Just a game of catch ~ May 17, 2001

by David Heiller

Noah came out of the house on Sunday evening carrying a baseball and two gloves, and I was reminded once again why spring is my favorite season.

David and the kids.

I got up from weeding the garden and walked over. He tossed me my glove. It was flat and soft and to my vivid imagination, almost eager for my touch. We walked to our favorite spot for playing catch, he at one end of the driveway and me at the other.

We tossed the ball back and forth. I said to keep it high so I could see it against the sky. My right eye is still healing from a cornea transplant, and I can’t see very well from it yet.

We talked about a lot of things, both trivial and profound. It’s funny how doing a familiar activity like playing catch can unplug the conversational sink. It isn’t always that easy getting a 17-year-old boy—or a 47-year-old man—to do that. But give a guy a ball and glove and he will sing like a canary.

She's just his daughter.

And on all kinds of subjects. Simple things like the Twins game. Or important stuff, like one of life’s struggles. They all seem to carry equal weight during a game of catch and they all somehow seem to be more manageable from the effort.

When Noah and I were done, Mollie met me by the deck with her glove. “My turn,” she said, and we had a repeat performance.

When the kids were smaller, we used to play catch before the bus would come. The house was hectic with getting up and dressed and eating breakfast, but there usually seemed to be about five minutes before the school bus would come in the morning, and we would get in a few throws.

Sometimes I wouldn’t get a taker when I asked for this game of catch. In fact, the kids would go through streaks where they seemed to take pleasure in saying no to my request, like I was an idiot for asking. They were too cool. But ask I did, every morning, and sooner or later, maybe just to shut me up, they would relent and grab their gloves.

That’s why seeing Noah walk out with the gloves on Sunday night felt so good. The tables had been turned. He was asking me to play catch, and I tried very hard not to run to him when I saw what he was holding. Be cool, Dad, it’s just a game of catch.

He's just his son.

Just a game of catch. In a sense, that’s right. It hardly warrants a column in the newspaper.

On the other hand, a game of catch is your childhood, your best friend, your brother. It’s your kids, your dad, your neighbors. It’s spring, a fresh breeze, new life. It’s the freedom of summer just around the corner. It’s blackbirds on the highline wires, and kids going to the beach, and baseball games that you wish would never end. It’s Mom and apple pie and the Fourth of July and the World Series.

It’s a part of us all. Strip away Einstein’s brilliant layers, and I bet you’ll find a game of catch.

That pretty girl over there is just your daughter, that handsome young man your son.

That book on the shelf is just the Bible. That woman with the golden smile is just your wife.

And it’s just a game of catch.

The clouds had a silver lining ~ May 27, 1999

David Heiller

The blackflies swarmed over us when we stopped for lunch at the portage going into Ima Lake. They were bad on the paths before that, but at Ima they hit like a blizzard of giant gnats. They were so thick we could barely breathe.

We choked down bologna and cheese sandwiches—seasoned with blackflies—and quickly pushed off toward to Thomas Lake.

We had been traveling for five hours, and had four more to go. Dave paddled alone in his 17—foot Grumman, using a double-bladed paddle that he bought for the occasion. Jim and I had Jim’s Old Town Penobscot.

Dave solo, and in the rain.

Dave had quickly figured out the nuances of paddling solo. He looked like he was doing a martial arts exercise with the paddle, moving it fluidly back and forth, back and forth, wax on, wax off, into the water. He skimmed across the water faster than Jim and I could paddle, although Jim and I weren’t paddling very hard, except when we were trying to evade blackflies.

The only drawback for Dave was that his legs and boots got soaked from water dripping off the paddle with every stroke. And every time he hoisted the canoe over his head at a portage, water came dribbling out the back, upsetting the balance on his shoulders and upsetting anyone who might be in the path of his personal waterfall.

We reached a campsite on the east side of Thomas at 6 p.m. We were bushed. Sixteen miles is a heck of a day for us. But it’s amazing how a beautiful campsite in the middle of canoe country can lift your spirits. It’s like the feeling you get when you arrive home after a long trip. You might be dead tired, but when you step out of the car, you feel instantly better. We were home.

We threw out fishing lines and set up Jim’s big tent. Jim and I went looking for firewood in the woods behind camp while Dave got supper ready. About 100 yards in, I heard some heavy, crunching noises. There stood a moose looking at me, no more than 30 yards away.

I called to Jim. He was as dumbstruck as me, that we were so close, and that it didn’t run away. We both watched the moose for about 15 minutes. It seemed less concerned about us than it did about eating its supper of twigs and leaves. It didn’t have a calf, and it wasn’t the biggest moose we’ve seen up north, although its bony head still towered over ours.

Jim and I started walking toward it slowly. We got to within 15 yards before it turned and trotted away in giant strides.

Dave and Jim

“That made the trip worthwhile right there,” Jim said. “I don’t care what else happens.” That summed up my feelings.

As we were getting ready to eat a supper of spaghetti, something took my cisco, and after a 10 minute battle, complete with Jim’s play-by-play of how to keep the rod tip up and don’t give it any slack, I pulled in a 23-inch, four-pound walleye, the biggest one I had ever caught.

It wasn’t hard falling asleep that night, especially after the rain started. A moose, a lunker, and rain on the tent. Heaven. Is there a more blissful sound than rain falling on a tent? And Jim’s tent was waterproof! That isn’t always the case with my tents.

A silver lining: no bugs

The weather turned rainy and windy for most of the next four days. It hurt the fishing a bit, and dampened our urge to go exploring. But the rain clouds turned out to have a silver lining, because blackflies don’t like overcast days, according to Jim, who knows things like that.

Jim and David:
 Hey it's raining, but there are no blackflies!

It seemed to be true, because the only time the blackflies were bad enough to bring out the netting was Friday evening when the sun came out. Jim and I put head nets on then. Dave didn’t have one, so he made supper with his rain jacket on and his hood pulled up around his face like a nun. It was kind of funny, especially since the weather was the nicest we had the entire trip, no wind and the sunlight golden. All you could see was half his face, and he wasn’t smiling. But I didn’t say anything. Critters can go wild when pestered by blackflies.

A fish took my cisco about that time, and after another fight complete with Jim’s unnecessary advice, I hauled in a 32-inch, 10-pound northern pike. We had caught more fish than we could eat by then, so I let him swim away.

The happy campers in the rare sunshine on this trip.

We packed up on Saturday and went half-way out in order to shorten our last day. We camped at a trout lake, which had such clear water and steep terrain that it was like being in the Alps.

Jim sat under a jackpine on Sunday morning watching his bobber in the water. The lake was like glass, dimpled with a light rain. Mist rose off the surface. A loon took off in front of us, churning the lake to froth for about 50 yards before becoming airborne. Jim talked about what a beautiful spot it was, and how much the boundary waters meant to him. I had been thinking the same thing. He always beats me to those sentiments.

As if in thanks, about 10 seconds later Jim’s bobber went down and he pulled in a 16-inch brook trout. We ate it with one that Dave caught for a final, delicious breakfast.

The rain and wind picked up as we headed out, and on Snowbank Lake we were suddenly faced with waves two feet high. They took us by surprise. We had to turn into the wind or risk getting swamped. Jim and I plowed through the whitecaps head on, getting sprayed and working harder than we had all trip.

Dave, alone in his canoe, had the same idea, and he worked even harder. The front end of his canoe was too light. It slapped up and down on the big waves, which seemed to come in twos and threes. He didn’t have anyone up front to dig into the waves. He took in water, which went to the back of the canoe, making matters worse. But he kept going, stroke after stroke, and he reached the lee side of a big island just after we did. He’s the toughest paddler you’ll ever see.

We rested for the first time in half an hour and talked about the rough haul. It was one last test for us, and like the blackflies and the rain, we passed. Then we paddled on, under the protection of the island and mainland for the rest of the way, back to the parking lot and home.

Long live the clock radio ~ May 11, 2005

 David Heiller

The clock radio by our bed has survived 25 years of marriage, and our marriage has survived 25 years of that radio. I don^’t know which is the greater miracle.

Cindy has always had control of the radio.

That’s part of the deal. Note that I didn’t say that’s part of the problem; 25 years of marriage has taught me a few things.

1976 The year David and I met,
and the year I bought the clock radio.

She sets the alarm, which these days comes on at 5:23 a.m. When we want to turn on the radio, that’s Cindy^’s job, and when it’s time to shut off the radio, she does that too.

You see, that little Panasonic radio with the “simulated wood cabinet” is not as simple as it looks. From left to right are nine buttons: doze, sleep, time set (fast and slow), alarm set, selector (which itself has three options, off, radio, and buzzer), manual off-on, volume, and band.

So this morning, Sunday, May 8, when I reached over Cindy to turn off the radio, the conversation went something like this:

“Don’t touch that radio!”

“What?”

“Every time you touch that radio you screw something up!”

“What do you mean? It’s just a radio.”

“You always mess it up, and you know it.”

“I was just going to shut it off.”

“You don’t know how to shut it off.”

I paused just long enough that it proved her point. “Well, you just, I mean, there’s this switch.”

But she had me in her sights. I was history. The truth was my hand was going to travel from left to right, from doze all the way to band, and by the time I was done groping, we’d be listening to Vance Mitchell^’s favorite radio station, good old 1490 AM, at about 110 decibels.

So I let Cindy reach over, and with one simple digit, faster than the eye could see, she had that radio off. Wow.

That was that, until the subject came up a couple hours later in the car. I was fiddling with the fan and heat controls, using the same dexterity that I use on the radio. Cindy reached over and flipped a knob to the right setting, and somehow the conversation was back to that darned radio. The ensuing conversation went something like this:

“I can’t believe you don’t know how to shut off the radio.”

Silence.

“I bought that radio in college.”

Silence.

“We’ve had that radio our entire marriage.” Pause. “25 years.” Cindy is proud of those 25 years, and I am too.

I knew I had to say something. “OK, how DO you shut off the radio?” I guess I’ve been waiting to ask that question for about 25 years.

“You push the doze button.”

Oh. That made sense. “Then how do you turn it on?”

“You push the sleep button”

Now I remembered why I had never learned how to operate the radio. It didn’t make sense to my logical, Mars-type thinking.

At our 25th Anniversary dance.

Cindy went on to explain the reason why the radio works that way, and I remembered it as we passed Hurleys, and kind of had it in my mind by the time we hit Grabhorns. But at the top of the ridge, when the wind hit the car, I had blessedly forgotten everything Cindy said. That’s not always a bad thing, as 25 years of marriage can prove in many intricate ways.

My goal is to have this conversation with Cindy again in 2030, just in time for our Golden Anniversary.

Some young thoughts on Mother’s Day ~ May 11, 1995

[Cynthia's note: obviously David asked Malika to tell him about Mother's Day and mothers. He didn't technically "write" this column, but you see, this is the kind of man he was, so I am including it.]

By Malika Heiller, age nine via her daddy, David Heiller

A hug for a mama. It wasn't even Mother's Day!

Mother’s Day is like a holiday. It makes me feel like it’s a nice sunny day and you’re going swimming with your mother, but you’re not going swimming unless you’re planning to. It’s like giving her a great big bear hug and saying, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.”

I love my mother because she’s kind and patient. Even if I’m really naughty, she gets mad sometimes but she never loses her patience. She loves me and I love her.

Those out there who don’t have parents or mothers, I feel sorry for you, because you’re missing out a lot on having a mother, because mothers are really good to you.

Some kids give presents to their mom, but I don’t think you have to. Sometimes I don’t give my mom a present. I think just loving them is a big, big present.

Grandma Heiller 
and the kids
(and Queen Ida).

My mother is like a teddy bear. I get things that I really love and she lets me do things that I really like.

Even if I get an early bedtime, I still love her. Some people get a late bed time and they don’t get enough rest, and their mother isn’t the best, like mine.

My mother helps me on my homework, and I get A’s and B’s on my report card, but just to let you know, she doesn’t do it for me.

She makes really good food. Not like that’s important or anything, but I think she’s a great cook. But she doesn’t think I think so.

I have two grandmas that are almost exactly like Mom. They don’t live exactly like her, but they feel like a mother. Their names are Fern Heiller and Lorely Olson.

My Grandma Heiller, is like a big fat teddy bear. Not that she’s fat or anything, but giving her a hug is like giving a teddy bear a hug. She makes me sweaters. She’s just a really great person to be around. I wish someday I could move to where she lives, Brownsville, Minnesota. It’s a really neat place, where my dad grew up.

Grandma Olson and Malika

She hardly ever swears. She probably only said one swear word in her life. That was probably when my dad was growing up, she stubbed her toe. My dad said that they said she swore, but that was the only time.

I had a great-grandma Schnick. She used to live with my Grandma Heiller, but she died. She was 93 years old.

My Grandma Olson is a really great person too. She used to smoke cigarettes but we talked her out of it, because she’s a really loving person. My grandpa died of smoking, and I wouldn’t want my grandma to die of smoking too.

She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I see her maybe once in two months. I always look forward to a trip there. My grandma has these really neat little houses. You can’t play with them but they have lights in them. Her house is neat too.

Malika Heiller, nine, is the daughter of Cynthia Heiller, to whom this column is dedicated, and of David Heiller, Cindy’s husband.

Spring: a cure for all ills ~ May 13, 1993

David Heiller

Nature has a way of healing people, both their bodies and their minds. I’m reminded of that every year about this time. I get down on my hands and knees, and you could say I’m praying in a primitive way, though mostly I’m pulling weeds.

There was a lot of healing to be done last weekend. Cindy took sick on Thursday, and could barely get out of bed for two days. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat with us and help with homework and add that un-definable magic that mothers bring to a home. A cloud fell over the house.

Out of commission...

But the sun shone on Friday. Rain fell in warm spurts on Saturday, a good rain, gentle and full of life. The rhubarb grew about three inches each day. By Sunday Cindy was able to stand and talk and say thank you for her Mother’s Day cards and flowers, and the cloud was gone.

In another time and place that plague might have killed her. But not this time of year. Not with weeds being pulled from the garden by the wheelbarrow-full, and orioles singing at 6 a.m.

More proof? Noah took sick on Sunday, and had the same symptoms as Cindy. He lay on the couch all day Monday, even missed school, something he hates. He’s only nine.

I came home from work on Monday afternoon to spell Cindy. Noah and I sat on the couch, and spied a rose breasted grosbeak in the maple tree, 15 feet away. He was staring at the double-sided, Alvin Jensen deluxe bird feeder, which was filled with black sunflower seeds next to the window. He looked uncertain, like maybe he had never sat on an Alvin Jensen bird feeder before. If so, he’s one of the few birds that hadn’t.

Birds cured Noah!

After 10 seconds, he flew over, hovered in the air for five seconds, then made a gentle landing. He seemed to stare through the window at Noah and me. I couldn’t see him smile, but he probably did. His rose breast filled us with joy. What a beauty.

An hour later, Noah was playing outside with the dog. He was better, and that was no coincidence. You can’t bottle rose-breasted grosbeaks and take them like medicine three times a day. They’re much more powerful than that.

How powerful is the earth in spring? Pearl S. Buck had a character in The Good Earth who worked in the fields while she was pregnant, right up until she gave birth. Then she strapped the baby to her back, and kept working, her milk dripping onto the black soil.

It was like that last weekend. There was Sue Landwehr, crouching over her flower beds, pulling weeds. She had that contented look on her face, and you could see that she wouldn’t have traded places with anyone anywhere right then.

There was Frank Magdziarz, straight as a bean pole at age 76, looking over the 20 acres of oats that he had planted that morning, a field as spotless as a new brown carpet.

There was Steve Hillbrand, stretching in the morning sun like a cat, feeling the warmth in the air and saying in an almost surprised voice, yes, by golly, spring IS here.

There was Donna Cronin with an excited grin and an armful of trees that she had received from the Finlayson Sportsmen’s Club. She couldn’t wait to plant them on her farm.

And there was Cindy, on her feet, the flu driven back like a lifting fog, on her hands and knees, helping me pull weeds.

Ah spring. It’ll cure what ails you.

Now if only the Twins would start winning.

It was raining cats and dogs and ‘crawlers ~ May 3, 2006

David Heiller

For the first few days my eye hurt, and the vision was cloudy. It was like looking through a dirty window.

But now, wow.

It’s hard to convey what is happening.

I woke up the other morning and looked out the window and saw a squirrel on a tree branch outside the window. Without putting my glasses on. That hasn’t happened since we bought this house in 1981.

This was probably a good nightcrawler day,
but not maybe the best nightcrawler spot.

So at 6:30 a.m., when the darkness left the sky enough for me to see the ground well, I slipped on a cap and jacket and headed out. A light rain was still falling, and I knew I would get soaked, but that was just fine on a Sunday morning. No rush to get to work, no deadlines. Just a walk down the road.

And it was a good one. The driveway and township road were covered with worms. You couldn’t lay down without touching one. Not that I tried that—I don’t like them that much. But they were everywhere.

Not all the worms were full-grown, mind you. That would he asking too much. But every couple minutes, sometimes more often, I would spy a huge, healthy crawler.

Walking down the road on a Sunday morning, no traffic, serenaded by a cardinal, that’s getting close to heaven for me.

If you aren’t a fisherman, you maybe puzzled by this. What’s the big deal? Well, last summer a dozen crawlers cost $2.25, so there’s the practical side of things.

There’s another thing too though. Getting your own bait, beating the system, is fun. It adds to the adventure, and the fish seem to taste better with home-grown nightcrawlers.

Gathering nightcrawlers was a big part of my youth. We didn’t seem to get nightcrawler rains back then, at least that I was aware of. We did it the old fashioned way, with a flashlight at night in the backyards of Brownsville.

It wasn’t easy. My brother, Danny, and I would take the one flashlight that Mom owned. The batteries always seemed about half dead too. We would go into the backyard, walking as quietly as possible, then we’d carefully shine the light on the grass. The trick was to not shine the light directly on the crawler, because that would send it collapsing back into its hole. If that happened, you had to make a quick reach to get it before it disappeared. Sometimes we would get a good hold, and carefully tug it out. That took some finesse, because you didn’t want to break it or squeeze too hard and damage it.

Our yard was always pretty good pickings, but it wasn’t enough, so Danny and I would venture through the town. First we’d go to Burfields next door. We had to be careful though, because they had a houseful of fishermen too, and Billy protected his turf like a Doberman. There was a sink hole below their house where they would throw the kitchen waste, and it was full of worms and crawlers, but Billy did everything short of erecting a guard tower and 50 caliber machine gun to keep us out of that prime spot.

Everett Nelson’s garden was also a ‘crawler haven, but we had to be desperate to venture there. He seemed to have a sixth sense of when the crawlers and the little boys would be out. He always seemed to be looking out his window on the south side of the house on the best nightcrawler nights. We’d hear a yell from him and scramble off to another spot.

But there were plenty of good spots and friendly yards. Mrs. Bulman’s. The Collerans. Hansens. Bill Miller’s. Brownsville seemed to have a lot more open territory then.

One night I gathered such a windfall that I counted out 100 crawlers and took them to Serres’ Marina the next morning. Uncle Joe gave me a penny a piece for them. He sold nightcrawlers at his bait store at the marina for 25 cents a dozen, I recall. I don’t know if Joe really needed them or if he was just doing his good deed.

Last Sunday wasn’t quite that good: I picked up 80 in just under an hour. Still it was a lot of fun. Putting them to use will be even better.

A miracle of new vision ~ May 9, 2002

David Heiller

The world is changing before my eye. My right eye, to be exact.

On February 28, 2001, I had a cornea transplant on that eye to correct a condition known as keratakonis.

Keratakonis means the cornea is misshapen and cone-shaped. Glasses can’t correct it. Contact lenses can, but because of the cone shape, contacts don’t fit well.

Waiting for the healing and the vision that came with it.

That was my status. A doctor diagnosed keratakonis in both eyes when I was in college. My vision has gotten worse ever since. Less ­than-perfect vision was something I learned to live with. And I know there are many people with way worse eyes than me.

The past 14 months had some ups and many downs, as my new cornea got used to its new owner. It was frustrating, because I use my eyes a lot as editor of this paper. But I told myself it was like road construction. You get frustrated with the detours and delays, but once it’s finished, you are glad for the smooth drive.

The last of the stitches were removed in March of this year. Then the big day: I had photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) surgery, a type of laser surgery, on April 24.

PRK is a little different procedure than regular lasik surgery. The recovery time is longer (four to six weeks or more).

A handy diagram

During surgery my eye was open all the time with the help of an instrument that held my eye-lid open. It only took about 10 minutes. First the doctor removed the top layer of the cornea with a spatula. Then he used a laser to reshape the cornea. All I had to do was keep looking at a pulsing red light.

For the first few days my eye hurt, and the vision was cloudy. It was like looking through a dirty window.

But now, wow.

It’s hard to convey what is happening.

I woke up the other morning and looked out the window and saw a squirrel on a tree branch outside the window. Without putting my glasses on. That hasn’t happened since we bought this house in 1981.

A few days later I woke up and could read the alarm clock without squinting. Another first.

On Saturday evening, I took a walk with my wife, and stopped and looked at her in the golden sunlight, and realized I could see her perfectly with my right eye. It was better than my left eye, which had a glasses lens over it. In just a week and a half, my right eye with its new cornea had left my left eye in the dust. It took my son about 10 years to do that to me.

Cindy had joked that I would leave her once my eye got better and I could see. I can assure you that will not happen.

Every day my vision gets a little clearer. The world looks like a spring rain has just cleaned the air.

I can barely tell it’s happening, it’s happening so slowly. But every day is better, and that is circumstance that doesn’t happen in life too often.

I’m the recipient of a great gift. Somebody—a person from Florida, I was told—donated their healthy corneas. I got one. I am very grateful for that.

I’m grateful for the technology that makes this a safe and relatively easy procedure. I’m grateful to Dr. Dan Skorich who did the transplant, and Dr. David Hardten who did the PRK surgery. (I said it was relatively easy, but I should qualify that statement: These doctors made it seem easy.)

It’s a modern-day miracle.

Now on to my left eye.

Editor's Note: Unfortunately the PRK procedure was wonderful only for a short time, and David needed a third cornea transplant. Luckily we realized that PRK wasn't going to work before he had the left eye done.
Still, he was thrilled with those few weeks of no-glasses-needed vision.

The one that got away on Walter Lake ~ May 22, 1997

David Heiller

Paul, Dave, Jim and I had a chilly five days in the Boundary Waters last week. It froze most of the nights, and snowed most of the days.

But we didn’t mind, because the fish were biting.

Jim caught the first one a few hours after we set up camp on the Walter Lake. It was a 27-inch lake trout. We figured its weight, using a DNR formula, at 13 pounds.

Jim and a northern in the snow.

Later that afternoon, Paul landed a 42-inch northern. It weighed 21 pounds. The next day it was Jim with a 39-inch northern and Paul with a 38-inch one, 17 and 16 pounds respectively. Then Dave pulled in a 30-inch, eight pound northern.

It’s funny how a person can put up with crummy weather when he is catching fish like that.

Well, technically, I didn’t catch a fish like that. I caught a few smaller ones that fit nicely into the frying pan. It’s all luck anyway, right?

The fish I’ll remember most is the one that got away.

It took my cisco and bobber and ran with incredible power toward the shore of the bay where we were camped. Then it veered left, toward the center of the bay.

It stopped for a few seconds to swallow the cisco. Then it started swimming again. That’s when I set the hook. Wow. It was the biggest fish I ever felt. It was almost scary, thinking what was at the end of my line.

I started reeling in. The fish and my line went back toward shore. Then it stopped. I couldn’t budge the fish.

With a sickening feeling, I realized the fish was snagged on something. Paul came over with a canoe. I hopped in the front, and we paddled to the spot. He saw a flash of the fish amidst the branches of a dead tree under the water. The fish had taken a side trip through the snag when it ran with my minnow, and was now wrapped around a branch.

I gave one more tug, the line broke, and the big fish was gone.

How big was it? A 25-pounder, at least.

I moped about the lost fish a time or two. Dave tried to console me. “It’s just a fish. It’s just life,” he said in the canoe later that day. I knew he was right. But I couldn’t help feeling sad. I couldn’t help wondering how big that fish was. Thirty pounds, easy.

I lamented the loss the next night around the campfire. Dave said, “Well, at least you can beat it in cribbage.” We all laughed, and that was the last I mentioned it. No use crying over lost lunkers.

FISHING WAS only part of our trip’s highlights. We saw a cow moose and her calf one morning. The calf was sucking milk, while the mother eyed us warily from behind white cedar branches.

Seeing a mamma and baby moose in the wild is worth at least one big fish. It’s always amazing how big they are. The cow was six feet high at her hips.

ONE afternoon two forest service employees came across the lake and checked our latrine to see if a new one would have to be dug. They were clearing portages, using axes and saws.

We were glad they followed us in. It made the trip out much easier. On the trip in, we had to climb over several trees that had blown over the portages. That’s not easy to do with a pack and canoe on your shoulders.

The rangers were both young women, fresh out of Northland College. We told them about some of our past 11 trips together. They listened politely. That impressed me. It’s nice when people know how to listen. We felt like old-timers compared to them. But they looked very competent, and no doubt they were.

“They pay you to do this job?” Jim asked them. That summed up our feelings as they paddled off to the next campsite.

ANOTHER memory: We were crossing the first portage on our way to Walter Lake. Paul was walking ahead of me. He was carrying two packs, one in front and one in back; three paddles, two life jackets, and a minnow bucket. We pride ourselves on making portages in one trip, and Paul wasn’t going to break that tradition.

Paul is not a small man. He says he weighs 300 pounds. As my daughter would say, “Yeah right, Dad.”

Paul, on an easier portage,
during a different year's trip.

We came to a spot on the portage where water from snow melt was rushing across. A half-rotten log lay on one side of the trail. Paul didn’t want to get his feet wet, so he tried walking across the log. The log cracked and sagged. Paul jolted from one side and the other, like a cement truck on a high wire. He couldn’t see his feet because of the pack in front.

We stood and watched and tried very, very hard not to laugh, the way you do when you see someone slip on a patch of ice.

As usual, Paul made it across. He always does. He is surprisingly nimble for a mountain. A few well chosen words always seem to help him. He provided a humorous moment for the rest of us insensitive louts.

The four of us plan on returning to our fishing hot spot again next year. I want to take another stab at that 35-pounder that I lost.

By the way, Walter Lake isn’t the real name of the lake. If I mentioned the real name, I might not live long enough to return there with my three fine friends.

Dad will enjoy building swingsets, if it kills him ~ May 8, 1986

David Heiller

Getting a swingset is a milestone in a child’s life. Assembling one is a milestone in an adult’s life.

The brand new swingset! They loved it!

I started assembling our Flexible-Flyer swingset—or “play gym” as they are now called—at 6:30 p.m. Friday night. I finished at 1:30 Sunday afternoon. In between working, I ate and slept. That’s all. The swingset cost $139.00, at the store, but counting my labor at minimum wage, it cost $203.10. No one who watched me put it together would pay minimum wage though. A sheltered workshop could have done better.

I suspected trouble when I opened the box, and found the owner’s manual. It was 13 pages long. KEEP THIS MANUAL, it warned in stern bold face letters. “It contains assembly instructions, anchoring tips, maintenance and safety tips, and ordering information.” There was even a CAUTION on the front. I read it nervously, suspecting something from the surgeon general: Assembling swingsets may be hazardous to your mental health. No, it warned that kids heavier than 75 pounds had better find another place to play.

Noah enjoying the swingset,
Malika enjoying Noah

On the second page was the line that adorns the front of every owner’s manual, from pyramids to space shuttles: “Read the entire manual completely before assembly to familiarize yourself with all parts.” I have never met anyone who has done this. On this introductory page, it also told about safety, pre-assembly instructions, and tools required. I was relieved to see the only tools needed were a screwdriver, adjustable wrench, and pliers.

The next page told how to anchor the swingset—oops, the “gym set.” I learned that it could be anchored in concrete; or with ground anchors or augers. Why were they telling me how to anchor it when I hadn’t even taken out the parts yet? To build confidence, I would bet.

Page four got into the nitty-gritty: Assembling the A-frame. I removed the two plain chin bars, the slide chin bar, the end and center legs, the two top bars, and a whole pile of bolts, lock washers, and nuts. Here was the first good piece of advice on the nuts and bolts: “Place the contents in one end of shipping carton to prevent loss.” I discovered why soon enough, as I dumped them onto a plastic bag in the grass. It was about this time that my wife turned our son loose from the house. He streaked to my side, and began hefting the chin bars like a weight lifter about to celebrate his third birthday. He carried them to various parts of the lawn. Then he rearranged the center poles to the end, and put the end poles in the middle. While I straightened them, he discovered the pile of nuts and bolts, and dumped them into the grass. I returned to pick them up, yelling at Noah to not touch anything. By this time, he had found the screwdriver and pliers, and had carried them a safe distance from his crabby father.

The work was totally worth it!

“Noah,” I said in a voice bordering a scream, “give me my tools. These are not toys. And don’t touch those bolts and poles. I’m working.” How can you be working when you are making me a swingset, he must have thought.

Noah went to bed shortly after that. I got the A-frame assembled just as darkness fell. I had to substitute two of the ¼ inch from my own rusty collection and I ended up with four 5/16 inch bolts left over. But the frame was standing, and I slept a little better for it.

The next morning I tackled the air-glide assembly. A neighbor came over with his two kids. They played with Noah, but our daughter motored her 11-month frame toward the pile of bolts and nuts. As the three adults struggled with the air glide, Mollie counted the bolts and nuts out into the grass. We caught her half way through, then took turns holding her while the others worked through the assembly.

I asked my friend if he had ever assembled a swingset before. “Oh sure, a couple,” he said nonchalantly, But I could see his hands start to shake with the memory, and his eyes glazed over for a second. “I never read the directions either.”

He stuck with us till the lawn swing was assembled, then bolted for home. That left me with the slide, trapeze bar and swings. I finished them up by the following morning. I had to resort to one more tool not mentioned in the owner’s manual—a hammer. Some of the bolts—the ones we could find—just didn’t seem to fit.

The swingset is now up. I still have those four extra bolts, plus two nuts and nine lock washers. Noah announced as I finished the slide that he wanted to play with his sled. But he will get over that. I’m going to try to steer him into engineering as a career. Then he can be a professional gym set assembler, or at least put one up for his own family easier than I did.