Dad will enjoy building swingsets, if it kills him ~ May 8, 1986

David Heiller

Getting a swingset is a milestone in a child’s life. Assembling one is a milestone in an adult’s life.

The brand new swingset! They loved it!

I started assembling our Flexible-Flyer swingset—or “play gym” as they are now called—at 6:30 p.m. Friday night. I finished at 1:30 Sunday afternoon. In between working, I ate and slept. That’s all. The swingset cost $139.00, at the store, but counting my labor at minimum wage, it cost $203.10. No one who watched me put it together would pay minimum wage though. A sheltered workshop could have done better.

I suspected trouble when I opened the box, and found the owner’s manual. It was 13 pages long. KEEP THIS MANUAL, it warned in stern bold face letters. “It contains assembly instructions, anchoring tips, maintenance and safety tips, and ordering information.” There was even a CAUTION on the front. I read it nervously, suspecting something from the surgeon general: Assembling swingsets may be hazardous to your mental health. No, it warned that kids heavier than 75 pounds had better find another place to play.

Noah enjoying the swingset,
Malika enjoying Noah

On the second page was the line that adorns the front of every owner’s manual, from pyramids to space shuttles: “Read the entire manual completely before assembly to familiarize yourself with all parts.” I have never met anyone who has done this. On this introductory page, it also told about safety, pre-assembly instructions, and tools required. I was relieved to see the only tools needed were a screwdriver, adjustable wrench, and pliers.

The next page told how to anchor the swingset—oops, the “gym set.” I learned that it could be anchored in concrete; or with ground anchors or augers. Why were they telling me how to anchor it when I hadn’t even taken out the parts yet? To build confidence, I would bet.

Page four got into the nitty-gritty: Assembling the A-frame. I removed the two plain chin bars, the slide chin bar, the end and center legs, the two top bars, and a whole pile of bolts, lock washers, and nuts. Here was the first good piece of advice on the nuts and bolts: “Place the contents in one end of shipping carton to prevent loss.” I discovered why soon enough, as I dumped them onto a plastic bag in the grass. It was about this time that my wife turned our son loose from the house. He streaked to my side, and began hefting the chin bars like a weight lifter about to celebrate his third birthday. He carried them to various parts of the lawn. Then he rearranged the center poles to the end, and put the end poles in the middle. While I straightened them, he discovered the pile of nuts and bolts, and dumped them into the grass. I returned to pick them up, yelling at Noah to not touch anything. By this time, he had found the screwdriver and pliers, and had carried them a safe distance from his crabby father.

The work was totally worth it!

“Noah,” I said in a voice bordering a scream, “give me my tools. These are not toys. And don’t touch those bolts and poles. I’m working.” How can you be working when you are making me a swingset, he must have thought.

Noah went to bed shortly after that. I got the A-frame assembled just as darkness fell. I had to substitute two of the ¼ inch from my own rusty collection and I ended up with four 5/16 inch bolts left over. But the frame was standing, and I slept a little better for it.

The next morning I tackled the air-glide assembly. A neighbor came over with his two kids. They played with Noah, but our daughter motored her 11-month frame toward the pile of bolts and nuts. As the three adults struggled with the air glide, Mollie counted the bolts and nuts out into the grass. We caught her half way through, then took turns holding her while the others worked through the assembly.

I asked my friend if he had ever assembled a swingset before. “Oh sure, a couple,” he said nonchalantly, But I could see his hands start to shake with the memory, and his eyes glazed over for a second. “I never read the directions either.”

He stuck with us till the lawn swing was assembled, then bolted for home. That left me with the slide, trapeze bar and swings. I finished them up by the following morning. I had to resort to one more tool not mentioned in the owner’s manual—a hammer. Some of the bolts—the ones we could find—just didn’t seem to fit.

The swingset is now up. I still have those four extra bolts, plus two nuts and nine lock washers. Noah announced as I finished the slide that he wanted to play with his sled. But he will get over that. I’m going to try to steer him into engineering as a career. Then he can be a professional gym set assembler, or at least put one up for his own family easier than I did.

The bluebird made it official ~ May 3, 2003

David Heiller 

Tree swallows were weaving a net over us last Saturday morning. They seemed to perch on every Al Jensen bluebird house in sight.

Bluebird

Tree swallow

I have nothing against tree swallows. They are confident and beautiful, and they eat a lot of mosquitoes. All great traits in a bird.

But we needed a bluebird. They are on the top of my list in the bird world. They always remind me of my Grandma Schnick, for some reason, of the good old days. Their red breast and soft blue color almost take my breath away.

I had staked a claim on the bench in the backyard, with muffins, coffee, and a banjo. Cindy joined me. That’s when we started looking for bluebirds.

“We usually see them by your Mom,” I said. Lorely’s ashes are buried on a little knoll next to the pond.

“And there it is,” Cindy said. I’m not making this up. The bluebird appeared as if on cue, on the bird house where we always see it.

The little knoll by the pond, a favorite
 bluebird nesting spot at our house.

Heaven has a lot of definitions, but that spot, that sight, and that moment was one of them.

Spring got officially underway then too. The calendar said it had happened six weeks earlier, but that warm moment was when it kicked in.

A hint of it came a few days earlier, on May 1, when I practically jumped out of bed at 5:45. It happens every year like clockwork, a feeling that I can’t lay in bed, that life is too short and the day is too perfect. Is it something in the light? Something in my genes? I don’t know. I only wish it would last all year. If I could bottle up that enthusiasm, I would be rich.

A lot of little things lead up to spring. Melting snow, maple syrup, frogs. Mud, grass fires, rain. The Minnesota Twins!

Bluebird babies in one of
our nesting boxes.

Then all of a sudden, it’s here. That’s what hit last Saturday morning, when that bluebird flew into the spotlight.

I was worried that I might miss it this year.

Things have been hectic. But I had enough sense to slow down last Saturday and soak it in a bit.

My thoughts had a bid of sadness with them too. We are going to be moving this fall, and in all likelihood, this will be our last spring on this property. The land, the garden, the birds, they all seem as familiar and comfortable as a favorite pair of jeans. I looked at it all last Saturday and thought, “Man I’m going to miss this.” You get attached to a back yard after 22 years!

The garden with its endless battles and blessings. The pond with its skating and swimming. The campfire, where we visited with friends. The sauna. Heck; even the outhouse brings a wry smile.

So many memories. I’ll have the rest of my life to remember them. It’s too soon to dwell on them here.

So I’ll just count my blessings for another wonderful spring—and that includes a big thank you for the glorious rain we got on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I hope you are enjoying your spring, and your bluebirds, equally as much.

Thanks to the rain ~ May 19, 1994

by David Heiller

It rained all day Saturday, a light mist of a rain. Some people probably cussed at it. But from the garden it made me glad. That’s where I spent most of the day, shoveling, raking, tilling. My T-shirt stuck to my back like, well, like a wet T-shirt. My gloves got coated with mud. So did my boots, and the rake and fork and tiller. We were all one soggy mess.

But the rain felt good, all six-tenths of an inch.

Kids love the rain.

We weren’t exactly in a drought. It had snowed eight inches just 17 days earlier. But the potatoes and lettuce and peas needed a drink. So did the corn and alfalfa. So did the roadsides along Highway 23, where train sparks have sent firemen a-scurrying and trees a-dying.

So did the perennials that Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson gave me last fall, forget-me-nots and delphiniums, primrose and daisies, and a bunch of others that I can’t even identify. Their leaves sprinted out of the ground with the rain.

We heard it start in the middle of the night. Cindy woke me up at 4:30 a.m. to say, “Listen, it’s raining.” There’s nothing better than lying in bed next to your lover and listening to a gentle rain fall on the roof over your head.

The rain didn’t stop our children. Noah was out on the driveway with his trucks and cars, wearing my rain coat and making grader noises and explosions for when he blew up the graders and trucks.

Malika came out onto the deck and skipped rope. “I did 23 backwards,” she called out to me in the garden.

“Great!” I answered.

They played with determination. Noah rode his bike over to Malika and said something, probably about guns and dirt bikes. Mollie lifted her chin and skipped on. Nothing beats skipping rope to an eight-year-old girl.

Rain doesn’t stop anything. The leaves on the trees seem to grow before your eyes, a bright and delicate green. The peas that you barely saw poking out of the dusty garden inch upward out of now-black earth. The farm fields that have just been seeded look ready to spring to life.

Oh rain! Oh joy!

Birds swoop and sing in the rain, feasting on mosquitoes, which in turn are feasting on me. Unfortunately, the rain brings bugs to life too. Orioles and hummingbirds politely take turns at their sugar water bar, while goldfinches and rose breasted grosbeaks gobble down sunflower seeds at theirs.

My thoughts turned to the Boundary Waters, how pretty that is in the rain, the pine trees and moss on the rocks and gray water full of rain drops and life. I’m heading that way with three friends this week, for the seventh straight year.

The rain made me think of those three friends, and of fishing for northerns in the Kawishiwi River. I thought of that big one Dave had on three years ago, how Jim missed it with the net when it made a pass at the canoe. Then it spit out the hook in Dave’s face like a guy that just hit a three run homer.

The rain makes me think of people like Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson, how nice they were to share their garden plants and their knowledge with me.

The sun came out on Sunday. My rainy day thoughts came to an end. I was glad for the sunshine. But it’s nice to give thanks for the rain too.

The call of the garden ~ April 16, 1992

 David Heiller

The sun was shining, the birds singing, the bees buzzing. You name the spring cliché, and it was there last Thursday morning.

Oh gardens!
Little Claire lends a helping hand later in the season

And the garden was the biggest magnet of them all. I could feel its pull even as I knotted my tie, grabbed my briefcase, and headed out the door for work.

I almost made it too. But the garden looked so inviting. I walked to it. A week of unseasonable weather had dried out the raised beds. I grabbed a clump of some nameless weed. It pulled out easily. I shook the dirt and earthworms from the roots, and tossed it on the grass.

I was hooked.

Back in the house, I slipped a pair of coveralls over my dress clothes. Tie and all. I grabbed the garden fork, and went back to the garden.

Loosen the soil, pull up the weed, shake off the dirt, toss the weed aside. Repeat. Repeat. Again. Again.

Malika helps to plant.

I found a carrot that had been passed over last fall. I wiped the dirt off with my hands, and ate it. It tasted as sweet and crisp as the ones last fall.

At first my movements felt stiff and awkward. I felt the damp soil soak through the coveralls, through my slacks, hitting my knees. My left knee groaned as I got up and down. It has pulled in one too many gallons of sap this spring. My back popped a few times, like plucked strings on a banjo.

My mind whirred: What am I doing. I should be selling ads, taking pictures, writing stories. I moved to a new bed, raked back the newspaper and straw mulch. The grass underneath was brown and dead, so I dug it up, widening the bed by half a foot, shaking out the rhizomes, tossing them aside.

Then there is the joy of the harvest.
Shelling peas with Noah.

My thoughts turned to Binti, our dog who died last fall. She should be here, I thought, sniffing in the dead grass, looking for mice. She always hung out at the garden when I worked there, keeping me company, and vice versa. This will be our first garden without her in 13 years.

My movements became more sure, more mechanical. I’m not sure why, but it always takes about half an hour of a job before I really feel sure of what I’m doing. The crick left my knee. My lower back muscles quit snapping. My mind lost its doubt. Work can wait a bit. The ads will get sold, the photos taken, the stories written.

A few honey bees buzzed past my ear. No worry about getting stung. They have other things on their minds. Hello, it’s spring, and I’m hungry. Praise the Lord and pass the flowers!

Collin helps plant peas.
 Everybody's got to get into the act!

The sun felt warm. A steady west wind blew over the garden, bringing the moist smell of fresh soil and manure. I started sweating, cool and damp, like spring soil.

Two hours, that’s all I needed of this. The garden looked fresh and new. I felt that way too. Then the coveralls got hung. I straightened my tie, and the ads got sold, the photos taken, the stories written. At least this one did.

The next day, it snowed six inches. Only in Minnesota. I took my coveralls from their hook, folded them, and put them in the closet a bit sadly. Thursday seemed like a dream. The garden looked like it did last November.

But deep down, I know better, and I bet a lot of you do too. It’s there, waiting, like a magnet. Soon it will be pulling us again.

Remembering a few good teachers ~ April 13, 1989

David Heiller

What makes a good teacher? I found myself asking that question this week, for a couple reasons.

One reason was Rocky Kroon’s letter to the editor, which appears on this page. Rocky doesn’t write letters to the editor every week, or every year. His words are sincere, as he tells about one good teacher, good in the classroom and in the community. Please read it.

The other reason started with an incident last week at Askov Deep Rock. A group of people were standing at the counter, passing time. George Frederiksen told Pat Mee some fire department news.

“You’d better write it down and put it in your pocket,” I joked to Pat. Pat is the kind of guy who has a pocketful of notes to help him remember. His coverall pockets sometimes bulge like a file cabinet, filled with his notes.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Pat said, as he took his pen and wrote his reminder on the back of his hand.

The school and school-yard in Brownsville 
where Mrs. Sauer taught young 
Mr. Heiller the do's and the don't-s.

“Don’t write on your hands,” I said.

“Why not?” Pat asked, looking a little surprised.

I couldn’t answer for a second. Then I remembered Mrs. Sauer. “Because you’re not supposed to. People’s hands aren’t for writing.”

I felt a little embarrassed, telling a man like Pat Mee not to write on his hands. But Mrs. Sauer’s words just came out on their own.

“I had this seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Sauer,” I explained to Pat and George and Maureen Seibert. “She taught us never to write on our hands.” I can still remember her scolding Lynn Rohrer, an eighth grader, for writing on her hands. ‘Your body is a temple. Don’t abuse it,’ Mrs. Sauer had said, or something like that. ‘You weren’t born with ink on your skin, or holding a ball point pen.’

“And she taught us that whenever a woman drops something, a man should always pick it up for her,” I went on, not caring if Pat or George or Maureen really wanted me to. “She used to stand at the front of the class and drop her pen, and all the boys would dive for it to give it to her.”

Maureen looked at me. “She really made an impression on you, didn’t she?” Maureen asked.

“Yeah, she really did,” I answered. Funny, I hadn’t thought of Mrs. Sauer in years, but just like that, on a Tuesday morning some 22 years and 250 miles later, I remembered her. Good teachers will do that, the kind Rocky Kroon writes about.

I could write a book about Mrs. Sauer. She was about 50 then, and had grown-up daughters. We used to joke that one was named Dinah. We wanted to ask what it was like to have a “Dinah Sauer” for a daughter, but we never dared. Mrs. Sauer had sharp features, a hawk-like nose, reddish hair, piercing eyes. She moved quickly, and with complete confidence.

She thought quickly too, and wouldn’t hesitate to tell you things like: ‘Don’t write on your hands.’ And we listened.

One of David's
Brownsville school photos.

Mrs. Sauer would read books to us, a chapter a day from one of her favorites, like Little House on the Prairie. She made us read too, and everybody read, everybody checked out books from the library. Mrs. Sauer inspired us, and I can’t think of one student who didn’t respect her and obey her. She was that once-in-a-lifetime teacher.

But not all of Mrs. Sauer’s lessons came in the classroom. I remember one spring day that school year. The seventh and eighth grade classes had walked to Germania Hall to rehearse the graduation ceremony. On the way back, Mrs. Sauer pulled up beside me. She asked me what I wanted to do with my life.

“I want to be a truck driver,” I answered quickly.

She put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re not meant to be a truck driver, David,” she said. “You’re going to go to college. You’ve got some special gifts, and you should use them.”

It was a clear day, and life was still fresh for a 13-year-old boy in rural Minnesota. That’s what she said. At least I think it is. It’s what I remember anyway, and that’s what good teachers are all about.’

Even if I sometimes wish I were a truck driver.

Old Man River has his way ~ April 26, 2001

David Heiller

Cindy and I stood on the observation platform of Lock and Dam Number 10 last Wednesday, April 18.

Locks and dams on the upper Mississippi.

The Mississippi River was high. It was almost flowing over the top of the lock. A lock is like a long cement chute with a gate on either end. The locks are used to move boats past the dams. In normal weather they tower over the boats, except for towboats. But the river had swallowed up the locks.

We talked about the houses we had just seen upstream in Guttenburg, Iowa. Dozens of them were flooded. The road ran between them had been replaced by the main channel of the river. It was a strange sight.

I struck up a conversation with another guy on the platform. “Did you see those houses under water up there?” I asked.

“Yeah, we live in one of them,” he answered. He and his family had one of the few houses that wasn’t yet flooded on the island. He had come to town in a boat, going very slowly and carefully. You would not want a floating tree to catch you in that water. I thought it was kind of funny that after he came to town, he went to the dam to look at the river. Didn’t he see enough of it from his kitchen window? But the river in flood holds that kind of fascination for some people. I include myself in that category, although I like to think that I would not live on a low-lying island along the Mississippi.

The man’s wife said it was the third time since 1993 that their neighborhood had been flooded. The only other time before that was in 1965. That tells me that we must be doing something to help Old Man River with his spring tantrums.

Look at Brownsville, my wife, Cindy, said. In 1965, the water came up and over the banks of the river. It spread over many acres of bottoms and beach, all the way to the railroad tracks. They called it a 100-year-flood. Yeah, right.

But now there is a housing development at that spot, as well as huge sand dunes left by water Army Corps of Engineers dredging. The water can’t rest in Brownsville anymore, so it hustles downstream and finds another spot to flood, like Guttenburg.

I don’t have much sympathy for people that build in flood-prone areas. But then again, they aren’t looking for sympathy. The people that live there take floods in stride.

With David.

Cindy and I spent four days last week along the Mississippi. It was a vacation for us, although it sure wasn’t for the people who live there. We didn’t time the trip to coincide with the second worst flood ever. That was a grim and awesome bonus. The grim part was obvious. The fascination came with the magnitude of the flood.

On Friday evening my mom and I walked down to the first spillway of the Reno Bottoms, seven miles south of Brownsville. Normally there is no water over the spillway. It runs through a big culvert. But we watched as four feet of water rushed over it. One spot where many people fish was eight feet under.

“Think of the treasures that will wash up back there,” I told Mom. I could see the tip of a canoe protruding from a tangle of water and wood. Suffice it to say that Mom did not share my enthusiasm.

I told her I would be back in a couple weeks to find that canoe, and maybe some more goodies. It will take more than a couple weeks for the river to return to normal, she replied. She’s probably right. Then we can wait for the next 100-year flood, which will probably happen sooner than that.

A great trip, with a great ending ~ April 18, 2002

David Heiller

The best part of the trip came at the end, when “Dave” and I paddled down the Kettle River last Saturday morning.

(In case you don’t read Dear Abby, when a name is in quotations, it’s not their real name, although I’ve often wondered if people don’t put the person’s real name in the quotes, just to be funny.)

“Dave” took care of the logistics, as usual. “We’ll put the two canoes in your truck, and then drive my van to the bridge at 46,” he told me when I pulled into his driveway at 9:30. The idea was to then drive my truck to a spot up-stream, park the truck, paddle downstream about eight miles to County Road 46, then get in his van with his canoe and go back for the truck. I would pick up my canoe on the way home.

And that’s what happened, mostly.

The Kettle River had never looked finer to me than that morning. Cold, deep, and in a hurry. A river in flood is like a magnet to me.

We slipped the canoes over huge slabs of shore ice and into the water. It quickly whisked us downstream.

David and "Dave"

There were rapids almost non-stop. These aren’t dangerous rapids like you’ll find 25 miles to the south at Banning State Park. You probably wouldn’t drown if you capsized in these. But there is still a cheap thrill in bouncing over the waves and dodging rocks.

I learned the rock-dodging part the hard way. Not more than five minutes after we started, my 17-foot Aluma-craft and I were perched on top of a huge boulder. Normally that rock would be a foot above water, but on this day it was three inches under the surface.

Dave gave me a look of sympathy as he slid past. He is an excellent canoeist. I crawled to the front of the canoe and rocked the canoe back into the current.

We didn’t talk much. The roar of the rapids prevented that. Dave pointed out two otters in the water ahead of us. I couldn’t see them. My eyes are temporarily bad as I await a laser surgery. But I heard one come up and quickly go back under, about a foot from the front of my canoe.

Dave saw deer too, which he diligently pointed out to me and I diligently didn’t see. But in a way that didn’t matter. What mattered was being on the river, in the sun, moving, exploring, and feeling alive.

The trip had another challenge besides the rocks. A strong south wind was blowing up the valley, and if you didn’t slice it just right, it would grab the nose of the canoe and shove you toward shore. I’m saying “you,” but it was really “me.” It never happened to “Dave.” Did I mention what a good paddler he is? “We’re going this way,” he said once with good-natured sarcasm as the wind forced me to shore.

Another time the wind turned me completely around, so I drifted downstream backwards, and looked where I had been. Hey, that’s a good thing to do sometimes.

After we passed under the Highway 27 bridge, the shore looked familiar. Just six weeks earlier Dave and I had skied down this stretch. It was a good feeling, seeing some landmarks, and knowing that we were getting close to home.

That last stretch was wider and deeper, with fewer rapids. It wasn’t as exciting. But it held one remarkable scene of beauty, where a water-falls slid off a high, quartz-filled ledge. It was the kind of beauty that you don’t see every day, or every year. It made me sit up and gawk and smile.

We reached the bridge on County Road 46, where Dave’s van was parked. Several hours had passed. We were tired and ready to get on with our days.

That’s when Dave swore and said, “I forgot my keys.”

He had left them in the glove compartment of my truck!

We laughed—what else can you do—then Dave said “I guess I’ll have to walk and get a spare key.” His house was about three miles away. “Do you want to come with?”

“No, I think I’ll take a nap,” I replied. And that’s just what I did. It was a great end to a great canoe trip. For me at least.