Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller You can’t help but feel sorry for Barbie. The blonde one there in the rocking chair next to me. She’s lying face down like she’s crying. If she’s not, she should be. Kirsten Larson has taken away her little girl. Kirsten is new to our family. She has flaxen hair that came in a Swedish braid. Her eyes match my daughter's eyes: a light blue. (In fact some people think she bears a striking resemblance to me.) She has leather shoes, nice socks with no holes, pantalettes, a dress with an apron, and a bonnet. Kirsten is famous. She has had books written about her. The first one is Meet Kirsten. It tells of her family’s trip to their new home in America in 1854, of their struggles as immigrants on a farm in Minnesota. Mollie has the book. Malika and her Kirsten doll My daughter, Mollie, put Kirsten in her back-pack on Sunday night, July 18, and we rode our bikes to the local ice cream store. As we were standing in line, a tiny little girl came up and stared ...

 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 We wanted to show Adam the world, or at least our world. Adam is my sister’s 11-year-old son. He’s from a suburb of Dallas, Texas. He recently stayed with us for 12 days. My sister wanted him to get out of the city and see a different way of life. We wanted him to get to know our son Noah better, since they’re only a year apart in age. It was a dangerous proposition in a way. We only get three TV channels—no cable. Noah’s closest friend lives four miles away, not four blocks. Everything that you find in a city is glaringly absent in Birch Creek Township. No parks, no pools, no malls. I was a little worried that Adam might be impatient with our way of life. Adam I shouldn’t have worried. He said more thank yous than I could count, even to people like Palmer Dahl who sharpened Adam’s tomahawk. “You paid for it,” Palmer said in a surprised voice. He wasn’t used to a polite kid either, but Adam meant it. I knew the rest was working out on Adam’s third night. H...

David Heiller Nature has a way of healing people, both their bodies and their minds. I’m reminded of that every year about this time. I get down on my hands and knees, and you could say I’m praying in a primitive way, though mostly I’m pulling weeds. There was a lot of healing to be done last weekend. Cindy took sick on Thursday, and could barely get out of bed for two days. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat with us and help with homework and add that un-definable magic that mothers bring to a home. A cloud fell over the house. Out of commission... But the sun shone on Friday. Rain fell in warm spurts on Saturday, a good rain, gentle and full of life. The rhubarb grew about three inches each day. By Sunday Cindy was able to stand and talk and say thank you for her Mother’s Day cards and flowers, and the cloud was gone. In another time and place that plague might have killed her. But not this time of year. Not with weeds being pulled from the garden by the wheelbarrow-full...

David Heiller I wrote a column on March 11 about the imminent return of spring. I drew on crack observations like owls hooting, skunks spraying, sap running. Then on March 13, the temperature dropped to 14 below zero. The next night, the temperature fell to 10 below zero. And on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, it was 12 below. We wrote it on the calendar. Winter gets long...  lap sitting and getting away can help! In fact since that brilliant column two weeks ago, the temperature hasn’t risen above freezing. However, the temperature today (Saturday, March 20) is supposed to rise above freezing, and by next week, it’s going to hit 50, so the weather man says. Therefore, to avoid another Heiller Jinx, I am going on record: spring is a good two months away. We are going to have three more blizzards before May 1. Your pipes are going to freeze, and your car won’t start. The owls will fly back to Capistrano, the skunks will return to their dank dens, and the only sap you’...

David Heiller Last Friday Mollie and I sorted through her doll clothes as preparation for an exciting time of “Playing Dolls.” Don’t ask how my daughter conned me into playing dolls with her. Suffice it to say I made a promise and she held me to it, as seven-year-old girls are wont to do. Mollie brought out a five gallon bucket full of doll clothes. I allowed as we couldn’t play dolls without sorting through the clothes. So we found another five gallon bucket, and separated the doll clothes into Barbie and non-Barbie piles. The non-Barbie clothes had a lot of character. Blouses, dresses, caps. Some of them could have fit an infant. Many were home-made by a thoughtful grandma. I liked them. But they were cast aside by Mollie without a glance. Five Barbies and poor head-less Ken. We’re into Barbies at our house. The newer Barbie clothes were just the opposite. They seemed like little more than tiny pieces of cloth with a button here and a fastener there. And I mean ti...

David Heiller The cabin sat on top of a high hill overlooking Moose Lake. Below you could see two islands, pine covered and rocky. They looked like ships in a smooth white ocean. We had to ski there first. I insisted, with a hunger that I couldn’t explain. Moose Lake, not the one in Carlton County but the one northeast of Ely, is a jumping-off spot into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I had seen it from the front of a canoe three springs ago, had followed it through Newfound and Ensign and Missionary Lakes and beyond to an eight pound lake trout, the nicest fish I ever caught. And with the nicest friends too. So last Friday afternoon, Cindy and I strapped on our skis and headed up Moose Lake with a wind at our back and the sun setting low in the southwest sky. We broke our own trail for about half a mile, until I hit slush and my skis turned into two-by-fours of ice and snow. Stopping for a sunset. We headed for shore, and picked up a dogsled trail. It was sli...

David Heiller   Cold is relative. It always takes a cold snap to remind me of that. In December of 1977, we had a stretch of very cold weather, 20 and 30 below for a week or so. I remember standing outside and playing my banjo when the temperature rose to zero. This past Sunday morning was like that. I shoveled snow in my bathrobe and slippers, after the temperature shot up to 17 below zero. That was the warmest it had been for a day and a half. On Saturday afternoon, the thermometer rose to 21 below. Cold~cold~cold That was the high for the day. The night before we had minus 33. Steve Popowitz went outside Saturday morning. He thought some people were chopping down trees in his woods. Then he realized that the trees were popping from the cold. Pop. Crack. Pop. Crack. It sounded just like someone chopping trees with an axe. It was louder and faster than he’d ever heard. He had 35 below. He was trying not to boast when he said it. But it feels good anytime you can beat ...

David Heiller Dear Grandma: You’re probably looking for my annual Christmas letter to you. Practice for the Christmas program at church started three weeks ago. That’s about when Christmas starts for me. Noah didn’t have a part. He just had to sing four songs with the other third and fourth graders. But that was more than enough. It wouldn’t be cool for a 10-year-old to admit that singing was fun. Noah and Grandma Schnick.  David wrote lots of letters to Grandma when she was alive, and didn't stop after she passed. But his actions said something else. Like when he warmed up in the car going to church on Sunday by making up a song. It was something about a missing cat. Mollie joined in at the end of each verse, and harmonized on the chorus. Cindy and I had big grins in the front seat. It was a great song! We didn’t dare interrupt them, being from the   Land of Bland   and all. Mollie had a long part, but she didn’t have to memorize it,...