Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

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 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 i n the world for any musical inst rument. Noah and our daughter, Malika, were playing with puzzles in the living ro...

David Heiller He came a stranger and he left a friend. He touched a whole lot of people in the process. Terrance called the dance for our 25th anniversary.  He is jamming here with another caller friend. I’m talking about Terrence Smith, who taught dance for three days at Willow River Elementary School last week. The students enjoyed it. I watched one day. Students who you might not normally think of as liking dancing had a lot of fun. They swung and hopped. They did doe-si-doe’s. They ducked for oysters and made arches for others to dance through. They made faces and shouted. There are no holds barred in Terrence’s dances. It’s hard to describe them. They are older than our country. You can imagine your great-grandparents and their neighbors doing these circles and steps in the loft of the barn when the hay was cleaned out in the spring. Children liked the dances because Terrence is a good teacher, and because the dances were fun. It’s not a complicated thin...

David Heiller Music was a big part of my life when I was in the Peace Corps in Morocco from 1977 to 1979. Roger and David making music in Morocco. I played the banjo a lot to pass the time. When I’d get together with American friends, we’d always play music. One of my most memorable musical moments in Morocco came at a workshop that the volunteers were having in Tangiers. I don’t know how much work we got done at this workshop. I do know it was a good time to visit with friends, compare war stories, and play music. We were sitting around in a hotel lobby, playing music, when an English gentleman joined us. He brought out his guitar, and the rest of us soon put ours away. He was good. Very good. The kind of performer you’d pay music to see at a college coffeehouse. He played song after song. Wow, it was nice listening to him. We fell under his spell. And he came up with a classic line that night, one I still remember. One of the volunteers asked him, with a dreamy lo...

David Heiller “Sounds good, Mollie.” I can say that in all honesty because I’m the father of a girl who is learning to play the piano. OK, so it’s not a real piano. We’re still looking for one of those. It’s an electronic keyboard, the kind that can make all kinds of fake noises. Right now she is switching from the sound of a Star Wars handgun to something you might hear in the background of a Stephen King movie. Mozart she ain’t. But she’s already way past me in her piano-lesson knowledge. She just proved that to me. I asked her which songs she liked the best. “I have two favorite ones. I don’t know which one I like the best. I like The Butterfly and Bluebells of Scotland .” Why? “For one thing, this one has two of these ones that go together. Two and five and one, you push them together and four and two, you push them together.” She made a chord to show me what she meant. “Five one, four two,” she sang. “Two of them go together, like that. You get it now? It’s like tha...

A link to a version of Ave Maria on violin and piano.   David Heiller   I heard her name was Olga. I heard it at the end, When someone called out “Olga” Like you call out to a friend. We were at a party. She had hardly said a word To anyone that I could see. And then the fact occurred That she was with a Russian group, Musicians who were here As friends who brought good tidings, Good tidings and great cheer. Yes, great cheer and great music: The piano, guitar, sax. They played and sang and sang and played And seldom did relax Except to eat and drink and talk In rich and rolling tongue With Olga quiet in their midst Like there she did belong. I tried to talk to Olga She was eating at the table. She managed a quick smile; I guess she wasn’t able To speak our native language. See, she spoke a different way: She spoke with her violin, And she took it out to play. She turned to her comrade Who played the piano we...

David Heiller Last week was a special one for me. I’d like to share it with you, in hopes of having you attend something similar. Last week I took a two-day banjo workshop. It was offered by the Minnesota Bluegrass & Old-Time Music Association (MBOTMA), as a kickoff to their annual music festival. The lessons were held at Camp In the Woods, which is near Zimmerman, Minnesota. That is where the MBOTMA festival is held every year. Music was a huge part of David's life. He was never shy about getting in and trying.  He is playing here with Bob Bovee and Gail Heil, and Sara Lubinski.   I am the music appreciator in the group! It had been about 25 years since I had taken any banjo lessons. I’ve played the instrument for all those years, but it seemed like I never really got better. That didn’t bother me. I like to play music for fun, with friends. I’m not a professional, and probably never will be. Still, it’s nice to make improvements in whatever you ...

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 ...