Counting down to birthday number three ~ June 16, 1988

David Heiller

There are few words more frightening in the human tongue than the voice of a two-year-old from the bathroom late at night saying, “I need someone to clean up my mess.”

So Cindy and I sat up in unison when we heard Malika call out from the bathroom at 10 o’clock Sunday night: “I need someone to clean up my mess.”

Earlier on that hot day we celebrated
Noah and Malika's birthdays.

We were sitting in the kitchen playing “Rummikub” with Cindy’s mother when the words came. We didn’t expect them, because any upstairs creaking had been muffled by a large fan that hummed by the table. We hadn’t checked on Malika or Noah for half an hour.

The last time, it was black magic marker on her wall, doll, and pillow. The time before that, it was green felt-tipped pen on her legs. As Cindy and I looked at each other, we both wondered, “What color is it this time?”

After a couple minutes of debate, I stood up from the kitchen table to see what Mollie’s mess was this time. When I opened the bathroom door, I thought I was seeing things. Mollie was sitting on the potty, staring wide-eyed at me. She seemed to be wearing a pair of orange nylons. Her legs were orange, solid orange, from her ankles up to mid-thigh. It took just a split second to register—Malika doesn’t have orange nylons. Cindy doesn’t have orange nylons. No one has orange nylons.

Malika was covered with orange paint. “I’m a mess, Dad,” she said. It was the understatement of the year, even for her.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Malika had left a trail of orange paint from the potty to the rug in front of the sink, where she had stood for some time with a once-green washcloth, trying to get rid of the evidence.

The rug, once beige, was now mostly orange. We followed the trail upstairs into her bedroom, over the once-pink rug, onto the bedspread and her blanket, now both streaked with orange, onto the wall next to her bed. The wall had been marked with green and black strokes, but now the orange drowned them into insignificance. We’re talking Picasso here.

The crime, as we could easily piece together, had started with a bottle of Tempera paint on top of the filing cabinet in her room. She had scaled the dresser, using the handles as footholds. Once the paint was opened, she got more than she bargained for on her pajamas. She tried wiping it off, using the bedspread, then the wall. She thought about the bathroom and a wet washcloth, and succeeded only in painting her legs. Jackie Johnson could not have done a more professional job, nor John Clark. She finally realized it was no use, so climbed on the potty and called for help.

David and Malika. She always had a good time,
 or she'd manufacture it.

It took three adults one full hour to clean up the mess. I was assigned to Malika. She stood sobbing on the kitchen counter, looking like a sad Halloween character. I washed her several times in the sink, while Cindy scrubbed the bathroom and Lorely worked on the upstairs. When I was done with Mollie, we sat her on a chair in the middle of the kitchen.

“I don’t like you,” she said in defiance to the spanking and scolding. “I’m angry at you. I’m angry at Momma. I like Noah.”

“Noah’s upset with you, too,” I countered.

“I’m angry at Noah,” Mollie continued. “I want to go to Bobby Jo’s!” Bobby Jo is her best friend from the day care. Then Mollie hung her head on her chest and sat in silence.

We finally had the mess cleaned up enough so that Mollie could go back upstairs. Her mattress was soaked with paint and water, so she slept on the box spring in a sleeping bag. She didn’t say a word as I laid her down. At five minutes after 11, we sat back down at the table. “That’s what you get for raising such an independent daughter,” Lorely said with a shake of her head and a smile. “Another kid that age would have called for help. Mollie didn’t think she needed help. She thought she’d clean up the mess herself.”

I think that this little girl is 
plotting some fun/mischief.

And it could have been worse, Lorely went on: Yes, the Tempra paint permanently stained an expensive rug and bedspread. But it could have been worse. She might have drunk it instead of spilled it.

I’ll second that opinion. As I looked at Malika standing in the kitchen sink, covered with orange paint and crying, I didn’t know whether to be angry, or to laugh. Maybe I was feeling what Lorely had just expressed.

Anyway, I’ve written about Malika before. In fact, this is my third “Terrible Twos” column on her. It had better be the last, because she will be three years old this Saturday, and that gives Mollie just three days to destroy the world as we know it. Hold your breath.

Keep the gas tank filled – the baby’s on it’s way ~ June 27, 1985

David Heiller

1:12 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: The light is on over the bed. Cindy is sitting bent over slightly at the edge. Her face is tight. She’s looking at her watch.

“Five minutes apart, 45 seconds long,” she says in a breathless way. “The contractions.”

“Huh?” I mumble, feeling very cozy under the blankets of this cool dark morning.

“Let’s go, Dave,” she says. “I think this is it.” Suddenly, very suddenly, I’m awake.

4:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve just dropped Noah off with a friend in Rutledge. So far, so good, with our Plan. Suitcase is packed, dog and cat fed. We even had time for a quick sauna before leaving. We are on our way to the hospital in Duluth.

Cindy spies the gas gauge. Less than a quarter of a tank. “Do I have to take care of everything?” she asks.

“This is the first time in two weeks I didn’t get gas,” I say in a weak voice. So much for that part of the Plan. “Why, just today, I pulled into the Deep Rock, but I didn’t have any checks with me. Besides, you’re a week early, you know.”

Somehow, blaming Mother Nature is a watery excuse, and Cindy doesn’t bother to answer it.

4:45 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’re just picked up a friend in Moose Lake. Diane was with us for Noah’s birth, and will be labor assistant again. She sits in the back seat, rubbing Cindy’s shoulders and talking softly. Diane gave birth to all six of her children at home. Plus she’s helped quite a few others into the world. Her presence calms my butterflies somewhat. Still, as we approach the Carlton exit on 1-35, my stomach feels like Cindy’s. A combination of two cups of tea, a glass of orange juice, and a near-empty tank, all having their effect.

I pull over at a truck stop, fill the tank, and go to the bathroom. Suddenly things seem much better, for me at least.

8:15 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve been here for three hours. Contractions are down to three minutes apart, lasting a minute and a half Cindy is dilated to six centimeters. The doctor comes in for the first time. He’s been out of town all weekend, and a nurse finally got hold of him. Cindy’s face lights up when she sees him. It’s a look I haven’t seen before, the look of a woman about to try a natural birth, after a Caesarean Section, looking at the doctor she has trusted to help her.

“You’re processing well,” he says. “The baby is still posterior. It’s still got some rotating to do, but it’s moving down nicely into the birth canal. It looks good.”

The doctor gives Cindy’s hand a squeeze and heads for the door. “I’m going to make my rounds now, and go to my office across the street.” He looks at me, reads my eyes. “I won’t be more than three minutes away. Don’t worry.”

9:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: Cindy is lying on the delivery table, trying not to push. We’ve been waiting for the doctor for 15 minutes. Cindy is dilated 10 centimeters and can hardly hold back as the contractions sweep over her. The intercom is calling for the doctor at a steady interval. A nurse calls his office. Nobody says anything. We hardly look at one another. I glance at Diane as we knead Cindy’s back. “Where is he?” my look says. “We’ve got lots of time,” her look answers.

10:23 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve been pushing for 40 minutes. I say “we.” Any husband who has sat by his wife’s side at a birth knows what I mean. Cindy’s arms and legs feel like ironwood when she pushes. Deep breath, face contorts into a grimace. Knuckles turn white at her side, feet and legs strain against the stirrups.

The doctor checks Cindy again. No progress. The baby is about two inches from crowning, and not coming any further. The doctor can see its head. He shows me. “Oh, it’s a girl, she’s got brown hair,” I say. A few short laughs.

But there is no humor in the room. The baby, he or she, is stuck. It happened two years ago too, only that time there were forceps and an ambulance, and just enough doubts to make us try again.

‘I’ll let you push for another half hour, but to be quite honest, I don’t think it’ll go,” the doctor says. Cindy is exhausted. The pain is almost too much, since she has held off from any pain killer. “It’s your decision.”

I look at Cindy. “It’s your decision, Cindy,” I say. “No, it’s our decision,” she answers.

“That’s right,” the doctor says, looking at me. I’ve seen enough pain for a year in the last hour. “Let’s get it over with,” I tell Cindy.

She nods a reply.

11:58 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: I pet Cindy’s hair, sitting by her head in the operating room. A sheet separates Cindy’s head and me from the rest of her body. It could be a mile away for Cindy too. She can’t feel a thing from the chest down. Her eyes are clear of pain for the first time all morning, as she smiles at me.

Our nurse catches my eye, and lifts her chin with a come-here, motion. “You ready for this?” she asks. “Stand up.”

Malika Lynette, June, 1985.

And there it is, not it—he or she, this purple tiny baby thing that gets rushed to the warming table in the corner. A tiny voice cracks, a single cry that could split a log of oak. The newest, most anxious and pleading and happy-to-be-here sound, that has made moms and dads cry since memory itself.

“You’ve got a little girl,” the doctor says.

“A little girl, we’ve got a little girl,” Cindy and I both say as our cheeks touch, our tears touch. For a handful of seconds, time has stopped. And a new life has begun.

Birthdays get old for Mom and Dad ~ June 19, 1986

 David Heiller

Birthdays come but once a year. But if you have two kids six days apart, then throw in a grandmother and a friend or two, birthdays seem unending.

Our son, Noah, celebrated his third birthday June 12. But his friend, Joey, was born two weeks earlier. When Joey had his birthday party and Noah attended, he was included in the celebration.

Noah and Joey on Joey's third birthday.

“Joe’s three now?” he asked on the ride home, his stomach full of cake and ice cream.

“Yes, he’s three,” I answered.

“I’m three too?”

“No, not yet. You’re almost three.”

Then one week before Noah’s birthday, we went to Minneapolis to his grandmother’s house. She held a birthday party for her son, but made it a combo effort since Noah’s was only a week later and our daughter, Malika, was born a week after that. It gets complicated. But Noah filled upon cake and ice cream, sang happy birthday, blew out candles, opened presents, and asked once again: “Am I three now?”

“No, not yet, you’re almost three.”

The suspense was building, and with it mixed emotions about the big three. Noah had the habit of drinking a bottle of water now and then throughout the day, and at bed time. He knew that once he turned three, the bottles would have to go. We had been drilling him on that for about two months.

Noah woke up crying on his birthday—his real one—June 12. He crawled into our bed saying, “It’s not my birthday. I’m two.”

“You don’t want to have your birthday today?” Cindy asked.

“No, it’s not my birthday.”

“You don’t want to give up your bottle?”

“No, it’s not my birthday. I’m not three.”

Noah thought it over. Two hours later, he asked,

“Am I three?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not two anymore?”

“No, you’re three.”

“No more bottles.”

“Right,” Cindy answered, pulling her trump card. “Do you want to throw them away?”

“Yes.”

So Noah threw all his bottles into the waste basket in the kitchen. Cindy transferred them into the garbage bag. Noah went back to retrieve them shortly. He looked shocked to see the empty bag. Then he cried, screamed, and whined for two hours. But he hasn’t asked for them since. We are out about $10 in bottles, but the price is worth it.

Noah's birthday party at our house,
with Joe in attendance.

The authentic birthday party—his third one in the past two weeks—went well, with more cake and ice cream, and more presents. Then friend Joey had to come up on Sunday to help him celebrate, so another cake marked the honor, more ice cream, more presents. This time the cake said “Noah and Mollie.” NO way were we going to have another party on June 18 for our daughter. Then we’d have to include Noah and that would be his fifth party. He would overdose on sweets, and our check book would overdose on presents.

One thing is for sure though: Noah knows he is three. At first he asked, “Where two go?” but not anymore. I’m a little worried though. He came downstairs the other morning and announced, “I’m almost four, daddy.”

Not for another year, thankfully.

Between a rock and a hard place ~ June 27, 1990

David Heiller

The Kettle River showed off for us two Sundays ago, mixing beauty and power like a rose in full bloom and a Juggernaut on a winning streak.

Between County Roads 46 and 52 in northern Pine County, the river sprinkles a set of rapids every quarter mile or so. Not dangerous rapids, not Blueberry Slide or Dragon’s Tooth or those other killers at Banning State Park. Up north 20 miles, the rapids laugh WITH you, not AT you, gurgling and foaming, flexing their muscles a wee bit, letting you bump over hidden rocks just fast enough to make butterflies rise up in stomachs, just fast enough to make the kids duck their heads and close their eyes as the water bubbles by.

Our Aussie Shep., Kenzie, was David's canoe 
partner for several years. After this trip, it was quite
 a while before the kids got into a canoe 
on the Kettle River with their father.

“I’ve got to admit you made a good choice,” Cindy said as we hit a quiet stretch of water. She had asked me what I wanted to do for Father’s Day. This was my answer: borrow a canoe and paddle a few miles down the Kettle. Someday we are going to make a Boundary Waters trip. I keep telling that to my family, and to myself. Maybe that will help it come true. Maybe this was our trial run.

We scraped a few rocks here and there. One time I had to step out and push us along after we hung up on a boulder just under the surface. No one else crowded us. We had a cooler full of snacks, a beach basket full of swimming suits and towels, and of course my old transistor radio to keep tabs on the Twins, who were winning their 15th straight. It was perfect canoeing, mid-70s, sunny, a lush green-blue June day.

We came around a sharp bend, and Cindy pointed out a boulder in the channel on our left. Then she pointed out a jackpine which had tipped over on the right. It lay half-submerged, taking up a third of the 100-foot-wide channel.

The good news is we missed the boulder. But as I swung us sharply around it, the current swept us broadside into the jackpine. Then everything happened so quickly. With the water pushing us into the tree and branches scratching grabbing at us, the canoe tipped on its edge, and water rushed over the left side, sinking us down, pushing us through the limbs, kids screaming, Cindy and I hollering.

The next thing we knew, we were standing waist deep in cold, fast water, Cindy holding onto Mollie with one arm and a tree branch with the other, me holding onto Noah with one arm and my canoe paddle in the other.

(It’s a Vince Musukanis handmade paddle, with four years of memories on its blade. I had instinctively grabbed it, right after Noah.)

We stood for a brief time in mid-stream, not knowing what to say or do. We were safe. That’s all that mattered. I hauled Noah to a rocky beach on the far shore to our left, made a second trip for Malika, then finally helped Cindy, who was barefoot and wearing a denim skirt that acted like a giant anchor.

We all hugged each other. Mollie quit crying. The kids had life jackets on, but they could have been swept downstream too fast for us to catch them in time. We had been lucky.

We took stock of what we’d lost: Cindy’s and Noah’s shoes, Cindy’s paddle, our red cooler, which we had seen bobbing downstream when we tipped, and the beach basket. I guess we didn’t need the swimming suits after all. “This trip is going to cost us a couple hundred dollars,” Cindy said grimly.

“I lost my radio!” I added with a moan. My radio. It’s funny how I’d gotten attached to that old leather-cased transistor. It had been a “gift” from Deane Hillbrand, who was taking it to the dump when I rescued it. That radio had gone with me through the 1987 World Series and a last place in 1990, and hundreds of games in between. And it had gone with me till the bottom of the tenth inning on June 16, 1991 in Cleveland, with a two-run lead and one man on, and the Twins with 14 straight wins. Now it was gone. At least it died in the line of duty.

“I wonder if the Twins won?” Noah asked. We all laughed. Our priorities were straight. It was time to proceed.

I un-snagged the canoe, which was lodged under the jackpine, then managed to tip the water out and tow it back to our point. The picnic basket of swimming stuff had wedged under a seat, so that was saved. It was a good omen too. As we continued on, we found one of Cindy’s shoes, her paddle, and finally the red cooler. The river had claimed three shoes, and a radio forever suspended in extra innings.

The rest of the trip went fine. Not even a close call, just a few more sets of rapids and the same perfect day. By the time we made it to the bridge at County Road 52, we were almost dry.

It’s funny how a mini-disaster can define an adventure, or MAKE an adventure where none had been. It would have been a great trip without capsizing, but that blunder somehow made it more memorable. We laugh about it now. We wonder whether Noah’s shoes are listening to the Twins game. The kids say we saved their lives, which we don’t deny. That may come in handy sometime, never mind that it was us who almost killed them.

Rivers have a way of teaching these gentle lessons, like how to have fun, and how to steer between a rock and a hard place.

A creepy-crawly-slimey tale ~ June 14, 1990

David Heiller

I’ll never forget the day.

Jake, a friend of our son’s, came to visit and with a certain gleam in his eye, dumped a bag full of plastic dead flies on the kitchen floor.

I stared in disbelief. I mean, my jaw dropped. We have approximately 1,493 REAL dead flies on our bedroom window sill upstairs on any given morning, and Jake brings in a pile of fake ones!?!

Noah and Jake with a wooden lizard; 
one of many in a play menagerie

“Why dead plastic flies?” you may ask. I puzzled over that for quite some time too. Until Jake brought along his plastic tarantula.

Hold on. This is no ordinary plastic tarantula. Not like the weak pretenders of my youth. Those were brittle, cheap pieces of Japanese junk.

Jake’s tarantula is supple and subtle. Delicate and deadly. Black, with a hint of orange around the eyes, and white rings on the leg joints and the fangs. The kind of spider that crawls toward sleeping women in late-night jungle movie moonlight. It looks real. Like it could eat those plastic dead flies, and a few live ones, and a few 36-year-old men thrown in for dessert.

You see, Jake’s tarantula isn’t life-size. It’s more the size of Kent Hrbek’s baseball glove.

It also squeaks when you step on it, which I have done a few times in the middle of the night, with me making approximately the same sound as the spider.

Noah fell in love with Jake’s tarantula as only a six-year-old kid can fall in love with a tarantula. Star-crossed spiders. He would borrow it on every occasion. Jake would extort great collateral for it. Huge piles of dinosaurs. A fleet of Tonka toys that would shame some city maintenance crews. Anything for that tarantula.

So we shouldn’t have been surprised. We should have prepared ourselves. Noah celebrated his seventh birthday last Saturday with three friends, including Jake the Snake, and Jake had that Dead Fly gleam in his eye as he handed Noah the package, and Noah ripped it open and got that Dead Fly gleam in his eye and held up his very own giant tarantula.

“Look, Noah, it’s just like mine,” Jake said, reaching into a paper bag and pulling out his famous tarantula. I recognized it right away. And sure enough, Jake had found a first cousin. Noah’s had an orange back, red eyes, and a bit of green on the back. The hairs on the torso were longer, softer. Otherwise they might have come from the same batch of eggs.

Noah loved all manner of creatures, 
real and pretend, modern era and prehistoric. 
Here he is with a pterodactyl that Grandma 
Olson gave him for one of those birthdays. 

They also played with other gifts, including a black snake, coiled and ready to strike, and a set of 24 plastic bugs ranging from a Gigantic Ship Scorpion and Great Diving Beetle to a Death’s Head Hawk Moth and a Sheep Tick. Yes, we now have a plastic tick in our house to go along with the 1,493 REAL ticks that live in our front lawn.

It’s Jake’s fault.

Cindy called it “The Creepy-Crawly-Slimey Birthday.” An understatement.

After the kids had all returned to their homes, Noah discovered that Jake had forgotten his tarantula. He showed both spiders to me Monday night, lying in his bed in the moonlight. He pointed out their differences in a matter of fact voice. Like a scientist. Then he looked at me and smiled. What did he see in my eyes? Certainly not abject fear. No way.

I kissed Noah good night and brought the two tarantulas downstairs, to study them. I set them on my computer and watched them.

Just sat. And studied. And watched. And waited.

Did one of them just move?

Coming in from the rain ~ June 6, 1991

David Heiller

The sound made us pause in the garden on Saturday afternoon like a couple of muck-covered deer.

It sounded like cars on a distant highway, the low, steady sound of rubber hissing on cement, and coming our way in the still air from the southwest.

Cindy and I looked at each other for a second, puzzled. There is no interstate highway connecting Arthyde and Sturgeon Lake. Heck, there are hardly any roads at all. Then we realized that it was a rain shower, its heavy drops hitting the leaves and forest that stretch from Denham west to McGrath, and heading our way.

It was pretty darned rainy!

We’d never heard rain approach like that before. Usually you feel it in the wind as it switches and swirls and turns cold. Or you smell the ozone, or hear thunder. This was just the simple, powerful sound of a blanket of rain ambling like a huge animal through the woods toward us two hapless gardeners.

Sure enough, as the sound grew louder and the highway got closer, we felt drops of rain, at first sporadic, then heavy and steady. Noah Landwehr, who was mowing our lawn, glanced up, then looked our way. “I’m going to keep mowing,” he shouted. I knew he would say that. Even 12-year-olds get fed up with too much rain, which experts say we’ve had, although these experts said we didn’t have enough rain last year at this time.

“I’ll get you a coat,” I answered back, heading for the house for a couple of jackets, one for me and one for him. Cindy soon followed for her coat and two caps, one for her and one for Noah who looked like he’d been run hard and put away wet.

The rain rolled off my coat, drenching my slacks, working its way to inside the tall boots which were heavy with mud. Cindy’s hair hung bedraggled under her cap. Noah mowed on, right through puddles three inches deep, water and grass flying everywhere, like he was water skiing behind a 3½ horsepower Briggs and Stratton. He gave us a sheepish grin and kept on.

“We put the garden in in the rain 10 years ago,” Cindy said as she worked some Frank Larson Angus manure into the soil.

“How can you remember that?” I asked. I can tell you Ted Williams’ batting average in 1940, but I can’t remember working the garden in the rain in 1981.

“It was our first year here, and I remember it rained so much that we planted the garden in the rain,” she said.

Ten years. I’d forgotten that. Things stand out so much when they are new. That was our first garden, and it WAS a wet one. I remembered now, vaguely. We had been as excited as a couple of kids, at our first home, at our adventure in the country, and at our rich garden soil, oozing earthworms and loam and the potential for vegetables that could win first place at the Askov Rutabaga Festival. So excited we hadn’t had the sense to come in from the rain. I guess some things never change.

The rain finally let up, and we straggled inside, and dried off, and had root beer floats in celebration of our crazy mowing and gardening. But we didn’t feel crazy.

You see, normally you don’t mow lawn in the rain, or pull weeds or shape garden beds in the rain. Mothers teach you not to do such things. Grandmas say things like, “He doesn’t have the sense to come in from the rain.” But on Saturday, none of us hesitated. We’d had one too many rain showers this spring, and we all seemed to realize that God would forgive our lack of common sense, working in the rain like this. Heck, maybe He was even testing, to see what we were made of.

I guess He found out, and I think we passed. They say He shaped us from clay anyway. It must have been wet.

Important things, like baseball ~ June 2, 1994

by David Heiller

 Taking an eight-year-old to a ball game is a lot like taking an eight-year-old fishing. You don’t catch many fish, but that’s OK because you don’t expect to anyway.

You hope the eight-year-old catches the fish. You hope they enjoy it and take it up as a past time. Anyone who likes to fish can’t be all bad.

That’s the way I feel about baseball. It drives my wife crazy, the biggest scuzz-ball in Pine County is all right with me if he likes baseball.

What if Jeffrey Dahmer liked baseball? Cindy will ask. She likes to throw philosophical curve-balls. Would you like HIM?

I have to stop and think about that one for a few minutes. Well, he can’t be ALL bad.

Malika on her way to the big game with daddy.
Her daddy would be so proud to know that it
 did stick, that his daughter is a Twins fan!

So I took my daughter to a Twins game on Friday night, May 27. She brought a huge appetite. She won’t eat beef stroganoff that Cindy works on for an hour on Sunday. But take her to a Perkin’s Restaurant before a Twins game and she’ll order ground steak with cheese on toast with French fires for $6.95.

At the Metrodome the prices were as crazy as her appetite. A rope of licorice for $1.25, a box of popcorn for $2.25, a glass of pop for $2.25. (Not to mention my beer, which cost $3.50.)

She was disappointed about her pop too: no straw. She asked the vendor, “Sir, do you have any straws?”

“Sorry, no straws,” he answered. What fun is it to drink pop without a straw? What kind of a ball park is this?

Malika asked a ga-zillion questions. “Did that ball that one guy hit ever come down?” she asked as we approached the stadium. I’ve told her enough times about the time Dave Kingman hit a ball in the Metrodome that never came down. It became stuck in the ceiling. The story is etched in her mind.

“No. Maybe we’ll see it tonight,” I answered.

What holds the ceiling up? Why are those guys stretching? Can I have ice cream like that girl? Why are there so many empty seats? Is this the Twins Metrodome?” Ad infinatum.

Baseball is important business.

Sometimes I would forget that I was sitting next to an eight-year-old. I’d make some shrewd baseball comment, like: “Bases loaded. Three and one count. Man he’s going to get a good pitch to hit.”

To which Mollie would answer, “I’m hungry, Dad.”

In the seventh inning, manager Tom Kelly took the starting pitcher, Kevin Tapani out of the game. I shrewdly pointed this out to Mollie. “You mean Scott Erickson isn’t going to be the pitcher any more?” Mollie asked.

“No, Tapani is pitching.”

“Where’s Scott Erickson?”

“He’s on the disabled list.”

“What’s the disabled list?”

AAAAGH!

In the eighth inning, Mollie asked, “What’s the score?” Five to two, I told her.

“Who’s ahead?”

How can you not know who’s ahead? I thought. Then I stopped. That’s when it finally sank in. I was fishing with Mollie. I didn’t need to catch any fish. I wanted Mollie to catch some fish. I wanted her to like fishing. Anyone who likes to fish can’t be all bad.

So it is with baseball. We play catch at home, and my daughter can hit the ball all right too. We go to a game once a year or so. Maybe, if the stars line up just right, she’ll learn to love the game.

She’ll remember the starting lineup of the 1987 Minnesota Twins. She might not remember her husband’s birthday, but by golly she’ll know that Joe Dimaggio hit in 56 straight in 1941. The same year that Ted Williams hit .406. The last player to hit .400. Important things like that.

Like going fishing, and taking your eight-year-old to a ball game.

[Cynthia's note: I used to ask David, "What's the score." He would answer by saying JUST the score... two numbers separated by the word to. So then I would have to ask which number was currently assigned to which team. He always thought I should just KNOW these things. Just a David-ism...]