Scratching away at raising a family ~ March 31, 1988

 David Heiller

Miss Emma missed her calling when she decided not to be a mother.

Actually, it was our decision, not Miss Emma’s. We drove her to the vet’s, while she sat howling in a cardboard box. Cats don’t like to be neutered, much less spayed. Not any more than people do. I should know, but that’s a subject for a future column. Far in the future.

Miss Emma is the seventh in a long line of cats for us. There was Carson, then Garrison, then Sadie, then Chauncey, Hickory, and Murphy. Dogs killed two, an owl carried Murphy off one spring night, the others died by disease and attrition.

Miss Emma has lasted the longest. We got her free from Silver and Bernice Anderson of Sturgeon Lake in the spring of 1983, when she was about four months old.

Malika and Miss Emma

I always have felt sad in a sentimental way that Miss Emma couldn’t have kittens. There were always kittens at home when I was growing up. The matriarch cat in our house, Cindy, gave birth like clockwork twice a year to a litter of kittens, for about 10 years straight. There was something special about watching Cindy nurse her young, how they would nuzzle into her stomach, kneading with their paws while they sucked. Cindy would lick them clean while they nursed, then serve as wrestler and referee after they finished and started to play.

Miss Emma missed out on all that, until Malika was born in June of 1985. They seemed to like each other from the time Mollie came home from the hospital. There’s a picture on our living room wall of Malika in her basket sleeping, at age three months, with Miss Emma curled on the blanket by her feet.

We worried about it at first, Cindy and I did (Cindy my wife, not Cindy the cat). Malika loved Miss Emma from the start, but she showed that love by grabbing fistfuls of fur, or that twitching tail. But Miss Emma did not scratch or bite back. She gritted her teeth, and endured the torture, and when she could endure no longer, she would simply pull away and hide.

Hanging out:  Miss Emma and Malika in the maple tree.

When Malika started to crawl. Miss Emma sensed the time had come to start training her “daughter.” I still remember the day the training began. Cindy’s mother happened to be visiting us. Mollie had grabbed Miss Emma’s tail, and wouldn’t let go. They sat locked on the living room floor. We heard Miss Emma give a low growl. We warned Mollie, “You better let go now.” Miss Emma reached around quicker than a wink and scratched Malika’s hand. Just a tiny scratch, but Mollie seemed mortally wounded. She let go of the tail and started howling herself.

Cindy and I stood frozen, waiting for a sign from Grandma Olson. Grandma didn’t disappoint us. “That’ll teach you to hurt the kitty,” she told Mollie.

Cindy and I let out our breath at the same time.

Since that day, Miss Emma has taught Malika how to be nice to cats. We’ve tried to help in our cumbersome, wordy way. “Pet her like this,” we showed her, stroking Miss Emma slowly across the back.

Malika would try it for a few pets, but soon the twitching tail was too much, and the petting turned to pounding. Miss Emma would not simply jump up and run, nor would she gouge a deep scratch. She would uncurl her claws from their padding, and give a little pat. Malika would cry, “Semma scratched me.” But the pounding would stop, and the petting would begin again.

Miss Emma and her wood box.

Now, Miss Emma and Malika are almost inseparable, though like all good relationships, it’s the love-hate variety. Last Saturday morning, Miss Emma sat in the bottom of our empty wood box in the kitchen. Malika spied her in there, and crawled inside.

“Semma and I are best buddies,” she said.

But Tuesday night, Malika had a complaint. “Semma’s going to scratch me again, and Momma called the doctor,” she stated after her nightly trip to the potty.

That would be news to Momma, who was at her aerobics class.

“She scratched me right on my tummy.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because we going to get mad at her.”

“Why did she scratch you?” I repeated.

“Because like that,” Mollie answered, swiping at her tummy.

“Not where. Why? What were you doing?”

“Because I was going to play right behind him, and I was going to call the doctor, and I was going to get Semma out of my bed, and I’m gonna scratch Semma.”

“You can’t scratch her.”

“I’m too bad.”

Somewhere in that twisted dialogue lay a confession and an apology. Once again Miss Emma had taught her daughter a lesson.

The lessons will continue. Miss Emma will again take her place at the foot of Mollie’s bed. Someday she won’t have to worry about her tortured tail and pinched fur. She’ll be able to pull in her claws and sleep peacefully, next to a daughter she can be proud of.

Isn’t that every mother’s dream?

Those invincible days of yore ~ March 29, 2006

David Heiller

Editor's note: This column was written after he presented the readers of the Caledonia Argus the long article he wrote for Backpacker Magazine.

I’m back to the present and the land of the living, after a four-week hiatus down memory lane.

A lot of people commented on my adventure in the mountains 33 years ago, which I reprinted in this space.

Some final thoughts: I was having lunch last week with a couple of colleagues. One man asked me how I could not have known about the possibility of bad weather, a snow storm.

David and the kids on our 1998 backpacking trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.

I stammered a bit; and the other man, a backpacker himself, said it simply: “We’re flatlanders.”

That was part of it. It’s one thing to be in a snowstorm in Houston County. Granted, it’s not flat here by North Dakota definitions. But there aren’t many snow storms in which a healthy 20-year-old man could not wade and tromp through to get help in rural Caledonia.

The mountains were another world. I had climbed 6,500 feet in elevation and hiked 30 miles. Some of that was very steep. It was physically impossible for a person to walk through that country after three feet of snow without snowshoes, which I didn’t have.

“And I was 20,” I said. “I was invincible.” Remember those days? It was a long time ago, but there was a time when I felt there was no physical task, within reason, that I couldn’t accomplish. I bet a lot of people feel the same way.

“Why didn’t you just turn around and go back the way you came?” my colleague asked. There again, I had to admit that I could not physically do it. The trail was obliterated and steep. The best way out was the other side of the mountain.

David, in the hospital after his rescue.

The other comment I have received was how lucky I was to survive. That’s true. The luck extended beyond Yosemite National Park. I had hitchhiked from Brownsville to Oregon, then down the West Coast to San Francisco, then east to Yosemite, That’s not exactly a safe thing to do either.

In fact, that was the fear that crept into the hearts of my mother and other family members. They hadn’t heard from me in a month. I had written to Mom from the park the day before my final adventure, telling her I would soon be hitchhiking to Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with my brother Glenn and his family. When Thanksgiving came and went, she feared the worst.

I’ll never forget the phone call I made home from the hospital bed after I was rescued. She probably remembers it too, although we don’t talk about it. We’re good Germans!

I’ll never forget my mountain experience either. “You definitely cheated death.” my brother, Danny, wrote to me recently. That’s not something you take lightly.

Grandmas can’t sleep where angels tread ~ March 19, 1987

By David Heiller

Our son, Noah, and his great-grandma Schnick have always had a special relationship. He took a shine to her from the first time he could first crawl onto her lap.

When we visit her and Grandma Heiller (my mother), Noah spends most of the day upstairs with Grandma Schnick. He shows off his block building skills, or talks non-stop about lions. Adventures come racing from his mouth faster than a three-year-old brain can process. Often Grandma will turn to me and ask, “What in the world is he talking about?”

Noah and his Grandma Schnick

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I answer.

At night, he crawls into Grandma Schnick’s soft bed and sleeps by her side. Grandma has a lot of confidence in Noah to allow this. She knows she is playing Russian roulette with his bladder, which half the time can give a sleeping partner a rather rude awakening.

Grandma Schnick doesn’t play favorites with her great grandchildren. At age 91, she knows better than that. She doesn’t love any one less. But she does have a special place for Noah. You see it in the way she talks with him, reads to him, even just sits and listens and watches as he talks and plays.

At least, that is until this past weekend. He had been walking on water, but now it may have frozen to thin ice. It started Saturday night, at the supper table. Grandma Heiller had fried up fresh rainbow trout, along with potatoes, peas and salad. Noah wouldn’t look at his plate. Instead, he started sliding off the front of his chair.

“You take at least one bite of everything,” Cindy said. “Or you don’t leave the table.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to,” Noah said, caught in mid-slide off his chair.

“Don’t whine,” I said. “One bite or sit still.”

“Yeah, but I have to play,” Noah answered, arching further down.

“You’ll go in the bedroom if you get off that chair,” Cindy said.

“No I won’t!” Noah said, completing his slide off the chair.

Cindy swept him off the floor as he crawled out from under the table, and dropped him on the bed in the adjoining room. She shut the door behind her.

Grandma had watched the episode without a word. “Well, that’s not the Noah I know,” she said.

Noah was a little older for this visit,
things went much better.

Noah finally quieted down from crying in the bedroom, and rejoined us at the supper table, as he always does when this happens. But Noah’s angel wings had lost a few feathers in Grandma’s eyes.

The next morning, Cindy and I woke up at 6:30, which is quite late for us. It is late for Noah too, as Grandma found out. The good news was she woke up in a dry bed. The bad news was she woke up at 4:30 in the morning. That’s when Noah had decided to talk about those lions of his. He did a fair imitation of them too, growling under the covers, clawing and crawling into a den at the foot of the bed.

Grandma greeted us at the living room as we said our good mornings. “How did you sleep,” I asked.

“Fine,” Grandma answered, looking at me through eyes ringed with sleepless circles that told otherwise.

Those angel feathers had been clipped even shorter. I doubt if Noah could have flown at that point. But he came crashing to the ground an hour later. He had been complaining about his shirt, which had tiny dinosaurs on the front. He would have complained if you had offered him ice cream—4:30 risings do that to kids.

I offered to put a vest on over the dinosaurs. “I don’t like this damn shirt,” Noah said.

Grandma sat up straight in her chair.

“Noah, we don’t talk like that, that’s not nice,” I said. “I don’t know where he picked that up,” I said to Grandma.

Grandma didn’t dignify that statement with an answer.

It could have been a worse four letter word, but Noah’s got plenty of time to pick those up. Meanwhile, his shocker at the breakfast table plucked what few angel feathers had remained clean out. He was wingless.

As we strapped ourselves into the car later Sunday morning, for our trip home, the two Grandmas stood on the porch and waved goodbye. They leaned against each other for support. (Malika had slept with Grandma Heiller, and had complained about her imaginary “owies” for two hours that pre-dawn morning too. But that’s another story.)

We waved goodbye, and they smiled and waved too. They were smiles of happiness, but also of relief and fatigue.

“Those were two of the best night’s sleep of my life,” Cindy said as we drove off.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’ve really got to come visit them more often.”

“Yeah, but I’d like to stay with Grandma Schnick and Grandma Heiller all alone,” Noah added.

I think we’ll wait a while before we return. At least until they catch up on their sleep.

Noah beats all ~ March 1, 1984

David Heiller

The flu knocked me out for most of last week. I missed three days of work, as I sat delirious and fevered in the big chair by the woodstove at home.

Cindy, my wife, gave the flu to me (not intentionally—no one hates me that much). We suffered together, while Noah had his run of the house. Noah is our eight and a half month old son.

Noah setting Binti straight.

Ask Binti, our 70 pound dog, about Noah’s supremacy. She’ll swallow and try to crawl under the woodstove. Noah wrestled Binti into a black mop last week, while Cindy and I watched helplessly, calling encouragement to the faithful dog from our perches on the furniture.

Noah rolled on Binti, climbed on Binti, rode Binti, and hung onto Binti’s ears as if they were reins. Binti grunted, groaned, licked, and eventually struggled to her feet and went outside.

Noah had his turn at us too. He woke up in the middle of the night several nights, and cried till we brought him into bed with us. Is there anything more like heaven for an eight and a half month old? You could have sworn it was 10 in the morning by how happy Noah was to be with Mom and Dad in bed. He sat up and laughed. Turn to face him, and he played with your face like putty. Turn away from him, and your back was a giant drum, to be pounded till you rolled over and the process began anew.

David, Noah, Binti and Miss Emma. Noah is about to 
begin drumming one of those expensive toys.

Drumming, I learned last week as I suffered and watched, is Noah’s calling. He pounds everything. All those expensive Fisher-Price toys, that click and ring and cost a lot of money, are reduced to nothing more than elaborate drums. That expensive electronic scale that I bought Cindy for Valentine’s Day, it’s nothing more than a perfect drum for Noah. The highchair tray, the cat, the stereo cabinet, all are perfect drums. There is nothing our house that is drum proof, including us.

Noah may also be a wrestler, I decided last week. I first got the idea after watching him rake Binti over the coals. Then I learned the hard way, as he showed me his latest moves in diaper changing.

I wrestled in high school, so I know a bit about the sport. In fact, I was a fairly good wrestler. But despite my 160 pound advantage, Noah can beat me, when it comes changing time. 

His strongest move (actually his only move) is escaping. As I get the diaper under him, he rolls to his left, and grabs the edge of the changing table, and pulls himself upright, sitting and grinning. As I try to bulldog him back onto his back, the diaper gets twisted up. As I straighten the diaper, Noah rolls to his left and grabs the edge of the changing table. It’s a no-win situation, for me, till I move Noah onto the floor, where there is no edge grab. Then my chances are at least 50-50.

Well, maybe I was just weak from the flu last week—maybe that’s why Noah won. But I have a feeling it’s not.

Editor's note: I remember this so clearly. I was stricken with influenza first, and spent two days alone with Noah while barely functional. I have to admit it: I was relieved when David got it too, and had to stay home.

A great trip, despite the one that got away ~ March 7, 2001

David Heiller

Tom pointed out the bare hills bordering Moose Lake shortly after we started skiing down it on Saturday, February 23. They looked black and stony, as if a fire had burned them, but the deforestation actually came from a wind storm.

The real magnitude of that famous July 4, 1999 storm hit us a little later, as we skied on a portage into Rice Lake. Three years ago, the portage was right out of a Boundary Waters postcard. Big, beautiful birches and poplars lined the ski trail.

But not now. About 90 percent of the trees were on the ground, or snapped off at right angles 15 feet above the ground. They all lay in the same direction, as if a volcano had erupted to the west.

David cooking on Little Puffer.

“Look at all the new growth,” Tom said when we stopped in the midst of the mess. He was right; you couldn’t put your arm out without hitting a small tree. Fickle old Mother Nature was fast at work, undoing the damage she had wrought.

And once we got to Basswood Lake, the storm damage was gone. That was amazing too. How could the wind mow down a whole forest like a scythe, and not touch a tree a mile away? Those are the kinds of questions that winter ski trips bring out.

Once we hit the bay on Basswood, we drilled holes and started fishing. This spot had yielded some big northerns in the past, and both Tom and I expected no less this time.

Then we pitched our tent on an island. Several huge white pines still stood there untouched. They seemed like stout old friends to me. Tom figured they were a couple hundred years old. It was good to see them standing, although Tom noted that they were in poor health and would probably fall down soon. Science teachers notice things like that.

Tom put Little Puffer in the middle of the tent. Little Puffer is a stove that he made out of an old gas can, and it is a testimony to the importance of a stove in winter camping that it is given a name.

We cut firewood and watched for the flags on our tip-ups to spring into action. Not more than an hour later, I had the first northern on the ice, a four-pounder. Then Tom pulled in two more, a couple pounds bigger than mine. They were dark and fat. “You just don’t see northerns like that back home,” Tom marveled.

As darkness fell, a west wind whipped across the bay. We foolishly ate our supper outside by the campfire. It was cold! But that changed after we crawled into the tent and lit Little Puffer. “What took you so long?” the stove almost seemed to say as Tom struck a match to the birch bark and twigs inside it. In just a few minutes we were sitting on our sleeping pads and starting to shed our layers of clothing.

We lit two candle lanterns and hung them from the center pole. They cast a golden light. Our pads were on benches of snow that conformed to our bodies better than the most expensive mattress. We talked and read. Then I started dozing off. It was getting late. I looked at my watch: 7:30 p.m.

If there is a better recipe for sleep, I would like to find it: a cozy tent, a warm sleeping bag. The sound of the wind blowing through the friendly pines. A body that is tired from a seven-mile ski.

Skiing till your head is clear.

We were both asleep by nine. I can’t remember the last time I slept that well.

The fish of the weekend hit Tom’s tip-up the next morning. He set the hook, and the fish didn’t give. It was like the cliché that fisherman say: “I thought it was a snag,” although Tom to his credit didn’t say that, because snags don’t tear line off a reel like this one did. Then it shook its head and the line sliced into Tom’s little finger, and it was gone. Tom pulled in the line with a mixed grin of disappointment and admiration.

We will never know how big it was. That’s kind of fun to think about. Basswood Lake holds the state record for northern pike, 45 pounds, 10 ounces. Maybe this one was its grandson.

And that was the peak of the fishing for us. That happens sometimes. After that, the fish quit biting. They would take a line and run with the bait, then drop it. When it came time to set the hook, there would be nothing to set. The storm system that was dumping a foot of snow on Pine County was sending its signals all the way to the Canadian border, telling those big dumb northerns not to eat any more smelt.

On Sunday afternoon, I took a day trip and skied into Canada for several miles. I didn’t see another person, or any animals. But it was still a fantastic time. The songs that were rattling around in my head finally quieted down. That’s when I know I’ve reached some inner peace, when my brain is empty, and I can just think about the wind and the lake and my skis gliding effortlessly over the snow like I could have skied forever, just kept going.

“Did you catch any fish?” I asked Tom when I got back to camp later that afternoon.

Hanging up stuff.

“Look by the fire,” he said with a poker players grin.

I walked over and saw five nice northerns on the snow. Tom let me babble on for a bit, he told me that they were the fish we had caught earlier. He had had to move them because a mink had discovered them and was trying to eat them. Tom said he had to chase the animal away three times.

That night, before we went to bed, we hung the fish in a pack from a tree, to make sure the mink wouldn’t return.

We skied back on Monday, after a morning of fruitless fishing. The seven mile ski back home seemed easy. Just before we reached the landing on Moose Lake, two dog teams sped past us. They were cruising. What a beautiful sight. They moved with such ease and joy, and each musher gave us a wave as they rode past. The sight will stick with me for a long time, a carefree memory from a successful winter camping trip with the big fish that got away.

Three weeks and counting ~ February 4, 2004

David Heiller

Cindy and I are on the verge of moving into our new house. I hesitate writing that, because of the jinx factor, but I will forge ahead with the hope that all the sequences will fall into place.

Sequences are a big thing when you build a house. I swear they rival the chain of events in your average nuclear bomb.

I started noticing the Sequence Factor with Tim, our fine plumber. He really didn’t want to put the toilet into the bathroom until the trim was in. Otherwise, it would be harder for John to do his fine trim work.

And that trim work, well, it really should wait till Matt gets his floor registers in place. And Matt really needs Brad to get the furnace wired. And Brad should have that tile on the wall before he puts in the receptacles. But Will, the tile guy, needs the vanity in place first so he can work on that. And Casey should have the vanity done tomorrow, but he has to finish the trim first. Then when the trim is done, Tim can get going on those toilets.

Cindy and I have handled this Circle of Construction in different ways. Those primal screams you hear from the big gray house in Brownsville every few nights are coming from Cindy. I’m more apt to shrug my shoulders and do the old stiff upper lip routine. Not that that’s superior. Maybe it’s the Mars vs. Venus thing I mentioned a while back when Cindy was mulling over her paint colors.

Our home, worth the wait!

Either approach is an equally ineffective response. And that’s fine! Because it isn’t easy to build a house. It’s a mind numbing process that is much too complicated to spell out in this newspaper column. And all those guys I mentioned above have skills that truly amaze me.

So does Cindy. Hang on; this is a family newspaper. I’m talking about all the things she has had to research and order, like lighting and bathroom fixtures, the furniture, the flooring, the kitchen, and talking to contractors—and let’s not forget the paint.

Now we are like a sled at the top of a big hill, teetering on the edge of a great ride.

It should be ready in three weeks.

That’s the other fascinating thing I’ve learned from our contractors. Everything takes about three weeks.

When Tim was making headway on the plumbing back in October, he figured three weeks should wrap things up.

How the geo-thermal system coming, Matt? “Should be ready to test in about three weeks:”

The wiring? About three weeks, Brad said in November.

How about that tile work, Will? “I’d say we’ll be done in about three weeks.”

How’s the trim work coming, John? “Well, let’s see, we’ve got to stain and put on three coats of lacquer. I’d say three weeks should wrap it up.”

Any idea on that siding project, Paul? “Looks like a three week job.”

Almost!

Hey Dave, when will the kitchen be ready? “I should be down with it, oh, let’s say three weeks or so. But the floor really should be on first.”

There’s the beauty of it. The Sequence Factor and the Three Weeks Syndrome are interlinked. It’s like being in a beautiful Twilight Zone episode—beautiful because we can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel now. The sled is heading down the hill. The ride is almost over, and that scream you hear from Cindy is one of joy. I might join in too in three weeks.

A new outlook on life ~ March 8, 2001

by David Heiller

“Did you get a good cornea?” I asked Dr. Skorich. I was lying in the pre-operational room at Miller Dwan Medical Center on Wednesday morning, February 28.

Dr. Daniel Skorich answered that yes, the numbers looked good. “It came from Florida,” he said.

David in pirate-mode on his banjo.
He had three cornea transplants. (One didn't do so well.) 
Each one was a time of gratitude and hopefulness.

“So you’re going to have a sunny disposition,” the anesthetist joked as he wheeled me into the operating room.

By this time I had a very sunny outlook on life. It had a lot to do with whatever it was he had injected into my intravenous tube. I didn’t have a care in the world. I wasn’t worried at all about having my old cornea cut off and a new one—from Florida!—sewn on.

That’s what happened over the next hour. I could see out of my left eye, which was draped with a cloth. My right eye was open, but I couldn’t see out of it. That was the result of another shot that Dr. Skorich had given me under the eye.

He gave me updates during the operation. “We’ve got the old cornea off,” he said.

Great, I thought. I couldn’t seem to get the words to come out of my mouth.

“We’ve got the new cornea half on,” he said a bit later.

Take your time, I thought.

“A couple more sutures.”

No problem.

Then it was over. Dr. Skorich said that it went well and it was a good match. He looked tired—it was his fifth corneal transplant of the day. I was wheeled to my hospital room, and 90 minutes later I was on my way home.

It is hard to imagine how uncomfortable those surgeries might have been. 
David was not one to complain, and kept his upbeat attitude.

I wore a metal patch on my eye that day and night, then went back to Dr. Skorich the next day. His nurse took off the patch. The vision in my right eye was blurry. That’s normal, Dr. Skorich said a few minutes later. It will take about two months for the new cornea to adjust and for the swelling to go down. Then he will start removing stitches, which will reshape the cornea. He might leave some stitches in forever once he gets the shape right. “You need the patience of Job,” he told me.

I’ve lived with lousy vision for most of my life, I thought. Six months is a piece of cake.

If all goes well, after about six months my vision will be pretty close to normal, probably 20-40 or so. Then I’ll get a prescription for glasses that will make it perfect.

That’s something I haven’t had for a long time. When I went to the University of Minnesota at age 18, an eye doctor told me that I had karataconus, an eye disease that causes the cornea to become cone-shaped. It can’t be corrected with glasses, but it can be corrected with hard contact lenses. So I wore contact lenses for the next 29 years. The karataconus kept getting worse, and doctors had a more difficult time fitting my eyes with contact lenses.

A corneal transplant had never occurred to me. I thought I would always have bad vision and contact lenses that sometimes gave me fits.

Then Cindy heard about the cousin of a friend who had karataconus, and how her vision had been corrected with a corneal transplant. It’s funny how things like that work, how a casual conversation can lead to positive changes. We found out the name of her doctor—Dan Skorich in Duluth—and the rest is history.

Two nights after the operation, I walked out to the garage to do a chore. I looked up at the heavens, at the moon and the countless stars. When was the last time you looked at the night sky, I thought, thinking of my new eye. Whoever you were, thank you.

Modern medicine is a miracle. I say that with a knock on wood, because my new cornea and I have a long way to go. But to quote Humphrey Bogart, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.