I’ll take fall in Minnesota, thank you ~ September 26, 2002

David Heiller

I saw a cousin this summer that I hadn’t seen in many years. She is a couple years younger than me, yet she is already retired after a successful career in the military.

Early Autumn 2004 at the Spillway on the Mississippi, 
in Houston County, Minnesota

To top this off, she lives in Hawaii.

We got to talking about the weather there. No bugs, lots of sunshine, temperatures almost always in the 70s and 80s. Paradise, in other words.

I told her that I could never live in Hawaii.

Claire and me in Wright County
 in the fall of 2002. 
I like the oak leaf ears.

She looked a bit surprised at that. I explained that I enjoy the changing of the seasons too much, and what it brings out in me. That’s a hard thing to describe on a muggy summer night when Hawaii did seem like paradise. I don’t think Barb understood.

In fact, it’s hard to describe any time. It’s more something you feel, and it^’s happening right now. Chances are you know what I’m talking about.

Leaves are coming down in earnest. Their colors mix with the dwindling sunlight to give hue to the air that you can’t find at any other time of year. They bring on that crisp scent of autumn that you don’t experience any other time, an aroma of dried leaves and football games and shotgun shells.

The days cool down fast. The evenings are chilly. The weatherman talks about frost, but you don’t need a weatherman to know that.

You get out to the garden, make sure everything that is vulnerable to frost gets picked or covered. The house fills up with buckets and bowls of onions and tomatoes. The fridge bulge with peppers and cucumbers.

Hillside Road, Houston County Minnesota

You start looking at the old home-place with an eye toward cold weather. What needs to be done? Paint, caulk. Fix a broken step. A lot of little chores, and maybe some big ones.

But the funny thing is you don’t mind doing, them. Split wood? Clean up the greenhouse? Organize the workbench? No problem. The changing season puts a spring in your step. That’s because something new is just around, the corner.

No doubt, Morocco is beautiful. 
David's heart was always in Minnesota

We like change, and we like to suffer a bit, too. Monday was as dreary; cold, and rainy a day as you could ask for, and a co-worker exclaimed out of the blue, “I love this weather!” He was ready for the change, ready to suffer a bit; because then he’ll get to prove that he can hold his own against Mother Nature.

My love for the four seasons was cemented when I spent two years in Morocco. I remember one Christmas Eve, walking under a full moon in my shirt sleeves in a dry, warm world, and. thinking, “I never want to miss winter again.”

Yes, the seasons changed in Morocco. Summers were very hot, and spring brought lush growth, and winter was wet and cold. I’m sure people got used to that. The same is probably true in Hawaii. I tip my hat to Cousin Barb for adapting to that. But I^’ll take fall in Minnesota.

A perfect book club outing ~ September 9, 1998

David Heiller

Our book club read Canoeing with the Cree, by Eric Sevareid, for our September discussion.

But instead of meeting at someone’s house in the evening, like we usually do, we held this book club on the Kettle River.

This is what bookclub usually looked like.
This was at our house.

We canoed from County Road 52 to Rutledge, about an eight mile stretch, on September 6.

There were eight canoes and 18 people. Usu­ally we have about 10 people at book club, but a fun outing on a gorgeous day attracted extra spouses and kids.

Cindy and I canoed the first half with a 16-year-old boy, Matt, in the middle. We hit a lot of shallow spots. The Kettle River is low, because of the dry summer. We had to get out of the ca­noe to pull it over rocks and sand many, many times.

At some places trees lay over the river. Sometimes we were able to float underneath them. One tree was about three feet above the river. Cindy bent low enough to slip under it. But I’m a lot bigger than her, so I climbed out of the canoe and onto the tree trunk while the canoe floated underneath. Then I got back in the canoe.

It wasn’t exactly the kind of challenge that Eric Sevareid and Walter Port faced on their ca­noe trip from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay.

At about the half way point, we stopped on a sandy shore and had a picnic lunch and dis­cussed the book. Everybody brought some food to share. Pat Ring laid a tarp down on the sand. People set out salads and fresh vegetables and fruit, most of it home grown.

Deane and Katherine Hillbrand on the Kettle River

There were breads and meat and cheese and sandwiches. I bet it was the fanciest picnic the Kettle River has ever seen. That’s one thing I like about Book Club. There’s always great food.

The discussion was good too, although it took Pat, who serves as the unofficial moderator, some hollering to bring us all together. The set­ting on the river was just right for the discus­sion, which was what we had in mind in the first place.           

We talked about how lucky Severeid and Port, who were both teenagers, had been on their trip, which started in Minneapolis and ended at Hud­son Bay. So many things could have gone wrong.

But their courage and strength played an equally big part. They tackled a huge wilder­ness, in awful weather, on dangerous rivers.

How many of us standing there would have turned back? Eric Severeid put it well in his author’s note: “Our journey was an example of what very young men can do—once in their lives—but never again!”

It’s important to do something like that when you are young and have the chance several people said. After the discussion, one of the college kids said the discussion made hint a little sad, because he didn’t know if he would be able to ever have an adventure like that.

He already had college loans piling up. He was feeling the pressure of having to get a job right after college. I think he wished he could head out to Hudson Bay instead of Duluth.

That made me think that young people today face more stress than people like Severeid and Port did in 1930.

We packed up the food and headed down the mighty Kettle River. Joel and Daina Rosen pulled their canoe up to ours. Joel wanted to sing songs. That was the perfect ending for the trip. Singing and canoeing go together like a paddle and water, But often I don’t do it. I get self-conscious. Joel doesn’t know what self-conscious is, at least when it comes to singing. His rich baritone voice carried over the river, and it sounded great.

Just like our book club trip down the river.

Where is fall going? ~ September 30, 1999

David Heiller

Cindy called me at 4:30 last Wednesday afternoon, September 22. “Let’s go for a walk at Banning,” she said.

It had been a busy day at work for us, and a busy night was planned, with one of us to pick up our son from football practice and the other to attend a confirmation meeting with our daughter.

But we needed that walk at Banning State Park. We only had an hour to spare. How could we not afford to spare it on a fall walk?

A walk in the woods is ALWAYS a good plan.

“Sounds great,” I told Cindy, and in half an hour we were there, Cindy and Mollie and me, on the familiar trail heading toward the Kettle River.

The air had that fall hue to it, of sunlight filtered through red and orange and yellow. A couple of hard frosts had knocked back the bugs. A few leaves lay on the trail, but not so thick that we kicked them up. The trees hadn’t dropped a lot of leaves. That’s happening right now.

We walked hand in hand in hand, three abreast, on the wide trail. Mollie jabbered about school and friends and TV shows. Cindy duti­fully answered. I mostly kept quiet, enjoying the silence of the woods that lay just beyond our words.

Eventually Mollie’s talking dwindled. We settled into hiking conversation. People talk differently on a walk. Words don’t fall so fast or so loud. Periods of silence don’t feel awkward.

We came to the river and watched the water flow swiftly past. “This is the same water that goes under the Kettle River bridge by our house,” I said, trying to impress the ladies. They nodded politely.

We walked past a big kettle, which is a hole in the rocks worn by water and stones. “My Headstart kids used to play in that kettle,” Cindy said.

A walk in the woods.

Banning Park is full of memories like that, of walks and picnics with people come and gone.

We walked almost to Hell’s Gate. The trail rose and fell sharply. Mollie went ahead of us, a sure-footed teenager. I offered a hand to Cindy, and she took it gratefully.

I checked my watch. Time to turn around. All three of us had appointments to keep.

We met two other parties on the trail back, a man and woman, and a group of women. We all said hello. Their smiles said that they were enjoying the later afternoon walk as much as we were.

When we got to the parking lot, Mollie headed to the car to sit and listen to her favorite radio station. Cindy and I had 10 more min­utes, so we walked on a bit, just the two of us, like the old days. It was very nice.

Our walk in the park ended too soon. But we were lucky to have done it. It hadn’t been planned. That made it even more fun.

Fall is a good time to be in the woods, to be outside period, hunting, fishing, working in the garden. The sad part is that it goes by so fast. Where is this fall going? October starts on Friday!

I wish time could stand still. It doesn’t, so we have to take advantage of those little cracks in our day when we can escape to Banning or Mud Lake or the road outside our house.

I’m sure a walk in the woods will feel differently this week. Colors are at their peak. Leaves are raining down. Guess I’ll have to find out.

Keep your school bus window closed ~ September 7, 1989

David Heiller

School starts this week, and along with all the advice parents will be giving their children, I’d like to add this: If you ride on a school bus, keep your windows up.

Let me repeat that in a different way so that you understand clearly.

The narrator of this cautionary tale.

Don’t open your windows on the school bus, kids, unless it’s an emergency.

I know, there’s no rule that says you shouldn’t open school bus windows. And on a nice September morning with the smell of dew and apples drifting by, you may think I’m nuts. After all, my son is going to ride on a school bus 80 minutes a day, which works out to six and a half hours each week, or 10 days out of the year keeping Dave Nyrud company. Shouldn’t he be able to smell the burning leaves along the way?

Keep your window closed, Noah.

Take it from someone who rode a bus to high school for five years, and who has never forgotten that one morning, lo these 20 years ago...

My cousin, Jeff, was sitting in the fourth seat back, on the left side, like he always did. But I noticed how pale he looked the minute I swung past him and sat down next to the window that fine fall morning.

(I kept the window closed, although the Cool Kids at the back of the bus had theirs open. They had their windows open almost every day of the year, even in the dark of winter. I think it had something to do with the cigarettes they smoked.)

“I don’t feel so good,” Jeff admitted right away. “I threw up twice before getting on the bus this morning.”

“Why the heck are you going to school?” I asked.

“I feel pretty good now,” he swallowed. Jeff liked school, you might say.

But as the bus started up the hill toward Caledonia, Jeff seemed to grow even paler. His white face changed to an off-green with each pot hole we hit. He wasn’t talking either, which was unusual for Jeff, who usually boasted about his muskrat line or fishing or, lately, his girlfriends. His eyes fixed on the back of the head in front of us, but they didn’t see it, seeing instead something inside himself, something awful and lurking.

Even Dale, our bus driver, noticed it. He scanned us through the mirror on his windshield visor as we neared the top of the hill. “You okay?” he called back to us. Jeff had told him earlier, somewhat proudly, about his upset stomach. Dale was concerned for his passengers, but he was concerned about his bus too. He had to clean it.

Jeff swallowed again, twice in rapid succession. A weak “Yeah” was all we heard, as he nodded at Dale.

Everything was fine for the next minute. Then suddenly I felt a furious tapping on my left shoulder, as Jeff scrambled to his feet. I looked up at him; his cheeks were bulging, his face puffed out like a bull frog. He was gesturing frantically at the window.

Remember, it was closed. But not for long. I sprang up and pulled out the two side locks and slid the window down in an unofficial Guiness Book of World Record time of opening a school bus window, .079 seconds.

Cousins, a number of years 
and a number of tales later.

Jeff jammed his head out the narrow window, and his stomach contents came flying forth in a grand finale of what was once oatmeal and corn flakes.

If you’ve ever tried to spit out an open car window going 50 miles an hour, you know what happened next. The windows behind us were instantly coated, all the way back to where the Cool Kids sat, by their open windows. A fireman with a hose couldn’t have done a better job.

I won’t describe what was said next from the back of the bus. (I’ve already crossed the fine line between humor and good taste in this column.) But I’ll never forget Bobby Blair standing up in his seat back there, and taking off his glasses and cleaning off the oatmeal on his shirt tail.

So take it from Jeff, and me, and the Cool Kids: Don’t open your bus window, unless you have no other choice.

The tale of the garage/shop/clubhouse ~ September 12, 1996

David Heiller

It had to end this way, I thought as I drove into the yard last Friday night. My daughter and her two friends stood in the yard, holding sleeping bags and heading toward the garage.

The “garage” never, ever held a vehicle. It
 wasn’t useful that way, it was an old shed that 
someone decades earlier had built to house a car, 

but they really didn’t know what they were doing.

Or is it the shop? The building is going through an identity crisis.

This story started about six months ago with a home improvement project.

First we had our kitchen redone, complete with new cupboards. The old cupboards would work great in the garage, I thought. We’ve never had a car in the garage anyway. I could make a shop out of the garage.

Pulling cupboards out of the kitchen to make way 
for new ones meant that David would be able to 
use them to organize a shop!
Or did it?

A shop. Two words that can make a middle-aged man happy for life.

Maybe a shop like Frank Magdziarz’s, which is clean and orderly. Maybe a shop like Red Hansen’s, where every square inch is filled with tools and gadgets.

But like all projects, this one had a “first things first” clause. First I had to repair the sills of the garage, which were rotten.

I thought that would be an easy job. Bruce Lourey of Moose Lake made it sound like it would be a breeze. It probably would be for him, being a carpenter and all. It wasn’t for me.

Two weeks later I put in the cupboards. Then I moved things from my old work space in the upstairs of the garage to the new work space downstairs. It’s funny, but the new cupboards and counters and walls instantly became a clut­tered mess just like the old space.

As long as I was reorganizing things, I thought I might as well clean out the rest of the upstairs of the garage.

This was no small job. I had thrown a lot of junk up there.

Everything that had outgrown its usefulness in the house had been put in the upstairs of the garage. Fifteen years worth.

Old kitchen dishes. Clothes the kids had out-grown. Clothes their father had outgrown. Three pair of rubber boots with holes in the left foot. (Why did only the left-footed boots have holes? What are the odds of that?)

You have to be firm when you clean a garage. I used the “Test of Time.” I kept asking myself, “Have I used this in the past two years?” If the answer was no, then out it went.

Some of the stuff was trash. It became part of a truckload of junk that I dumped at the Carlton County transfer station for $27.17.

Some of the stuff was too good to throw away. So I called Wilma Krogstad of Askov and asked if the Bruno Thrift Store could use it. She said yes. A load of used clothes and toys and kitchen utensils and books and you-name-it went to Bruno.

Except for a few things. Actually quite a few. I couldn’t throw away the old high chair that I had used when I was a baby, and that our two kids had used. A lot of sentimental value there.

Two old hats, they’d make part of a great cos­tume. My old down jacket. The wheel weights to the walk-behind tractor, I couldn’t throw them out, even though I had never used them. An old grind stone. And so on.

Still, the top of the garage got cleaned out pretty well. I even swept off the threadbare carpet on the floor. It gave me a good feeling, seeing a space so cluttered that you couldn’t even walk through it become open and clean again.

And then my daughter found it.

The daughter with designs on Daddy's space.

I knew she would. She always does. She sen­sed it the way a thirsty horse senses water, and she stampeded for it with her two friends, sleep­ing bags in hand, and I caught them in the glare of my head lights where they stood shaking in fear and excitement.

They had been going to sleep in Mollie’s “other” clubhouse, but it has woodchips for a floor, and no door, and Mollie remembered that I had been cleaning the garage, even though I hadn’t said anything to her, and they found it and it was so nice and they even swept the carpet and washed some of the shelves and couldn’t they sleep there, pleeeese? I knew it would end this way.

I said yes. Show me the dad that would have said no.

Later I looked in on them. They were snug­gled in their bags, laughing and talking, and the upstairs looked like it was made just for them, and I wished for a minute that I was 11 again.

I guess no garage or shop would be complete without a clubhouse upstairs.

Things change when school begins ~ September 9, 1993

David Heiller

Summer came to an end on Monday of this week, Labor Day. It was the last day that the kids didn’t have school.

Time with good friends. 
It doesn't take a lot of planning in the summer.

Things change in a hurry when school starts. It’s a time of “no mores.” No more sleeping in for the kids until seven, not when the school bus arrives at 7:15. Suddenly we have to get up at 6 a.m.

No more working on the computer when I wake up, or weeding the garden for half an hour before breakfast, or sitting down with a good book and a big cup of tea while the rest of the house is asleep.

No more sleeping in the tent or the trailer for the kids. No more 10 o’clock bedtimes. No more inviting friends over for a day or night.

No more cold cereal. When school is in session, I make hot cereal every morning except Wednesday. It’s my job, and I can do it in my sleep, which is good because I’m usually asleep when I make it.

Tuesday’s oatmeal passed the taste test of my family with flying colors. (It helps to put in a lot of sugar, and a dab of butter.) Mollie even asked for a second helping, and asked if we could have mush tomorrow. I said yes both times.

This is David's Cereal Card giving water:cereal proportions which I tacked on the
inside of the cupboard door for David.
I wrangled the children and he wrangled breakfast.
What a duo!

There’s something good about starting the day with hot cereal. You sit down together as a family to eat it. You talk. You take your time, because otherwise you’ll burn your tongue. Maybe because of that, you know that things will go all right, that bullies won’t beat you up, that your best friend won’t desert you.

AND FINALLY, no more kids at home during the day. When the kids left for school on Tuesday, the house was suddenly empty and quiet. Cindy and I were talking about that last week, about how nice it is when the kids get on the bus and the house is so quiet. A little peace and quiet is OK, especially after three months of war and noise.

1993

It’s a different kind of quiet though, not like you find occasionally in the summer when everyone happens to be gone before you. That’s more of a treat. It’s a lonelier kind of quiet, and it still carries a few worries. How is their bus ride going? How are they getting along in class? Are they making new friends? Getting into fights? We’ll eagerly wait for the answers after school, when the kids get home at four.

My respect for teachers goes up at this time of year. Most teachers have families of their own, but they can’t enjoy peace and quiet the day after Labor Day, because it is their job to teach 30 or so of the ones that have just left our houses so empty and quiet. Think about it the next time you complain about how they are overpaid and get the summers off.

Both of our kids ran to the bus eagerly on Tuesday. They had new clothes and new shoes. Noah was wearing an Indian necklace made out of bones. Their backpacks were bulging with colored pencils, calculators, rulers, and notebooks without a mark in them. They are starting with a clean slate, to coin a phrase.

They like school. I feel lucky for that, lucky for a good bus driver and good teachers, good cooks and good children, and a good home.

Those are things that hopefully will never change.

A grand time, hook and all ~ September, 2003

David Heiller

It happened so fast that I can’t say for sure how it occurred.

Maddie had just pulled in a nice walleye, and she gave me the honor of taking it off her lure. She could have done it herself, but I had offered and she had accepted.

I took out my trusty Leatherman, opened the pliers, and was pulling at the hook when the walleye gave a mighty shrug and the next thing I knew, a hook was seriously stuck in the little finger of my right hand.

Grace and Maddie in the front of David's canoe

The fish was still flopping on one end of the Zip lure, and Maddie was pulling the line tight enough to land a 20-pound northern—or in this case a 230-pound German—on the other.

Those, two actions drove the hook in one side of my finger and out the other.

I hollered something that can’t be repeated here, and the walleye flopped off and Maddie loosened her line, and I sat looking at a big problem.

Everything had been perfect up to that point. We were on a secluded lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It was one of those perfectly calm evenings where the water is so smooth that you can’t tell where it ends and the land begins. Two young ladies—my niece Grace and her cousin, Madeline—were hav­ing a grand time, laughing, catching fish, and making me recall how fun teenage girls can be when they aren’t in a wolf pack. So I was having a grand time too.

Then suddenly I had a finger that looked like a side of beef on a meat hook.

For a few seconds, the worst case reared up: I would have to paddle out, go to the emergency room in Grand Marais hospital, and have the hook taken out. It would cast a cloud over our four day trip into the Boundary Waters, maybe end it altogether.

But worst cases usually aren’t that bad, and this was no exception. I tried pulling the hook back the way it came, but the barb prevented that. I couldn’t cut it out, because it was in too deep.

Maddie, Grace and Phil

So I took my pliers and straightened out the hook a bit, with a few more choice words that impressed even the 15-year-olds. They couldn’t help but laugh, and I did too. That helped. I snipped off the base of the hook so I could pull it through, then grabbed the barbed end and pulled. Out it came like a stainless steel sliver. Thank goodness for my Leatherman!

A great relief washed over me, and the girls too. We sat and laughed some more. I apologized for swearing, and they reassured me that it was quite all right. Then we continued fishing and paddling and soaking up the golden evening.

We did a lot of fishing during those four days last week, and that was heavenly. I love to catch and eat fish. But that really was secondary.

As we paddled the lakes and cast our rods, I was reminded how good fishing is for achieving something we don’t often find: a way for people to get to know each other better, especially people from different generations.

Grace, Maddie, Levi, Phil, Collin, Randy, Malika & David

One of my sisters told me once how much she enjoyed doing dishes with Mom when she was growing up, because it was a chance for them to visit. Fishing is that same kind of thing for me.

You tell stories. You ask how things are going. You sit quietly and soak in some of God’s greatest handiwork. Silence can be golden when you re fishing. You do some teasing, laugh at something dumb. You have a little adventure, push the envelope. It turns out fine.

And it’s all fuel for future trust and common ground back in the real world when things aren’t so simple and stress-free.

It may sound strange, but I’ll cherish that hook in my finger. It will bring back memories of a very fine canoe trip with two very fine young ladies. And it will remind me that sometimes the simplest things are the most important.

Looking forward to opening day ~ September 5, 1991

David Heiller

There’s nothing quite as exciting as the first day of school what with butterflies, teddy bears, turtles, and all.

First day of first and second grade.
 Almost bravado.

First those butterflies, the kind that you feel in your mid-section when you do something new, something a little scary and a little exciting too. They swarmed inside of us two years ago, on Noah’s first day in kindergarten, and again last year when he started going full-time and Malika hit kindergarten. Now this year it’s Mollie’s turn for first grade, and we are again nervous. Every year it’s a milestone, carried by a flock of butterflies.

We parents feel the butterflies as we answer the questions of our young. “Did you ever think you would learn to write cursive, Dad?” Noah asked on Sunday night. That’s a weighty question for a second grader.

“No, I never thought I would,” I answered, quite honestly. “I remember thinking it was another language, that it wasn’t even English.” Suddenly the butterflies returned.

“But I learned, because I had a good teacher and tried hard, just like you will, because you have a good teacher and you’re smart,” I continued. Or something like that, Parent Answer Number 23 in The Handbook of Parental Responses to Questions About School, Fourth Edition.

The next day, I cornered Noah. “Why are you worried about writing cursive? That’s not until third grade.”

Malika making cookies.

“I’ll worry about school for every grade,” he answered with a sheepish grin. I suddenly realized that he wasn’t all that worried after all. He was trying his hardest to worry, but excitement was coming on too strong, shooing away the butterflies.

On Monday morning, Mollie grabbed a pen and paper. “I’m not going to be nervous,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “How do you write that?”

It seemed like a strange request, but I helped her with the apostrophe in I’m, then wrote out the word going. That was all the farther she got, before her butterflies left too, and she put down the pen and went to watch Sesame Street.

In fact, if you pinned Mollie down, she would admit that she’s more EXCITED about wearing her new stirrup pants, cummerbund, and floral blouse to school than she is nervous.

Her teacher, Mrs. Gentry, has helped. She sent a letter to Mollie last week, telling her to bring a teddy bear on the first day. The letter started: Welcome to first grade! My name is Mrs. Gentry and I will be your teacher. I am so glad you are in my class! That made Mollie feel good, as well as Cindy and me.

Pensive Noah.

Mollie was tickled to get a letter in the mail, especially from her teacher. Moses couldn’t have felt much prouder when he received a note from God on granite stationery, listing the 10 commandments. And Moses must have been a little nervous too.

Noah is also eager, thanks in large part to Shane, his turtle, and his teacher, Mrs. Kephart. She has told him he can bring Shane for the school year, if Noah can figure out how to keep him alive and well and living in Willow River Elementary School. Nothing would make Noah happier than to have his turtle for a classmate this year.

I guess good teachers have a way of cutting off those butterflies at the pass.

TUESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 3: As for us adults, we’ve felt the excitement for at least one more year and one more milestone. We stood outside and felt the butterflies too, as Dave Nyrud pulled up in his bus at 7:08 and the kids disappeared down the road today. Then we walked back into the quiet, empty house a little older and a little wiser, just like the kids. The butterflies are gone until next year.

Fall arrived in glorious fashion ~ September 20, 2006

David Heiller

We weren’t the only ones with an idea for a Saturday evening walk on the spillway.

There were the fishermen who met us on the way to their cars. Three different groups, and they all had a contented look that said the fishing was good. The first guy said the bass were biting. Another man gave me a rundown on a big carp—it must have been 10 pounds, he said with a laugh. The third guy mumbled that he caught a few, which translates in fishing language to fantastic fishing, although I’ve yet to hear the latter statement, ever.

Bob and Gail with me and two of
the dogs on a fall spillway walk.
 The river is a good place to go and reconnect yourself.

Then there was that family fishing by the spillway, the kids all lined up oldest to youngest, and the little guy’s pole bending with a bluegill. That was almost too pretty for words. A father and son pedaled past us on their way to the unspoiled waters of the second spillway. You could almost feel their energy and excitement. What better thing to be doing on a Saturday night?

They were all there like us, soaking up the last of the summer.

   You could feel this evening coming all week, and you didn’t need the weatherman to announce it. There was a change in the air for days. We’ve come to sense that after so many years and generations in Minnesota. Things were going to change soon. The hot days, forget it. They are history. It’s time for cool nights, brisk mornings, a good stiff wind, gray clouds that hint of November. Even the dreaded word “frost” is starting to enter the fringe of our thoughts.

The drive down the the spillway is always lovely,
but the autumn is special.

That’s what made the walk so special. The golden sun still had some summer warmth. A heron coasted over the water. Three little water snakes hurried across the gravel. A group of five pelicans floated and turned in perfect unison.

Our friends helped too. We had brought them to the spillway to show them one of our favorite spots. It’s always fun to do that, and even more fun when it is appreciated in rich return, which it was. At one point Gail stopped and looked to the north, the broad river stretching to Brownsville and beyond. She seemed to be breathing it all in. Gail grew up in St. Louis. She said she missed the river. I could tell she needed it, like many of us do, and this little walk was quenching that, a little at least. Every little bit helps when it comes to connecting to something that is flowing in your veins.

A lovely autumn sky looking across the road.

And that leads to fishing. So cut to Sunday morning. I biked to my favorite spot and tested the water, and sure enough, those fishermen were smiling for a reason. A fish on almost every cast. Sunnies, perch, catfish, bass, even Cindy’s favorite, a sheepshead. I pulled them in steadily, keeping some, tossing some back. My two dogs sat patiently nearby. No one else in sight. It was pretty much my definition of heaven.

The weather changed during those couple hours, like I knew it would. The wind picked up from the west and herded in thick gray clouds. They soon joined together and blotted out the sun. The temperature dropped. A few raindrops fell. It suddenly felt like fall.

I headed back with my load of fish, dogs trotting alongside. A sense of thankfulness settled on me. For this place of unequaled beauty, for friends and fish and changing seasons.

We’ll get our share of Indian summer yet, and some glorious autumn days too. But fall is here, and it couldn^’t have arrived in any better way than it did last weekend.