Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller    One of the first things my nephew, Collin, asked when he awoke at our house last Saturday morning was if he could ride on my tractor. He remembered doing that last Christmas, which isn’t bad for a three year old. So he climbed up onto my lap on the Oliver 66, and we went careening down County Road 168, Collin steering and me trying not to smile too much. Then a little later, he asked if he could use the outhouse. We have an indoor bathroom, but I still like the outhouse. Maybe Collin’s way of saying thank you for the tractor ride was to pay his respects to my outhouse. Collin, mid-leap So I smiled again and we put on boots and coats and walked between snowbanks to the outhouse. It’s a two-holer, which fascinated Collin. He couldn’t make up his mind, which for some people could be a disaster, myself included. He had to open each cover to make an inspection of the contents. Then he chose the one on the left. Before he sat down, I asked him if h...

David Heiller My daughter’s room is a mess. I’ve told her time after time to clean it, but she doesn’t do a very good job, at least to my adult standards. I know what the problem is. It’s two fold. One, she needs a little adult supervision. Someone to help her find the boxes that hold her dishes, someone to help her organize her books and her doll clothes. Malika was always busy in her bedroom. Second, she needs time. My time. It will take some time to clean it up right. Her and me and couple hours of time. Time. It’s something money can’t buy, something we don’t have enough of. And it’s something that is at the bottom of any job well done. I sometimes find myself rushing from job to job and place to place, especially when there are deadlines like getting a story written before the paper is put to bed on Tuesday. Or getting in firewood before snow and the true onset of winter. I bet you can name a few deadlines of your own. They are a fact of life, and they have bee...

David Heiller I’m a single dad these days. My wife, Cindy, has gone away   to help her mom recover from cancer surgery. Her absence makes me appreciate many things. David and I were partners,  which  made my many  weeks away from  my family so very hard.  Funny, there are really no photos from that fall.  We all survived with lots of love and understanding. Well, maybe not the house! When I think about how hard it is being a single parent, I think back to my own childhood. My dad died four months before I was born, so Mom raised us eight kids by herself and with the help of her mother, who lived upstairs. I can’t get Mom to reminisce about those good old days much, maybe because they weren’t so good. But when she does, she always mentions how Grandma was there to help, how she couldn’t have done it without her. Lately I’ve been thinking about Cindy in the similar manner. I couldn’t do this single parent thing very ...

David Heiller Grandma and Malika at the cabin. (1990) Cindy’s mother, Lorely, was diagnosed with cancer on Saturday, October 15. Lorely spent ten rough days in the hospital, and will spend many more days at home, recovering and taking chemotherapy. Cindy has been gone nearly all of the time since the cancer was discovered. I’m realizing in a hurry how hard it is to be a single parent. Lorely’s illness is making me appreciate both Lorely and Cindy more than I ever have. Many thoughts have crossed my mind about Lorely since the illness was discovered. She has so many good qualities, like her love for her family and her generosity. She had strength enough to raise three children as a single parent without child support payments or extra finan­cial help. I have great respect for that. People usually don’t think about qualities like this in a parent until the parent is facing illness or death, which is a little late. Sometimes too late. But that’s not clear in Lorely’s ...

David Heiller Our 10-year-old daughter informed us at supper last week that she wanted to quit piano lessons. She is too busy, she told us. Piano days are done. She has homework every night. She has joined fifth grade choir at Willow River, and is going to start taking clarinet lessons for the school band. Then there’s Girl Scouts every other Monday, and piano lessons every Thursday after school. And I know parents whose children are even busier, for example, who play hockey. If you look up the word “busy” in a dictionary, it will say: “See hockey parent.” I get confused just listening to their schedules. It doesn’t get any easier as the children get older, from what I’ve seen. There are sports, and pep band, and marching band, and National Honor Society and annual staff, and maybe a part-time job at the Dairy Queen. Malika doing some wonderful "nothing" We said no to Mollie’s request. We think piano lessons are important. But I couldn’t stop myself...

David Heiller We’ve had a lot of wet weather lately, which has me worried about our Firewood Supply. Firewood Supply is capitalized because it is a serious subject when you heat with wood. Most people have their Firewood Supply under control at this point in the year. In fact the true old timer is working on his Firewood Supply for next year, or even 1997, right about now. Maybe someday I’ll be at that point. But things always seem to get in the way, like football games and gardening and an emergency or two. "Argg"! So I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll get a cold snap and the rain will cease and the ground will harden and everything will work out fine, like it always does. In preparation for those perfect conditions, I spent part of Saturday and Sunday in the woods wearing knee-high rubber boots, cutting and splitting several cords of basswood, maple, and red oak. Two companions helped the time go faster. On Saturday I worked with the company of our Austra...

David Heiller Last week my mother sent me an obituary of Doris Margaret Spinner of New Albin, Iowa who died on June 8, 1995, at age 81. She was known as Mrs. Spinner by most of the kids in Brownsville, where I grew up. She taught grades five and six there for 20 years. Malika, Brooke (Jeanne's daughter), and Noah playing school in one the Brownsville classrooms, turned local history room.  My sister, Jeanne, remembered Mrs. Spinner well. “To me she was a wonderful teacher,” Jeanne said on June 23 from her home in Klamath Falls, Oregon. “She explained things real well. She put a lot of her own wisdom into her teaching. She had a lot of patience. You could tell she was a mother and a teacher. She would mention her own children and experiences. She had that caring side. “We never had a substitute. In those days she was always there. I just felt she was a warm, caring person.” “She didn’t have any favorites. She was fair. She just had all the qualities you have...

  David Heiller Jim and I were paddling across the east end of Vera Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area last Friday when Jim let out a holler. “There’s a bear in our camp!” We were about a quarter mile away. You don’t realize how slowly a canoe travels until you paddle toward a campsite that contains your food pack and a bear in the same tree. We bore down on the camp. “Paddle Dave, paddle!” Jim said. I wasn’t exactly dozing in the sun. We started yelling. The bear must have heard us. It dropped out of the tree and scampered happily into the woods. We had hung the food pack in a tree, like we always do on our annual trip into lake country. We knew a bear would come calling. The day before, it had left teeth marks on a few dry food items by our fire grate. Things in plastic bottles that we don’t usually hang, like rice and salt. It struck pay dirt on that first visit too: we had accidentally left out a quart of Heiller’s Pure Maple Syrup. It bit through bag and bott...

[Cynthia's note: obviously David asked Malika to tell him about Mother's Day and mothers. He didn't technically "write" this column, but you see, this is the kind of man he was, so I am including it.] By Malika Heiller, age nine via her daddy, David Heiller A hug for a mama. It wasn't even Mother's Day! Mother’s Day is like a holiday. It makes me feel like it’s a nice sunny day and you’re going swimming with your mother, but you’re not going swimming unless you’re planning to. It’s like giving her a great big bear hug and saying, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.” I love my mother because she’s kind and patient. Even if I’m really naughty, she gets mad sometimes but she never loses her patience. She loves me and I love her. Those out there who don’t have parents or mothers, I feel sorry for you, because you’re missing out a lot on having a mother, because mothers are really good to you. Some kids give presents to their mom, but I don’t think y...