed brighter somehow. I looked closely at the windows, then stepped up to one and peered closely. “Did Jane clean the windows?” I asked with some disbelief in my voice. “Yes, and I helped,” Mollie said with a proud tone. That explained why all the paper towels were gone.

I looked at the carpet. It was spotless. “Did she vacuum too?” I said in that same tone. “Yes, and she swept and shook the rugs too, “ Mollie answered in a voice just a tad too righteous, one that said maybe I should have been the one who had swept and shook the rugs and vacuumed and washed windows.

(We are not slobs, and I really had been meaning to wash the windows at least, but this time of year, with the garden and biking and visiting friends and a dozen other excuses tugging, the house does get a bit shaggy.)

I walked through the house in a trance. Jane had cleared off the dining room table, a job that normally takes a front-end loader. She had washed dishes and baked cookies. She had picked ticks off the dogs and cleaned the outside of the refrigerator. She had taken the clothes off the line and folded them.

Jane had even cleaned the pantry. This is not a typo: SHE HAD CLEANED THE PANTRY, a place where fruit jars and paper plates and plastic bags and cookie tins and graham cracker boxes all get stacked on top of one another until they fall over and you pick them up and shove them back on the shelves again Now totally shocked, I turned on the switch to the water pump. It kicked in, then stopped, like a pump is supposed to. But it was unusual, because the pump has been waterlogged for a few weeks, and it usually doesn’t stop running until I hit the switch. I walked outside to the basement door and peered inside, half expecting to see a new pump which Jane had installed. Nope, no new pump. But somehow Jane had gotten the old one working. I figure she shamed it into submission. My mother used to get me to chop ice off the porch that way when I would watch football games on TV. She’d just grab the ice spud and start chopping, and soon I’d feel so guilty that I’d take it from her and finish the job. That’s what Jane had done to the pump.

I glanced out to the fields, half expecting to see a new pole barn which Jane had erected, and maybe a couple acres fenced in to boot, with some young stock and a 50-cow herd of Holsteins grazing on the hay bales which she had also baled, after clearing out the willows and hazel brush that have taken over the back 40.

Cindy was equally impressed. In fact, when she returned from Jane’s house and had a look for herself, she called Jane up and thanked her again.

Maybe this was all a fluke, like a guy who hits a home run in his first at bat in the major leagues, and then never hits another. But I don’t think so. We may have another Kirby Puckett on our hands here. If baseball were babysitting, this kid would be rich.

But hey, you parents: don’t get any ideas about spiriting Jane Doe for your own two kids and unkempt home. Like I said, her name has been changed to protect the innocent, and the parents who hire her. The Twins would never trade Kirby Puckett, would they?

Another chapter on growing up ~ June 24, 1993

David Heiller

It’s funny how children can grow up and you don’t even notice it. It’s like leaving your bare garden for two weeks in early June and coming home to see everything sprouted and growing like crazy.

That’s what we did last week. We came home and saw a garden full of young plants, and on the east side of the house, the yellow irises were in full bloom. Like Emily.

That’s how I felt after our family took a vaca­tion to Texas. We had been there six years earlier, and that was the last time I had really seen my niece, Emily.

Malika and Emily

Oh sure, we saw her briefly a time or two since then. We had seen pictures at Christmas, and heard tidbits in letters and from Mom, who keeps tabs on her grandchildren like good grandmothers do.

But we didn’t see Emily grow up, which is the way things go in this modem world of ours, where people move far away in search of jobs and security and happiness.

Six years ago in Texas, when Emily was 12, she took our daughter Malika under her wing. She shared her room, and watched out for her, and bought her a necklace and bracelet for a going-away present, and generally had the patience of Job, which she needed for that two ­year-old.

She impressed the heck out of Cindy and me. I even wrote a column about it, because she had brought back some fond memories of me singing her songs and reading her books and watching her grow up. That was when she was about eight, my daughter’s age now, before she had moved away.

I hope Mollie turns out like her, I thought six years ago.

I still think that, because we found almost the same Emily in Texas last week. She shared her room without a complaint. She bought Mollie a pencil pouch and barrette for her birthday.

Emily even took Mollie to the day camp where she works as a counselor. Mollie had a grand time, played all day, and made some new friends. It was the highlight of her vacation. Maybe it was Emily’s too.

But something was also different about Emily. I really discovered it when I took her to a deli on our last night. We had gone there six years ago, so it was a reunion of sorts.

The last time at the deli, we made small talk, the way you talk to a 12-year-old. This time though, we really talked. She shared her dreams, talked about her boyfriend, told me other per­sonal joys and sorrows. I suddenly realized that I was talking to a different Emily, a grown up one.

Yes, she’s got a lot more growing up to do. Everyone can remember how they owned the world at age 18. But here’s one kid that is going to make it.

My sister had told me how lucky she was to have a daughter like Emily. I didn’t tell Emily that. Hopefully she knows it.

This is a story that hasn’t ended yet. Six years from now maybe I’ll add another chapter. I hope it has a happy ending. I think that it will.

Some fish never stop growing ~ July 6, 1989

David Heiller

We did a lot of fishing when I was a kid, growing up on the Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota. I have a thousand memories, but one stands out. It’s so old, I only remember remembering it, if you know what I mean.

It was a summer evening, when I was about six. We were fishing off a dock south of Brownsville, in the backwater. The dock was full of us kids. I had a cane pole, of course, and stood at the edge of the black water, which lapped over the old wooden planks and onto our feet. It was that still time of day, with the warm smell of summer evening in the air, a smell kids know, a mixture of fish and water and wet wood and mayflies and warm sunshine.

I remember that smell, and I remember my cane pole just about jumped out of my hand as a fish took the huge bobber under. I pulled up, the black line straining, and suddenly a huge bass lay thrashing on the dock. It shook out the hook, and started flopping toward the water. Glenn, my older brother, stood and gawked for a split second. Then he pounced on the fish like a cat, and clutched it in 15-year-old hands, a lunker large mouth.

It seemed like a lunker to me, anyway. We measured it at 16 inches on the spot. By the time we got home, it was 18 inches long. That’s all the longer Glenn would allow it to grow, and it has stayed there for 29 years. I admired that black bass for years. I used to hold my hands apart 18 inches, and tell myself, “That’s how long it was.” I could see its green back, the black line running down the side, the huge mouth, the red in its eye. It’s been my favorite fish ever since.

Noah's bass

This past weekend, we took a family vacation to a cabin on Pelican Lake, near Orr, Minnesota. As soon as we had unpacked the car, we piled into the boat, and headed for a fishing hole, my son, Noah, my sister-in-law, Nancy, and me.

We pulled up at a narrow channel between two small islands. It looked like a good spot, according to the resort map. “Reef,” it said, showing tiny lines in a circle. Besides, another boat was here too. They must know what they were doing, I thought. That’s a basic rule of fishing: If you don’t know what you’re doing, find someone who looks like they do. One of the guys from their boat was in the water, tugging at the anchor rope. “Anchor’s stuck on the rocks,” he called out as we pulled up 30 feet away.

Noah cast a nightcrawler out from his Mickey Mouse rod and reel, while I bent down to bait my hook. Suddenly there was a splashing. Noah yelled, “I’ve got one, I’ve got one.” His rod, all three feet of it, was doubled over the side of the boat out of sight. It pulled him to his feet.

“Pull it in,” I said, thinking it was a sunny. Then I saw the swirl of a large green back in the water. I gawked for a split second. “Help him, Nancy,” I called. She reached out, grabbed his line, and hoisted the fish into the boat.

“Look at that, Dad,” Noah said. He held up a largemouth bass, about 16 inches in length. It must have weighed a pound and a half, maybe a little more.

Good fishing for Noah, David, and Nancy.

“Nice bass,” the guy in the water called from the nearby boat. It was an honest compliment, but did I detect a touch of jealousy, a wistful tone in his voice? Where had I heard that before? From my brother on the dock south of Brownsville 29 years ago?

The fishing peaked then and there. We caught plenty of sunnies the next two days, plus perch and crappies and smallmouth and rock bass and a two pound northern. But no more largemouth bass like that.

Which was fine with Noah. Because the largemouth began to grow almost as soon as it was filleted and refrigerated. “How big was it, Dad?” he asked that evening as we returned to the hot spot. He held his hands maybe two feet apart. “That big?”

“No, not quite,” I answered, trying not to smile.

“That big?” He moved his hands 18 inches palm-to-palm, but they immediately drifted apart, like opposite poles on a magnet, and the fish grew some more.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, smiling.

And for a split second, I smelled it again, that smell of fish and water and wet wood and mayflies and warm sunshine.

Under the sun and stars ~ December 3, 1992

David Heiller

When the sun and stars finally showed up last weekend, people stretched and smiled and went for walks under blue and sparkly skies. Eight straight days of clouds make you appreciate a bright November day and night a great deal.

I had to work on Friday, the first sunny day. When I got home at 3 p.m., my niece, Sarah, put her hands on her hips and said, “You’re late.” She had the deadly tone of a married woman.

A little Sarah loving.

Then she added, “Let’s go for a walk,” and I was saved, because there’s nothing that heals a nine-year-old’s feelings better than a walk down the road. Yes, nothing better than a walk with a niece you see about twice a year under a sun that you see about twice a month.

I cut up an apple as we walked, a golden delicious that Mom had brought with her. Some people bring a bottle of wine or a bag of pastries when they go calling. In Morocco, you bring a cone of sugar. Mom brings apples, which is good, because a walk wouldn’t be a walk without an apple to eat along the way.

So we ate our apple and waved to our neighbors, Rosie and Dorothy. Their two dogs came out to bark a greeting, and our dog nosed up to them for a quick hello.

I pointed out Binti’s grave in the field. “I planted flowers there but you can’t see them now,” I said. Sarah said she had been going to tease me about Binti, at her brother’s insistence. But the sunshine and the fact that she was holding my hand must have changed her mind. That made me smile.

David with one of our guinea pigs,
Olga de Polga, in his pocket.

And it led to Noah’s raising of a philosophical question: “What five animals would you bring back to life if you could bring five animals back to life?” I ticked four off quickly: Binti and two cats and a three-legged dog from my childhood. Noah rounded off the list with a guinea pig that died last summer.

That got me asking about what five PEOPLE you would bring back to life. I spoke quickly: two grandmas, my dad, and Lynette, my sister. “Lynette first,” I added before I could think.

Noah and Sarah couldn’t add to the list. Oh, to be nine again.

I looked at Sarah and Noah walking together. They are only thirteen days apart in age. Sarah has long dark hair and alabaster skin covered with freckles. She shows her mother’s Scottish blood. Noah is all blond and German and Norwegian.

I glossed over that. I saw how they smiled the same way, and for a second I wished that they were twins.

We passed and waved at Couillards, who were splitting a big pile of wood. Everybody was out enjoying the sunny afternoon. Even the animals. We discovered all kinds of tracks in the snow along the road: rabbit, squirrel, mouse, even a bird that Noah said was an owl. My guess was a grouse, but an owl sounded better, so I let that pass.

We turned into a field that held the remnants of a house and a chicken coop. Sarah crawled into the coop and retrieved a plastic egg. She pried up a rusty pail and an enamel pot with the bottom rusted out. She wanted to keep them.

“What are you going to do with them?” I asked sternly.

Sarah visiting with Queen Ida.

“Put flowers in them,” she said. She had given the one answer that would make me happy, and she knew it. I carried them home for her.

We returned with the sun glowing long and red on the winter horizon. I pointed out the moon, a pale thumbnail setting high in the west. Sarah couldn’t believe that little sliver was the moon. She asked if people could see it by her house in Cottage Grove. I said yes, and that her mom and dad were probably looking at it right now and thinking of her. She smiled at that.

When we got home, Sarah showed Grandma Heiller her treasures. I thought Mom would roll her eyes and sigh and say something like I had said, what most parents would have said.

But grandmas don’t say those things. She admired them and said, “Well, look at that. Isn’t that something?” She told us that the egg was probably placed in the coop to get the chickens to lay more. The long skinny pail had been used for milk, she said. Why yes, she had carried one like that when she was a kid.

Later, after supper was eaten and the kids were in pajamas, I carried Sarah and Mollie outside. I guess it was the last leg of our walk, to see the clear Thanksgiving heavens. The winter sky never disappoints. We were smothered with stars.

“There’s Orion,” I said, gesturing to the east as best I could, holding a kid on each arm.

“And there’s the seven sisters,” Sarah added, pointing straight up. Seven sisters? She had me on that one.

Sarah left the next morning. She forgot her milk pail and rusted pot. My guess is that she won’t even miss them. Next spring I’ll plant flowers in them for her, to help me remember a sunny walk and starry, starry night.

So long, old woodstove friend ~ June 17, 1999

David Heiller

The woodstove is gone. A neighbor bought it. We moved it onto his trailer last Friday, and it was no easy task.

I had grown attached to the woodstove. On the one hand, it was about as inanimate an object as you could find, steel and brick, and as solid as a tiny Gibraltar. There’s nothing colder than a cold stove.

On the other hand, when that stove was full of oak on a winter night, it was as good a friend as you could ask for. It was the center of our household universe, and it didn’t have to beg for attention.

Malika showing her great strength hauling 
wood for the stove. Noah got stuck
 hauling far more wood than she did,
 but that is the subject for a different column.

Our first dog would lie with her head under the stove. She would get so hot that we thought she might burst into flames. We called her the heat sponge.

My wife, Cindy, wasn’t quite that desperate for heat, but on cold days she would sit as close to the woodstove as humanly possible. Sometimes after her morning shower, she would stand with her back to the stove and steam would rise off her robe like she was on fire.

When company would come in the winter, often someone would comment about how good it felt to stand next to heat of the woodstove. “There’s nothing like a woodstove,” they say. It seemed to bring back a lot of childhood memo­ries, pleasant ones.

We told stories in front of it, lying on the floor and watching the coals shift and glow. Having a fire to focus on is an important ingredient in a good tall tale.

A kettle of water always sat on top, to fill the air with moisture. A whirligig sat there too, made by Red Hansen, He made it from a piece of aluminum and a piece of wire. When the stove top reached a certain temperature, the alumi­num would start to spin.

Sometimes the stove would get too hot. When company came in the winter, I had the bad habit of throwing a piece of wood on at the last minute. It would kick in at about the time we sat down for dinner. The person who sat closest to the stove would slowly turn red and break into a sweat and start shedding clothing. It was pretty fun to watch.

David would open the wood of the woodstove, sit on 
the floor with Collin, and tell stories.
 The woodstove a necessary part of the equation.

I asked a neighbor and friend, Tim Peebles, if he wanted to buy the woodstove. He had often admired its heat, and wished he had one in his house. Yes, he wanted to buy it. We agreed on a price, and he came over on Friday to take it home.

I’m proud to say that the two of us moved it alone. When I first tried to lift it, it wouldn’t budge. It seemed to be attached to the floor. Maybe it didn’t want to leave. It must have weighed 400 pounds. It was unbelievably heavy.

We slid two 2x4 pieces of lumber, eight feet long, under it, and lifted it like we were carrying a stretcher, although when we were done, I felt like I needed a stretcher. Even Tim, who used to play football for a college team in Ohio, had to strain a little. Amidst great groans, we moved it in short hops out of the house. Once it tipped a little, and for a second I thought it would fall and crash through the floor and end up in the basement. But we caught it in time.

To replace the woodstove, we are buying a gas stove. It will sit in the same spot, and will look like a woodstove. I’m glad we have made the change. It will be cleaner and safer, and will require less labor from me. I’ve written about that labor a time or two in this column, how much I loved it, and that’s true enough. But the one thing I don’t have enough of is time, and making 10 cords of firewood a year took a lot of time. It seemed to consume all my free time in the fall. I came to that realization about six months ago, at almost the same time that Cindy did, and we both agreed that it was time to make the switch.

I won’t miss some part of heating with wood, like the dust and dirt and ashes and grit, or the chore of cleaning the chimney. Our son, Noah, will definitely not miss bringing in firewood every day. At least he won’t miss it for a while. I used to have to remind him to fill it properly, to actu­ally fill it and not make a little clubhouse inside it. I predict some day he will look back on that chore with fondness.

I’m glad we have sold the stove to a friend who lives just down the road. He^’s going to get a knock on his door some day this winter, when it’s real cold, and I’m going to walk up to the old woodstove and stretch out my hands and say, “There’s nothing like a woodstove.”

A new world for Adam ~ July 1, 1993

David Heiller

We wanted to show Adam the world, or at least our world. Adam is my sister’s 11-year-old son. He’s from a suburb of Dallas, Texas. He recently stayed with us for 12 days. My sister wanted him to get out of the city and see a different way of life. We wanted him to get to know our son Noah better, since they’re only a year apart in age.

It was a dangerous proposition in a way. We only get three TV channels—no cable. Noah’s closest friend lives four miles away, not four blocks. Everything that you find in a city is glaringly absent in Birch Creek Township. No parks, no pools, no malls. I was a little worried that Adam might be impatient with our way of life.

Adam

I shouldn’t have worried. He said more thank yous than I could count, even to people like Palmer Dahl who sharpened Adam’s tomahawk. “You paid for it,” Palmer said in a surprised voice. He wasn’t used to a polite kid either, but Adam meant it.

I knew the rest was working out on Adam’s third night. He and Noah and I were taking a sauna, and Adam said out of the blue, “If I was at home, I would have watched about 14 hours of TV today.”

Instead, we had gone to the Northwest Company Fur Post in Pine City. Our family had never been there, but because of Adam, we went. At the post, a voyageur had taken us back in time. The kids watched him throw a tomahawk into a log, and that took care of any urge to watch TV.

When we got home, I gave them an old steel hatchet, and they spent hours throwing it against a slab of white oak. Later in the week, they went to a store and bought their own tomahawks, and Palmer Dahl put a fine edge on them, thank you.

The fur post got them talking about building a wigwam, like the one there. They didn’t do it, because they didn’t have time.

I had worried that they would have too much time, but I forgot how kids can fill time. I also forgot how much our area and rural lifestyle have to offer.

They shot Noah’s bow and arrow. Adam hit a rabbit, but it got away. They biked over to Noah’s friend’s house four miles away.

They spent an afternoon helping clean the calf barn and milking cows at our babysitter’s farm. Adam was amazed at how the cow manure was taken away through a grate in the floor. He described the size of the cows udders, spreading his arms like he was holding a 20 pound northern.

Noah, David, and Adam and
one of their favorite activities.

You won’t find that in Dallas.

Adam helped me weed the garden and didn’t complain. I showed him how to chop and split a log with an ax. He liked that. Why couldn’t he have come in the fall, when I have 12 cords of firewood to make?

We went to a pow-wow in Hinckley. He and Noah bought dancing sticks, and joined the Indian dancers in an intertribal dance. Cindy and I watched them until we finally got in and danced too.

This past Sunday, they spent all afternoon hiking at Banning State Park. Adam described how he climbed up some “kettles” or vertical holes in the sandstone rock. Cindy told me later, “He was definitely at risk a few times,” which translated into, “I’m glad he didn’t fall.” In other words, he was being 11.

When Adam returned, he asked me if we could go canoeing. Normally after a trip like that, on a Sunday night, I would say no. But I wanted Adam to go canoeing, if he wanted to, so after supper we went to Fox Lake and paddled for two hours. We told stories and sang and watched a mother loon holler at us as she kept her eye on the baby swimming by her side.

In the canoe, I told Adam about trips to the boundary waters; how you can drink the water. I wished we could have done that. It was on our agenda.

And that night, I looked up into the clear night sky, which is something we haven’t seen much this summer with all the rain, and I wanted Adam to see some northern lights.

Maybe next year.

The next time some old timer tells you that kids don’t know how to play anymore, tell me and I’ll give them Adam’s address. He’ll set them straight.

We did show Adam a slice of our world. Adam liked it, and that reminded me about how lucky we are to live where we live.

Our house is going to be empty without him. And that will remind me of how lucky I am to have a nephew like Adam.

Counting down to birthday number three ~ June 16, 1988

David Heiller

There are few words more frightening in the human tongue than the voice of a two-year-old from the bathroom late at night saying, “I need someone to clean up my mess.”

So Cindy and I sat up in unison when we heard Malika call out from the bathroom at 10 o’clock Sunday night: “I need someone to clean up my mess.”

Earlier on that hot day we celebrated
Noah and Malika's birthdays.

We were sitting in the kitchen playing “Rummikub” with Cindy’s mother when the words came. We didn’t expect them, because any upstairs creaking had been muffled by a large fan that hummed by the table. We hadn’t checked on Malika or Noah for half an hour.

The last time, it was black magic marker on her wall, doll, and pillow. The time before that, it was green felt-tipped pen on her legs. As Cindy and I looked at each other, we both wondered, “What color is it this time?”

After a couple minutes of debate, I stood up from the kitchen table to see what Mollie’s mess was this time. When I opened the bathroom door, I thought I was seeing things. Mollie was sitting on the potty, staring wide-eyed at me. She seemed to be wearing a pair of orange nylons. Her legs were orange, solid orange, from her ankles up to mid-thigh. It took just a split second to register—Malika doesn’t have orange nylons. Cindy doesn’t have orange nylons. No one has orange nylons.

Malika was covered with orange paint. “I’m a mess, Dad,” she said. It was the understatement of the year, even for her.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Malika had left a trail of orange paint from the potty to the rug in front of the sink, where she had stood for some time with a once-green washcloth, trying to get rid of the evidence.

The rug, once beige, was now mostly orange. We followed the trail upstairs into her bedroom, over the once-pink rug, onto the bedspread and her blanket, now both streaked with orange, onto the wall next to her bed. The wall had been marked with green and black strokes, but now the orange drowned them into insignificance. We’re talking Picasso here.

The crime, as we could easily piece together, had started with a bottle of Tempera paint on top of the filing cabinet in her room. She had scaled the dresser, using the handles as footholds. Once the paint was opened, she got more than she bargained for on her pajamas. She tried wiping it off, using the bedspread, then the wall. She thought about the bathroom and a wet washcloth, and succeeded only in painting her legs. Jackie Johnson could not have done a more professional job, nor John Clark. She finally realized it was no use, so climbed on the potty and called for help.

David and Malika. She always had a good time,
 or she'd manufacture it.

It took three adults one full hour to clean up the mess. I was assigned to Malika. She stood sobbing on the kitchen counter, looking like a sad Halloween character. I washed her several times in the sink, while Cindy scrubbed the bathroom and Lorely worked on the upstairs. When I was done with Mollie, we sat her on a chair in the middle of the kitchen.

“I don’t like you,” she said in defiance to the spanking and scolding. “I’m angry at you. I’m angry at Momma. I like Noah.”

“Noah’s upset with you, too,” I countered.

“I’m angry at Noah,” Mollie continued. “I want to go to Bobby Jo’s!” Bobby Jo is her best friend from the day care. Then Mollie hung her head on her chest and sat in silence.

We finally had the mess cleaned up enough so that Mollie could go back upstairs. Her mattress was soaked with paint and water, so she slept on the box spring in a sleeping bag. She didn’t say a word as I laid her down. At five minutes after 11, we sat back down at the table. “That’s what you get for raising such an independent daughter,” Lorely said with a shake of her head and a smile. “Another kid that age would have called for help. Mollie didn’t think she needed help. She thought she’d clean up the mess herself.”

I think that this little girl is 
plotting some fun/mischief.

And it could have been worse, Lorely went on: Yes, the Tempra paint permanently stained an expensive rug and bedspread. But it could have been worse. She might have drunk it instead of spilled it.

I’ll second that opinion. As I looked at Malika standing in the kitchen sink, covered with orange paint and crying, I didn’t know whether to be angry, or to laugh. Maybe I was feeling what Lorely had just expressed.

Anyway, I’ve written about Malika before. In fact, this is my third “Terrible Twos” column on her. It had better be the last, because she will be three years old this Saturday, and that gives Mollie just three days to destroy the world as we know it. Hold your breath.

Keep the gas tank filled – the baby’s on it’s way ~ June 27, 1985

David Heiller

1:12 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: The light is on over the bed. Cindy is sitting bent over slightly at the edge. Her face is tight. She’s looking at her watch.

“Five minutes apart, 45 seconds long,” she says in a breathless way. “The contractions.”

“Huh?” I mumble, feeling very cozy under the blankets of this cool dark morning.

“Let’s go, Dave,” she says. “I think this is it.” Suddenly, very suddenly, I’m awake.

4:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve just dropped Noah off with a friend in Rutledge. So far, so good, with our Plan. Suitcase is packed, dog and cat fed. We even had time for a quick sauna before leaving. We are on our way to the hospital in Duluth.

Cindy spies the gas gauge. Less than a quarter of a tank. “Do I have to take care of everything?” she asks.

“This is the first time in two weeks I didn’t get gas,” I say in a weak voice. So much for that part of the Plan. “Why, just today, I pulled into the Deep Rock, but I didn’t have any checks with me. Besides, you’re a week early, you know.”

Somehow, blaming Mother Nature is a watery excuse, and Cindy doesn’t bother to answer it.

4:45 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’re just picked up a friend in Moose Lake. Diane was with us for Noah’s birth, and will be labor assistant again. She sits in the back seat, rubbing Cindy’s shoulders and talking softly. Diane gave birth to all six of her children at home. Plus she’s helped quite a few others into the world. Her presence calms my butterflies somewhat. Still, as we approach the Carlton exit on 1-35, my stomach feels like Cindy’s. A combination of two cups of tea, a glass of orange juice, and a near-empty tank, all having their effect.

I pull over at a truck stop, fill the tank, and go to the bathroom. Suddenly things seem much better, for me at least.

8:15 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve been here for three hours. Contractions are down to three minutes apart, lasting a minute and a half Cindy is dilated to six centimeters. The doctor comes in for the first time. He’s been out of town all weekend, and a nurse finally got hold of him. Cindy’s face lights up when she sees him. It’s a look I haven’t seen before, the look of a woman about to try a natural birth, after a Caesarean Section, looking at the doctor she has trusted to help her.

“You’re processing well,” he says. “The baby is still posterior. It’s still got some rotating to do, but it’s moving down nicely into the birth canal. It looks good.”

The doctor gives Cindy’s hand a squeeze and heads for the door. “I’m going to make my rounds now, and go to my office across the street.” He looks at me, reads my eyes. “I won’t be more than three minutes away. Don’t worry.”

9:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: Cindy is lying on the delivery table, trying not to push. We’ve been waiting for the doctor for 15 minutes. Cindy is dilated 10 centimeters and can hardly hold back as the contractions sweep over her. The intercom is calling for the doctor at a steady interval. A nurse calls his office. Nobody says anything. We hardly look at one another. I glance at Diane as we knead Cindy’s back. “Where is he?” my look says. “We’ve got lots of time,” her look answers.

10:23 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve been pushing for 40 minutes. I say “we.” Any husband who has sat by his wife’s side at a birth knows what I mean. Cindy’s arms and legs feel like ironwood when she pushes. Deep breath, face contorts into a grimace. Knuckles turn white at her side, feet and legs strain against the stirrups.

The doctor checks Cindy again. No progress. The baby is about two inches from crowning, and not coming any further. The doctor can see its head. He shows me. “Oh, it’s a girl, she’s got brown hair,” I say. A few short laughs.

But there is no humor in the room. The baby, he or she, is stuck. It happened two years ago too, only that time there were forceps and an ambulance, and just enough doubts to make us try again.

‘I’ll let you push for another half hour, but to be quite honest, I don’t think it’ll go,” the doctor says. Cindy is exhausted. The pain is almost too much, since she has held off from any pain killer. “It’s your decision.”

I look at Cindy. “It’s your decision, Cindy,” I say. “No, it’s our decision,” she answers.

“That’s right,” the doctor says, looking at me. I’ve seen enough pain for a year in the last hour. “Let’s get it over with,” I tell Cindy.

She nods a reply.

11:58 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: I pet Cindy’s hair, sitting by her head in the operating room. A sheet separates Cindy’s head and me from the rest of her body. It could be a mile away for Cindy too. She can’t feel a thing from the chest down. Her eyes are clear of pain for the first time all morning, as she smiles at me.

Our nurse catches my eye, and lifts her chin with a come-here, motion. “You ready for this?” she asks. “Stand up.”

Malika Lynette, June, 1985.

And there it is, not it—he or she, this purple tiny baby thing that gets rushed to the warming table in the corner. A tiny voice cracks, a single cry that could split a log of oak. The newest, most anxious and pleading and happy-to-be-here sound, that has made moms and dads cry since memory itself.

“You’ve got a little girl,” the doctor says.

“A little girl, we’ve got a little girl,” Cindy and I both say as our cheeks touch, our tears touch. For a handful of seconds, time has stopped. And a new life has begun.

Masked-marauders invade state park! ~ June 21, 1990

David Heiller

News reports I would like to see...

HINCKLEY (AP)—An unknown number of masked robbers broke into the personal belongings of two families at a campground east of Hinckley last week.

The unidentified assailants damaged property at St. Croix State Park, made personal threats, and carted off a quantity of food on Wednesday, June 13, before the campers could stop them.

Joey and Nora Shields and Noah and Malika Heiller: before the invasion.

The campers then withstood several more attacks by the group during a long and sleepless night.

No one was hurt, although two seven-year-old boys were visibly shaken when they had to abandon their pup tent to sleep with one set of parents.

Camper Cindy Heiller also had one attacker come at her for a short distance after she attempted to chase it away in the late afternoon.

The incident came after the Shields and Heiller families returned from a bicycle trip in the park. While the men were playing baseball with their children, three invaders approached the women and a 15-month-old baby.

They laughed at first. Then Cindy tried to chase one away, running at it half-bent, shaking her arms and yelling in a gutteral voice.

The invader bent over, shook its head, and ran right back TOWARD Cindy, who quickly lost her bravado and retreated to a picnic table.

The invader then started climbing into the trunk of a car to investigate its contents. The men returned at that time, and armed themselves with rocks to protect their family and property.

Both were heard to remark that they wished they were NRA members, or at least had brought along a small caliber pistol to take justice into their own hands.

Cindy also reported that the robbers destroyed a large Tupperware container full of chocolate chip bars which she had baked for the trip. She said they had passed up two bags of tortilla chips and marshmallows to get to the bars, which they also sampled and ate.

“At least they liked the bars,” her husband, David, said. Cindy had no comment to that remark.

The rest of the evening passed without incident. As darkness fell, the families tucked their two sons into an old pup tent for their first night of camping without adults by their side. David checked the latch on their cooler. It was shut tight. The campfire died down, and the nine people settled into their tents and sleeping bags.

The silence was broken when Carolyn Shields called out from her tent across the campsite, “Dave, is that you?”

Dave, who was reading by candlelight in the Heiller tent, wondered what she was talking about. “Yes, this is me,” he said.

Kevin Shield’s voice then broke the silence in a stream of yells that can’t be repeated here. A tent zipped open, pots crashed and sticks and rocks flew. Kevin ran from his tent in his underwear. His flashlight spotted one invader sauntering off with a roll of braunschweiger over his shoulder. Another one had a package of Hershey bars already opened and half-eaten. The thieves had removed these items from Heillers’ cooler. The braunschweiger and most of the Hershey bars were recovered.

After Kevin yelled and chased after them, they both dropped their goods, perhaps startled as much by Kevin’s attire as his words. But they made no attempt to run away. One continued eating a Hershey bar. Kevin’s flashlight revealed at least three invaders at the edge of the campsites.

“They sounded so methodical,” Carolyn said. “I thought it was Dave grabbing a midnight snack.”

Shields and Heiller packed everything edible into their cars and returned to their tents. But that didn’t bring peace and quiet. The invaders came again. Garbage can lids banged. Kevin started swearing and yelling again. The raccoons started snarling and fighting between themselves, apparently over a half-eaten candy bar. The kids started crying. David Heiller started laughing.

David had to rescue the two oldest boys from their pup tent, while the Shields’ middle daughter returned to Mommy and Daddy’s side.

After another 10 minutes, things quieted down in the campsite. Then, from the next campsite 20 yards away, a tent unzipped, gar­bage can lids clanged, and a stream of obscenities similar to Kevin’s could be heard in the night.

The next morning, the bleary-eyed campers discovered that no one was missing, and most of their food and property was intact. They even managed a smile.

They described the thieves as about two feet tall, with small hands capable of picking locks; wearing masks and scraggly fur coats, and having bushy tails with dark rings on them.

An investigation is pending.