Holy Moley, Mollie ~ April 20, 1989

 

David Heiller

My daughter, Malika, is good friends with Becky Lourey. There’s a 40 year gap in age between them, but they still have established a good friendship.

I like Becky for a lot of reasons that Mollie doesn’t understand. Her convictions, her caring, her enthusiasm, her family commitment, even her organizational skills. How can you not like someone who is so organized that she folds her family’s dirty laundry before washing it?

Mollie doesn’t understand those things, but she does understand a friendly face, moles and all.
Let me explain. It started at the Embassy Bar in Sturgeon Lake last fall. Becky

A mole-less Becky.

had a fundraiser there in preparation for her Minnesota House of Representative race with Doug Carlson. Becky, like a good politician, hugged Mollie, and talked to her. Mollie hugged back. She seemed to feel the energy, the glint in Becky’s eyes. Four-year-olds have a lot of energy, and glinty eyes too. Becky knows how to talk to kids, what with 11 kids of her own to practice on.

And Mollie liked Becky Lourey for another reason—her moles. Mollie touched the one on Becky’s forehead, and the one on her cheek. Becky let her too, and explained what moles are, if anyone really knows what moles are.

I don’t know why Mollie liked the moles so much, but I have a hunch that they were special because they were something she didn’t have, and therefore something she wanted.

Mollie didn’t forget Becky after that. Often when we would drive past the Embassy Bar, she would say, “There’s Becky’s house!”

But Becky showed up at a party three weeks ago with no moles in sight. Mollie took notice, and took offense. Becky explained that the mole on her forehead had swelled up, and started to hurt. Her doctor advised taking it out, along with the one on her cheek and several others farther south. Mollie didn’t buy that. Becky finally took her aside and asked that she be forgiven for taking off the moles. Mollie agreed. Becky asked, “Do you still love me?” and Mollie said yes. She has a kind heart for a four-year-old.

But the next day I wasn’t so sure. As we drove past the Embassy Bar and Mollie made her remark about Becky’s home, I asked her if she’d had a nice visit with Becky.

“She took my moles off, too,” Mollie claimed. “Hurts my cheeks and I got blood.”

“I don’t see blood,” I said.

^“No, yesterday I went to the doctor,” she insisted. “One day the doctor took off my moles and then threw them in the garbage. I didn’t like them take off.”

“Do you still like Becky?” I asked.

Mollie nodded. “But if she takes any moles off, I won’t like her anymore,” she said.

That answered my question, sort of, and I have since dropped the subject. No point in making a mountain out of a mole hill. But I hope Mollie can overcome her prejudice of the mole-free Becky Lourey. They’ve got too much in common, too much of a budding friendship. Then maybe Mollie can even run for political office, and be an Outstanding Minnesota Woman too.

~drh

The next week we received a hand written note complete with a drawing for Malika. It completes this tale. Becky has had many more losses that are too difficult to bear, as have we. Malika and Becky remained close over the years, Malika considering Becky her mentor. Here is the note from Becky to little Mollie:

~Dear Mollie~

I hear that you miss my moles. I do too! One day last week, I held a little child and when he, reached his hand out toward my face, I thought he was going to touch my mole, and then I remembered that it was not there_. My face is not as much fun for children as it used to be

This picture is supposed to be me and I Put the moles on with a sticky paper so you can take them off and put -them on until you are really ready for them to be gone. (Here is where Becky added a lovely self portrait)

I thought that I would tell you a sad story that explains why I feel okay about losing my moles. There, are some things we might not want to lose, but we can stand to lose them. And then there are some things that when we lose them, we miss all of our lives. It is important to remember the difference, so that we can get over losing the things we like but don’t really need.

Once we had a little son who died because his heart wasn’t made right and so it couldn’t work right. Forever and forever I will miss him. And so I know that the moles aren’t as important, and I can let them go.

I bet you can think of things that you would never ever want to lose, and,then think of things that you could get along without if you lost them.

I can stand to lose my moles, but I sure couldn’t, stand to lose your friendship, Mollie.

love, BECKY

Thoughts on a weekend alone ~ April 21, 1994

David Heiller

So how was your weekend alone? my brother-in-law asked on Sunday. You could almost hear his eyebrows going up and down like Groucho Marx at the other end of the phone line.

“It was fine.” I answered.

“Just fine?” he asked with surprise. He has two kids of his own. If he ever shipped them both off for a weekend, you can darn well bet he’d do better than fine.

So I’ll explain the fine weekend without rais­ing too many eyebrows.

We had dinner at the best restaurant in Duluth, Taste of Saigon. We bought candy at a candy store, and went to a movie, The Paper. It was the late show, but there were no kids at home so we didn’t worry about that. It was a carefree night with Cindy.

But it was strange going home to an empty house, not having to bring the babysitter home. The next morning, it was strange not hearing Noah’s radio. He usually forgets to turn it off at night. And no cartoons on Saturday morning—very strange.

I’d like to say we forgot about the kids, but that would be forgetting about your hands or your legs. You don’t think about them much, but if they are not there, you notice it.

I spent Saturday and Sunday at work doing photos and ads for “A Day In The Life Of Nor­thern Pine County,” a special section in this week’s paper. Cindy called on Saturday morning and asked what my plans were for that evening. I suggested we transplant tomato seedlings. “Well, I guess that would be all right,” she said. But her voice said, Gee, how romantic.

She had other plans. She made shrimp and pasta and parsnips fried in butter. I opened a bottle of champagne. We lit a candle. After din­ner we turned on the TV and watched Nancy Griffith sing. That’s something we wouldn’t normally do on a Saturday night. Not with dirty dishes still on the table.

It was much better than transplanting tomatoes.

We had a glimpse of life without children last weekend. It brought a strange mixture of freedom, loneliness, and worry. They’ve been, gone before, but never at the same time, never for three days. I wondered how they were doing if they were behaving, being polite, doing things we tried to teach them.

I wondered how they were going to turn out when they grew up and left home. I wondered if they would come home and visit. I wondered if they would be good children.

That made me think about what kind of son I was.

When they came home Sunday night, I spent time in each of their rooms. I didn’t have much to say. I just wanted to be near them, to watch them, to hear them tell of their weekends.

Sometimes you can see time slipping away, and you want to stop the clock. That’s how I felt. Both our kids are good kids. They are at a good age. We have a happy life, a happy home. It’s spring. Baseball has started. Soon the garden will be planted.

No, we had a fine weekend without the kids. It made me think about what a fine life Cindy and I have with them too.

Thanks to the rain ~ May 19, 1994

by David Heiller

It rained all day Saturday, a light mist of a rain. Some people probably cussed at it. But from the garden it made me glad. That’s where I spent most of the day, shoveling, raking, tilling. My T-shirt stuck to my back like, well, like a wet T-shirt. My gloves got coated with mud. So did my boots, and the rake and fork and tiller. We were all one soggy mess.

But the rain felt good, all six-tenths of an inch.

Kids love the rain.

We weren’t exactly in a drought. It had snowed eight inches just 17 days earlier. But the potatoes and lettuce and peas needed a drink. So did the corn and alfalfa. So did the roadsides along Highway 23, where train sparks have sent firemen a-scurrying and trees a-dying.

So did the perennials that Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson gave me last fall, forget-me-nots and delphiniums, primrose and daisies, and a bunch of others that I can’t even identify. Their leaves sprinted out of the ground with the rain.

We heard it start in the middle of the night. Cindy woke me up at 4:30 a.m. to say, “Listen, it’s raining.” There’s nothing better than lying in bed next to your lover and listening to a gentle rain fall on the roof over your head.

The rain didn’t stop our children. Noah was out on the driveway with his trucks and cars, wearing my rain coat and making grader noises and explosions for when he blew up the graders and trucks.

Malika came out onto the deck and skipped rope. “I did 23 backwards,” she called out to me in the garden.

“Great!” I answered.

They played with determination. Noah rode his bike over to Malika and said something, probably about guns and dirt bikes. Mollie lifted her chin and skipped on. Nothing beats skipping rope to an eight-year-old girl.

Rain doesn’t stop anything. The leaves on the trees seem to grow before your eyes, a bright and delicate green. The peas that you barely saw poking out of the dusty garden inch upward out of now-black earth. The farm fields that have just been seeded look ready to spring to life.

Oh rain! Oh joy!

Birds swoop and sing in the rain, feasting on mosquitoes, which in turn are feasting on me. Unfortunately, the rain brings bugs to life too. Orioles and hummingbirds politely take turns at their sugar water bar, while goldfinches and rose breasted grosbeaks gobble down sunflower seeds at theirs.

My thoughts turned to the Boundary Waters, how pretty that is in the rain, the pine trees and moss on the rocks and gray water full of rain drops and life. I’m heading that way with three friends this week, for the seventh straight year.

The rain made me think of those three friends, and of fishing for northerns in the Kawishiwi River. I thought of that big one Dave had on three years ago, how Jim missed it with the net when it made a pass at the canoe. Then it spit out the hook in Dave’s face like a guy that just hit a three run homer.

The rain makes me think of people like Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson, how nice they were to share their garden plants and their knowledge with me.

The sun came out on Sunday. My rainy day thoughts came to an end. I was glad for the sunshine. But it’s nice to give thanks for the rain too.

Life is short and sweet ~ May 2, 1996

David Heiller

Cindy and I went to the woods on Sunday evening, April 28, with the intention of pulling our 53 maple taps. I carried a hammer along for the purpose.

We figured this late in the season, the buds must be full of sap. When that happens, the sap turns a tannish color and becomes “bud sap.” That means it’s time to pull the taps, because bud sap is bitter and makes poor syrup.

But when we got to the woods, the buckets were full of clear sap, and instead pulling 53 taps, we gathered about 53 gallons of sap.

Those cold nights we had last week, the ones that everyone was complaining about, kept the maples pumping sap. Every cloud has a silver lining.

David understood the sweetness of life.

Part of my territory in the sugar bush is located near a spring, and that spring was full of frogs on Sunday night. Peepers, and they were living up to their name. They were so loud it almost hurt my ears. But it was a glorious sound to hear, especially when I thought of that same ground just a month ago, when we tapped the trees, covered with two feet of snow

It made me think of how fast spring comes along, and how fast things change. It seemed like almost overnight the snow in the woods was gone and the garden was bare and the parsnips were frying in the skillet.

Parsnips are one of my favorite vegetables. You plant them in the spring, then weed them and thin them, and then you forget about them. Some people dig them up in the fall, but Alvin Jensen told me to leave them all winter, and they taste even better in the spring, and he’s right.

Hedda cooked spring parsnips
 for Red, making life sweet.

They seem sweeter in the spring. Maybe the cold weather does that. There’s probably a scientific reason, just like there is a scientific explanation for being able to take 35 gallons of sap from a tree and boil it down into a gallon of something that is too good for words to describe.

They both border on miraculous to me. How could those parsnips stay fresh in the ground during the coldest winter on record? How did they handle that February 3 day when neighbor John Filtz had minus 56 on his thermometer?

Then again maybe we are so anxious to taste something fresh from the garden that we just think the parsnips are sweeter.

It doesn’t really matter. It’s fun to eat them, and fun to give them away. Red Hansen came in for some. He likes to have Hertha boil them, then fry them in butter and put brown sugar on them. Red is on a low-fat, low-sugar diet, but that doesn’t stop him from enjoying his parsnips.

David and Noah after breakfast.

Leona Schultz came in for her bag full too. She doesn’t bother boiling them. She just cuts the up the long way and fries them. She used to boil them first, but she saw all that good sweet juice laying in the bottom of the pot and thought it was too precious to waste, so she just fries them straight.

We were sitting at coffee break on Monday afternoon, and Cindy Jensen was talking about the upcoming graduation of her daughter Katie. Hazel Serritslev couldn’t believe Katie was graduating already. Neither could Lynn’s Storrar. Neither could Cindy Jensen!

They all knew in their minds that Katie was graduating. But all of a sudden it didn’t see possible. All of a sudden it had come so fast, too fast.

Malika and Mackenzie with David,
enjoying some sweetness.

I think about that when I look at our two kids Noah and Malika. They are growing out of shoes and clothes almost every other month. They are like the tomato plants in our living room, that seem to grow an inch a day.

Malika asked me on Sunday to jump on the trampoline with her. I was busy, but I did. Later Noah asked to play a little football with me. I stopped my gardening and did that too.

There was a time in my life when I might have said no. But those times are becoming less frequent. I can see them growing up too fast. Like the parsnips and maple syrup that remind me that life is short and sweet.

A great trip, with a great ending ~ April 18, 2002

David Heiller

The best part of the trip came at the end, when “Dave” and I paddled down the Kettle River last Saturday morning.

(In case you don’t read Dear Abby, when a name is in quotations, it’s not their real name, although I’ve often wondered if people don’t put the person’s real name in the quotes, just to be funny.)

“Dave” took care of the logistics, as usual. “We’ll put the two canoes in your truck, and then drive my van to the bridge at 46,” he told me when I pulled into his driveway at 9:30. The idea was to then drive my truck to a spot up-stream, park the truck, paddle downstream about eight miles to County Road 46, then get in his van with his canoe and go back for the truck. I would pick up my canoe on the way home.

And that’s what happened, mostly.

The Kettle River had never looked finer to me than that morning. Cold, deep, and in a hurry. A river in flood is like a magnet to me.

We slipped the canoes over huge slabs of shore ice and into the water. It quickly whisked us downstream.

David and "Dave"

There were rapids almost non-stop. These aren’t dangerous rapids like you’ll find 25 miles to the south at Banning State Park. You probably wouldn’t drown if you capsized in these. But there is still a cheap thrill in bouncing over the waves and dodging rocks.

I learned the rock-dodging part the hard way. Not more than five minutes after we started, my 17-foot Aluma-craft and I were perched on top of a huge boulder. Normally that rock would be a foot above water, but on this day it was three inches under the surface.

Dave gave me a look of sympathy as he slid past. He is an excellent canoeist. I crawled to the front of the canoe and rocked the canoe back into the current.

We didn’t talk much. The roar of the rapids prevented that. Dave pointed out two otters in the water ahead of us. I couldn’t see them. My eyes are temporarily bad as I await a laser surgery. But I heard one come up and quickly go back under, about a foot from the front of my canoe.

Dave saw deer too, which he diligently pointed out to me and I diligently didn’t see. But in a way that didn’t matter. What mattered was being on the river, in the sun, moving, exploring, and feeling alive.

The trip had another challenge besides the rocks. A strong south wind was blowing up the valley, and if you didn’t slice it just right, it would grab the nose of the canoe and shove you toward shore. I’m saying “you,” but it was really “me.” It never happened to “Dave.” Did I mention what a good paddler he is? “We’re going this way,” he said once with good-natured sarcasm as the wind forced me to shore.

Another time the wind turned me completely around, so I drifted downstream backwards, and looked where I had been. Hey, that’s a good thing to do sometimes.

After we passed under the Highway 27 bridge, the shore looked familiar. Just six weeks earlier Dave and I had skied down this stretch. It was a good feeling, seeing some landmarks, and knowing that we were getting close to home.

That last stretch was wider and deeper, with fewer rapids. It wasn’t as exciting. But it held one remarkable scene of beauty, where a water-falls slid off a high, quartz-filled ledge. It was the kind of beauty that you don’t see every day, or every year. It made me sit up and gawk and smile.

We reached the bridge on County Road 46, where Dave’s van was parked. Several hours had passed. We were tired and ready to get on with our days.

That’s when Dave swore and said, “I forgot my keys.”

He had left them in the glove compartment of my truck!

We laughed—what else can you do—then Dave said “I guess I’ll have to walk and get a spare key.” His house was about three miles away. “Do you want to come with?”

“No, I think I’ll take a nap,” I replied. And that’s just what I did. It was a great end to a great canoe trip. For me at least.

The river showed us wonder and power ~ April 10, 1997

David Heiller

Ice piled up against the Kettle River Bridge on County Road 46 a week ago, and when it let go, it was a sight to behold.

A crowd of people gathered for the event on Thursday evening, April 3. My wife, Cindy, and son, Noah, and I were lucky to be among them.

Ice is fascinating.

I had seen the people on my way home from work at 5:30. They were standing on the bridge, pointing at the river, which I thought was pretty unusual. Being a reporter, I wanted to stop and see what was going on. But I didn’t. None of my business, I thought.

Then at supper, Noah told me that the river was filled with ice, and it was really something. He had seen it from his school bus window. He’s always noticing things from the bus, like dead animals and lost lumber. Things he knows I’d like to investigate.

“That’s what the people were looking at,” I said. So we cleaned off the table and went back to the bridge and joined them.

About a dozen people were there. The bridge pilings had stopped some big sheets of ice, and all the ice up river, as far as you could see to the north, had backed up against it. You could have walked across the river on the ice, if you felt suicidal. On the south side of the bridge the water was clear and flowing.

We talked with some of the folks there, all the while watching the ice, looking for movement.

Then it happened. A bit of ice broke free on the west side. A tree started swaying 100 yards away, as ice jostled by. Then Frank Larson put down his binoculars and pointed upstream.

Janie Johnson took this picture of the Kettle River
breaking up on February 23, 2017.
I am so appreciative of her sharing it with me!

A river of ice was moving downstream like a huge snake, alive and unstoppable. “She’s going now, several people said at the same time.

Ice battled ice, grinding and crushing at a hundred different places, pushed on by the swift current of the river. The big sheets of ice at the bridge lost their grip and broke and slid through the pilings, and the river of ice was on the move.

For the next 20 minutes, ice floated under the river. No, float isn’t the right word. Float is too gentle. That ice was about as gentle as a bull. A jillion pieces, some huge, some tiny, bank to bank, all charged downstream.

The motionless ice field that looked so benign a few minutes ago was now a tremendous and deadly force. It was like a giant lava flow of ice, carrying trees and branches and rocks.

It clobbered the bridge with heavy thuds. The bridge shook. One woman bolted toward the end of the bridge, thinking the bridge wasn’t safe.

We stood there gasping with stupid grins on our faces. A car drove by and someone tried to wave it down to stop and look at the river. The two ladies in the car looked at us like we were crazy and drove on. They don’t know what they missed.

Looking at the ice moving underneath me, I felt for all the world like the river was motionless and the bridge and I were moving upstream. You couldn’t help but feel dizzy and a little seasick.

Norman Larson said he had seen an ice dam break like this a couple times before, and Frank Larson had seen it once. They’ve lived near the river their entire lives. It was a rare natural phenomenon to witness.

I felt lucky to see that ice dam go out last week. It’s something I’ll never forget. I’ll never look at ice on the Kettle River the same way. It reminded me of the wonder and raw power of Mother Nature.

People in western Minnesota have seen that power all too closely in recent days. Whole towns have had to be evacuated due to flooding. A blizzard, record floods, and record cold all hit at the same time last weekend, and this after α winter of record snow. We have nothing to complain about here.

The blessed end of the syrup season ~ April 15, 1993

David Heiller

People in our neck of the woods woke up Easter morning to about five inches of wet snow. It clung to pine tree branches like plaster, and coated the grassy church parking lot like lard.

Folks who normally have to be pushed into going to church had to be pushed away from church, wheels a-spinning. Folks like us.

Malika and Mama hauling the sap, bucket at a time.

The snow came at a lucky time for our family. We had just finished boiling our last gallon of maple syrup on Saturday. That was about the time the tractor quit working too. I had hauled in the last 40 gallons of sap on Friday evening, and it quit Saturday morning, right in the mid­dle of an idle. I guess it wasn’t an idle threat.

With no tractor, and with five inches of sloppy snow, I don’t know how we would have brought in the last batch of sap. We were lucky, or maybe more. Sometimes you wonder.

We ended up boiling down about 360 gallons of sap for our nine gallons of syrup. That’s just right for our family. But that’s a relative term.

For example, Joy Naylor, a waitress at Partridge Cafe, was telling me about their maple syrup operation southwest of Bruno. During the height of the run this year, around April 6, they had 1,600 gallons of sap WAITING to be boiled down, while they were cooking down 250 gal­lons. They couldn’t keep up, it was flowing so fast.

Joy processes eight gallons of syrup at a time. This is after a long day of waiting on schmucks like me. Don’t tell me people don’t work like they used to.

The Naylors had about 400 taps out, and en­ded up with about 45 gallons of syrup. I asked Joy what they did with it. They give a lot away, sell some, and use the rest up. “We have a big family,” she said with a laugh. So yes, that’s a relative term.

Noah and his buddy, Jake.
David always had chores for them 
to do, and they always found 
ways to have fun anyway.

Noah and his friend, Jake, helped me take out our 42 humble taps on Saturday, before the snow hit. They had a claw hammer and a knapsack and managed to pull out at least five taps. Their laughter and high, excited voices carried through the trees like a spring breeze, and that more than made up for any tap quotas that I had in mind for them.

Children work at their own pace in the spring. Their hearts are more into clubhouses and creeks. Noah stayed overnight at Matt’s house recently. When Matt’s dad went to wake them up for breakfast, he found an empty bed. They had gotten up at 6:00 on a Sunday morning to go outside and play in Matt’s fort.

Cindy wanted to take a sauna on Sunday night. I wasn’t going to join her, until I stoked up the fire and smelled spilled maple sap evaporating from the floor and benches. So we sat and sweated together, and breathed in that sweet smell one last time, and cooled off on the steps, arm-in-arm, overlooking the snowy yard and the sap stove and a tractor that won’t start. We felt lucky on this Easter Sunday, blessed with good fortune, a good family, good friends.

Blessed. Maybe the Virgin Mary had bad directions and visited our field in Birch Creek township instead of that one in Kettle River, where 3,500 people showed up on Sunday.

Gee, we could tap a lot of trees with 3,000 people helping. (I’m joking, I’m joking. 

School Forest burned, then saved best friend ~ April 16, 1987

David Heiller

When Tom Leustek heard the crackle over his fire pager that a fire was burning south of Willow River last Thursday, he felt a premonition of disaster.

“In my head, I heard, ‘This is it.’ I had pedaled my bicycle to school, and I pedaled against that wind, and I knew it was tinder dry. I work in the woods,” Leustek said.

Tom Leustek had built his house in the center of a dense pine forest in Willow River in 1980. He loves trees. “I built there one reason—for the timber,” he explained. “A fool can see how pretty it is.”

Tom Leustek, holding a poster that
 commemorates May as Arbor Month, 
a time to plant trees.

So when Tom heard the fire call, and felt the south wind, and, saw the dense smoke, he knew.

When Tom got to the fire hall, he jumped into a fire truck with Bill Kenyon and Bruce Bohaty. They raced south to the Eva Marcus farm, but the fire was past it already, and into the pine forest, heading north, straight toward Leustek’s home.

They turned around and drove down the Old Sawmill Road, past Tom’s house, as far as the power line. They met a wall of fire, flames jumping from tree top to tree top, pushed on by that terrible wind.

“It was obvious we were going to do nothing,” Tom says. “Bill Kenyon said, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ and that’s what we did.”

They turned around, and drove back through fire, back to Tom’s house. They pulled up by Tom’s garage, to make a last stand.

A stone’s throw to the west of Tom’s garage lay the School Forest, 40 acres of jack pines that were planted 25 years ago. Tom knew those jack pines as well as anybody, probably better. He and his environmental studies class at Willow River High School had spent the past winter thinning the School Forest, taking out 23 rows of trees, a quarter mile to each row.

“In my yard and in that School Forest I’ve got a lot of labor of love,” Tom said.

Standing by his garage, with his white pines at his back, some of them 100 years old, and the school forest in front, Tom watched the fire bear down.

But suddenly, a miracle occurred, one of many miracles that for most people transformed last Thursday’s inferno from tragedy to relief. The fire veered to the west, skirting Leustek’s house, and two other houses. It swept past like a tornado, missing them.

“Apparently the school forest inferno was pulling so much oxygen from the east,” Tom tried to explain. “God’s wind just blew it away from our buildings.”

“That’s what it was, it was luck or divine intervention.”

The fire raged on, and the firemen chased it and fought it and finally beat it. The fire won the battle for Agnes Jaros’ trailer home, and Lyle Bakke’s basement home, and 302 acres of trees. The fire fighters won the war.

At first the victory seemed hollow to Tom. He lost his School Forest, and he is afraid for those white pines. They are very sensitive to heat, he said. “I don’t look for most of my white pines to survive.”

The day after the fire, Tom put a for sale sign up in front of his house.

“If I can sell, I will,” he said at first. “To me, I would have been better off if it (the house) went up.”

But after some thought, Tom’s feelings changed. “It’s obvious to me that the house didn’t burn because it was God’s will,” he said. “He wants me to stay in Willow River, and that’s what I intend to do.”

If you love trees like Tom Leustek does, you can understand his sorrow. He lost a part of his family, in a spiritual sense.

And consider this: With its wide rows so neatly trimmed by Tom and his students, the School Forest drew the flames away from Tom’s house, and from half a dozen others. If the fire hadn’t changed directions to the west, into the School Forest, at that time, it could easily have swung northeast. It might have jumped County Road 43 to the trees around the gas station and three 10,000 gallon fuel tanks. If those had blown up, the fire might not have been contained for miles.

So in our long list of thank yous to the people who helped halt disaster at the doorstep of the houses in Willow River, let’s add one for the Willow River School Forest. May your trees grow again.

Savoring the big melt ~ April 11, 2002

David Heiller

Sunday was one of those perfect days. Temperatures in the sixties. Bright sun. Melting snow.

After weeks of below normal, cloudy weather, it was the kind of day that would get you pulling a Roger Jensen and running from chore to chore.

Everyone you talked to, at church, at work, in the coffee shop, said the same thing. It’s time for spring. Enough of the bland weather. Bring on Rutabaga Falls. Bring on the big melt.

I walked out to the woods that afternoon to check on the sap buckets. Just the day before it had been a frozen landscape. Frozen snow. Frozen taps. Frozen ice in the buckets.

Our sap boiling set up.

But not Sunday. Sunday was so warm that I was working in a vest and T-shirt. I gathered 25 gallons of sap from the 50 taps in the few short hours that it ran. Combined with 20 gallons we had collected about a month ago, that was enough to start a boil.

I lit a fire in the barrel stove that has been converted to a sap boiler. The sap pan was filled with four inches of sap-ice. I told you it was cold. But a roaring fire took care of that in a hurry, and pretty soon one of the sweetest smell: of spring sifted into the yard. If you have smelled sap boiling, I need say no more. It’s a fragrance that Madison Avenue has yet to capture. It’s very subtle.

Like all good smells, it has pleasant associations. It carries with it the anticipation of hot corn bread covered with syrup, and tulips blooming, and frogs peeping. And tilling the garden, and lying in the hammock and listening to a Twins game. All this plus your favorite spring activity, isn’t far behind when that smell fills the air. Neither is the big melt.

The big melt has a charm that not everyone appreciates. If you live in the country, it means mud, serious mud. It sucked off one of my shoes on Sunday, causing me to do a one-legged triple-sow-chow-double-toe-loop. Luckily, no one saw me hopping around on one leg. I got my foot back into the waiting shoe without falling, and scored a respectable 5.7, except for the French judge who gave me a 5.3.

Canning the finished syrup.

The big melt brings frost boils, and water the basement, and hordes of ladybugs anxious leave our house. (The feeling is mutual.)

Plus, lakes form in places that don’t generally have lakes. Like in the garage. I half expect to see Bob Dutcher pull up with his fishing boat and start fishing in our yard. Knowing, Bob, he would catch something.

I would like to make one selfish request though, for those of you with better connection The Man Upstairs than me. Keep the nights chilly for a while. Below freezing, to be exact. Once the weather gets above freezing and stay there, the sap quits running, and the sweet smell disappears. Let’s savor the big melt for another week or three.

Look out Grandma, here I come ~ April 9, 1987

David Heiller 

My wife and I have been trying to sell our son on staying with his Grandma Olson ever since Noah brought the idea up two months ago.

We had been visiting there, and Noah had enjoyed the fruits of the labor of a grandmother who has only two grandchildren, the oldest of whom is Noah. In other words, he’s had a darn good time with Grandma.

Noah and Grandma (Lorely Olson)

Grandmas who live in Suburbia have the keys to a wonderful world for a three-year-old. First there are the shopping malls, which have stores that sell nothing but toys for children. Grandma Olson is on a first name basis with every toy store clerk in Brooklyn Center. She can walk through Brookdale blindfolded.

Grandma also knows about stores that are gigantic amusement parks for kids. They are like toy stores with the packages already opened. Gigantic trampolines, rooms with padded walls and huge balls to bounce off other kids. Children love them. So do parents who want to farm out their kids to Grandma for a day and a night.

So when Noah said he’d like to stay with Grandma all by himself, overnight, we backed him all the way. In fact, we were almost ready to buy him a bus ticket. But when my wife suggested to him that he could ride to Grandma’s house with our friend, Carla, Noah balked. His bold word seemed hollow as he faced the prospects of leaving his mother and father for a ride to Minneapolis to stay with his grandmother.

So for the next two months, we worked on Noah. “Boy, wouldn’t it be fun to stay with Grandma Olson for a day?” we would ask.

Noah and Malika with Grandma O.

“Yes, but you have to stay with me,” Noah would 
answer.

“That’s not the same,” we would say. “Just think of the things you could do, go to Circus-Circus and toy stores, and watch Dumbo on the VCR.”

“Yes, but you have to come with me,” Mr. Yes-But would answer.

This stand-off lasted until Monday of this week. Grandma Olson called on that day and had a suggestion. “Tell him that when he comes to visit with you, he never gets to do all that fun stuff because he is always with you, but if he comes alone, he’ll be able to because he will be alone with me.”

We relayed the message to Noah. “Yes, but you have to come with me,” he echoed.

“But that’s just it, Noah, if we come with, you won’t be able to do those things.”

Grandma Olson, Noah and Malika.
No smiles allowed!

Noah looked at me, like a young Yossarian. This was his first Catch-22. I had him on the ropes, so I tried a sales trick of my own.

“You can go down with Carla, or you can go down with me. Which would you prefer?” I asked.

“I’ll go down with you,” he said, taking the bait.

Cindy had listened to this interchange from behind Noah. She smiled and signaled for me to cut the conversation. We had bargained enough concessions, and like a true labor organizer; she didn’t want to press the luck.

Tuesday morning, we asked Noah about the trip to Grandma’s. He stuck to his guns. He even called her on the telephone to give her the good news. He also informed her that they were going to the zoo. That was his bargaining demand, I guess. By the time he gets there on Friday, he will probably be asking for box seats to the Twins game and a new three wheeler. But I’m sure that Grandma can handle that, and I think Noah can too. They’ll work something out.

As for Cindy and me, we’ll stay home with our youngest daughter. We’ll try to celebrate, to hug and kiss a little. But more likely we’ll lie awake and worry about our son’s first night away from Mom and Dad.