Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller “ H appy birthday Cindy.” Hazel Serritslev said that to my wife on Tuesday morning when we got to work. At the office of the Askov American, where birthdays were never an after-thought . Good old Hazel doesn’t forget birthdays. She even bakes a cake for everyone at work when their birthdays roll around, which happens once a year, so I’m told. I’m not as good as Hazel at remembering birthdays. In fact, when Hazel said “Happy birthday, Cindy,” a moment of pure surprise hit me, and it really did feel like a ton of bricks. I had totally forgotten this momentous occasion for my wife, Cynthia Anna Olson Heiller. Before I had a chance to say anything, Cindy walked to the front of the office, where Cindy Jensen greeted her with another “Happy birthday.” I expect if I had turned on WCCO radio, I would have heard the announcer wishing Cindy a happy birthday. 1960... I loved that cool cake my grandma made for me. I apologized to Cindy, but she answered ...

David Heiller The cabin looked great as we moved our load of supplies in for a week’s vacation on Trout Lake two weeks ago. Carpeting on the living room floor and in the bedrooms. A clean bathroom, nice shower, no slime on the floor. Two beds and a crib in the kids’ room, and a big bed in our room. Cindy unpacked the food, putting enough for an army encampment into the refrigerator and cupboards. I tucked the clothes into the dressers, enough duds for an army encampment too, except for mine. I brought only three shirts, two pairs of shorts, and some socks. If I had packed the food, we would have had bread and water for a week. That’s why Cindy had let me pack only for myself. The two kids took off running the minute they hit the cabin floor. There were no bookcases to dodge, no mountains of toys or televisions or stereos. Just pure floor space, a small gym to them for running and falling. Noah and Malika ready for canoing Everything looked perfect. I breathed a sig...

David Heiller   Noah and I each grabbed an umbrella and headed outside for an exciting Saturday night at the Heiller house. A thunderstorm was heading our way, and we wanted to be a part of it. Noah and David News banners on the television screen had set the stage. Warning beeps sounded like the distress signal of a sinking submarine. Then some weather man with a real voice, a voice like yours or mine, spoke over the now-silent tennis match. “At 7:47 p.m., a line of thunderstorms was spotted on Doppler radar moving north northeast at approximately 18 miles an hour. This storm contains hail the size of Volkswagons. In its path is the city of Finlayson and the Heiller residence.” That’s what my imagination said at least. There’s something about a thunderstorm that is both frightening and fascinating. You hope you don’t get zapped. You hope the wind doesn ’ t turn into a tornado, or that six inches of rain doesn’t fall in two hours. You hope the hail doesn’t grow t...

 David Heiller You never know what you’ll discover from a little girl in a fishing boat. Her name is Grace. She’s my niece and she’s four. Grace likes to fish, and I like any kid who likes to fish. So Grace and I and my two kids, Mollie and Noah, made several excursions in the boat last week. Mollie and Noah can take off their own fish now, for the most part, so I got my hopes up. Maybe I can actually try fishing myself. Any adult who has fished with little kids knows what I mean. But Grace brought me back to reality. The power of a four-year-old brings reality into focus. It started when I wanted to troll around Star Lake. Maybe catch a small northern like the one mounted on the cabin wall. Just a 12-pounder. Trolling didn’t go over big with Grace. She was holding Mollie’s hand firmly with her left hand, and her Snoopy rod and reel in the other. Her feet couldn’t touch the bottom of the boat. She was ready to roll, and here we were, going two miles an...

David Heiller I hadn’t seen Roger for 22 years, since we left the Peace Corps and went our separate ways. We had served together in Morocco from 1977 to 1979, teaching English as a foreign language. Roger and David making music in Morocco, 1979 We were good friends there, even though we grew up in very different ways. Roger was raised in suburban New Jersey, me in rural Minnesota. But we had a lot in common. In fact, our differences may have brought us together. I was fascinated with his Italian background and big city connections. He seemed the same way about me and my roots in “Minn-Ah-SO-Dah.” (We talk funny to people in New Jersey.) But our main connection was our love of music. We shared ballads and blues, traditional tunes and new songs, and some that we had written. When we got together, we wouldn’t even need to talk. We would just play and sing for hours, sometimes all night. That doesn’t happen too often. Roger was a gifted guitar player. He could weave notes an...

David Heiller The small black suitcase lay before me on the bed, and I hesitated before opening it. The suitcase stays in the top dresser drawer in my old bedroom, but I had never opened it before. And now, I hesitated just a second before lifting the two metal clasps, like you hesitate before lifting the phone receiver to call a friend you haven’t seen in a long, long time, not knowing who’ll answer. Inside the black vinyl case, two bright scarves lay on top, and two hand-made pot holders, and a ceramic wall hanging, carefully painted but with colors running into each other, the yellow banana flowing onto the green foliage. Some construction paper posters were carefully folded, along with two hot pads, and a Girl Scout sash with 16 merit badges from Troop 93, Peace Pipe Council. David and Lynette with Grandma Schnick. I touched these things carefully, seeing for what seemed like the first time in 20 years, the smiling girl who had made them and worn them, my sister, Ly...

David Heiller The woodstove is gone. A neighbor bought it. We moved it onto his trailer last Friday, and it was no easy task. I had grown attached to the woodstove. On the one hand, it was about as inanimate an object as you could find, steel and brick, and as solid as a tiny Gibraltar. There’s nothing colder than a cold stove. On the other hand, when that stove was full of oak on a winter night, it was as good a friend as you could ask for. It was the center of our household universe, and it didn’t have to beg for attention. Malika showing her great strength hauling  wood for the stove. Noah got  stuck  hauling far more wood than she did,   but that is the subject for a different column. Our first dog would lie with her head under the stove. She would get so hot that we thought she might burst into flames. We called her the heat sponge. My wife, Cindy, wasn’t quite that desperate for heat, but on cold days she would sit ...

David Heiller Wrapping "Baby Tato" in it's blanket  (a napkin), rocking it to sleep. Children go through streaks where they have favorite things, at least mine do. For awhile, Malika had her Baby ‘Tato", a huge spud that she carried around and even slept with until it started getting a little gamey. Now she has a pink elephant pajama bag that was given to Noah before she was born. We dug it out of the closet a month ago, brand new, but instead of stuffing it with pajamas and hanging it by her bedside, she brings it to bed with her. Noah has his tiger, a fancy molded piece of hard rubber, painted fiercely, with sharp teeth. It says “Made in Hong Kong on the stomach. He brings the tiger with him on car trips, to the beach, to the day care, and to bed. It is his security blanket. They also have a favorite television show, which we made the mistake of taping for them. VCRs are a great investment. I hope ours works for the All Star game. But they can ha...

David Heiller If your ear lobes are intact now, guard them with your life. I taught a four year old how to cast a fishing lure. It started innocently enough last weekend at The Cabin. When my four-year-old nephew, Collin, arrived, the first words he said to me were, “Uncle Day-vid, I caught more fish than you last year.” He had out-fished me one evening, and he wasn’t about to let me forget it after only 12 months. Uncle Day-vid and Collin at the cabin: fishing buddies The next morning we went to the dock to catch sunnies. Usually with a four year old, that means dropping a line from your Sesame Street rod and reel straight down into the water, and watching half a dozen panfish converge on the worm. They have a brief conference, then elect the smallest one to investigate further. You end up pulling in a fish only slightly bigger than the hook itself. This gives the kid a great thrill, which gives the adult a great thrill. But Collin’s Sesame Street fishing rod...