That empty feeling ~ August 30, 2001

David Heiller

The empty feeling settled over me on Monday morning, August 27. I had been waiting for it to come, and when it hadn’t, I felt a bit puzzled and relieved. Bad feelings have a way of sneaking up on people.

Malika on her first day of 
kindergarten at Willow River.

I was lying in bed, trying to pry myself awake, when it finally hit, and I remembered that Mollie wasn’t upstairs. She wasn’t upstairs this morning, and she wouldn’t be upstairs tomorrow morning or the next.

We had taken her to Golden Valley the day before, in a car packed with boxes and bins, to her new home, a high school dormitory.

We were excited to see her room, to help her unpack, to meet her roommate, to look at the other kids filtering in. They all seemed to be equally excited and scared. I still remember those feelings from 30 years ago when I went away to college.

The parents looked the same way. Trying hard to be happy. Telling themselves, This is the right thing to do. We've thought this through. She’s ready for this. It will be good for her. And wondering if it was true.

Mollie heard about the Perpich Center for Arts Education last year. It is a high school that specializes in six areas: music, dance, literary arts, visual arts, media arts, theater. She wrote away for details. We went to an informational meeting with her. She met some teachers and students. She liked what she saw. We liked it too, but mostly because she did. The drive had to come from within her. She applied, did a vocal audition, and got accepted as a music student.

Malika on stage at the Perpich
Center For the Arts High School.

So I had a long time to prepare for that empty feeling. Sixteen years, to be exact. And I still wasn’t ready! The funny thing is, if you are ready for that, then your heart is a bit too hard.

The empty feeling will pass. I’ll adjust to it. Rational thought will rush in to fill the void. Cindy and I will watch Mollie grow and floun­der and flourish. Pick your adjective; she will probably experience it.

We’ll see her take many more steps like this. We have been watching those steps —and helping her when she stumbles—since 1985. At least I hope we get to see them.

Journeys come in all shapes and sizes. First day of school. First overnight. First trip to camp. First date. This is just another one, like it is for Mom and Dad.

So let me soak up the silence. That will help me get through it. No calling the dog to her room when she wakes up. No bickering with her brother. No marathon gab sessions with her girlfriends. No chatter about the movie she saw or about the boy she likes. No tears over mean words spoken at school. No bike rides down the gravel road. No quiet visits on the bench by the garden. No singing.

Dutch Jones told me a long time ago to enjoy my kids while I could, because they grow up too fast. I still remember that advice. I tried to keep it in mind. It still doesn't stop time from marching on. And we don’t want it to do that, because when you live in the past, you stop living.

The empty feeling will gradually fade away. I can feel it happening already. Then I’ll wait until the next one arrives, as it most certainly will.

It’s apple picking, applesauce time ~ September 8, 1994

David Heiller

We picked apples on Saturday, I’m not sure what kind they are. They are soft and early. When you cut into them, they turn brown before your eyes.

But boy do they make good applesauce. Just ask Cindy.

1983: Our apple tree and I were both in full bloom!

Every year I bring in two five gallon buckets of these big apples into the kitchen. Every year she groans like Atlas. And every year she makes the world’s best applesauce.

It starts with the picking. This year Noah and his friend, Ryan helped me. They climbed the step ladder and reached what they could. Then I climbed and reached what I could. I tossed them down to the boys, who put them in the buckets.

Since it was Ryan’s first time picking apples with us, he got to hear my only apple joke. It’s an old joke, passed down from the beginning of time.

ADAM: “What’s worse than biting into an apple and seeing a worm?”

EVE: “Biting into an apple and seeing half a worm.”

I told the boys about picking apples as a part-time job when I was in high school and college. It was my favorite job ever. Working outside, at your own pace. Struggling with big trees and sparse apples, then coming to a stretch of firesides that you could pick from the ground.

I told the boys about the time I almost lost a job. It happened at Fruit Acres, an apple orchard by La Crescent, Minnesota. We were picking early apples. They bruised easily. The stems would often pull from the apple. That’s forbidden in apple picking, because they spoil easier and their value goes down.

But pickers get paid by the bushel, 40 cents back then. The faster you pick, the more money you make.

Apples, a late summer and fall constant.

After I sent my first 20-bushel bin in that day, I received a warning from Emil, the field hand who picked up the apples on his Ford 8N tractor. Too many bruised, stem-less apples, he said. Better slow down.

I didn’t. The next bin, the owner’s son came out in person. He had a bunch of bad apples in his hands, apples I had picked. Another bin like these, he said, and you’re fired.

I slowed down, and made less money. But I kept my job, and learned a lesson about quality control that I still remember.

We cored the apples on Sunday, and Cindy filled two huge pots. They slowly turned to mush. Then she ran them through a colander. Then she seasoned them with sugar and cinnamon. I’m not sure all that she did. I couldn’t have done it. It took all day. After supper, it was done.

More apples!? More luscious work!

If there is anything more delicious than warm, fresh applesauce, please tell me.

Served on a dish of ice cream. Wow.

We scooped it into quart bags for the freezer. I made a mess on the stove and counter. But not as big a mess as my brother and I made once.

This was about 30 years ago. Mom was at a VFW Auxiliary meeting. Danny and I were scooping applesauce out of a bowl, and for some reason, Danny flung a spoonful at me.

(Be prepared for a letter to the editor. He will deny this.)

Oh those boys...

A light clicked. I grabbed a bowl and a spoon, and positioned myself behind the kitchen table. He was in the corner by the stove. We proceeded to have the best (and only) applesauce fight in the history of Brownsville.

What fun, flinging spoons full at each other. Ducking just in time, hearing the “glop” of the throw hit the counter or wall.

When we were out of ammo, we carefully cleaned up our mess, and retired to the bedroom. When Mom came home, we heard her mumble. I think she was stuck to the kitchen floor. Then came “Boys,” in that ominous tone that mothers save for special occasions.

She found applesauce one year later. Best darn applesauce I ever ate. Until Cindy’s.
***************~*****************~****************~***************

Editor’s note: Sure enough, just as David predicted later that same week came this letter, which we printed in the following issue:

Sour apples from brother Danny

Editor, Askov American:

Whoa boy, stop the apple presses. Just finished your Behind the Lines column about apple picking and all I can say is… applesauce schmap­plesauce. Whatever gave you the idea that I, your dear, innocent, falsely-ac­cused, heck-of-a-good-guy, ex‑marshmallow salesman, wouldn't‑hurt-a-fly, give-you-the-shirt-off-my‑back, hamburger-loving, Chevy-driving, rootin-tootin, all-American, brother would start an applesauce fight? I believe it was you, David, who fired the first volley and on that you can depend. God bless America.

DANNY (self-defense) HEILLER

Cottage Grove, MN

Miss Emma knows when fall is near ~ August 16, 1990

David Heiller

If Miss Emma could talk, she might tell you that fall is just around the corner. Other famous female weather watchers like Helen Feldt, Dutch Jones, and Sue Thue can put their noses to the air and sense that fall is close by.

Miss Emma was a good hunter,
but her only opportunity for bird
hunting was from the picture window.

Dutch knows it when her bear friends out east of Bruno stop making amorous advances and head for a warm winter bed.

Helen knows it when the temperatures in the Cloverton area drop below 40 degrees and threaten tomato crops.

Sue knows it when she starts daydreaming about the smell of her wild rice parching west of Sandstone.

But Miss Emma knows it’s fall when the mice start to move into the house. Miss Emma, you see, is our cat.

Miss Emma, like all cats, is fat, lazy and ar­rogant. But she can catch mice. She doesn’t eat them. Instead, she lays them out for us to see, like trophies. In the late fall, she will sometimes have three mice in a neat row on the hearth of the stove for us to admire.

So when Cindy heard a mouse in our bedroom three weeks ago, she called on Miss Emma. I was at a school board meeting at the time, so she told me about it when I staggered in at 1 a.m.

“There’s a MOUSE in this room,” she said in the same tone as she might say tomorrow, “Saddam Hussein has just dropped nerve gas on New York City.” A dead-serious voice. She had even seen it run across the floor and duck under her nightstand.

An opportunist.

“Oh yeah?” I said. It didn’t seem like nerve-gas news to me. Then of course I wondered, like all sexist males: Why are women so darned afraid of a little old mouse? And I smiled self-righteously and fell into a comfortable sleep.

The next morning, Cindy called Miss Emma in, carried her upstairs, and locked her in our bedroom for the day, with instructions to catch The Mouse.

Miss Emma let us down this time, because we heard The Mouse again the next night. Cindy saw it run into the closet. Somewhere in our closet. (It’s hard to tell where in our closet.) Scratching. Gnawing. Scampering. Break danc­ing. There’s nothing quite as loud as a mouse in a room where you are trying to sleep, in the middle of a black night.

The next day I called Miss Emma, carried her to the bedroom and locked the door. This time she succeeded, or at least gave The Mouse a scare, because we didn’t hear any more noises after that.

That is, until this past Monday morning. I was sitting at the kitchen table. Cindy had gone upstairs to wake the kids. And she screamed. Not your typical cry of surprise or anger. Not a shriek, not a wail, not a yell, not a yowl. Not a holler, a hoot or a screech or a howl.

We’re talking scream, folks. Texas Chainsaw Massacre style. It didn’t last long, maybe half a second, but it raised my hair on end. I dashed upstairs. Cindy was standing by the doorway of our bedroom, pointing at the floor where she had just stepped, barefoot, squarely on top of a dead mouse.

The Missing Sock Basket: 
a wonderful spot for Miss Emma.

If it wasn’t dead before, it was dead now.

I didn’t laugh, honest. That may have saved our marriage.

Cindy hugged Malika, whose hair was also standing on end like mine. (Cindy’s hair was not only standing on end, it had actually turned a slight shade of gray.) I picked up the mouse by the tail and showed the kids the source of Mama’s scream and Miss Emma’s pride.

Yes, she was proud. She came upstairs and rubbed against Cindy’s leg, until Cindy had to bend down and pet her and laugh and thank her. A grudging thank you, but a thank you none-the-less.

Yup, it’s official in our house: fall is just around the corner. Just ask Miss Emma. Cindy could tell you, too.

Taking piano lessons from a daughter ~ June 3, 1993

David Heiller

“Sounds good, Mollie.” I can say that in all honesty because I’m the father of a girl who is learning to play the piano.

OK, so it’s not a real piano. We’re still looking for one of those. It’s an electronic keyboard, the kind that can make all kinds of fake noises. Right now she is switching from the sound of a Star Wars handgun to something you might hear in the background of a Stephen King movie.

Mozart she ain’t. But she’s already way past me in her piano-lesson knowledge. She just proved that to me. I asked her which songs she liked the best.

“I have two favorite ones. I don’t know which one I like the best. I like The Butterfly and Bluebells of Scotland.”

Why? “For one thing, this one has two of these ones that go together. Two and five and one, you push them together and four and two, you push them together.”

She made a chord to show me what she meant. “Five one, four two,” she sang. “Two of them go together, like that. You get it now? It’s like that three and one, except that it’s five and one and four and two.”

Practicing Christmas songs.

Have you ever been lectured by a seven year old? It’s a humbling experience. But I can take it, if she keeps playing the piano.

The other night I went to get milk, and I heard Mollie practicing her songs. The notes filtered down from her bedroom window in the evening like the singing of an oriole. When I got home—half an hour later, she was still playing. I looked up and smiled. It was even better than a bird song.

Cindy works with Mollie on her lessons. One evening she put me in charge. “Make sure she bends her fingers like this,” Cindy said, threatening me with a claw-like hand. “And she should be hitting the half note for two counts.” She started to go on, but my eyes had glazed over, so she didn’t bother.

I did sit on her bed and watch and listen and say nice things. I guess that’s important too.

Lately, Mollie has been having trouble with Bluebells of Scotland, so a grown-up friend stopped over on Sunday evening and spent half an hour with her on it.

“She pointed to the notes and then I did it,” Mollie told me. She demonstrated it for me. It sounded hard, but she played it well. Like I said at the start, it sounds good to me.

Friends like that, and Mollie’s good teacher, make me think that my daughter will stick with the piano. She’s been at it for a whole six weeks.

Most of my brothers and sisters can play the piano, and I envy that. I took lessons from my sister Mary Ellen for about two days when I was a kid, but it didn’t interest me. Maybe that’s because my sister was teaching me.

David always was making music.
Not 'knowing' how didn't stop him from playing the
organ at the old Brownsville school. He did just fine.

Danny and I used to tease my sisters when they would play. We had a cat named Lionel who would occasionally walk across the piano keys, making a ragged sound, and we would yell at the cat to get off. So when my sisters would practice the piano, we would yell “Lionel!” They didn’t appreciate it. Neither did the cat.

(We now have a cat named Emma, and if I ever hear Noah yell her name while Mollie is practicing, he’ll be in his room for a week.)

Now I wish I had practiced more and smarted off less. Then I could teach Mollie a few things, instead of the other way around.

I wonder where she will end up with the piano. Maybe she’ll play like Joy Novak, or Birdie Storebo, two people who can play just about any song by ear. I’d like that. These two people live up to their names. How much joy has Joy brought with her piano playing? And if Birdie doesn’t sound like a birdie when she plays, no one does.

Maybe she’ll play like her teacher, Pepper, who Mollie loves because she smiles and laughs and she’s cute. I’d like that too.

Or maybe Mollie will sit down in front of a class of first graders and play “The Marvelous Toy” and a million other songs, like Jeannie Mach. I’d like that very much.

Even if she doesn’t reach such piano pinnacles, I’ll be happy. She just brought me a picture of two axes, done like a shield of arms in colored marker. It is signed “I love you Dad, love Mollie.” On the other side of the paper are the words and music of one of her first songs. It’s my favorite, because it is called “Baseball Days,” and I am a baseball fan, and she knows it. It goes like this: “Come on boys, join the fun, baseball days have begun.”

I’d play it for you on the piano if I could, but I can’t. Guess I’ll just ask Mollie.

A good time at the park—bearly ~ July 21,1994

David Heiller

 A mother bear lay at the base of a big red pine tree in St. Croix State Park last Sunday afternoon.

In the top of the tree sat three cubs. They were draped over the branches like little rugs on a clothesline, swaying in a summer breeze.

My daughter and I stopped our bicycles for a look. A hiker had told us about them.

“I’m going to go look at them,” Malika said. My heart was beating fast, but I didn’t say no. I figured she was bluffing. “Don’t get too close,” I said.

Malika got off her bike, and walked five steps into the grass. The bear was about 10 yards away. I was just ready to tell her to stop, when she stopped. Something told her that she was close enough. I was glad of that.

The mother bear flicked her ears at us. Her eyes opened and closed. Flies buzzed around her head. She seemed to be trying to take a nap.

Maybe that’s why she had shooed her kids upstairs. Time to watch a soap opera. As The Bicycle Wheel Turns.

We stood there and watched the mother and cubs. I told Malika how fast bears can run. Faster than a dog, I said. “Faster than. Ida?” Malika asked, speaking of our dog, who is very fast indeed. “Yes,” I said.

Just then the bear reared up on its hind legs so quickly your eyes couldn’t see, it. She let out a beller, and so did I, and so did Malika.

My daughter looked like Roy Rogers jumping onto Trigger. That’s how quickly she moved, hopping onto her bike. We laughed in relief and pedaled away. Then I looked over my shoulder and said, “She’s coming after us!”

I have never seen a nine-year-old pedal as fast as Malika did on her little one speed bike. It took me a minute to catch her. Imagine Wily Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner. That gave her enough time to smile sheepishly. She knew she’d been tricked, and gave me her “Yeah right, Dad” look. Then I laughed at my joke. It was bearly funny.

It was probably a little dangerous too. Curt Rossow will call again any day now. “First a perch on the hook, Dave, and now you’re harassing bears?” I know the dangers of mother bears and their cubs. Now Malika knows about it too.

As Alexander Pope once wrote: “A little danger is a learning thing. Approach a bear, and down the road you’ll wing.” Or something like that.

We saw other wildlife at the park. A doe with two fawns bounded away as we biked through the woods on the smooth, blacktop trail. Another deer stood quietly eating while we stopped and looked at her.

It was so peaceful, talking quietly, riding beneath the green canopy of leaves. Earlier in the afternoon, we met quite a few other bicyclists. Most of them cleared out by evening. That’s when the park was at its magical best. The evening sun floated over the ferns, and filled the sides of popple trees with columns of yellow light.

How lucky we are to have places like St. Croix State Park, I thought. Or Banning State Park. My wife and I had a half hour to spare last week, before going to our son’s final summer baseball game. Banning was on the way, so we stopped there.

We walked hand in hand down the self-guided trail. The sound of wind in the pine trees mixed with the rush of the Kettle River. The trees made a green arch overhead. It was just what we needed.

It’s too bad we had to squeeze that trip into our schedule. It’s too bad people are so busy.

But it’s good that we have places like Banning or St. Croix, for when we can spare that half hour or half day.

They are places to visit with your friends, or your family. Places where you can marvel at the power of a river, places where you can build a sand castle with a little girl. Places to read the Sunday paper and listen to the Twins, even though they’ll probably lose. It’s not so bad when you’re at a park.

And you never know when you’ll meet a bear.

August days can be heavenly ~ August 15, 1996

David Heiller

This is the time of year we all yearned for back in February. Breezy August days. Low humidity. Temperature in the 70s. Big puffy clouds floating like ships across the sky.

The kind of day that puts a spring in everyone’s step, even when you’re working. Even when something goes wrong, when the printer doesn’t work right, when a customer is rude. It’s hard to get angry on days like these.

Life slows down this time of year at our house. I think we are trying to slow it down, to make it last, it is so good.

Our garden, our personal grocery store.

Like at supper-time. You can’t rush supper this time of year, especially when it comes from the garden. You go out and walk around the beds and decide what you want.

Potatoes, onions, beets, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, chard, kohlrabi, lettuce. Raspberries for dessert. Having a big garden is like having a grocery store in your yard.

It’s always changing too. The peas are mostly done. The beans are just starting. Carrots and sweet corn are right around the corner. Squash and pumpkins are growing bigger every day.

And don’t forget the tomatoes. How would you like a B-L-T with a homegrown tomato for supper? Is your mouth watering? Come on, be honest. Life doesn’t get any better than that.

After supper, Cindy and I and a kid or two and the two dogs like to take a bike ride around the block. Each block is a mile long.

First we go north down a township road. It’s gravel, but our bikes ride over it smoothly. We seldom meet a car. It’s very peaceful. Talk comes easily, and silences are comfortable.

Then we turn east. The road splits between the empty buildings of an old farm stead. I wonder who used to live there? Someday I’ll find out.

On that same road, it goes past the sparkling farm of Henry and Dorothy Mikrot. It’s a farm that looks like it belongs on a calendar for the month of August. We like to slow down and take in all the flowers and gardens and neat buildings as we pedal past.

Then it’s south a mile to County Road 46, where we stop by a creek that runs under the road. The dogs like to wade into it and take big gulps of water. They catch their breath there.

Then it’s back home on the blacktop, which seems like a treat after three miles of gravel.

Evening bike rides in August, with the sun setting and the air cool, just can’t get any better. They can make a long, hard day a lot easier to handle. They help us sort out the details of our life.

And don't forget a little hammock time!

And lately the days have been ending with perfect nights. Perfect for sitting around a campfire playing music. Or working in the kitchen, listening to the Twins on the radio. Or sitting in the living room with the windows open reading a book. Or walking down the road watching stars blaze across the sky.

Or sleeping. August nights are perfect for sleeping. Leave the window open and the air is cool enough to start cuddling again. Hey, that’s even better than home grown tomatoes!

There are a lot of ways to describe Heaven. A summer day in August is a pretty good start.

Camping gave us some good reminders ~ August 22, 2002

David Heiller

Randy paused as he was about to hang the Duluth pack for the night. “Look at that,” he said.

I turned my gaze to the camp fire. Two boys stood silhouetted against the deep blue lake. They were black shadows, talking, laughing, gesturing with their hands, totally relaxed.

Collin, David and Levi in the
Boundary waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The image etched itself in my mind, where I hope it stays, because it was timeless and full of innocence and life.

We were on the second day of a trip to the Boundary Waters. The boys, ages nine and 10, had explored the island. They had caught fish, played in their tents, and eaten around the campfire. They were in kid heaven.

It was good to see, reassuring somehow, because I sometimes hear old folks say that kids don’t know how to play anymore. Collin and Levi would prove them wrong.

I had been worried that it wouldn’t be that way, that they and their older sisters and cousin would think this paddling and portaging stuff was too much work.

But they passed the tests. On the trip in, rain fell off and on all day in steady torrents. The three adults were finally reduced to such brilliant conversation as, “Do you believe this?” It was the worst paddling I had ever done on a canoe trip."

Happy and soggy campers.

By mid-afternoon we were soaked and desperate to find a campsite. Most of them were full. It was peak camping season. We finally came to a vacant campsite that met our needs perfectly. It was big enough for our three tents—and gave us a beautiful view of Lake Three.

That often happens on canoe trips. Things bottom out, you hit a low, and then they get better. It’s a metaphor for life.

That was repeated on this four-day trip.

Things couldn’t have been better the next day. Collin and I had drifted with our fishing poles to a rocky shore off an island. Collin threw out a small jig tipped with a minnow, and hooked a fish. He reeled it up to the canoe, then it dove and almost pulled the rod from his hands before breaking his line. We never saw it, but it was big.

I cast into the same spot, and hooked something equally big. At first I thought it was a stick. Then I felt it move. It went deep first, then shot into the air. My jaw dropped. The biggest largemouth bass I have ever seen came entirely out of the water, shook its head, broke my six-pound line, and disappeared. All of this happened in about five seconds.

I cussed for losing it, but it wasn’t a loss in a sense, because the image of that huge fish suspended in the air will stay in my mind for a long time. That was a gift.

We did catch some nice fish that day, and we had a great excursion to another lake. We basked in the beauty of the wilderness.

But Mother Nature wasn’t done with us yet.

Dads and kids on an adventure.

Saturday started glassy, then the wind started blowing from the west, and by 10 a.m. we were facing a gale. It was beautiful and aw­ful at the same time. At one point my brother leaned far into the wind, arms outstretched, and it held him in place. Had it stopped, he would have fallen on his face.

It turned Lake Three into a mass of white caps that thundered onto the rocky shore below our high campsite. The steady wind was at least 30 miles an hour. Gusts must have hit 50.If we had been home, we would have stayed inside and said, “Gee, it sure is windy.” But at our campsite we had to confront it. Traveling by canoe was impossible. We were stranded.

I wanted to go out and find that bass that gave me the slip, or better yet, let Collin find it. And I had promised my niece a fishing trip, and my daughter, too. But that didn’t happen. We read and sang songs and explored and ate and napped. We marveled at the power of the wind. The girls’ tent blew over, adding a bit of excitement during the day.

A hot meal of spaghetti cheered us up before we went to bed. “It will blow itself out by morning,” I told Randy and Phil. That was my rational side. But I slept fitfully that night. I imagined that the wind was dying down, then it would start up in the distance with a howl and whoosh through the huge white pines overhead. I thought, What if this wind doesn’t let up? We would have no choice but to stay until it did.

I imagined the worst. We would be delayed. Our wives would worry. I’d miss work on an important newspaper edition.

But that didn’t happen. Like I said, you hit bottom and then go up. The wind gradually slowed to 30, 20, 10 miles an hour. The whitecaps disappeared. We got up early and broke camp by 8 a.m. which was a miracle with three teen-age girls. Five hours later we were back at the Lake One landing.

The windstorm was an important lesson for all of us. The trip was just a camping trip. Plenty safe. We were in control, right? Wrong. That wind told us something different. We aren’t often at the mercy of Mother Nature. When it happens, it’s a good reminder of our place in the world. I’ll remember that storm, and the other beautiful things, like a big bass, and a silhouette of two boys playing against a deep blue lake.

Amen to the end of the snake show ~ July 14, 1988

David Heiller

Wrapping "Baby Tato" in it's blanket
 (a napkin), rocking it to sleep.

Children go through streaks where they have favorite things, at least mine do. For awhile, Malika had her Baby ‘Tato", a huge spud that she carried around and even slept with until it started getting a little gamey. Now she has a pink elephant pajama bag that was given to Noah before she was born. We dug it out of the closet a month ago, brand new, but instead of stuffing it with pajamas and hanging it by her bedside, she brings it to bed with her.

Noah has his tiger, a fancy molded piece of hard rubber, painted fiercely, with sharp teeth. It says “Made in Hong Kong on the stomach. He brings the tiger with him on car trips, to the beach, to the day care, and to bed. It is his security blanket.

They also have a favorite television show, which we made the mistake of taping for them. VCRs are a great investment. I hope ours works for the All Star game. But they can have their bad points too. Taping the snake show was VCR abuse, although Noah would argue.

The snake show is narrated by Leonard Nimoy, and it has the same Mr. Spock eeriness that he brought to Star Trek. The show has some of the most fabulous snake photography ever recorded, but it’s all geared to a five-year-old.

One of Noah's vast menagerie, a pterodactyl.

Snakes lead a violent life, and the show pounds that point home. There are snakes eating mice, snakes eating eggs, snakes eating other snakes, even a boa constrictor eating an alligator. There are owls eating snakes, and monitors eating snakes, and people having rattlesnake festivals, rounding them up and beheading them in a frenzy that makes Willow River Days look like an ice cream social. There are dozens of close-ups of rattlesnake fangs and spitting cobras and many other poisonous varieties we will never see in real life, hopefully.

Noah likes the snake show, and he has hooked Malika on it too. They want to watch the snake show every night. Noah lives for the scene when a giant monitor lizard stalks onto the screen and battles with a spitting cobra. The monitor wins a violent, shaking battle, and now the monitor is Noah’s second favorite animal, surpassing the grizzly bear, and second only to the tiger.

Noah even prays about snakes. On Monday night, he offered the following bedtime blessing :

Malika and Noah dreaming of snakes

Dear God:

Thank you for making people and mammals and reptiles. And thank you for making Santa Claus and Jesus. I love everything. And especially I like tigers and the monitors that fight the spitting cobras. Thank you for that.

Bless Daddy, bless Mama, bless Mollie, bless Sandy.

Amen.

One of these days the snake show will accidentally be erased. Maybe by the All Star game? I will add an amen to that.

The last word on turning 40 ~ August 19, 1993

David Heiller

Cindy called the morning of my fortieth birthday from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Her dad had died the night before, which drew her away physically but not in spirit.

Listen to the radio, she told me. I turned it on just in time to hear the Minnesota Public Radio announcers play a song in my honor: “Laughing River,” by Greg Brown.

It was a pleasant coincidence, because a friend had come over the night before to wish me happy birthday, and he had told me about this very song, how much he liked it, how it fit the milestone of getting old. Then the radio played it just for me. It was a good sign for Friday the Thirteenth.

(below is a good link to the song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFhWBR8uBME

Collin "playing" David's accordion.

Then my kids gave me presents, including a button accordion from Cindy. I had eyed that accordion at a Minneapolis music store for 2½ years. Cindy told the store owner how much I wanted it. The guy remembered me fondling it in his store, so he sent it postage-paid. I wished Cindy could have given it to me herself.

On my way to work, I stopped at T&M Athletics. Tom Brabec wished he had a beer on hand to pour over my head. That’s an ancient Bohemian ritual for celebrating fortieth birthdays in Willow River.

Tom and 1,800 other Askov American subscribers had seen the full page ad that someone had put in the paper in my “honor.” Like we used to say at Camp Courage: With friends like that, who needs enemas?

Just kidding, Cindy.

At work I was greeted by Lynn Storrar, our right hand woman, who was dressed in black and wearing a home-made button that said, Woe is me, my boss is four-tee! She gave me a card that said: “I don’t find it necessary to make jokes about your age… Just thinking about it makes me laugh!!!”

Then I ran into a human buzz saw named Arla Budd. Arla lives for people who turn 40. First she planted signs up and down the street in front of the building.

David with Malika, shortly 
after the big birthday.

One set said:

The editor who writes here-in

Has just today grown old.

It’s not just that his hair is thin;

His tales have all been told.

Dave is 40.

The back side read:

In younger years as newsmen go

Dave was a proper snoop.

Reporters that have grown too old

No longer get their scoop…

He’s 40.

Arla must think I use Burma Shave.

On my desk was a card that she had made. The cover measured two feet by three feet, and featured an original sketch of a person in an outhouse. The person, who has my legs, is reading a book called “50 Yards to the Outhouse,” by Will David Makit. That was my gift from Arla. She knows how much I like outhouse literature. The card included an original poem which is reprinted below (without permission).

There once was an old man named David.

Outhouses peculiar he favored.

About them he wrote

With many a quote

Until his gentile readers quavered.

Wife Cindy (their last name was Heiller)

Was sweet, and he sought not to rile ‘er.

He bought a new pot

A hot pot he got

He sought with this pot to beguile ‘er.

This new pot was surely spinorty,

But David was just turning forty.

The old ways die hard

The pot in the yard

Was Dave’s kind of old pot-a-porty.

The story crept back in the paper

About just one more outhouse caper.

Reader’s wrath David braved

Outhouse mem’ries he saved

Before they all went up in vapor.

So this “old man” is 40 years old. But old is a relative term. Now that I’m 40, it doesn’t seem so bad.

Now 50, that’s getting up there. Just ask Arla. 

Editors always get the last word.