You call that a winter camping trip? ~ February 19, 1998

David Heiller

Tom and I lay in the tent and listened to rain fall on it. Rain falling on a tent is usually a comforting sound. But in the middle of February, it seemed out of place and a little worrisome.

That’s what we wondered when we woke up last Monday morning on Tom’s Bay on Basswood Lake.

After all, we had six miles to ski back to the landing, pulling heavy sleds. Neither of us wanted to do that in the rain. We had cross-country skis, not water skis.

I’m sure Noah didn’t either, although he wasn’t talking to us at the moment. He was snoring in his two sleeping bags.

Noah and Tom

Noah, my son, had worried before the trip that one of us would snore and keep him awake And now this.

But he wasn’t keeping us awake. Tom and I had woken up all by ourselves at five a.m. That isn’t early if you consider that we were asleep by 8:30 the previous night. When you go winter camping, there isn’t a lot to do after dark except lay in your sleeping bag and talk.

It was fun to have Noah along to lighten up the talk, which can get pretty ponderous between two men. It takes a teenager to bring you back to the real world, like whether the Vikings would re-sign John Randle.

I stepped out of the tent. It was still dark. The rain wasn’t falling hard. It didn’t feel like it would last. My worry lifted. What was to complain about? The temperature was above freezing. Our fishing holes hadn’t even frozen over.

Last year at this time and spot, the temperature had dipped to minus 23. I’ll take El Niño any year.

Getting some wood for the Little Puffer.

Sleeping sure was better this year. Last year I brought one sleeping bag and got darn cold. This year Noah and I had each brought two bags. We stayed plenty warm, even after Little Puffer, Tom’s woodstove, turned cold.

The fishing this year was probably the best of my life, although we didn’t catch a true lunker. Last year I caught a 17-pound northern, and so did Tom’s son, Ben. Even that isn’t a big fish to some people. Tom, for example, thinks that some day he will catch a big northern.

“How big is that,” Ι asked him on Monday morning.

“About 35 pounds,” he said with a little smile. I wouldn’t bet against him.

The fishing was thrilling. At one point on Sunday, two flags popped up on tip-ups at the same time. I took one and Noah took the other. I kept one eye on my son and one eye on my line. My fish fought hard, but I pulled him in steadily. Fourteen pound line gives you a lot of confidence.

I eased the fish into the hole. It gave a thrust and came six inches out of the hole. Ι hooked my finger under its gills and lifted it into the air.

“Look at this!” I shouted to Noah. It was a beauty, about 34 inches long and weighing about 10 pounds. He barely glanced my way: Who cares about someone else’s fish when you’ve got one on yourself? I dropped my fish and ran over to help him haul it out. It was a measly seven pounder.

Noah and Tom and a nice catch

We ended up catching our limit of three fish each. We let many go. We lost some nice ones too, fish that tugged as hard as the 17-pounder did last year. One broke a line. Another wound itself around a snag.

Noah lost a big one in a way I had never seen before. When he set the hook, he felt the fish for several seconds, then it was gone. He pulled up his line, and found a half-digested eel pout on the end of his hook.

A northern apparently had swallowed Noah’s cisco, then when he set the hook, instead of the hook catching in its throat, it dug into a fish in the northern’s stomach and came out. The eel pout saved the northern’s life.

“How big do you think that fish was, 35 pounds?” Tom asked me later, with Noah standing nearby.

Checking the weight on Noah's fish.

“No, it was probably about 17 pounds.” I can’t let my son out-fish me. But Tom might be right. That’s the thing about fishing. You never know. It keeps you going back.

The rain quit early Monday morning. We broke camp and took down the tent and started packing our sleds. We stood by a fire at the edge of the lake. Tom heated up some left over spaghetti. I cooked up two hotdogs. It’s funny how good food can taste around a campfire. We drank coffee. Noah had a cup of cocoa.

At about 11:30 we headed back. The snow was slushy. The sleds pulled hard. But it wasn’t bad enough to complain about. I didn’t even have to wear gloves. That’s how warm it was on February16 in the coldest area of the United States.

Tom stopped to point out some fresh otter tracks to Noah. He is always doing things like that. He teaches science for a living and his teaching day doesn’t end at 3 p.m. Often during the trip he would ask things like, ^“What critter made those tracks?” or “What bird call is that?” You’re always learning something from Tom.

At one point we skied four feet from the edge of a creek that was open. It was a little scary. None of us wanted to go through the ice with skis on, belted to a sled.

But having an element of risk is a big part of camping. We trusted our judgment, and with Tom leading the way, things felt safe. He really knows his way in the wilderness.

David with one of the sleds.

The hardest part out was a half-mile-long portage. It had been downhill coming in, and the skiing conditions had been perfect. But now it—was hot and slushy. We sweated and struggled up slope after slope, carrying our skis and poles, and pulling our sleds. Warm weather can work against you in the winter.

Noah’s sled snagged on a few trees. I saw him wave his arms angrily. Ι heard him yelling. I had to stifle a smile. Every good trip has a moment where you struggle physically and reach a low point. That was it for Noah, and me too.

But Tom kept a steady pace, and we gritted our teeth and followed. When we came down the hill to the end of the portage, Noah broke into a run. I smiled at that. We rested then, and ate candy and drank water. It tasted good.

That portage is one reason why Tom’s Bay is full of big fish, I thought. Not many people could make it. But we did. And it won’t be the last time, El Niño or not.

The humble act of ice fishing ~ February 21, 1991

David Heiller

There’s something about ice fishing with two kids that can put a little humility in you, and some pretty good food, too.

First of all, they’ll probably out-fish you. That’s what happened on Sunday afternoon on Fox Lake, west of Willow River. Noah had pulled a crappie onto the ice before I had even put a minnow on Mollie’s pole. It wasn’t anything to rave about, only the size of my hand.

But Noah was excited, and I couldn’t blame him. Is there anything more exciting than watching a bobber disappear down a hole in the ice? Sure, it’s probably a dinky panfish. But maybe, just maybe, it’s that five pound largemouth that you’ve dreamed about, the kind Bob Dutcher likes to tote around town every fall. Or a 20-pound northern that would look great at Stanton Lumber, next to Nick Worobel’s lunker.

Catching a fish through the ice is like opening day of baseball, where hope springs eternal in the human breast. Maybe the Twins will win it all this year...

But back to reality. After Noah pulled in that first fish, I had to instruct Mollie on what to do if HER bobber went under. Mollie has a tendency to be impatient at times, even for a five-year-old. (I could even say she was down right ornery if I didn’t know that her mother and grandmothers were reading this.) I had even considered not taking her along, until she (and her mother) insisted.

So I told her, “When your bobber goes under, count to two, ‘One, two,’ then pull it up. OK?” “OK, Dad,” she answered, with a tone that said, What do you think I am, an idiot?

And she soon proved me wrong, because before I had MY hook baited, I heard Mollie counting, “One, two.” Then she started pulling up on her line, her rod tip trembling. She lifted it over her head, but with six feet of line in the water, she wasn’t making much headway, and couldn’t even see the fish.

I was tempted to grab the line from her and pull it in myself. A vision of a five-pound bass crossed my mind. But I caught myself, and instead just stood next to her. “Walk away from the hole,” I said. She started walking, and soon another crappie was flopping on the ice.

That became the pattern of the day. The kids caught a fish every 10 minutes or so, and I watched them.

Yes, Bob Dutcher, I had a pole in the water. No, Bob Dutcher, I didn’t catch any fish at all. Remember, I said ice fishing with kids could be humbling.

What David failed to catch when
 fishing with small children.

In fact, I think Mollie caught the two biggest crappies on Fox Lake last Sunday. I know the guys around me didn’t seem to have much luck. Every so often they’d yell, and a little panfish would flop onto the ice. But mostly they stood around in their snowmobile suits and grumbled about their lousy luck, and mumbled about how much better the fish were biting yesterday, and watched—humbly—as Mollie would count “One; two,” and walk away from her hole to drag another crappie onto the ice.

One of the other guys even laughed when Mollie pulled a large one out nice and easy and said, “That one was sure polite, Dad.”

We talk to Mollie a lot about being polite. I guess she knows a polite crappie when she catches one.

This is a year or two later, but our kids weren't too bothered by the cold.

The only low point of the afternoon came when Mollie ventured onto some smooth ice next to Dave Balut’s fishing shack and promptly fell and cracked her forehead. Then she cried, and THEN she realized that she was cold and that the fish had stopped biting. And then she wanted to go home.

But a cup of hot chocolate bought some time, as did the minnow bucket. She had watched me bait the hooks enough to try it herself, sο she rolled up her coat sleeve and played with the minnows for ten minutes. I warned her that her hands would get cold. My hands were cold, and I only put them in the water for a few seconds at a time. But tell that to Mollie. She had a great time until her hands DID get cold, and then she truly did want to go home.

That was all right, because by then the fish had gone home too, and most of the grizzled fishermen that surrounded us had too. Besides, we had enough fish for supper.

Fried up with plenty of oil and butter and some farm eggs, all the cold hands and cracked foreheads and all the dads’ humility in the world is well worth the effort of an afternoon of ice fishing with the kids.

Just Red ~ March 2, 2006

David Heiller

Red.

You don’t need any more than that to know who I mean. No first name, no last name, no Arol, no Hansen, just Red.

David and Red at the Askov American.

Our friendship formed over the last 20 years of Red’s life, which ended on February 21. I had known about him from a distance, admired his involvement in the community and his love for all things Danish.

Then music slowly brought us into a closeness that doesn’t happen often. Red had music in his blood. He was a happy Dane and it came pouring out in his piano accordion. He knew hun­dreds of songs, and he played them with grace and power and creativity, sometimes changing keys, throwing in little tricks that marked the songs as his own and nobody else’s.

I’m not good at hiding my enthusiasm, and he saw that, and allowed me into his musical world with my banjo. We took our show to Pine County’s finest venues: the commercial club banquet, the Danish Sisterhood dinner, the nursing homes in Sandstone and Moose Lake.

Red playing with David at the community theater in Barnum.

Red’s music connected with people of all ages. I’ll never forget the night we played before a Barnum Community Theater audience in 2001. We ended with Hils Fra Os Der Hjeme, or Greet From Us at Home. It’s a powerful song, one that evokes the emotions which the title hints at: home, family, loved ones. Α man came down from the audience after the show, sought out Red and shook his hand. His eyes pooled with tears. It was his grandmother’s favorite song, and he hadn’t thought of it for years. And there it was, a gift from Red.

It wasn’t all about music, of course. Music is a vehicle that takes you places or keeps you going. We would practice and talk. Red would spin stories about the past. The winter when he couldn’t get home and the stove went out and he had to call Hertha from the post office and tell her how to dismantle and clean the carburetor. Hertha did it, and was proud of the fact, and Red was too.

Red and Hedda (Hertha)

The time of the ice storm, when a cap on the top of his chimney froze and the roof was glare ice, and he got the rifle out and shot the top off the chimney. Never mind that he had put that contraption on top of the chimney in the first place. Hertha had a few choice words about that.

How he would stand in his enchanted yard, where time always stood still for me, and call in owls until they would land in the tree above him and look around until they realized that it was just Red. Hertha liked to comment, “He’ll talk to owls but he won’t talk to me.” It was funny, but it didn’t stop Red.

Often we would go into his shop so he could show me his latest projects, some of which were my doing. I liked to bring him things to fix, as much to see him in action as to get the things fixed. Red could fix anything. A broken electric can opener would be gutted and rewired into working order. That fan that didn’t work, why it just needed a drop of oil, thin oil mind you, not the heavy stuff, right there. Spin the blade; watch it go now. The banjo neck needs a tiny hole drilled? Put it up on the drill press and let’s see what we can do.

His shop said a lot about Red. It was pure chaos, with a tiny path that led through tools and gadgets and fishing poles and hammers and punches and firewood. Yet Red knew where everything was. He could put his hands on a flashlight that he had bought when he was 12 years old.

And it held dozens of gag items that Red’s imagination concocted. Some-times he would give me one, both “to get rid of it and to see my humorous appreciation. I’ve got his “mugrump” bird made of wood in my barn now. The head of the bird on one side says “mug,” the tail says “rump.” Goofy yet funny, and made with care and love. That was Red.

David and Red at the Hansen home.

He kept one foot firmly in the past too, but in a good way. His history lessons would come alive. Adventures on the Kettle River, fishing for a big northern, tying a hook onto a mouse and floating it on a board over the right spot, then pulling it off the board to pull in the lunker. I never did know if that story was true, but that was hall the fun. Growing up in Askov, above the hardware store, no money, joining the German Band when he was barely a teenager, getting firm warnings from his father to stay out of trouble, and learning that his dad passed the same message on to the older members of the band. Whole conversations would re-emerge from 50 years ago, some-times with a thick Danish brogue that was a joy to hear.

I could go on and on, as we all can when we lose a loved one. But I’ll stop. The rest will bubble inside me and all the others that Red touched. We’ll all keep the rich memory of Red and his music alive forever.

Trip brought good fishing, and much more ~ February 20, 1997

David Heiller

We headed up the lake and into the Boundary Waters on Saturday morning, three people on skis, pulling sleds, heading for a weekend of winter camping and who knows what else.

The temperature was about 10 above. The sun tried to shine through a thin layer of clouds. Yet bit of snow was falling. Odd weather. Tom called it a small Alberta Clipper. He knows things like that.

Tom pulling his sled.

We stopped and took our coats off. You get a workout on cross country skis, especially with a sled tugging from behind.

Tom set the pace. He was our leader. Ben was next. He had just turned 11, and he prided himself on being able to keep up with Tom, who happened to be his dad. Staying close to Dad also allowed Ben to ask important questions.

“How long till we get to the next lake, Dad?” “How many minutes will it take to ski down this creek?”

Tom answered the questions with patience. Ηe is used to them. He heaps them at home, and probably at work from his science students at Moose Lake High School. You have to have patience to be a good dad and a good teacher.

Tom had a few questions of his own for Ben, like, “What kind of tracks are those?” Ben would usually come up with the answer. Mink. Fox. Otter. They all left their trails in the snow.

Two dog teams came up behind us. We stepped off the trail and let them pass with a friendly wave. Two men with each team, eight dogs to a team. They said they were headed for Knife Lake.

Tom said two of the men were clients, and two were guides who were being paid $200 a day for the hard job of taking them fishing on Knife Lake.

Dog teams are important in the Boundary Waters. Yes, they leave brown klister on the trails. But they make the trails to begin with, and when there is three feet of snow on the ground, the trails come in very handy.

On one lake we crossed, the trail had been obliterated by drifting snow. We couldn’t see a trace of it. Tom felt his way across, using his ski poles like a blind man. Without a trail to follow, we probably would have stayed home.

Tom and I took off our skis and walked over two portages. One wasn’t marked on a map. Tom knew about it. He knew the old man who had made it and used it as a trap line. He knew about a fishing hole on the other side. That’s here we headed.

What a difference the portage was in the winter. No bugs. No mud. No branches scraping on canoes. No canoes scraping on shoulders. Just trudging, pulling a sled, admiring the quiet winter woods.

But you had to stay on the trail. Once I slipped off and went up to my knee in the snow. Thank you, dog teams.

After three hours and seven miles, we came to Tom’s Bay, on Basswood Lake. We each took on different chores: First things first, of course. We dug five holes in the ice, and put in our tip ups, using frozen ciscoes for bait. We were fishing for northerns.

Tom knew this bay had promise. He knew the old man who fished it. Tom had looked down from a canoe and had seen the weed beds where the northerns spawned. The edge of the weed beds would be a gathering spot for northerns, on the best lake for northerns in Minnesota. Basswood holds the state record for northern pike, a 45 pounds, 12 ounce fish.

The Tent

Tom and Ben set up their old canvas tent. Tom’s uncle had found it in a dump. Tom cut the floor out and made it into a good winter shelter. He even cut a chimney hole and flashed it with aluminum.

They dug a trench down the middle, and made benches of snow on either side, and laid tarps on the benches. They let the benches set for a couple hours. Then they were hard enough to sit on.

Tom set up a homemade stove in the middle of the tent. He had made it out of a five-gallon fuel oil can. It worked great, and like the tent, the price was right.

Nothing fancy. Everything functional. That could be Tom’s motto. If you had to choose one person to get you through the north woods, winter or summer, you couldn’t choose better than Tom. He just plain knows what he is doing.

We cut a lot of firewood, and lit a fire by the lake, so that we could watch our tip ups and stay warm. The afternoon was starting to fade when a dogsled approached from the way we had come. It stopped 100 yards away. A man walked to us. He worked for the Forest Service.

What a job, I thought. Cruising the Boundary Waters on a dogsled for the United States Forest Service. Not exactly N.Y.P.D. Blue. He asked to see our permit. We had forgotten to fill one out. So he wrote down Tom’s name, and Tom promised to register on his way out.

The fishing was dandy

“Now all we need is a flag,” I said. The ranger glanced at the lake. “There’s one up,” he said. Sure enough and it was my tip-up.

I walked to it. My fishing luck has been down lately. In fact, this tip-up was four years old, and it had never caught a fish. Not one. I thought it might be jinxed. No point in rushing, I thought.

David didn't have his camera on this trip,
but I know he wished he did. He always brought 
it on the subsequent winter treks with Tom.

Still, as I knelt by the hole and picked up the line, I couldn’t help but feel that excitement of not knowing what was at the end of the line.

The fish had stopped running by the time I got to the hole. Whatever it was, it had either eaten the cisco or dropped it. I gave a quick tug and set the hook, and started pulling. Then the fish started pulling. It pulled hard. I let line slip through my fingers. I couldn’t tell how big it was. It seemed big. I’m not a person to get my hopes up quickly.

The fish and I played tug of war for about five minutes. Tom came running with a gaff in his hand. “You got something decent?” he asked.

“I don’t know,“ I said truthfully. But my hopes were beginning to rise.

The ranger and Ben walked over too. They all watched while the fish ran and came in, growing more tired every time. I would get to the bottom of the hole, but it would stick there like a jammed log.

Finally we saw a flash of white in the hole, and Tom stabbed his gaff. The fish twisted and disappeared. For a second I thought the line had broken. Then I felt his powerful tug. What a relief!

It was a big fish. The biggest I had ever seen on the end of my line, or anyone else’s.

Tom apologized, and grumbled to himself. He doesn’t make many mistakes. He wanted another chance. He wouldn’t miss twice. The fish came up again, and Tom yanked him out.

We all hollered and stared at the monster. “That’s a dandy,” Tom said. Α dandy is about as big a compliment as you’ll get from Tom.

One man’s dandy is another man’s monster.

“I’d say it’s at least 12 pounds,” I said with false confidence.

“It’s way more than that,” Tom answered. Even the ranger was impressed. He hollered to his partner, “Hey Zeke, look at this!” I held up the fish for Zeke and his dogs to see.

The big fish warmed us up that night. It measured 39 inches long. That made it 16.9 pounds, according to a DNR conversion table. We talked about it as we sat in the tent and fed Little Puffer, as Tom and Ben called their stove. The temperature fell to 25 below. Tom and Ben slept soundly. I shivered and squirmed all night.

The next morning, after eating oatmeal in the tent, we lit a fire by the lake, and caught two more fish right away, three pounders. Then a flag went up, and Tom told Ben to take it.

Ben knelt by the hole and set the hook. It took off. Ben pulled it in. It ran a long way. It was fighting just like mine. Ben took his time. He let the fish run when it wanted to. That’s the trick to fishing, but not all kids know it.

After about 15 minutes, it came into the hole, and Tom gaffed it on the first try. And out came another dandy, slightly bigger than mine.

I had been excited catching my trophy. But it was every bit as fun watching Ben rejoice with his. What is more fun than watching a kid catch a lunker?

We caught a lot more fish over the next day and a half. We lost count. We gave an eight pounder to a friend of Tom’s who skied in on Sunday for a visit. We let a seven pounder go. The fishing was that good.

But there was a lot more to the trip than fishing. We did a lot of talking and joshing, and a lot of sitting and listening to the wind whisper through the big white pines near our tent. We got a good feel for each other, and we got a good feel for ourselves. That always happens on a good camping trip. Catching fish is icing on the cake.

We headed for home on Monday afternoon. The sun came out, and the snow got sticky. It was hard skiing for me, like paddling into a headwind. You grit your teeth and do it. You are tempted to stop, but stopping isn’t an option, so you do it, and maybe it’s even good for you.

I could barely keep up with Tom and Ben. Ben stuck to his dad’s heels like a loyal puppy, no doubt asking his share of questions.

“How many minutes till we get to the portage?”

“When will we reach Moose Lake?”

What a pair, I thought. I wondered if Ben knew how lucky he was to have a dad like Tom, and vice versa. I think they do, although they don't need to talk about such things. Actions almost always speak louder than words.

Barbie teaches Dad a lesson ~ January 7, 1993

David Heiller

Last Friday Mollie and I sorted through her doll clothes as preparation for an exciting time of “Playing Dolls.”

Don’t ask how my daughter conned me into playing dolls with her. Suffice it to say I made a promise and she held me to it, as seven-year-old girls are wont to do.

Mollie brought out a five gallon bucket full of doll clothes. I allowed as we couldn’t play dolls without sorting through the clothes. So we found another five gallon bucket, and separated the doll clothes into Barbie and non-Barbie piles.

The non-Barbie clothes had a lot of character. Blouses, dresses, caps. Some of them could have fit an infant. Many were home-made by a thoughtful grandma. I liked them. But they were cast aside by Mollie without a glance.

Five Barbies and poor head-less Ken.

We’re into Barbies at our house.

The newer Barbie clothes were just the opposite. They seemed like little more than tiny pieces of cloth with a button here and a fastener there. And I mean tiny. They don’t cover much of Barbie, and there’s a lot of her to cover, if you know what I mean.

All right guys, do I need to spell it out?

Mollie set aside a small Barbie blouse. “That’s Grandma Heiller’s,” she insisted. Don’t ask me how she knew that. It’s the same genetic ability that my wife displays when she tells me what dress she wore to a New Year’s Eve party three years ago.

The underwear on another Barbie, Mollie went on, belonged to Jennifer. Don’t ask me how they got on Mollie’s Barbie. We don’t print that kind of thing in the Askov American.

We found Barbie shoes too, little things that I confess I have vacuumed up a few times. We set them carefully into shoe holders in a plastic Barbie wardrobe. The wardrobe doesn’t stand straight, because it has three broken legs. Mollie told me that it was Mom’s when she was a girl. I didn’t know that.

Mixed in with the newer Barbie clothes were older things, gowns and dresses, yellow with age and use, a bit tattered and torn. Mollie informed me that those were Mom’s when she was a girl. I didn’t know that either. I’d seen them in Mollie’s room, but I’d never really looked at them, held them up close, like a seven-year-old does, like we did last Friday morning. It was kind of fun. I could picture Cindy doing that 28 years ago.

Back then, I wouldn’t give Barbie the time of day, or any other girl for that matter, including Cindy. Things are different now.

Grandma Olson working with Malika on paper dolls.
She had fun with Grandma,
but paper dolls were NOT Barbie.

I’m NOT a big Barbie fan. We’ve never even bought Mollie one. That too-perfect figure and beautiful hair get on my nerves just like a grown woman with a too-perfect figure and beautiful hair makes me a bit uncomfortable. I equate them both with vanity and materialism and other qualities that I can’t express but know I don’t like.

Cindy feels the same way. Yet she had Barbies and wardrobes and doll houses as a kid, and she turned out all right. So I watch Mollie play for hours with her Barbies, and I guess it’s OK. As if that matters.

AFTER WE WERE DONE sorting the clothes, the phone rang. I was saved by the bell. Mollie was invited to Kate’s house, and I wiggled out of my doll-playing promise.

When we were safely in the car, I asked Mollie how many Barbies she had. Six, she said. There’s the short Barbie, and the bald Barbie, and the one with dog bites on her stomach, and the one wearing Jennifer’s underwear, and Ken, whose head has come off. Poor Ken. The schmuck always gets lumped in with the women. I bet he doesn’t go ice fishing either.

Kate's fav!

“What about the roller blade Barbie?” I asked. She had just received it as a gift from her babysitter.

“Seven!” Mollie said happily. “I’m on a roll.”

When we arrived at our destination, Mollie and her friend started playing with a table full of ponies, purple with pink manes, or pink with purple tails.

I couldn’t get Barbie out of my mind, so I asked Kate how many Barbies she had.

“Three,” she said.

“Is that all?” I asked thoughtlessly. Kate gave me a forgiving look.

“But I’ve got 37 ponies,” she said proudly. That’s a story for another time.

A walk to the Island ~ February 24, 1994

David Heiller

That’s when Nora and Malika suggested that we walk out to The Island.

We had looked at The Island all weekend from the cabin our two families had rented. It was half a mile away, in the middle of Long Lake, near Spooner, Wisconsin.

The Island was no more than 40 yards long, and it had a big house on it. It drew the two eight-year-olds like a magnet, and I guess it drew me too, because when they asked if they could walk to the island that night, I didn’t hesitate in answering yes.

They each grabbed my hands, and we headed out. A day earlier, the top several inches of ice had melted in a 45-degree thaw. But now it was slick.

Malika and Nora with Carolyn in that weekends cabin.

Nora said it was like glass. She wished she had brought her skates.

I said you’d have to watch those rough spots. My brother, Danny, hit one when he was a kid and broke a tooth off. It was the first time I saw him cry, it hurt so bad. I told the kids that.

The ice would crack every so often, which worried Nora. “If it can hold a car, I guess it can hold us,” I said.

I can’t remember all the other things we talked about, the three of us. Mostly we held hands and chatted. It felt good. Our words weren’t profound, and that is the way it should be. Any heavier conversation and we might have fallen through the ice.

Then we approached The Island, and our pleasant words dwindled. The house loomed on it like a great grey mansion. And I must confess that I told a tale about the house then. I said that the owner, an old lady, had drowned one night. A night just like this. She fell through the ice. I said when the moon came out, you could see her standing in the window in the top floor.

Malika then wanted to go explore it. That explains a lot about Malika.

She let go of my hand, and walked toward the house, to show how brave she was. She put one foot on shore.

Nora and I kept walking. I didn’t try to talk her back to me. I knew better than that. But I wanted to shout, DON’T GO UP THERE! In the moonlight, the house looked like it belonged in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Then Malika turned around and ran back to us. I didn’t say a word. But I did breathe a sigh of relief.

We circled around The Island. The house, and our imaginations, returned to normal. I told the girls I was joking about that lady. It was just a story. They said they KNEW that, like how stupid did I think they were?

Malika and Nora.

On our way back, we lay down on the ice and looked at the moon. It had a circle around it, like the moon does on some cold winter nights. None of us knew why. It’s a good mystery.

On shore, the cabin lights glowed with a welcome light. When we got closer, Malika and Nora spotted their two brothers, still playing. We went to The Island! they shouted almost in unison.

The boys shrugged a big deal, but you could tell by the way they shrugged that they were impressed.

Inside the cabin, it was the same thing. The girls proudly recounted the trip to The Island to the moms and dads. I did too.

What an honor, to have the trust of two little girls, to hold their hands and walk and talk across the frozen lake in the moonlight to The Island.

Actions speak loud as words, when it comes to love ~ February 27, 1986

David Heiller

I saw two men approaching on the street.  As they came together, a dawn of joy and recognition blazed in each face. They kissed cheeks, shook hands firmly, lingeringly, and barraged each other in loud voices: “How are you? Fine, thank you, and you? By the grace of God, I am well. How is your family? By God’s grace, all is well with me and mine. And you, is everything well? Everything is fine thank you, God’s grace is shining fully.”

A street scene in the city where David lived for two years.

This continued, in Arabic of course, for a full half minute. I smiled in childish wonder, thinking I was witnessing the momentous rejoining of two brothers separated at birth and discovering each other on this dusty Moroccan street. My disillusionment soon followed. The men, after the last “May God be with you,” abruptly pulled apart like clashing symbols and continued on their separate ways, as if nothing extraordinary had occurred. Indeed, nothing extraordinary had occurred. Just two casual Moroccan friends hailing each other in their passionate fashion.

I wrote the above passage in my journal on December 8, 1977, in Sidi Kacem, Morocco. It tells in a nutshell how Moroccans showed affection. Kisses, handshakes, loud inquiries into your health, your mother’s health, your second cousin’s (twice removed) health. Their affection was downright aggressive.

We Americans, on the other hand, seemed meek and mild in comparison. The stoic Scandinavian and German stock that came from the Old Country has never been known for outward signs of affection. I had a hard enough time kissing American girls, let alone Moroccan men on their cheeks. A handshake was the best I could muster in Morocco. No doubt I seemed as lifeless to them when I greeted someone as they seemed overly-animated to me.

Winter affection

Affection is a relative thing. Ethnic groups stake out acceptable ways to show their love. I hugged and kissed more people in France when I was there for a week, coming home from Morocco than my entire life before or since. By the time I had left, I remember thinking all that hugging and kissing wasn’t so bad. But when I got to America, to my friends and family, the hugs and kisses were okay once, and once only. Then it was back to handshakes, at best.

But real affection—love, if you will—it seems to me comes not through gestures, or even words, but through actions. It doesn’t matter if you call your spouses Baby-Cakes, or your kid Log Legs. It’s how you treat them that counts. Who volunteers to wash the dirty dishes after supper, when both Mom and Dad have had busy days? Who makes the supper? Who brings the bowl of ice cream to the guy on the couch watching TV? Who sweeps the floor and shakes the rugs?

You do and I do, both. A simple illustration: A month ago, on a very cold morning, I felt a beckoning to the outhouse. My wife, Cindy, had an equally urgent calling. We left the kids in the house, and tromped down the hill, me in the lead, and making sure I stayed in the lead. We have a two-seater, you see, but only one Styrofoam toilet seat. The other seat is wood, and when the temperature outside is 20 below, like that morning, the wooden toilet seat is 20 below.

Outhouse on a more clement day.

I can’t explain what I did or why I did it, but I took the styrofoam toilet seat off its nail on the wall, and handed it to Cindy. Not even Merlin Olsen could top that act of love.

Forget about flowers, let’s get down to real love. Who wrings out the poopy diapers? Who gets up early with the kids so the other can sleep in those extra 20 heavenly minutes? Who gets up for the teething baby four times in the night? Who takes the kids to hockey practice four times a weekend? Who swallows hard and lets the son have the car to take his friends to a movie? Who stops to help fix the flat tire on the lonely county road, when no one else is stopping? Who calls a sick friend, or sends a card to a death-stricken family.

The answer, I hope, is you and me. Words and handshakes and hugs and kisses are fine, but no more important than the little actions that give of your time to tell someone else, “I love you.”