Dance instructor makes a difference ~ September 25, 1997

David Heiller

He came a stranger and he left a friend. He touched a whole lot of people in the process.

Terrance called the dance for our 25th anniversary. 
He is jamming here with another caller friend.

I’m talking about Terrence Smith, who taught dance for three days at Willow River Elementary School last week.

The students enjoyed it. I watched one day. Students who you might not normally think of as liking dancing had a lot of fun.

They swung and hopped. They did doe-si-doe’s. They ducked for oysters and made arches for others to dance through. They made faces and shouted. There are no holds barred in Terrence’s dances.

It’s hard to describe them. They are older than our country. You can imagine your great-grandparents and their neighbors doing these circles and steps in the loft of the barn when the hay was cleaned out in the spring.

Children liked the dances because Terrence is a good teacher, and because the dances were fun. It’s not a complicated thing.

So why don’t we dance more? Schools play basketball, volleyball, football in their physical education classes. Why don’t they dance?

I remember in elementary school, on rainy or snowy days, the teacher would take us to the basement where a room was available for dancing. Someone would carry the record player. Mrs. Spinner would put on a record, then we’d do dances like Farmer in the Dell. Wow, it was fun. The school is gone, but I still remember those times. We pretended not to like it, but our faces said otherwise. It was a chance to hold hands with girls or even give them a swing. No self-respecting boy would admit he liked doing that, but I have a hunch we all did.

Dancing in our barn

I bet Willow River students will remember Terrence like that.

We asked Terrence, who is from Duluth, to stay at our house. He accepted. Even though he was a stranger, that never really worried us. Anyone who likes to dance and can play Soldiers joy on the banjo is welcome on our hide-a-bed.

We played a lot of music in the evenings. Terrence and I knew a lot of the same songs. That was a treat. It isn’t easy to find people who play old time music. We taught each other songs too.

Terrence let me play my banjo during a community dance at Sturgeon Lake City Hall on Thursday night. He played guitar and harmonica and called out the dance moves.

About 40 people showed up. It was fun watching the people dance. Little kids, moms and dads, some senior citizens. There were smiles all around.

This is the way dances are supposed to be, I thought. No one felt self conscious. There weren’t a hundred people sitting at tables and watching while 10 people danced. Just about everybody danced, and they had fun doing it. Either that or they deserve Oscars.

Everybody mixed with everybody else. “Say goodbye to your partner because it’s the last time you’ll see them,” Terrence said before one dance.

John Westberg, Mark Boggie, Louisa Fabbro, and
 Bob Fabbro. Live music is a must for a good dance!

I recognized Verna Mach, who has an assisted living apartment in Moose Lake. She used to live in Sturgeon Lake. Her husband, Joe, played the button box. Verna was a great dancer in the old days, and there she was again, still dancing.

I said hello to her during the break. “It takes me half an hour to make my bed, but I can still dance,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. That made my night.

Terrence Smith made my week, and lots of other people’s week’s also. We could use a few more people like him. Say 1000 or so.

Terrence is from Duluth. He does dances there regularly. If you would like a schedule, call him: at (218) 728-1438, or write to him at 1428 Belmont Road, Duluth, MN 55805.

Better yet, let’s get him back to this area. Willow River Community Education sponsored his last visit. His rates are very reasonable.

Little is big when it comes to love ~ September 27, 2001

David Heiller

Cindy and I recently were visiting with a couple of friends, Owen and Linda. They told a funny story that made us both smile.

Owen, Cindy, Linda, David

They had been invited out to dinner. The host served a casserole covered with cashews. Linda does not like cashews. It is one of only two things that she cannot stand to eat. Owen knows that. So he served himself first and scraped away some extra cashews, saying how much he liked them. That gave Linda a safe place to scoop up some hot dish without having to deal with a pile of cashews.

Owen did not have to do this. It probably wouldn’t have mattered too much to the host if Linda had left a few cashews on her plate. But he did it because he knows her and loves her, and she appreciated it.

I think it’s those little acts of love, the kind that take a bit of sacrifice, that matter the most.

Moroccan mint tea is wonderful and sweet. Mint tea is ubiquitous in Morocco, and the serving is full of ceremony. I liked mint tea, but this particular tea was twice as sweet as was customary. 
It wasn't the first or the last time that David 
saved me in an awkward social situation!

Cindy still talks about something I did for her in Morocco. It was similar to what Owen did. We were being served a fancy meal at the home of an old couple. Cindy and I had eaten as much as we could. We were full. Then came the mint tea. Moroccan mint tea is served very, very sweet. It is about the same sweetness as what we feed hummingbirds. Cindy took one sip and knew she couldn’t finish her tea. But it would have been a great faux pas to not do so. So she gave me a look, probably the same look Linda gave Owen. Subtle and desperate. I knew she needed help. So when our host left the room for a few seconds, I chugged that mint tea down faster than a football player at a keg party. I can still feel that sugar rushing down my throat. I broke into an instant sweat. My face turned red. I gave a big smile when the lady came back into the room. So did Cindy. So did our host. Everyone won, although I never looked at a glass of mint tea the same way.

Sometimes a sacrifice of love goes undetected. That’s even better, the thankless kind. It^’s almost a cliché in our family, but I still recall how my Grandma Schnick would only eat the wings when we would have chicken on Sunday. She insisted very convincingly that she really liked the wings. I could never understand that, because there wasn’t much to like. But I believed her. Now I understand. I always got a leg. I loved chicken legs. Still do. Grandma never took a leg. Because she just loved the wings. Right.

My mom carried on the same tradition, only she substituted the neck for the wings. That seemed even stranger to me, because the neck is even skimpier than the wing. Now I find myself doing the same thing.

Cindy does even more. Mothers are the greatest at making sacrifices of love.

I’m not belittling big acts of love and sacrifice, like a sister giving a kidney to a brother. Sometimes even lives are sacrificed in the name of love, as we are reminded at church every Sunday.

But it’s those little ones that come out every day in every way, that really enrich our lives. They are woven into our routines so tightly that we take them for granted. But they mean a lot more than a person might think. Especially if you don’t like cashews.

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.

Getting lost is scary for everyone ~ October 1, 1992

David Heiller

It happened so fast. One moment Noah was there, 20 feet in front of me, heading for the crowded jousting ring at the Renaissance Festival.

“Boy, it would sure be easy to lose a kid here,” I thought. “Good thing it’s Noah.” Good old trustworthy, sensible Noah.

Noah might have fit right in at the
 Ren-fest with all the acrobats.

In about two seconds, I reached the spot where Noah had slipped into the crowd. I scanned the throng of people, hundreds and hundreds, sitting and standing and watching an old-fashioned jousting match.

I tried not to feel the butterflies that turned in my stomach as I realized that Noah was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s Noah?” Cindy asked as she and Malika caught up with me a minute later. She had a worried sound in her voice that I hadn’t heard before. Just like that. I hadn’t said a word, but she read my face and knew he was lost.

“He was right here a few seconds ago. He’s got to be right here,” I said in my most reasonable voice.

But he wasn’t. We looked carefully through the crowd of people jammed side to side and shoulder to shoulder. Cindy walked in front of them, up and down the first aisle, her worried eyes flicking back and forth. I stayed where Noah had disappeared, thinking he would surely have enough sense to find us again.

Minutes passed. Five, ten, fifteen. Time slowed down. Perceptions changed. Music seemed to die down. The sun slipped behind a cloud.

Noah

I tried to imagine what it would be like for Noah, looking up at all these big people. I felt dizzy and frightened. I realized it would be easy to lose your direction at a height of four feet.

Cindy and I didn’t know what to do. Should we shout his name, make a scene; disrupt the show and all those people? No, we didn’t want to panic. It wasn’t time to panic. Not yet. He^’s got to be right here.

Reason tried to prevail. Nothing’s going to happen. He’s right around here. Someone will find him, bring him back to this area. This is the Renaissance Festival in Chaska, Minnesota. He knows where we were standing, next to the jousting match.

We thought those thoughts, calmly, yet all the while the thought nagged somewhere behind it: What if...

Cindy headed farther out, away from the jousting ring. She was gone five minutes. By now 40 minutes had passed. Then I saw her coming up a hill. She was holding Noah’s hand. Both of them were crying.

We all hugged, big, lingering hugs. I can’t explain the relief I felt. It was like a weight was lifted off my back and chest, a weight that hurt, that buzzed in my head. Color came back into the air, into the bright costumes of the lords and ladies. Music started up again. Suddenly it was a glorious day at the fair.

Noah and his buddy Joe exploring
 the wonders of Walkie-Talkies

Noah explained what had happened. He hadn’t ducked into the crowd like I had thought. He had kept walking along the edge, thinking we were right behind like we had been all day. When he finally stopped and saw we weren’t there, he waited for 10 minutes or so, then did the sensible, trustworthy thing we suspected that he would. He went to a stand, and told the girl working there that he was lost.

“She contacted a person with a Walkie-Talkie, and he could talk to anyone with a Walkie-Talkie,” Noah explained later. Walkie-Talkie’s carry a lot of weight with nine-year-old boys, and with their parents. That’s how Cindy found him.

I IMAGINE THIS KIND OF THING happens fairly often at a place like the Renaissance Festival. There were 27,217 people there on Sunday alone.

I know of friends who have had similar experiences, losing a kid at a fair, or wandering off in the woods for a while. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

But I’ve never quite understood what goes on inside a parent’s head, until last Sunday. It’s not a feeling I’d like to experience again.

So long, old friend ~ September 4, 2003

David Heiller

It was getting dark the other night when I paused from some chores to look at the house. The lights were on in the kitchen and upstairs, and they peered at me like a friendly face, but a wistful one.

I know it was my imagination, but the house seemed to wear a sad and crooked smile. I probably did too.

“So long old friend,” I said to myself and the night and the old farm house. “You  were my dream.”

Can it be 22 years ago that Cindy and I moved here? All our stuff fit in one 17-foot U-Haul truck. We had no kids, no jobs. But we had fallen in love with this house and its 35 acres of wild land in northern Pine County.

So we left our teaching jobs and pulled up stakes and got a loan at 17-1/2 percent interest and bought it.

I’m not sure why we liked the house so much. It had indoor running water (cold only), but that was about it. A basement with fieldstone walls and a dirt floor. Not even an indoor toilet. It was like walking into the 1930s. Somehow that appealed to me.

Family members thought we were nuts, most of them anyway. Grandma Schnick always seemed to understand the adventure we were on better than most. She loved to hear about the outhouse, and would give me advice on how to make it more comfortable. “Put a rabbit skin on the seat,” she wrote to me once.

We loved the property too, the beautiful garden spot, the woods, the big trees, the sugar-bush. Thirty five acres seemed like a kingdom.

Wow, the adventures those first years. January of 1982, when the wind chill hit minus 100 and the water in Binti’s dish froze solid in the kitchen. We sat up and fed the wood stove all night.

The next year we gutted the inside and insulated the downstairs. We put in a new kitchen. Over the years we added hot water. Added on to the west side. Built a sauna. Had a kid. Put in new flooring. Had another kid. Had a pond dug, a pole shed built.

Steve Popowitz built the perfect addition on the east side. Deane Hillbrand trimmed it out. Dave Landwehr built a beautiful kitchen. I mention their names because they are good friends, and the house seemed to soak up their friendship. It added more value than money could buy for us.

It absorbed the joyous spirit of Cindy’s family every Christmas too. Her mom and sister and brother and kids and dogs would all converge, and we would never quite know where to put everybody, but all the chaos made it even more meaningful.

How many songs has the old house heard? How many banjo tunes? How many Twins’ games and card games? How many doors slammed in anger or flung open in excitement? How many trips down the 13 steps to the bathroom? How much homework at the dining room table? How many earnest discussions, some bitter, but most ending in an embrace, a pat on the back, a hug, a kiss?

This old house was lucky. I know, it’s just a house. But it saw a young couple take up residence, give it some tender loving care, raise a family, fill it with fellowship and love.

Now Malika is in college. Noah has a job and is looking for an apartment. We are heading south, back home, trying to make Thomas Wolfe eat his words, starting over at mid-life but expecting no crisis. This old house taught us that much, and more.

We’ll turn over the keys on Saturday. Show the new owners a few quirks. Give them some advice, which they won’t really need, because that’s part of getting acquainted with a house. It happens slowly. A pan of cookies here. New wallpaper there. Moonlight slanting into the bedroom in January, so bright you can read a book.

Butterflies for Mom and Dad ~ September 14, 1989

David Heiller

Monday night. Already I could feel the butterflies in my stomach, thinking about the first day of school. Not my first day. Thank goodness, those are done. No, I was worrying about my son. I was thinking about Wednesday morning at 7:20, when he would climb onto Dave Nyrud’s bus and disappear down the gravel road toward Willow River.

The very first of 13 first-day-of-school photos

Do people remember their first day at school? I remember mine. My mom took me by the hand, a block up Main Street to the red brick building. Mrs. Escar was waiting, grandmotherly smile, wearing a shiny green dress with little seahorses on it. Mom had her first competition. The next day, I stood ready for Mom to take me to school again, but she inform­ed me that I would have to walk all by myself. I wonder how she felt as I trudged off at the heels of my seven brothers and sisters. Now I know.

Noah stood in the driveway last Wednesday morning, not saying much, just waiting patiently. He wore shorts. We told him he’d probably be the only one wearing shorts, but he wanted to wear them. It wasn’t worth a fight. He carried a red pack on his back, and a cloth lunch bag with a triceratops on the side.

Cindy and I stood with him. We heard Dave’s bus come down the gravel road, stopping at Wil­liams’ house to pick up Rosie and April. Then it swung into our narrow driveway. I marched up to the door with Noah as it popped open, and Dave smiled at Noah. A country western song played on the radio. A lovely smell drifted down the bus steps, a mixture of coffee and warm bodies, the smell of a school bus on a chilly fall morning, a smell that flooded with a thousand memories like when my cousin Jeff, well, you know that story. Good memories.

I said hello to Dave. He looked at me with a knowing smile. How many parents has he seen sending their kids off to school, trying to look nonchalant, trying to hide the butterflies?

There are always times when you
just want them to stay home and play.

Noah didn’t notice any of this. He marched up the steps one at a time and headed for the back, disappearing from sight before I could say goodbye. He didn’t look back. Then the door hissed shut, and the bus chugged out of sight.

It was a happy day for Noah, a milestone, you might say, the start of the School Years and a thousand memories and even more miles than that. Dave Nyrud will soon be his hero, like Dale Besse was mine when I rode the bus. And Mrs. Nancy will soon be competition for Cindy, like my Mrs. Escar. Lots of changes, gradual ones that will add up in a hurry.

Too much of a hurry, the aging father says.

We walked toward the house, and I put my arm around Cindy. She brushes a hand across her eyes. Mollie is sitting at the kitchen table eating her usual Graham Crackers, as we go back inside. She’s only four, but she already wants to go to school.

And something is missing in the house even with Mollie there, something that we’ve grown accustomed to for the past six years. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, not without getting maudlin. All I know is that it’s disappearing down County Road 46 toward Willow River.

We’ll get used to it. Most parents do.

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