Move over, Barbie: Kirsten’s here ~ July 29, 1993

David Heiller

You can’t help but feel sorry for Barbie. The blonde one there in the rocking chair next to me. She’s lying face down like she’s crying. If she’s not, she should be.

Kirsten Larson has taken away her little girl.

Kirsten is new to our family. She has flaxen hair that came in a Swedish braid. Her eyes match my daughter's eyes: a light blue. (In fact some people think she bears a striking resemblance to me.) She has leather shoes, nice socks with no holes, pantalettes, a dress with an apron, and a bonnet.

Kirsten is famous. She has had books written about her. The first one is Meet Kirsten. It tells of her family’s trip to their new home in America in 1854, of their struggles as immigrants on a farm in Minnesota. Mollie has the book.

Malika and her Kirsten doll

My daughter, Mollie, put Kirsten in her back-pack on Sunday night, July 18, and we rode our bikes to the local ice cream store. As we were standing in line, a tiny little girl came up and stared wide-eyed at Kirsten, who was poking her head out of the pack.

They were eye level. I’m sure the little girl thought Kirsten was a real baby.

She’s not. She is a doll, complete with pioneer accessories and a family history. Mollie saved her allowance and birthday and Christmas money for 10 months to buy her.

My grumpy reaction at first was that Kirsten was too expensive and too commercial. After all, a real-life Kirsten didn't have an $80 doll in 1854. She had a rag doll at best, and they both had to walk barefoot through the snow, uphill both ways.

My wife pointed out that Kirsten is an educational, high quality toy. And even I have to admit that. When I pick Kirsten up, she feels almost like a real baby. Maybe I’ll end up playing with dolls yet.

And Mollie loves her. They can play together for hours on end. That’s almost as much fun for me watch as it is for Mollie.

This past Sunday night, Mollie packed for a weekend camping trip that we’re taking in a couple of weeks. For Mollie, at least half the fun of vacations is packing. I tried to talk her out of  packing two weeks in advance, but failed, as usual.

After half an hour she showed me what she had done. Along with her own suitcase and sleeping bag, she had packed a small bag for Kirsten, including a tiny doll.

A doll for a doll. You can’t get any more real than that.

Meanwhile, the Barbies, all five of them, have fallen on lonely days. They lay around face down on the rocking chair, or stuffed in a plastic bucket in the closet. Their hour-glass figures don’t measure up anymore. Kirsten looks like she’s been drinking milk and eating butter. The Barbies look like they throw up after every meal.

So I guess I’ll take Kirsten after all. I know Mollie has.

‘Skirls’ just want to have fun—on vacation ~ July 31, 1986

David Heiller

The cabin looked great as we moved our load of supplies in for a week’s vacation on Trout Lake two weeks ago. Carpeting on the living room floor and in the bedrooms. A clean bathroom, nice shower, no slime on the floor. Two beds and a crib in the kids’ room, and a big bed in our room.

Cindy unpacked the food, putting enough for an army encampment into the refrigerator and cupboards. I tucked the clothes into the dressers, enough duds for an army encampment too, except for mine. I brought only three shirts, two pairs of shorts, and some socks. If I had packed the food, we would have had bread and water for a week. That’s why Cindy had let me pack only for myself.

The two kids took off running the minute they hit the cabin floor. There were no bookcases to dodge, no mountains of toys or televisions or stereos. Just pure floor space, a small gym to them for running and falling.

Noah and Malika ready for canoing

Everything looked perfect. I breathed a sigh of relief, the fear of a sight unseen cabin floating out the window into the Northwood’s air. We walked down to the lake. A nice spot for the canoe nestled in the birch and white cedars. A loon called from the other shore, a quarter mile across. The water felt cool, spring fed. Only trout and a few small perch make this lake home. But the fisherman in me, even with its bullhead heritage, felt the challenge calling. Vacation had begun.

There was no time to fish the first night, but the second evening, I caught two rainbow trout, just large enough to skin up for morning breakfast. But as I pulled the canoe into place Sunday evening, Cindy came quickly out to meet me.

“David, there’s an animal living in the cabin.”

My first thought was skunk. Thoughts raced back to our basement at home three summers ago, when I cornered one there. There is still a slight odor.

“What is it?”

Daddy and Noah and a rainy night
on our vacation with the skirl.

“I don’t know. I think it’s a squirrel.” Cindy answered. “But it’s living under the sink, and it’s making a lot of noise. I want you to do something about it, now.”

It was too late to do anything at that hour, and besides, I hadn’t seen this alleged intruder. Neither had Cindy. Maybe the Northwoods had been working its wild mystery on her. Maybe nothing more than the wind in the trees.

Monday morning our three-year-old son Noah came with important news, as I lay drowsing in bed at 7 a.m. “Daddy, there’s a skirl in the kitchen.”

“A what?”

“A skirl.”

“A squirrel?” I mumbled, turning over on my side, away from him. This was the first time in recent memory that I had slept till 7, and I thought I’d try for a record 7:30. Besides, a squirrel in the house? Rampant imaginations again. Half an hour later, Noah came back in.

“Daddy, come look at the skirl.”

I stumbled out of bed, grabbed my pajamas, and walked into the living room. A pine squirrel ran under my feet and behind the couch.

“What the he-” I said, suddenly awake. Cindy stood smiling at me. I told you so, she said without speaking.

I ran to the refrigerator, grabbed the broom from off the wall, and started for the couch.

“Oh no you don’t,” Cindy said, intercepting me and the broom. “You can’t smoosh the squirrel. Noah’s been playing with it for the last half hour.”

“You can’t smoosh the skirl,” Noah repeated, a look of reproach in his eyes.

They had me. I put the broom back.

The squirrel must have been watching this important interchange from under the couch. From that point on, he became another guest in the cabin. We didn’t have to pay for him with money, only in food. He had a regular route under the table where we ate, with long stops under Mollie’s high chair. The squirrel must have had the same instincts as our dog, who spends a lot of time under the high chair at home during meals.

Noah playing Pine-Skirl hide-and-seek 

Mollie seemed to have a special rapport with the squirrel. Her 13-month vocabulary goes over our head, but the squirrel didn’t seem to mind. Mollie would walk bowlegged up to the squirrel, which would sit on its haunches and wait for her. She would stop two feet away, and call out “N-umpf? N-umpf?” The squirrel perked its ears forward. “Ah giggliea, la goolia a dda, N-umpf?”

Then Mollie would take another step, and the squirrel would dash under the couch where a hide and seek game would follow. The squirrel would pop up between the cushions, so Mollie would take the cushions off. By then the squirrel was peeking at her from under the couch. Mollie would spot it there, but while she was bent over looking, it would reappear on the back of the couch, almost quicker than the adult eye, and especially quicker than the toddler’s eye.

We found the hole where the pine squirrel entered, under the sink. That first morning I told a young man who worked at the resort. He looked at me and smiled. I told him again two days later, as the squirrel was settling in with us. He said, “I don’t know what to do about it.” I told the owner on the last night, before we left. By this time the squirrel was a part of our family, and all thoughts of smooshing it had disappeared. The owner, an elderly lady who had lost her husband only two weeks earlier, said, “We’ll have to do something about that, I guess,” in a weary voice.

It’s my bet the squirrel doesn’t have much to worry about. He made our vacation more exciting. He left a good impression on the kids, and even I learned to restrain myself when a squirrel sits under the table while we eat. I hope the next family that moves in for a week has a couple of little kids, and that the broom stays in the corner next to the refrigerator.

If you go fishing, don’t ask why ~ July 15, 1993

 David Heiller

You never know what you’ll discover from a little girl in a fishing boat. Her name is Grace. She’s my niece and she’s four. Grace likes to fish, and I like any kid who likes to fish. So Grace and I and my two kids, Mollie and Noah, made several excursions in the boat last week.

Mollie and Noah can take off their own fish now, for the most part, so I got my hopes up. Maybe I can actually try fishing myself. Any adult who has fished with little kids knows what I mean.

But Grace brought me back to reality.

The power of a four-year-old brings reality into focus.

It started when I wanted to troll around Star Lake. Maybe catch a small northern like the one mounted on the cabin wall. Just a 12-pounder.

Trolling didn’t go over big with Grace. She was holding Mollie’s hand firmly with her left hand, and her Snoopy rod and reel in the other. Her feet couldn’t touch the bottom of the boat. She was ready to roll, and here we were, going two miles an hour while Uncle David held onto a fishing rod.

“Why we going so slow?” Grace asked. Her tone demanded an answer, and quick.

“I’m trolling.”

“What’s TRO-lling?” she asked, wrinkling her nose and holding out the word like you’d hold out a dead mouse.

I tried to explain about trolling.

“Why we trolling?” she asked next. To catch a big fish, I said.

Grace didn’t care about big fish. She cared about little sunfish, four inches maximum, that she could haul in on her Snoopy rod. She also cared about speed, and so she returned to her original question. “Why we going so slow.”

I’ve seen this logic before. Grace has discovered the one word that teaches parents patience: WHY. You might as well try to stop a glacier than battle a four-year-old armed with WHY. So I reeled in and Grace held tight to Mollie’s hand and I gunned that six horse Mercury over the lake to our hot spot.

Grace, the inquisitor, and Malika

I’d like to say that this was an isolated incident during our three days at the lake, but it wasn’t. Grace reminded me that when you take kids fishing, you usually forget about trolling and trophies. You find a hole of sunnies and spend your time taking off fish, throwing them back in the lake, and putting worms on hooks on Snoopy rods.

And you listen to questions. I can’t remember all the WHYs Grace hit me with. But three stand out.

The first came one evening at our sunfish hole. A golden retriever was running around on shore, all by itself. No owner in sight. It saw us, and swam about 50 feet out to the boat, then swam two laps around us. We had to pull out our lines.

Grace asked, “Why is that dog swimming around us?” That was the best question she asked. I sure didn’t know the answer. She could have asked next, “Why you swearing, Uncle David?” but fortunately she did not.

The second WHY came a few minutes later. A small sunfish had swallowed a hook, and was floating motionless near the boat.

“Why isn’t that dead fish swimming?” she asked. Noah, my 10-year-old son, pounced on that with a laugh. “Because it’s dead!” He thought he had won.

“Why?”

Noah sighed and didn’t answer. He had enough sense to know he’d been licked.

The third WHY came as we headed back to the cabin. Grace’s mom and dad were out in the canoe, paddling toward a group of six loons. We shut off the motor and watched. As the canoe edged closer, two loons would rear up and flap their wings and scream. They looked like a couple of King Kongs beating their chests.

I told Grace and Noah that the loons were threatening the canoe. They were trying to frighten the intruders away, I said rather profoundly.

“Why aren’t my mom and dad afraid?” Grace asked.

I tried to answer, but as usual, it fell short. I’ll let her parents try. They have more experience than me, thankfully. And hopefully more patience.

Nap time ~ June 27, 2002

David Heiller

No, I’m not writing an article about my cute little kids. I’ll leave that to Julie. (I like your columns, Julie!)

This is much more controversial. Something befitting a cigar-chomping editor who keeps a bottle of whiskey in his desk drawer.

That leaves me out, too.

This camping stuff is exhausting business.

I want to talk about the delicate subject of naps.

I am sold on naps, and it’s time to proclaim my faith, publicly, without shame or fear of ridicule.

For some reason, our society has given naps a bum rap. Don’t believe me? The next time you see someone who is dog-tired in the middle of the day suggest that he or she go take a nap.

He’ll either look at you like you’re crazy. Hey, it ain’t macho to take a little-bitty nap.

Or he’ll smile self-consciously and say, “Yeah right,” as he pours himself another cup of coffee.

I must admit I still have a little of that latter chap in me. But more and more I am losing that worry about what people might think.

"Taking a 20" with Rosie standing guard.

I call it “Taking a 20.” It sounds better than “Taking a nap,” because, yes, the word nap does carry a bit of Sesame Street with it.

“Take a 20,” now that has a ring to it!

It refers to 20 minutes. That’s all it takes to refresh me. It’s a miracle in a way.

Many afternoons, usually at about 2 p.m., I get groggy. I type more slowly. Words don’t come out quite the way I want them to. I even start to walk funny. I’ve been that way for as long as I can recall.

Sleep reading. Is this what
happens if you don't "take a 20"?

This trait really hit home after I had eye surgery on June 5. Every afternoon, fatigue would hit me like a hammer. My eye was telling my body I needed to rest, and I figured I had better heed that advice. Doctors orders, you know. So whether at work or at home, I would lie down. Twenty minutes later, I would wake up feeling like a new person. It was a good reminder of something I’ve known for a long time—that naps really make a positive difference in my day.

And 20 minutes is all it takes. I lie down, look at my watch, and tell myself I’m going to wake up in 20 minutes, and I do just that, almost to the minute. The body has a built-in clock.

Often I don’t even sleep in my naps. I can feel my body start to drift and relax, like I’m doing a back float in water. That’s all it takes.

A lot of people are discovering the benefits of naps. Some progressive companies are even endorsing nap times, and providing places for employees to do it.

The National Sleep Foundation estimates that drowsy workers cost U.S. employers an estimated $18 billion in lost productivity every year. (I just looked that up on the internet.)

We LOVE to take
photos of sleeping people.

There’s even a book on the subject, by William and Camille Anthony, called The Art of Napping at Work. This past spring they promoted the Monday after the Daylight Savings; Time change as the first National Workplace Napping Day, touting a 20-minute workplace nap for “the amazing effect it has on productivity, alertness and well being.” (Another bit of internet trivia.)

In our case, we have a cot in our darkroom that works great.

Some countries have a built in nap time in their day. When I taught school in Morocco from 1977 to 1979, every day from 12 to 2, students and teachers would leave the school and go home, eat lunch, and take a nap. It really made a lot of sense for getting through the rest the day.

So there, I’ve said it. Naps are good. If you a nap-taker, you know what I mean. If you aren’t give it a try. Take a 20.

Two types of fishing ~ July 31, 2003

David Heiller

Collin pondered the rock bass the way a bonsai artist ponders a pine tree. He looked at it this way and turned it that way in careful consideration of his next move. It might take minutes. It might take hours.

Levi and Collin, fishing at the cabin

“Just take the fish off!” his cousin, Levi, finally exclaimed. He was an expert at that of course, because he had taken a crappie off his fishing hook just the day before. It had taken him 20 minutes, and the fish looked like a used tube of toothpaste when he released it. But he had indeed removed the hook, and now that feat was serving him well.

“I will!” Collin shot back. The two boys are like brothers, and that means the gloves come off every so often.

“You’re two years older than me and I can do it,” Levi jabbed.

“Not two years, only a year and a half,” Collin replied. “And you fish a lot more than me. You go 10 times a year, and I only go five.”

“But you’re two years older than me.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Uh-huh.”

The brilliant conversation continued for most of the next five minutes. Collin finally slid his hand over the fish like he was disconnecting a time bomb. He took out the hook, and dropped the fish over the side of the boat. I was relieved to see it swim away.

It was a good reminder to me that life isn’t always easy for kids, at least if they’re a bit squeamish about fish hook removal.

I could have taken that hook out for Collin. He asked me to a couple times. But it was a fence he needed to cross, and cross it he did, with some “help” from his cousin. The next time it will be easier, then easier, until the day comes when he might actually smile and recall the good old days.

Claire, one of the Cast-a-way kids,  
enjoying the water at the cabin

The other kind of fishing I make reference to in the headline came from two younger kids that I took fishing at our annual Trip to the Cabin last week.

They were the Cast-Away Kids, because their main goal was to cast away. It did not matter one bit if they caught any fish. In fact, they seemed a little upset when a sunfish had the audacity to latch onto their bait. Their main goal was to bring that rod behind their head, whip it forward, release the bale with their thumb, and watch the bait fly forward. Cast away!

Then it was a quick reel in, and a repeat performance.

I made sure that they had single hooks on their line, and that most of the hook was covered with a plastic worm. You don’t want to put a double jointed Rapala with three sets of treble hooks in the hands of someone three feet tall.

Still it was a defensive fishing trip for me. I kept my head tucked in close to my shoulders as Gabe, age five, slung his bait toward shore with the determination of a middle linebacker. His dad had rigged it with a lead-headed jig that left his arm like a shotgun slug.

Gabe was remarkably accurate. He would aim for a lily pad, ignoring my advice that fish are not six inches from the shore, and he would hit that lily pad.

Sometimes the line would tighten like a crossbow as he tugged to get it free, and I would holler “Heads-up!” and the shotgun would blast back our way. Luckily no one got shot.

Claire, age eight, had a more poetic approach, casting her worm in all directions, moving her lure like a ballerina around her battering-ram cousin. She asked once if she could have a heavier lure like Gabe’s, but I gave a firm no to that. She seemed to understand my answer, probably because she had ducked as often as me.

Claire had the habit of announcing that she had a fish every time she felt a tug. Then when she saw the inevitable hunk of weeds on her hook, she would say she didn’t.

Her mantra bored into my brain: “I’ve-got-one, no-I-don’t. I’ve-got-one, no-I-don’t. I’ve-got-one-no-I-don’t.”

I finally broke her of that habit, first through a polite request, and then through good old mockery. Her final fishing act on our last outing was to point out to me that she had caught a weed and didn’t say it was a fish.

She was proud of that, and so was I. It was progress, just like her big brother’s Rock Bass Victory. Fishing with kids is fun. Just be ready for some good arguments and fast-flying lures. Catching fish is a bonus.

Casting for a fishing story ~ July 3, 1997

David Heiller

If your ear lobes are intact now, guard them with your life. I taught a four year old how to cast a fishing lure.

It started innocently enough last weekend at The Cabin. When my four-year-old nephew, Collin, arrived, the first words he said to me were, “Uncle Day-vid, I caught more fish than you last year.”

He had out-fished me one evening, and he wasn’t about to let me forget it after only 12 months.

Uncle Day-vid and Collin at the cabin: fishing buddies

The next morning we went to the dock to catch sunnies. Usually with a four year old, that means dropping a line from your Sesame Street rod and reel straight down into the water, and watching half a dozen panfish converge on the worm.

They have a brief conference, then elect the smallest one to investigate further. You end up pulling in a fish only slightly bigger than the hook itself. This gives the kid a great thrill, which gives the adult a great thrill.

But Collin’s Sesame Street fishing rod and reel were broken. Why is it they only last one summer? Could it be a conspiracy?

I gave Collin my best rod and reel. I figured I wouldn’t need it. When you fish with kids, you don’t really get much fishing done yourself anyway.

Collin was thrilled to sit on the dock and catch small fish. But I couldn’t resist showing him how to cast his bobber out further, where the bigger fish might be.

Learning to cast a fishing rod is a milestone in a child’s life, like riding a bike or hitting a baseball. One of my earliest memories is of fishing with my brother, Glenn, and trying to cast with a rod and reel.

Glenn must have been in a good mood that evening to let me use it. Usually it was Cane Poles Only.

The open-faced reel had a thick black line. You used your thumb for a drag. It was virtually impossible to cast without getting a backlash the size of an eagle’s nest.

I think I made one cast, then spent the rest of the evening trying to untangle the line. Glenn was not pleased, to put it mildly. But I was thrilled to have been given the chance to actually cast my bait. I eventually mastered the reel, and was able to cast it at least five feet.

Getting the bait on is the step before casting.

With that rite of passage in the back of my mind, I showed Collin how to cast. I showed him how the line-release button worked. I showed him how much line should be dangling at the tip of the rod when you cast.

I told him how to bring the rod back to two o’clock, then bring it forward to 10 o’clock. I don’t know if he knows how to tell time, but he nodded dutifully. I held his hand and we did it together. The bobber soared out at least five feet.

No fish was hooked, but Collin was. He couldn’t believe he had done that. He grabbed the rod from me. “I want to do it now, Uncle Day-vid,” he said.

“Let me show you one more time,” I said. But we both knew that wasn’t necessary. He kept the rod and kept casting.

Most of the time he looked like a mule skinner whipping a team of horses. He churned up the water with short casts. Once in a while he’d get one out 20 feet.

Fishing pretty much stopped for Collin at that point and casting took over. He would simply cast and reel, cast and reel. He paused only long enough to have me bait the hook after a fish had caught up to it long enough to strip it bare.

On Saturday night, I took Collin and two adults out in the 14-foot fishing boat. I sat in the rear, manning the six-horse Mercury and keeping a close eye on Collin.

Watching a kid cast on a dock is one thing.

You can give him a wide berth. Sitting next to him in a boat is another. There’s no place to hide.

Collin worked both sides of the boat. He cast to the front and to the back. He would announce his direction with a polite sentence. “Excuse me, Day-vid.” “Excuse me, Nancy.” “Excuse me, Mike.”

We wanted to excuse him into the lake. But instead we just hunched our shoulders and lowered our heads and waited for the bobber to go whipping past.

Collin was sitting on a boat cushion. Each time he cast, it inched off the seat. Finally after one mighty cast he ended up with a crash in the bottom of the boat.

No, I didn’t hope he had a broken arm. But I couldn’t help telling him that that’s what happens when you cast so much. “You need to let your bobber sit for a while,” I told him for the umpteenth time.

But Casting Collin wasn’t going to let a bruise or two stop him. He kept on casting, and we kept on ducking.

I know I could have made him stop and sit still and be quiet. But fishing is supposed to be fun, and Collin was having fun. So I let him cast away.

I ended up catching three keepers to his one. “I caught more fish than you,” I said with a smile that he recognized. “Maybe that’s because you did too much casting.” He didn’t say anything. It was a four-year-old dilemma.

We got back at dark. Collin held a flashlight while I cleaned the fish. We ate them the next day. There’s nothing better than fried sunfish fillets, rolled in flour, fried in butter, and seasoned with salt, pepper—patience!

Time will tell where Collin goes, fishing-wise. I tried to teach him how to put on a worm and take off a fish. He didn’t want learn that mundane skill quite as eagerly. But I’ve got a hunch he will.

Once you learn how to cast, the rest is all downhill.

Lobbying for lightning bugs ~ July 27, 1989

David Heiller

The search for lightning bugs started slowly with a lobbying effort by Michael, my 11-year-old nephew who spent a couple nights with us this week.

When I got home from work at 6:30 Monday evening, he asked, “Do you think there’s many lightning bugs out now, Uncle David?” He calls me “Uncle David” the way Huey, Louie, and Dewey say “Uncle Donald,” and with the same glint in his eye.

Michael is in the center of this extended family photo. 
His dad is giving him bunny ears.
(The rest of the gang gathered for this picture are: top to bottom, left to right, sorta kinda:
 Danny, Michael, Sarah, Brooke, Cindy, Noah, Ruby, Malika, Jeanne and David.)

“Sure,” I said knowingly, falling back on my knowledge of the subject from the days when I was Michael’s size.

“It sure will be fun catching them, won’t it?” he continued.

“Yeah, it will,” I answered, not realizing that he had just set the hook.

Like a good lobbyist, Michael dropped the subject. After supper, we went for a walk down the road, found a few agates, threw rocks at telephone poles. Michael found a striped green catepillar, and informed us that it would soon turn into a monarch butterfly. He broke a leaf off, and put it in a screened box that my bees come in.
    “I like to fill that box up with lightning bugs and use it for a lamp to save electricity,” I told Mike. He looked at me like he believed it.

After the walk, Michael, Noah, and I went into the field behind the house to explore some more We checked out the blue bird houses, and found two boxes occupied. In one, the young bluebirds had a streak of bright blue across their wing feathers. Michael peered in, and reached to touch one, but I stopped him. I had to lift Noah up to see them.

We walked toward the woods, moving ahead of Noah in the tall grass. I whispered to Mike, “Let’s hide.” He smiled, and we inched faster ahead, then ducked down behind some brush.

“Dad, where are you?” Noah called. His voice told me he knew this was a game. “Don’t talk,” Michael whispered.

Noah and Uncle Danny.

“OK Dad, I guess I’ll go back now,” he called. Mike and I crouched lower, breathing through our mouths. I looked at Michael. My brother, Danny, had played this game on me when I was Noah’s size. I could see a twinkle in Michael’s eyes that reminded me of Danny, his father.

Noah repeated that he was leaving. We waited. He waited. Finally, he gave his Loon Call, which sounds more like a kid falling off the Swiss Alps. I couldn’t resist. I answered with my Loon Call, which sounds more like my wife laughing when she talks on the telephone. We all stood up, and our walk continued.

“When will the lightning bugs be out?” Michael started asking, as we checked out the deer stand. He repeated the question as we peeked into the last of the blue bird houses, and back at the house as they put on their pajamas.

“Go to your room and look out the window. When you see the lightning bugs, you can come down,” I finally told them at 9:30. Noah is usually in bed by 7:30.

Soon they came pounding down the stairs, roaring past me as I sat at my computer at the kitchen table, trying to think of a column for this week. “Aren’t you coming?” Michael asked as the screen door slammed.

Well, it had been a while. So I had grabbed an empty mayonnaise jar and followed them out

Michael already had something glowing in his hand. “It flew up and landed on my face by the clothes line,” he said. “Look at it.” He showed me the blinking bug, then put it in the jar.

The search continued. But it was not a good lightning bug night. Their day had come two weeks earlier, and now only a few old lunkers flew high above, or far off in the field. We circled the house twice, but one bug was it.

“Time to come in,” I said, and said again. Michael put the jar on the porch. “Wait, if you leave the jar here, they’ll see it and come in,” he said. Noah looked at his cousin in rapture. Made sense to him, like it had made sense to me when Danny used to say that there were tiny bulldozers in water so we didn’t have to use soap when we took baths together on Saturday night. Same principle, 30 years later.

I finally got them inside, and poked some holes in the lid of the jar, and they went upstairs to examine their lonely firefly. Ten minutes later they were asleep.

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone on a firefly hunt. Too long? I guess a little late night lobbying never hurt anyone.

Everybody won on this fishing trip ~ July 20, 2000

David Heiller

“Time to get up, Collin.”

I sat next to my nephew at 6 a.m. last Friday morning, expecting a battle.

But Collin popped out of bed like a piece of toast. He was wide awake before his feet hit the floor.

Collin and his lunker

Fishing will do that to a boy age seven.

It hadn’t been quite so easy for the 46-year-old. I spent 15 minutes getting out of bed and opening my eyes (in that order), then getting dressed and climbing up to the loft to wake Collin.

“Look at the loons,” Collin said when we stepped out of the cabin. Seven loons were paddling side by side across the middle of the lake. They looked like they were practicing for the Aquatennial Parade.

We got in the boat and headed for our hot spot, which is usually luke-warm at best. Collin asked if he could steer the boat. But it was too early for that. My eyes weren’t open all the way yet. “Later,” I promised.

I eased the 14-foot boat through a narrow channel and into a smaller lake. We drifted with the current, and started casting our jigs.

Collin caught the first keeper, a crappie about a pound in size. I put it on the stringer. Collin watched in admiration. He doesn’t like to touch fish. Then he caught a small bass. I took it off the hook for him.

I didn’t have to lecture Collin about how he had to learn to take off fish if he wanted to be a real fisherman. For one thing, my son, age 17, had ridden him pretty hard about it all week. (This is the same son who wouldn’t wake up when Collin had jumped out of bed.)

Collin and David, fishing buddies, swimming buddies, just good buddies.

And Collin knew he had to learn to take fish off. But knowing and doing are two different things. That’s what learning is all about. He had made his first small step the day before, when he borrowed my handkerchief to take off a sunfish for the first time. It was a good use for a hanky.

We left the spot after an hour and headed for another place that Collin had “heard about.” Already he is spreading gossip about where the fish are biting. That’s the sign of a true fisherman! It was a half mile away, which Collin also figured into the equation, because it gave him a chance to steer the boat. He knew I would say yes this time.

I was finally awake, and the lake was glass, so I scooted over and he took the throttle of the seven horse Mercury, and we made our way, although not in a straight line, to the next little lake.

Collin had lost his red jig, which he felt bad about, because it had caught a few fish and he thought it was lucky. “Do you have a white lure with red eyes?” Collin asked. “Uncle Mike lost a big walleye with a lure like that.”

“Yeah, it’s called a Red-Eye,” I said, taking one out and showing it to him. That was the one. I hooked it onto his leader. We started casting.

“There’s no fish in this lake,” Collin said, and not more than three seconds later, he had a strike.

Collin’s rod bent over. He reeled in steadily, with only a word of age-old advice from me: Keep your rod tip up. Is there anything finer than watching a kid reel in a nice fish?

He brought it to the side of the boat, and I lifted it in. It was a largemouth bass, about 14 inches long.

That was a lunker for the lake we were on. “Can we keep it?” he asked.

“Let’s take it back and show everybody,” I stalled.

We fished a little longer. On almost every cast, Collin said, “There’s no fish in this lake.” But that trick usually only works once.

Collin steered us back to the cabin, then jumped out of the boat with the fish almost as quickly as he had jumped out of bed. He showed his mom and dad and sister and cousin and aunt. He let everyone know how he had out-fished Uncle David. That didn’t bother me. It was a win-win situation, in today’s parlance.

We took the bass back to the lake. I had broken the news that this bass wasn’t quite big enough for a respectable fisherman to keep. I pulled out the stringer, and laid the fish in the water. I held it by the tail and pulled it back and forth, until its gills were working hard. Then we watched it swim off beneath the dock. That’s a good feeling, watching a fish swim away, to be caught another day:

I cleaned the crappie. Collin watched. It’s another fishing skill he will soon master. We ate it for breakfast. It tasted great!