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 Standing from left are Peggy Whitehead, ad sales; Diane Delzer, proofreader; Sara Poslusney, cute kid; Donna Cronin, ad sales; Lynn Storrar, typesetter and bookkeeping; Chris O’Brien, typesetter; Cindy Jensen, typesetter, circulation manager, and writer; Hazel Serritslev, typesetter, subscriptions, and writer; Kaarin Johnsen, typesetter, bookkeeper, and circulation; Darrell Johnsen, photographer; Ardis Jensen, ad sales, subscriptions, and typesetter; Coral Popowitz, ad sales; Tim Peebles, ad sales and delivery; Sandy Koecher, ad sales; Jay Poslusney, musician and father of cute kid; Carrie Merriman, proofreader and bookkeeper; and Dean Dronen, friendly neighbor, musician, son of Gerald and Gloria. Seated from left are Arla Budd, typesetter and bookkeeping; Cindy and me; and Red Hansen, the all time official Askov American mascot. Arla had the tone of an old school marm. “You can’t go to the meeting, David,” she said. You can’t miss the party!” She had be...

David Heiller Last Tuesday was Murphy’s birthday. You know Murphy, of Murphy’s Law fame. He celebrates his birthday every few weeks here at American Publishing. Two months ago, he had a grand birthday celebration in our basement. The sky darkened like dusk, and an inch of rain fell in half an hour. Murphy was sitting in the drainpipe to the rear of the building, so that the rain water couldn’t go through. It flowed over the rear door sill, and into the basement, where we have $12,000 worth of paper stored. It pooled up under the presses, formed lakes over the drain. Tuesday was layout day for the paper. It was a long jigsaw puzzle. All done by hand. Unless of course Murphy was around for the day, then all bets were off! I took off my shoes and shirt, and dug into the ground outside, while the rain soaked me. I found a broken tile of clay drain pipe, where Murphy had been dancing. After an hour, the water finally started flowing through, the lake in the basement recede...

Editors note: Click here for the original and true song...   This must have the melody from the old Johnny Cash song: “I’ve Been Everywhere” playing in your head in order to make any sense of this. David wrote it for the staff Christmas party in 1990, and sang it every Christmas party thereafter. He also sang it to hoots at the variety show most Rutabaga Festivals. Pronounciation is key, so I will give a few clues for non-northern Pine County types who actually want to try to read this: Trygve: Trigvee, Lunde: Lundee, Krabbe: Crabbie, Bagge: Baggee, Kukuk: Cookoo, Klocke: Clockee, Loew: Low. In the end though, I know the song, and the names, and the people, and I don’t know how David managed to actually sing this! But he did. ~chg A song for Hazel: She calls everywhere David Heiller Hazel Serritslev writes the Askov news for the Askov American, and she writes it well, in my humble opinion. Sometimes people bring news items in, or call her with ...