Praise the Lord and pass the water ~ November 4, 1999

David Heiller

What is it with people who drink a lot of water? People have water bottles on their desk, in their car, by their bed stand.

Is it some kind of a fashion statement to carry a bottle of water with you?

I could go on, but I’d better not, because I’m one of those nerds that has a bottle of water close by most of the time.

I never thought I would be this way. I always thought it was fine to just take a drink of water before you go someplace, and take a drink when you get to where you’re going. In the meantime, if you got thirsty, so what? It’s not exactly a hardship.

I always laughed—to myself—when I would see my mother with her bottle of water in the car, and hear her talk about how she likes to have a bottle of water with her when she drives.

But something changed a few years ago. I started noticing how much I enjoyed a glass of water, and what good things it did for me.

Strangely (or maybe not), I now notice that I am thirsty a lot. I often seem to be dry and in need of a shot—of water.

It reminds me of when I was a kid. I bet you can relate to this… When we played baseball or football at the school grounds, we played hard and non-stop, or so my rose-colored memory recalls. No one had a bottle of water nearby then. You would have been laughed off the field.

A water bottle is the perfect gift for Dad from
 his college freshman!

But after the game, or sometimes half way through if it was a hot summer day, someone would say, “Let’s get some water,” and we would stampede across the street to Irma Bissen’s pump.

Mrs. Bissen had a hand pump that was about as old as the city. It was Civil War era, with a long iron handle that you had to pump quite a few times to bring the water up.

She kept a dipper hanging from a wire on the pump. We would take turns pumping for each other. It took two hands to pump. One person would pump while another person would hold the dipper under the spout. It took teamwork to get a drink of water.

That was 30 years ago or more, but I can still hear the sound as the water rose up the inside of the well and reached the spout, then came blasting out into the dipper. That water tasted good! I wonder how many kids drank from it? We didn’t worry about anyone’s germs either.

Mrs. Bissen always seemed to be home, and she always seemed to be watching us from behind her screen door. If we pumped extra water just to see it pour out, she would magically appear and tell us to stop. Once she even threatened to take away our water privileges. That was enough to keep us in line.

We didn’t think about the fact that the water was good for us. We just knew we needed that pump and that water. I don’t think any of us thought about how that water rejuvenated us. But it did, and it still does.

I read quite a few years ago that if you are working and are feeling tired, you are probably dehydrated, and you should stop and take a drink of water.

After reading that, I started taking a bottle of water with me when I was cutting firewood. When I felt a little fatigued, I would take a drink of water, and it was amazing how that perked me up.

It became a habit for me to have a bottle of water handy for other activities, like working on the house, in the garden, or when skiing or hiking or biking. Now I take a bottle of water with me to work, and drink it in the car like my mother does!

I keep a bottle on my desk. Taking a big drink has the same rejuvenating effect when I get tired at my tough desk job.

I’m preaching here, but I think everybody ought to have a bottle of water handy.

One minor detail, and I almost hate to mention it. But in keeping with my policy of being brutally honest: make sure there’s a bathroom nearby.

What are the odds... ~ November 24, 1983

David Heiller

“What are the odds of that happening?”

I’m not talking about football odds, like the odds of Los Angeles beating Washington 38-9. I’m talking about coincidences, hard-to-believe ones.

I think everybody has a few experiences which they like to tell about that are hard to believe, because they are so coincidental. Here are a few of mine.

The first coincidence I can recall happened when I was in seventh grade. Our teacher, Mrs. Sauer, assigned us to write a report on South America. I turned in a sparkling account of the country, and it read word for word like the report turned in by Jerome Traff, a classmate. It turned out that his family and my family bought the same set of encyclopedias from the same salesman who blew through Brownsville one day in the mid-1950s. That wasn’t much of a coincidence, but it was a start.

The first real coincidence happened in 1975, when I was in Montana backpacking and visiting friends. I needed a ride back to Minnesota, and was prepared to hitchhike. The day before departure, I walked into a bank in Missoula, and there stood a friend from Camp Courage, where I had worked that summer. She was driving back to Minnesota the next day, and she was able to give me a ride. That was lucky.

Another time, my Grandma and I were playing Scrabble at home. We turned all the letters face down, then each drew one, to see who would play first. She drew a blank letter, and I drew a blank letter. There are only two blanks in the game. What are the odds of that happening? Some of you math people can probably tell me.

A strange coincidence happened last year, when I was playing cribbage with my wife, Cindy. I dealt the cards, and threw two face cards, both hearts, into the crib. Cindy threw her two cards in and cut the deck. I turned up the card—the ace of hearts. When I came to count up the crib, I found a royal flush, the 10, jack, queen, king, and ace of hearts.

David "What are the Odds" Heiller
on his skis. Taking up cross-country
skiing was no coincidence! 
"What are the odds?" was one of 
David's favorite refrains. There
was usually eye-rolling that
 accompanied this phrase...

Those were coincidences of chance. Other times, people question coincidences and say, “Maybe it was more than chance. Maybe it was something more that led to that.” Example: A couple of weeks ago, a man left for work from his home in Willow River, heading for Chmielewski’s gas station in Sturgeon Lake. About half an hour later, his dog was scratching at the station door. It had somehow followed him the five miles up Highway 61, and knew just where to turn and where to go to find his master. That dog was guided by more than chance. Lassie fans of all ages know that.

And then there is Providence, a coincidence that some people believe was more than luck or instinct, something from a Higher Order. I had an experience on those lines in 1973. I had been backpacking in Yosemite National Park for a week, when a blizzard stranded me high in the mountains. I struggled, off and on, for nearly three weeks, trying to make it back to the center of the 1,100-square-mile park. On the nineteenth day, with still about 10 miles to go through deep snow, I came to a clearing. There, about 100 yards ahead of me, was a man cross-country skiing. He was just passing through the high country, on a trail seldom used in the winter. Five minutes later or five minutes sooner, I would not have seen the man, who helped me get back to civilization. Was that a coincidence, or was it something more?