A closed-mouthed, largemouth tale ~ October 12, 1989

David Heiller

Every year about this time, Bob Dutcher comes to the American office and says “I’ve got some fish I’d like to show you, Dave.”

Then I grab my camera and follow him outside, where he and a fishing partner hold up chain of fish.

David, on a later, more successful trip.

That’s when I go blubbery and make a fool of myself. I cannot look at a five pound largemouth without weeping.

So last Friday Bob came into the office and said, “I’ve got some fish I’d like to show you, Dave.” Sure enough, he and his friend, Mike Anderson, held up a chain of fish. This time he had TWO five-pound bass on it, along with an assortment of other fish. (You don’t notice other fish when you are in the company of five pound bass.) I can’t describe a five pound bass. If they were people, they would be weight lifters or pro football players. They are almost grotesque; they are so huge and fat.

I held up well as I took the pictures, asked all the right questions, how they caught them, the bait they used. But I didn’t ask WHERE they caught the fish, because I knew what Bob would say, with his fish-eating smile:

“A local lake.”

Back in the office, after I had quit crying, I decided to try my luck at the elusive five-pound bass. The next morning, Noah and I headed out with a bucket of sucker minnows to a local lake. I had decided on Sand Lake, like Harley Sylves­ter had recommended at the bait shop. But at the last minute I changed my mind to Smith Lake.

As we sat in the front seat of the car, Noah as­ked me a question. “If you saw that guy from Askov going fishing right now, would you fol­low him?” He had this crooked smile on his face. I looked at him in shock.

A six-year-old poses a moral question.

I had been thinking just that same thing all morning. And to have a six-year-old pose such an unthinkable, moral question, one that hit at the very root of honesty and fair play.

I answered with a crooked smile of my own in one-half second: “YES!”

At Smith Lake, we parked our car behind a pick-up truck, unloaded our boat, and pushed off. Another boat drifted ahead of us, but I couldn’t see how they were doing. The wind blew us coldly across the lake behind them, along the lily pads. Noah had forgotten his stocking cap and a mitten in the car. He started complaining about the weather almost im­mediately.

Noah caught a small northern, maybe a pound, and threw it back. I pulled in a three pound northern. That was it. No bass, no other strikes.

After two hours, we headed in, shivering both from cruel cold and bulging bladders. There^’s nothing quite as painful as sitting in a boat with a kid who has to go to the bathroom on a cold day, unless you have to go yourself.

As we floated near the boat landing, the other boat on the lake, the one we had been drifting exactly behind, passed us by. There sat Bob Dutcher and Mike Anderson! I waved and yelled at Bob. He stopped. “I staked out your house last night and followed you here!” I said with a laugh. Bob didn’t smile.

“Catch any?” he asked. I held up my measly northern.

“How about you,” I returned. Mike held up a chain of fish. At the top was another five-pound bass! Now Bob smiled.

We returned to Smith Lake that evening, and caught a few more northerns. But the bass? That’s Bob Dutcher’s domain. I’ll keep trying though. At least I know the lake. Smith Lake. Or was it Jones Lake. I can’t seem to remember…

Remembering Mother Nature’s best friend ~ November 2, 1989

David Heiller

The porch at Bob Eikum’s house in Moose Lake always seemed special to me. It had no lights, no heater, no glass to cover the screens and keep the cold out. Bob and his wife, Boots, had planned it that way. The better to view Mother Nature, to let her come into your life.

Bob Eikum, Mother Nature
and David's friend.

Mother Nature came into that porch a lot, sometimes with a house full of people at an Eikum potluck, sometimes alone. Even at the end, cold and raw in September, she came to settle on Bob as he sat in a wheelchair one last time, soaking it up on his porch.

Nature was Bob Eikum’s life, from the time he grew up in Mankato, while he studied forestry at the University of Minnesota, when he worked as a forester in Alabama and Florida and Tennessee, as a Boy Scout leader, every job he worked, he worked with nature.

When he retired and moved to Moose Lake with Boots in 1978, he worked with nature as a photographer and as what he called an environmental consultant. He could just as well have called himself an environmental protector, but that would have been too grand for Bob. He never talked about his accomplishments. I was surprised one day to see his office wall covered with awards from past jobs. He was too busy working on something new to brag about the past.

Many awards came from conservation groups in Florida, where he had fought with developers in wealthy Volusia County. That’s where the ground opens up every so often and swallows someone’s Ferrari. I remember one time, eating breakfast with Bob at Chef’s Cafe in Moose Lake, how his eyes shined when he saw a picture in the paper of a car sticking out of a Florida sink hole. He thought it was poetic justice. He didn’t have to say, “I told you so,” because he HAD told them so.

Bob found a few different kinds of sink holes in Minnesota too, or maybe they found him. Like in 1980 when people were interested in mining uranium in Carlton County, Bob helped organize FORE, Folks Organized for Responsible Energy, a grass-roots group that turned into the Minnesota Coalition on Uranium. He helped people see the nonsense in uranium mining around here.

Bob could smell nonsense from a good distance, like the plan to subdivide the Log Drive Creek area west of Askov. Bob joined with other people to testify against this would-be atrocity. He researched it, wrote about it in newspaper columns, spoke out about it, made phone calls. He didn’t stop it single-handedly, but he was always there, someone you could call day or night someone who could answer your questions, someone who would defend you, if you were defending nature.

Boots was his partner in these things, though they took different approaches. Bob would attack a problem in a soft-spoken, academic way. Boots showed more fire. I remember one time after a public hearing in Hinckley, we were sitting around a table at Tobies. I asked Boots what she thought of the land developer’s arguments. “I wanted to slap his face,” Boots replied in her Alabama drawl. I smiled and thought, “If the developer could hear her, he would save himself a lot of time and trash his stupid plans on the spot.” How could he win against a one-two punch like Bob and Boots?

Not all his causes were popular. The fight over pine trees in the Moose Lake School parking lot seemed frivolous to a lot of people, but not Bob. Cutting down one tree needlessly, especially a 100-year-old Norway, was pretty serious. And I remember how mad he became when National Wildlife Federation President Jay Hare met with President Ronald Reagan, who Bob thought hurt the environment tremendously. That was like meeting with the enemy. There was little room for compromise in such matters with Bob. I always took heart in his stubbornness, even when I disagreed. He was someone you could count on, a constant in a world of vacillators.

Bob wrote a column for the Askov American called Minnesota Outdoors. I don’t think writing came easy for him, and he sure didn’t write for the money, because we could never afford to pay him a dime. I suspect he did it because it was one more way for him to share nature, to tell about wild flowers, or the North Shore, or edible plants, or recycling. His pictures were marvelous. The newspaper could never capture their color and beauty.

A bitter person might say that Nature played a trick on Bob, because he suffered from poor health, especially in his later years when he should have been enjoying life. Diabetes literally knocked him flat, until he was bound to a wheel chair, until he asked to leave his beloved porch and go into a nursing home.

Yes, maybe Bob should have lived longer than his 68 years. Maybe he should have died on his porch, or on his bog east of Moose Lake under the stars of a cold winter night, like Sigurd Olson. But when you think of what Bob left behind, you realize he lived at least long enough to teach us all a lesson or two, some through his words and pictures, the rest through his best friends, the pines and rocks, the water and earth, his Minnesota Outdoors.

Dealing with an awful mystery ~ October 29, 1998

David Heiller

Lorely walked from her bed to the kitchen table, and sat down. It didn’t take long before Collin was there to give her a big hug.

Grandma O and the doll house she 
assembled for Malika one Christmas. 

Lorely’s face held pure joy mixed with a little bliss. A hug from a six-year-old grandson first thing Sunday morning must feel pretty good for grandma.

Lorely didn’t sit there long, maybe 15 minutes. She was in a lot of pain. She has had cancer for more than three years, and it seems to be getting worse fast.

She can barely walk or catch her breath. She is most comfortable lying in bed. She hardly eats. She’s staying with us so that Cindy, her daughter, can take care of her.

Some of her grandchildren know the score. I realized that when I saw our son, Noah, sitting on the bed next to Lorely a couple weeks ago, telling about his day, asking about his grandfather and the Good Old Days. He wouldn’t normally do that. But he’s doing it now. Our daughter, Malika, has been asking a lot of questions too.

Nancy, Mom and Cindy on a trek to
 Duluth and Enger Tower. 
She's wearing her wig, but feeling alright, 
happy to be on an adventure with us.

Some of the children, like little Collin, have sensed that something isn’t quite right. They know that when Grandma sits in the chair and asks for a hug, there’s no time for hesitation, it’s just time for a big embrace.

Either way, it's heartening to see, because they aren’t afraid of what is happening, and because they will cherish those moments in the future as much as Lorely cherishes them now.

We hustled around the house on Sunday morning, getting ready for church, where Noah was being confirmed.

I asked Cindy if Lorely could go to church. Seeing Noah get confirmed meant a lot to her. She had been looking forward to it for about three weeks, or maybe three years.

Cindy said no, her mother couldn’t possibly sit through a church service. A week ago she could have. Not now.

Collin, Noah, Malika, Claire,
Grandma O and Grace at the cabin.

So we went to church without her. She stayed home alone. That didn’t seem right, but it’s what she wanted.

During the service I thought about Lorely several times. The ministers have prayed for her often in the past year. So have other people. I’ve felt her in the church with us several times, during certain songs. One that I still remember was Beautiful Savior.

I think she was there with us in spirit again last Sunday, there with Noah when he said his vows.

Grandma wanted a picture of her
and Claire, both chrome-domes.

After church, when we got home, I went into Lorely’s room and told her a little about the service. It had gone okay. Noah did a good job. He had stood up straight and didn’t scowl. He spoke clearly, and sang a song with the others without mumbling too much. Those are victories for a teenage boy when it comes to confirmation.

Lorely said she wished she could have been there. She held my hand very tight, and fought back tears.

Cindy and her sister, Nancy, and sister-in-law, Therese, spent a lot of time with Lorely on Sunday. They talked to her, rubbed her back. Women are good at that, better than me at least.

It must have been comforting for Lorely. I can’t imagine what she is going through. But I know I would want that if I were her. Her devotion to her children is paying dividends.

I don’t have much experience with an illness like cancer. It’s a mystery to me. It comes and goes seemingly with a mind of its own.

Doctors might disagree. But doctors have tried enough treatments and prescriptions on Lorely to make me think they don’t have the answers either.

What the future holds for Lorely, and for her circle of loved ones, I can’t say. We’re taking it one day at a time, while hoping for gentleness and strength and a little help from above.

I wrote the above column on Monday, October 26. It has a sad ending. Lorely Olson died early Wednesday morning, October 28, 1998.

There’s nothing finer than music ~ October 13, 1994

David Heiller

My son came home from school two weeks ago with a trombone. I felt like the man who watched his mother-in. law drive off a cliff in his new Cadillac. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

On the one hand, Cindy and I want our children to take up an instrument. It’s good to learn tο read music. It’s a good school activity. He’ll get in with a good bunch of kids. Music is just plain good.

Malika sent me this photo as a homemade
postcard. (A trick she learned from her Daddy.) 
She and David loved to perform 
together both in public and in the kitchen.
They didn't play together nearly enough, though.

But a trombone? By an 11-year-old? In a small house, where lives a man who can hear stairs creak at 50 paces?

We tested it out on Friday night. I was playing the banjo in the kitchen, which is the best room in the world for any musical instrument.

Noah and our daughter, Malika, were playing with puzzles in the living room. They weren’t fighting (for a change), so I risked upsetting that fragile ecosystem by bringing out the banjo.

Now the banjo isn’t exactly the quietest instrument. That’s one reason I can’t get too righteous about the trombone. But when the urge hits me to play music, I play.

And darned if that trombone didn’t sound good. Noah was able to follow the tunes with his trombone, at least to dad’s Dumbo-like ears. Maybe beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

There’s nothing finer than playing music with your family. Here’s hoping for the best for boy and trombone. But even if that match doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the line for Noah and music.

Music is what you make of it. I didn’t play an instrument in high school. I can’t read music. But I love to play and sing. If it brings you joy, that’s all you can ask. If it brings others joy, that’s a bonus.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE musicians is Red Hansen. He plays the piano accordion, and sometimes I play with him. We usually need an excuse to do this, like the Askov Fair Variety Show or an open house at the Askov American (this Friday from 9-noon).

Red and David at the
Askov American office, 1994.

Then we practice. I drive out to his house. Sometimes, he’s sitting in his porch, playing when I arrive. There’s nothing finer than the sound of homemade music drifting off a front porch.

Some of the songs we both know, like Amazing Grace or Grandfather’s Clock. Then Red will play something new. New to me that is. He’ll say, “You know that one, don’t you Dave?”

I’m always tempted to say, “Oh yeah, that one.” I should know it, but I was born 50 years too late. And I don’t dare lie, because then I’ll have to play it.

Red and David's last public appearance was at the Community Theatre in Barnum. Cynthia Johnson was presenting a series of Scandinavian folk tales. David played the button-box for one of them. He and Red played old Danish tunes before the opening curtain. They were a hit!

So I’ll say, “Νο, I don’t” in a sheepish voice, and Red will play, “Believe Me of All Those Endearing Young Charms,” and teach me a new song. There’s nothing finer than learning a new song with Red Hansen.

Sometimes even Red will get stuck on a song. He won’t remember its title, or how it goes. He’ll slap his head and say, “Come on, Hansen.” That makes me feel better. He’s forgotten more songs than I’ll ever know.

AND THERE’S NOTHING finer than a good live musical concert. I’ve been reminded of that twice in the last month and a half. The first time came when Dave Ray and Tony Glover played at Gampers in Moose Lake.

Tony autographed a harmonica book of his that I had bought back in 1975 or so. What a thrill to meet him and hear him play. And listening to Dave Ray play his guitar and sing was spellbinding. He sang and sweated through his shirt and through the night.

Their music took me back to my childhood, when my brother would bring Kohner, Ray, and Glover records home from college. And here they were, 30 years later, still playing to small crowds in a coffeehouse.

Stuart Davis played at Gampers last Sunday. His guitar sparkled too, and his original words twisted and turned in every fresh, original direction you could imagine. He’s a fantastic young musician from Minnesota.

When we clapped and clapped for an encore, he did three more songs. He didn’t want to stop. We didn’t want him to either.

…There’s nothing finer.

So long to a champion ~ October 31, 2002

David Heiller

There are certain moments that I will never forget. It’s funny how they mostly involve death.

Like when Tom Pringle came into the fifth grade classroom on November 22, 1963, and told us that President Kennedy had been shot. Or when Reverend Graupman sat down at our kitchen table on July 18, 1969, and told us that Lynette had drowned.

October 25 will be one of those days, the time when Cindy called and said that Paul Wellstone had died. The gray day outside suddenly got a foothold on my heart.

I turned on the radio. The announcer said that Paul’s wife had died too, and his daughter and everyone on the plane, and the light faltered even more.

Paul Wellstone: Man of the people.

My friend Dean Dronen from Sandstone called a little later. I could tell he needed to talk to someone. So did I. He told me how much he thought of Wellstone, what a friend he was to veterans. Dean is the veterans’ service officer in Pine County. Wellstone could not have received a higher compliment.

That night we had plans to play cards with some friends. But we didn’t play cards. Instead, we sat around and talked about Paul. We watched the news. We shed some tears and laughed too. It felt so good to do that with people who felt like Cindy and me.

It occurred to me later that everyone in that room in our house had met Paul Wellstone, had talked to him. That says as much about Paul Wellstone as anything. He was a man of the people.

How else could you see a picture of him taken by Christine Carlson that’s printed with this column? My bet is that she doesn’t have pictures of too many other U.S. Senators.

The same is true for this newspaper.

This is a photocopy of Christine 
Carlson's photo that we printed in 
the Askov American. 

She writes: This photo of a young 
Paul Wellstone was taken at Gene
and Becky Lourey's house. 
It was a get-together for Joan Growe. 
The date is September of 1984.
 My deepest  sympathy to the family 
and the state of Minnesota.

He stopped at the Askov American when he was running for the U.S. Senate in 1989. I visited with him for half an hour. I had never met him before, and knew little about him, but boy did he impress me.

I was used to dry, condescending politicians, talking heads who looked over your shoulder at the next press stop.

Paul was different. He listened. He looked you in the eye. He believed in what he said.

“Paul Wellstone visited the Askov American on June 29, and left a strong impression that he can beat Sen. Rudy Boschwitz in the U.S. Senate race in 1990,” I wrote the next week.

And Wellstone did just that.

I asked him what he was most proud of in his political career. He paused for quite a while, then said he was proud of getting people to vote, and of focusing on issues that affect people’s lives.

He said he was proud of voicing issues of rural Minnesota to people in cities, and voicing urban concerns in rural Minnesota. “I really like to think of myself as someone who can bring people to­gether,” he said.

Thirteen years and two terms later, he had lived up to those words.

It was no coincidence that the first person to call me after Cindy was a retired military man praising a senator whose last vote in office was in opposition to a war resolution.

By the time you are reading this, the memorial services for Paul and Sheila and Marcia and Tom and Mary and Will and Richard and Michael will be over. We’ll all be moving on to the political side of the tragedy. It will probably get ugly again.

But I’ll never forget last Friday, October 25, nor the man who we lost, a true leader—a champion—who never lost sight of the common man.

Fishing with a master, Bob Dutcher ~ October 15, 1998

David Heiller

Bob Dutcher sat in his boat. I couldn’t see him. It was still dark, although the stars were starting to disappear.

“Hi, Bob,” I called out. I knew he was there, because his truck was sitting by the road, and he said he’d be there at 6 a.m., and Bob isn’t late, at least when it comes to fishing.

“Hi, Dave,” Bob’s voice answered.

I felt my way down the bank, to where I could make out the boat and Dutcher, and crawled in.

“Isn’t this a little early to be fishing?” I asked as Bob rowed us onto Mud Lake. It was 6 a.m.

Bob assured me that it was NOT too early to go fishing. It’s never too early for Bob Dutcher, Askov, Minnesota, to start fishing. Why, bass bite all night. So do walleyes. And you never know when you’ll catch a northern. They are early risers, like Bob.

We each put a frog on a hook and started casting toward the lily pads off to our left. Bob worked the oars expertly, keeping us just the right distance from the weeds.

Day broke fast and clear. It was a gorgeous morning. I had asked Bob to take me bass fishing. He likes to use frogs, and I have an unlimited supply of frogs at the pond at our house. So I brought the frogs and he brought the rest, including the expertise.

That became obvious very quickly. “There’s one,” he said, letting his line stop for a few seconds. I couldn’t see any difference in his line. He set the hook. The line strained. A good fighter, but not good enough. Bob reeled in steadily, brought the fish to the side of the boat, and lifted it out. It was a nice bass. About a pound and a half, he guessed. He weighed it on his electronic scale. One pound, nine ounces.

Bob put the fish back into the water and let it slip away. He’s strictly catch-and-release when it comes to bass.

Bob caught another bass, almost identical to the first. Then another. Then a two-and-a-half pounder.

I was fishing just like him, or so it seemed. But I wasn’t feeling the fish like he did. I felt a few bites, but when I set the hook, the fish wouldn’t stay on.

One time I thought I felt a fish gnawing my frog, so I set the hook hard—like Bob does—and the frog came shooting out of the water right at us. Luckily it missed us. I don’t know who was more startled, the frog or Bob.

He chuckled. “You’ve got to make sure the fish is on before you set the hook,” he said. Oh. Right. Good point.

Bob said he hoped I wasn’t jinxed, like George Frederiksen of Askov. Bob said George has notoriously bad luck, at least when it comes to fishing.

“Come on, Dave, catch one,” Bob said more than once as the morning unfolded. I knew how he felt. I always like my guests to catch fish and have fun.

But it didn’t bother me too much, not catching fish. I was having too much fun watching Bob fish. He seemed to do everything right.

I especially liked the way he released the fish. Try letting a 3-1/2 pound bass go some time. Bob caught one that size. It was a beauty. We admired it for a few seconds, Then Bob put it in the water. It didn’t respond, so Bob put it on a stringer.

After about five minutes, the fish started thrashing, so Bob took it off the stringer and let it swim away. Not everyone—including me—could have done that. My pride and appetite get, in the way.

Listening to Bob talk about fishing was fun too. He told me about some of his favorite lakes how he fishes them, what baits he uses. I felt like putting down my fishing pole and picking up a notebook. A lot of fishermen won’t share that information. But Bob isn’t like that. He likes to see people have fun. That’s why he wanted me to catch a fish.

David didn't get skunked this time! 
He didn't catch-and-release, either!

We talked about other things too, like our families, our interests. Good old small talk, the kind that fishing is famous for.

We watched many flocks of Canada geese fly over us. A blue heron took off from a bay. A beaver swam from shore. The sun shined through a clean sky. Wow, what a beautiful September morning. There was no better place to be than on that lake.

We finished fishing at about 10:30 a.m. We shook hands and Bob said once again that he wished I had caught one. I said it didn’t matter, and I meant it. The worst day of fishing is still better than the best day at the office.

I went back to Mud Lake the next week with my sister-in-law. This time she got skunked. I wish she would have caught one!

I caught a 3-1/4 pound bass. I called Bob that night to tell him. I didn’t want him to think I was totally jinxed.

I could tell he had been sleeping when I called. He had that groggy voice. But that didn’t bother me. After all, he had gotten me out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to go fishing. The least I could do return was wake him up at 9:30 p.m.

But Dutcher didn’t complain. I knew he wouldn’t. He was glad to hear I had finally caught a fish. He’s a fisherman, after all.

This transformation is anything but holy ~ October 16, 1986

by David Heiller

The Transformation began about two months ago. This Transformation has a capital T, but it is anything but holy. Diabolical might be a better description.

I was attempting to put a 10-foot piece of roll roofing onto the garden shed, in a pretty stiff breeze. With my carpentry and coordination, that is a two person job. There were two, of us, but one was my daughter, Malika. Being only 14 months old, she didn’t count.

Not much scared Malika.

I rode that roll roofing like a magic carpet a top the garden shed, trying to keep an eye on Mollie, who was playing on the swing-set. As I put one nail in place, the wind lifted the other end out of place. I turned around to nail it straight, glancing toward the swing-set for the kid. She was gone. That didn’t worry me, since the only real danger at our house is the county road at the end of the driveway, and I had a clear view of that. So I concentrated on the rolling roof.

As I nailed it into place, I glanced at the ladder onto the eight-foot-high roof. A movement caught my eye. Malika’s head rose above the edge of the roof, smiling like some proud sun. Then she froze. She was at the top rung, unable to advance. She looked down, then back at me with the dumb realization that she was stuck.

I had the same dumb look in my eyes. I couldn’t get down the ladder—only room for one there. I couldn’t lift her up—too steep. I leaped off the roof into tall grass, then came up behind Malika. She was now crying quite freely. The sun had changed to showers in a hurry. I lifted her off the ladder, and we both breathed a big sigh.

That was the Transformation, the start of it. I returned to the roof, and she followed me back up the ladder. We repeated the process, her beaming smile, then sudden fear, my leap to the ground and rescue. This happened three times before I conceded defeat and let the roof keep leaking.

When my wife came home, I told her light-heartedly what that darn Malika had done.

“You were doing what?” she asked. “She did what? You let her climb what? What if she had fallen? Is your roof that important?”

These were all questions I had been avoiding.

“But Mollie wouldn’t stay off the ladder,” I protested. “She’s got a mind of her own now, I tell you. She just kept coming up that ladder. I couldn’t stop her.”

The best way to deal with Malika was some kind of containment plan. A kid-pack worked great!

“Hmmmm,” Cindy said, unpersuaded.

Cindy is still unpersuaded about the ladder incident, but Mollie took the adventure as her cue to enter the real world of childhood independence. All moms and dads who have trod this rugged stretch of parenthood know of which I speak. It’s that time when letters to relatives stop describing the kid innocuously: “And little Joey is such a good baby, always smiling, real easy, not a trouble-maker.”

The letters change to something like this: “Little Joey is sure a little bug. He is always on the go, and likes to keep us hopping.”

If you read between the lines, they are actually saying, “The little so-and-so is a one-baby SWAT team. He makes Rambo look like Liberace. He’s destroying the house and us with it.”

At least that is the way it is at our house, during this Transformation. You do not turn your back on Malika. She has mastered the ascent of every piece of furniture under five feet. That ladder was small potatoes. She stands on the window sill, she sits on the kitchen range. She climbs the stool next to the counter and climbs up to reach the good cupboards. Not the unlocked ones at floor level with boring Tupperware, but the good ones, with the china we never use: She uses it. The kitchen table is her own personal turf, and she spends as much time as possible there. We have to spread all the furniture into the middle of the rooms, so that she can only get stranded. Soon she will learn to leap from one to the other.

Malika love. Everyone needs hugs.

Climbing isn’t the end. She pours milk out of pitchers, onto the table and floor. She pulls pitchers of juice off the counter, down her shirt. Any spare items that fall on the floors, she claims until they tire her, then she throws them into the wood box.

Maybe it is coming to a head though. On Saturday, she stayed in the house with Cindy while I performed the great American autumn ritual of putting on storm windows, I figured if Mollie were outside, she would be at the top, of the 20-foot ladder. I figured if she stayed in the house, we’d all be safe.

I figured wrong.When I’d finished the ladder work, I grabbed the piece of glass for the combination picture window in our living room, and went to put it in. I set it down in the living room, against the stereo, while I took the screen out. As I walked into the kitchen with it, a tremendous crash sounded behind me. Cindy and I jumped and ran into the living room. Mollie stood in the middle of about 200 splinters of glass. She had knocked the window over onto her rocking chair. She wasn’t cut, luckily. She just stood there, looking at us calmly. She didn’t start to cry till we very gently picked her up and deposited her safely in the kitchen. Or as safely as any room can be with her in it.

As I headed to work Monday morning, Mollie followed this fine feat by pulling the lamp off the table, again in the living room, breaking the bulb into another 200 pieces of glass. Cindy and I just looked at each other. I guess we are used to this Transformation. But we can’t wait till the next stage. It’s got to be better than this one.

Mouse season has begun ~ October 19, 2000

David Heiller

Mouse season started at our house on Sunday, October 15. Cindy had found some mouse pebbles in a drawer in the bathroom vanity the day before. Her make-up sponge had been gnawed on pretty well too. Must have been a female mouse.

“Time to set the mouse trap,” Cindy told me.

I found the trap under the bathroom sink, which is its permanent location. I smeared peanut butter on it, then re-set it. I knew the action would start soon, and I wasn’t disappointed.

“Mouse in the trap, “Cindy hollered matter-of-factly when she got up Sunday morning. She called it out like a ship’s bosun might call, “Officer on board.”

Some people panic a bit with a mouse in a trap, even if it is dead. Not Cindy, although her voice did have a tone that said, “Please don’t wait too long to get rid of it.”

I lifted out the dead mouse by the tail, carried it outside, and flung it toward the back of the outhouse, which by the end of this winter will look like Boot Hill.

“We should keep track of all the mice we catch,” I said. Cindy agreed that that was a grand idea, so she wrote “Mouse” on the calendar for October 15.

She wrote it again the next day too.

I might be able to get rid of the mouse entry-way into our house. They come in somewhere behind the vanity. But that would mean moving the vanity, which would mean taking out some screws and unhooking the water lines and drain pipe. But if I found the spot where they got in and plugged it, I have a hunch they would find a new way in.

And maybe I could plug that spot, and the next one, and maybe eventually we would have a mouse free house.

And what fun would that be?

Maybe it’s a hunter’s instinct, the same one that sends me and 100 million other Americans after deer and bear, squirrels and grouse, bass and walleyes.

Ronnie Roberts has his grizzly bears, I have my mice.

Perhaps after all those years living with mice in the 
house, we got to be a little bit lighter on our feet.

It’s something I inherited from my mother. (Blame your parents, I always say). We had mice poking around in our house when I was a kid, and Mom seemed to take it in stride with a heavy sigh like she did everything else.

I recall one time when I was in high school, playing Scrabble with her at the kitchen table. We heard some scurrying under the kitchen sink. (Yes, it was under the sink. Is there a pattern here?) Mom told me to set the trap, and I did, and she hadn’t so much as counted her word before we heard the trap snap and there was a shrew. It was about the size of a quarter. We both thought that was pretty neat.

I read in the paper last week that we are supposed to have a real winter this year, complete with snow and cold weather. The mice seem to know that too. They don’t need El Nino and La Nina to figure it out. They just head for the Heillers.

Well, mice, we are waiting. The traps are set, and we can’t wait to write your name on the calendar.