A fine welcome home ~ July 16, 1992

David Heiller

The bees were first to welcome me home from vacation last week. They were buzzing so loudly on Thursday morning that I could hear them from 30 yards away.

The air around one hive was a blizzard of bees. They were swarming; half the hive was following the queen in search of a new home. Jeez, leave for a week and a queen gets upset at you. The nerve! One angry chap even stung me by my left eye, which swelled shut long enough for Cindy to take this photo.

The standing head for David's column looked a little different that week.

An hour later, I returned to the hive. All was quiet again. I walked through the field and spotted a ball of bees hanging from the limb of a willow tree. That’s where the queen had landed to get her bearings. What a sight. There’s nothing as exciting as watching a swarm of bees, 40,000 strong, the size of your thigh, all huddled on top of one another, shimmering, humming, moving as one.

(It’s also exciting to a penny-pinching German because you get a free bee hive. The old hive will “make” a new queen to replace the restless one.)

A "borrowed" photo of someone
doing what David had to do to
get that "free" hive.

I got another hive box with some frames and old honey from a nearby beekeeper, Albert Chada. He figured they couldn’t resist a free lunch, and he was right. I cut the tree limb, shook the bees into their new home, put on the hive cover, and smiled. Yes, it was good to be home. A day later, and I would have missed all this.

It’s funny how such simple things like that can make a person feel “at home.” Like after I filled all the bird feeders, and the first goldfinch landed right outside the window as I washed dishes. What a great sight. Or when the first humming bird zoomed in for fresh nectar. I could watch his tongue turn into a tiny straw, the size of a needle, and suck up the red liquid, while he hung in the air like a puppet on a string.

Or working in the garden all day, pulling a week’s worth of lamb’s quarter and mint and other nameless weeds. They came out easily from the rain-softened, sun-warmed soil. It was a simple joy, working with Cindy, visiting about this and that, then finishing the last bed and walking together to admire our work and the garden’s budding bounty.

Catching garter snakes, picking up rocks, heck, even mowing the lawn, it all felt good because we were home.

You see things in a fresh light when you are gone for a time. Of course, you see some things you’d like to forget. Like the woodpile, an ugly collection of logs, boards, and lumber scraps, that needs to be cut and split and stacked. There’s that hole in the linoleum as you come in the door, and the walls that need painting, and the concrete floor that needs carpeting, and...

You see these things every day, and you get used to them. After an absence, you see them and wince and make a pledge to fix them just as soon as possible. Right.

Forget about them for now. “Coming home” is bigger than that. “Coming home” means many things to many people, but most definitely it means happiness and contentment and satisfaction.

It’s a good enough reason in itself for a fine vacation, which we sure had. But that’s another story.

Watch your language in public ~ July 13, 2005

David Heiller

“Where the @#%* is the car?’’

A young woman growled that question as we made our way through the crowd at Pettibone Park on the Fourth of July. She had a couple kids in tow.

My daughter, Malika, and I hurried past her. “Did you hear that?” Malika asked? “How could she talk like that in front of her kids?”

I shook my head in the darkness. We had just watched some spectacular fireworks, but hearing that little cherry bomb of a verbal one took a little of the fun away.

That lady had said a very serious swear word, at least in my mind. You can probably guess the word. It’s definitely not one you would expect to hear a mother use around her kids, But it seems like that is changing, that people are swearing more in public.

I mentioned that to Malika. She told me about a group of people she had served at her job as a bartender a few days earlier. A group of people who swore like the proverbial longshoremen and they had their kids in tow. She was shocked and a little saddened hear it.

I’ve seen other examples too. Groups of people my age, swearing loudly or making sexual references that I really don’t care to hear.

When I told a co-worker about my observations, she had her own story, about. a person—a young woman, no less—who sprinkled that certain swear word through most of her sentences during a social gathering. .My co-worker even worked up the courage to correct her. That got a laugh and some ridicule in return.

People are cussing way more than they need to.

Okay, on a scale of 1-10, this is not a 10, or even a seven. We have a lot of other concerns these days that make this one seem so trivial that maybe I shouldn’t even write about it.

And most people do swear. I can’t lose a fish without a few choice words following it to the bottom o f the river. They just come boiling out of an unseen source. Or hit your thumb with a hammer and see what happens.

But this is different. It’s in public. It’s like air pollution that no one else should have to breathe. It’s a very ugly habit. Hey, if you want to swear in the privacy of your own home or campfire or fishing boat, be my guest. But if you’ve got kids around, old people, women (oops, I guess women are exempt now), or anybody within earshot, stifle it. Take a little pause. Leave the cherry bomb unlit,

Say something else. Take your English lessons from Mrs. Simon to heart. Get creative.

“Where in the Sam Hill is my car?”

“Where’s that son of a Gunderson car?” “Where the heck is my car?”

Or if you are really mad, “Where is my gol-dang car!” I’ve got a friend who occasionally uses the term gol-dam, and when he uses gol-dam, you know he is very, very upset. That’s the ultimate swear word for him. It’s his Mount Everest. Ifs funny in a way, yet I respect him for it.

I don’t expect many rude cussers to change their ways from reading this column. It probably will just generate a laugh. And as Malika noted, a lot of this behavior is brought on by one too many bottles of Budweiser.

And if you are like me, you will not say anything when it happens. Maybe give a look of disapproval, and that probably won’t do any good.

Still, I hope people can keep it in mind. Use a little restraint when it comes to swearing in public.

Garden of Dreams ~ June 8, 1989

David Heiller

The Weather Woman on channel 10 was finishing her Saturday night report, while Cindy and I sat exhausted on the couch, half-watching, half-sleeping.

Nothing could have got our attention except the words that Rhonda Grussendorf said next: “and there’s a chance of frost in the low-lying areas.”

“Oh no, frost,” I groaned. Murphy’s Law, 14-C: The Night After You Plant Tomatoes, Frost Will Come.

Collin working on the peas in a later
 version of the Garden of Dreams...
 because for us, they were ALL
Gardens of Dreams.

I looked at the outdoor thermometer: 52 degrees. “What do you think?” I asked Cindy. Last year we had a killing frost on June 10, and here it was only June 3. But the thought of covering tomatoes on Saturday night? Expletive deleted.

“We can spray them with water in the morning before the sun hits them, that’s supposed to take care of frost damage,” Cindy said. She always says that on nights when frost may come.

We were asleep 10 minutes later.

(O.K. readers, you know what happens next. You’ve read it here before, and if you live in northern Pine County, you’ve experienced it yourself. Hard-luck chump has frost wipe out tomatoes and peppers. Newspaper editor writes hard-luck column about it, tries to make it funny.)

Wrong. It didn’t happen this year. Sunday morning, the thermometer said 50 degrees at 7:30 a.m. No frost. Not even close. Murphy lay flat on his back on the canvas, seeing stars, and he’s going to stay there.

See, this year is different, this year is the Garden of Dreams. I stole that title from the movie called “Field of Dreams.” Cindy and I saw it Friday night, celebrating our ninth anniversary of marriage.

What the heck does a baseball movie have to do with a garden? You’re stretching it, Heiller.

Maybe I am. But bear with me. First, if you like baseball, or if you have kids, or both, or neither, go see Field of Dreams. If you’re Ghengis Kahn’s first cousin, see it. In my book, it’s an unforgettable movie.

And it’s more than a baseball movie. It’s about a man, Ray Kinsella, who is looking for something, just what he’s not sure. His own identity, his father, his values? I still can’t say, because Ray can’t say.

Ray hears a voice, one that only Ray can hear. The voice gives Ray three terse messages: “If You Built It, He Will Come”; “Ease the Pain”; and “Go the Distance.” Ray, a struggling young farmer in Iowa, decides he must build a baseball diamond, and Shoeless Joe Jackson, a famous baseball player long dead, will come. So Ray shocks his neighbors and plows his corn under. He builds the diamond, and, sure enough, Shoe-less Joe shows up.

Don’t worry about how man dead for 30 years can appear in a 1919 Chicago White Sox uniform in his prime of life and hit a baseball 420 feet. He comes, and Ray’s search is on, taking him to Chicago in search of a famous author, to Chisholm, Minnesota, in search of a doctor, and back home, where the reality and fantasy come together.

It’s the kind of movie that makes you want to grab a ball and glove and play catch with your kid. Or do something crazy, like plow your corn under and build a baseball field, or whatever the voice inside you whispers.

In go the tomatoes, but Queen Ida,
is nervous about it... She was never very confident
about anything, including frosts.

Cindy and I didn’t hear any voices last Saturday. We were too busy, planting lettuce and squash, peppers and dill, cucumbers and carrots, broccoli and cauliflower, corn and spinach, beets, leeks, celery and squash. And tomatoes. Noah watered each bed as we finished, soaking them until the black soil winked and glistened in the sun. The sun shone down and puffs of clouds floated eastward and the ground turned warm to the touch and the soil turned to garden before our eyes, like Shoeless Joe Jackson, returning again, with a little hard work and a little faith.

There’s a scene in Field of Dreams where Shoeless Joe, struck with the awe of what has happened, asks Ray, “Is this Heaven?” Ray answers, “No, this is Iowa.” Last Saturday was like that. Iowa, Minnesota, a baseball field, a garden, Heaven. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

Frost or no frost.

What do you, um, say to a naked, ah, lady? ~ May 22, 1986

David Heiller

Saturday night, May 11, was a good night for mystery and suspense. Rain was falling, which helps any story lacking suspense, from Hill Street to Hemingway. The city of Askov lay quiet under the steady rain, and Cliff and Wilma Krogstad lay quiet in their bed as the rain pounded the roof.

Cliff and Wilma don’t usually think about mystery and suspense at three in the morning, rain or no rain: They are usually too busy sleeping. But on May 11, Cliff heard a strange noise, and the mystery began.

“Cliff and I were sleeping, and all of a sudden, we heard someone come in,” Wilma recalls. “We thought it was our son, going to bed. Then we heard him get up again.”

Cliff stumbled bleary-eyed out of bed to investigate. He came back wide awake.

“Boy mother, there’s a strange woman in the house,” Cliff said. “You should see the room, it’s a mess.”

Mystery in Askov...

You should have seen the woman. She was, ah, she didn’t have, well, she seemed to be lacking, um—that’s the suspenseful part here. I’ll let Wilma tell it.

“When she came out of the bathroom, all she was wrapped in was two towels, you know what I mean.”

Yes, we are beginning to understand.

“Here she come out of the bathroom,” Wilma continues. “I said ‘What are you doing here?’ She said, ‘This is my home, I’m going to take what I want, and I’m going to leave.’

“She said, ‘This is 56-something in Cloquet.’ I said, ‘This isn’t Cloquet, it’s Askov.’

“‘You’re my mother and father,’ she said. ‘I’m going to take what I want and I’m going’.”

What this lady (giving her the benefit of the doubt for the sake of a good mystery) wanted was some clothing. That’s why she had rummaged through all the closets and drawers in the room.

Wilma called 911 while this was happening. Busy signal. Meanwhile the Mysterious Stranger had put on a pair of pants, boots, shirt and an old Army jacket. She looked anxious to find her real home. Where was that? Cloquet?

“I said, just sit down here, I’ll call the sheriff, he’ll take you to Cloquet’.” Wilma said.

While Wilma re-dialed 911, the lady went out the door, into the rainy night. She had arrived bone dry—part of the mystery—and walked back into the pouring rain.

The dispatcher told Wilma that a deputy wouldn’t be able to come to Askov until someone came on duty around seven Sunday morning. By then it was too late—the lady was fully clothed, and fully gone.

But the mystery remains, and leaves the Krogstads wondering “After it was all over with, I thought we would have liked to help,” Wilma says. “I think she was under drugs. She was very, very confused.”

“Tell you the truth,” Wilma says with a laugh, “it was scary it the time, and now it’s kind of humorous,”

Wilma Krogstad described the woman to me. I know every guy who is reading this column is asking that question fervently: What did she look like?

Well, she was... Naw, forget it. That would spoil the mystery.

Rain-making services available here ~ May 19, 2004

David Heiller

It’s funny how we can get too much of a good thing.

I’m thinking of the rain that has fallen lately. It started on Wednesday night, May 19, and really hasn’t stopped since then, and I’m writing on Sunday night, May 23.

John's model?

It’s getting to the point where John Holzwarth is sketching out plans for an ark, and Pastor Tony Fink is rounding up pairs of animals on the sly.

I know, we needed the rain, the water table is low, people are starving in China. But enough is enough.

I could predict it was coming though, and I’ll take a little credit (or blame). Here’s my theory. One: I planted grass seed on Wednesday afternoon, a lot of grass seed, $64 worth, all around the yard and over the geo-thermal field. It was a big project, aided I must add by my good neighbor Duane Thomford, who bladed and dragged the acre of ground just right. So after the grass seed and fertilizer were all scattered carefully in place, using the Farmers Co-op handy-dandy seed spreader, I asked the Person Upstairs for a little rain.

And that was the problem. I should not have asked that, because Robert Ideker told me in Sunday School 40 years ago that we don’t need to be greedy and ask for things like rain or new baseball gloves, because the Good Lord knows such things, and doesn’t need a reminder, thank you very much.

Just a little rain.

So He got a little upset. Not enough to send a plague of locusts. Just enough to wash every one of those 2,479,634 seeds down the bank and into the gully, where we will have an excellent crop of grass this fall, praise the Lord!

The other miscue on my part is that I went camping. I have a knack for drawing out the rain when I go camping. About 10 years ago we had a drought up north, and only got rain three times all summer. They happened to coincide with the three camping trips that we took that year.

Coincidence? Maybe. But there I was in Lanesboro, camping on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and there was the rain on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

My services may come in handy during the next drought. Farmers, I’m available for a reasonable rate. I’ll even throw in some grass seed for free.

Injury made for a scary but fortunate night ~ April 25, 1996

David Heiller

Our family had a scare last Friday evening. Our daughter, Malika, was jumping on our trampoline. It’s the round kind that is sold at stores like Sam’s.

I was working in the garage when I heard Mollie calling for me. I went to the trampoline, where she was lying. She could barely move. She said she had tried to do a knee flip and had hurt her neck.

I helped her off the trampoline and walked her to her bed. She walked stiffly. Her neck hurt so bad that she wanted to go to bed at 8 on a Friday night. That worried me.

I went back outside. My wife, Cindy, was on her way home from Minneapolis, so I was on my own. My mind was working on a couple things.

One thing was the fact that I tend not to take injuries seriously. Like last December when Mollie chipped a bone in her ankle while skating. Or when she had an appendicitis a month ago. So I was thinking, “Maybe she isn’t really hurt. But maybe she is.”

The second thing was WHERE she was hurt. A neck injury while doing a flip on the trampoline? That worried me. I know people who are quadraplegics from neck injuries. I had heard that sometimes a neck would be fractured and the person wouldn’t even know it and the wrong movement would cause a total break and paralysis.

So after 10 minutes of this thinking, I went back upstairs and asked Mollie how she felt. She said she could hardly move her neck, it hurt so bad. She was sitting up reading. I made her lie down, and told her to lie still.

Then I called Mercy Hospital and told a nurse what had happened.

“Does she have any tingling sensation in her fingers and toes?” the nurse asked. Yes, Mollie said she did.

“Is she dizzy at all?” Yes, Mollie said she was. “If she was my daughter, I’d call an ambulance,” the nurse told me.

“Can’t I bring her in?” I asked.

“No, she shouldn’t move her neck or head at all,” she said.

Malika doing homework on her trampoline.

I did not want to call an ambulance. What if it was nothing? But as I looked at my healthy daughter lying in front of me, very sore and very afraid, I thought, “What if her spine is fractured?”

I called 9-1-1. The phone rang dozens of times, but no one answered. So I called Mercy back. “We’ve been waiting for the dispatch from Pine City,” the nurse said.

“I can’t get through to Pine City. Can you call the ambulance?”

“Yes. But keep trying 9-1-1.”

‘So I did, for another five minutes. The phone must have rung 100 times or more, but no one answered.

Mercy called back, and said the ambulance was on its way. Then the 9-1-1 dispatcher called from Pine City. She said Mercy Hospital had called them. The dispatcher sounded alarmed that my 9-1-1 call hadn’t gone through. She said she would call the telephone company to see what was wrong.

Time moved slowly then. Waiting. Wondering what life would be like for Mollie, and for us, if she was paralyzed. It was a grim thought.

First responders

Then the first responders started coming. First Mary Cronin, who lives just a mile away. Then Veronica and Rick Borchardt, then a whole bunch of others from the Sturgeon Lake and Willow River first responders.

I knew all of them, but I had never seen them in action like this. It’s hard to describe how good it felt having them there. My worry started to subside.

Then the ambulance crew came. They and the first responders put Mollie on a back board. They taped her and strapped her so that she could barely move. Then they took her, in a sitting position, down our stairs, which was very tricky. Then it was another careful transfer onto the ambulance gurney, and then into the ambulance.

Shortly after we hit County Road 46, we met Cindy coming home. I wondered how she would react when she saw all the first responders at our house.

I rode up front with EMT Jeff Fisher. He was very calm. That made me feel better. We talked about kids, how hard it is to know when they are hurt bad. How they can get hurt doing anything. How you don’t want to be too protective. He said I had a done the right thing.

When we got to the hospital, they took Mollie into the emergency room, and Dr. Barbara Bonkoski came in. She’s an old family friend.

“When I heard it was a 10-year-old girl west of Sturgeon Lake, I said, ‘Mollie Heiller,’ ” Barb said with a smile.

Then Cindy came with our son, Noah. We watched as Barb checked Mollie’s eyes, her grip, her reflexes in her hands and feet. “It doesn’t look like a fracture,” Barb said. That’s when I breathed my first of many sighs of relief.

They did x-rays with Mollie still taped in place to make sure everything was O.K., then took more when she was free of the tape. No fractures. Barb said it was a muscle strain, like you’d get in a whiplash. Barb also said I had done the right thing. It was too big a risk to ignore, she said.

Malika, with her friend Brittany,
jubilant on her tramp many years later.
Her last flip was that evening in 1996, however.

Steve Popowitz came in. He’s a first responder and a good friend. He wanted to make sure everything, was O.K. It’s nice to know you have friends like that.’

We walked out of the hospital shortly after that. All was O.K., except for some very shook-up and relieved parents and child. Mollie thanked me for doing what I had done.

I was glad too. One side of me thought , “Maybe I over-reacted. Maybe I should have waited for morning, to see if the pain would go away.”

But the “What If” got in the way of that too much. I just couldn’t do anything but what I did do.

I learned some lessons last Friday night. How much I love my daughter. How grateful I am for her good health.

And how lucky we are to have people like the First Responders ready to help in emergencies, even when they are false alarms.

Thank you.

The Burgiss clan made all the difference ~ April 4, 1999

David Heiller

We arrived in Laurel Springs at about 6:30 Wednesday night. Our handy-dandy guide book said there were three bed and breakfasts there.

Any town with three B-and-B’s must be worth a visit, Cindy reasoned. She is usually right about these things, and this time was no exception.

The first thing we noticed about Laurel Springs was that there was no Laurel Springs. We drove down the road for three miles, in the gathering darkness, until I looked at the map and realized that Laurel Springs was two miles behind us.

David in North Carolina, 1999.

We turned around (it wasn’t the first time, nor the last) and realized that the crossroads of Highways 113 and 88 was pretty much Laurel Springs. Or so we thought.

We pulled into the yard of a big farm house, which happened to be a bed and breakfast, and asked if they had a room. You don’t just drop into a B & B at 6:30 p.m. and ask for a bed. It’s not the same as going to the Bronco Motel. And the B and B didn’t have a room. But the owner, who was so friendly and loud that I was secretly relieved, had his wife call Tom Burgiss.

“Tom, we’ve got a couple here from Mexico—”

“No, honey, it’s Michigan,” the man said. “Minnesota,” I corrected them both.

“Tom, we’ve got a couple here from Manna Soda,” the lady repeated. My state sounded like an Old Testament soft drink.

The Burgiss Bed and Breakfast in Laurel Springs,
North Carolina, April of 1999.

After she hung up the phone, she said, “Tom said come on over, since you’re from Manna Soda.” They gave us directions and we drove to Burgiss’s Bed and Breakfast, and Tom Burgiss told us right off that they liked people from Minnesota, which made me feel proud. Tom and Nancy had even been to Minnesota last summer on vacation, although after spending two days around their country, I couldn’t imagine why they would want to leave it even for Minnesota, even temporarily.

Tom and Nancy Burgiss had been gone all winter. They had been home only two days. They weren’t expecting anyone that night. They weren’t prepared for us. But they said yes, which, as it turned out, pretty much made our vacation in North Carolina last week a great one.

They took us in. “Yeah, for $90 a night,” you might cynically say. But if you met them and stayed there, you would become a Burgiss Convert. That’s not some snake handling mountain religion. It’s the state of mind of ex-guests at their place.

If they had been in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, they would have found room in the inn, and the Bible would have a whole different nativity scene.

Before we could do anything, Tom said, “I want to show you my wan operation.”

I had heard enough North Carolinian to know that saw-such is sausage and a gree-ol is a grill and wan is wine. Tom had a winery on his property, and he took considerable pride in it, with good reason. We received a complimentary bottle each night, and it was as good a wan as I’ve had in a long time.

Nancy and Tom Burgiss of their very welcoming porch.

The next two days we came to realize what good hosts Tom and Nancy were. Tom quizzed us on what we wanted to do. He gave us places to see that we wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.

When he found out we liked to bike, he told us about two local bike trails that were stunningly beautiful, and we found that out by riding bikes that Tom lent us, which saved us about $100 in bike rental fees.

He told us about the Mountain House restaurant that served chicken and dumplings every Wednesday night. He even called the restaurant ahead of time. “Amy,” he said, “Ah’ve got a couple from Manna Soda here, Ah’m sending them over and Ah want you to treat them raht, y’hear?” Amy didn’t get to wait on us, but the, other waitress did treat us right. The food was delicious and cheap.

Tom and Nancy’s son, Brant, came for a visit with his wife and baby daughter, and they were just as friendly as his parents.

Southern hospitality can’t get much better than it was at the Burgiss farm.

I took my banjo with me on the trip. If you don’t take your banjo to North Carolina, you might as well stick to the accordion. On Thursday night, I sat on the Burgiss’s front porch and played some old songs that probably had their birth in a hollow not far from that very spot.

In between songs, I listened to the sound of water running from two creeks that passed close by. Is there any more enchanting sound the rippling water on a warm spring night?

The Burgiss’s dog, Lucky, howled quietly when I started playing, no doubt following the instincts of his forbears from that nearby hallow. Lots of people have howled when I play the’ banjo, but in this case, it was a compliment.

David and Cindy, NC, 1999.

When I finished playing I headed for οur side of the house to my lovely wife, who knows how much my music means to me, because it means a lot to her too.

 “Are there mosquitoes here?” I asked Nancy Burgiss. “Not many, no, not many attawl,” she replied, after first thanking me for my music.

No mosquitoes?!? Now there’s a reason to return to North Carolina. I didn’t dare ask about wood ticks.

This isn’t an advertisement for the Burgiss Bed and Breakfast. But something had been missing on our vacation before we met them and that was a personal connection. The human contact made all the difference.

Don’t worry about a little bee sting ~ March 29, 1990

David Heiller

The bees are in the mail.

Weaver Apiaries in Navasota, Texas, shipped them out on Monday. Later this week the phone will ring and postmaster Kathy Weulander will say in a voice that is not quite trembling, “Hi, Dave, your bees are here, would you come and get them, PLEASE!”

This is how bees are mailed. David always got an
 EARLY morning call when they arrived. Sometimes the call
came the night before, from the mail sorting center.
Everyone seems to get kind of nervous!

The bees come in screened containers about the size and shape of a large shoe box. They look like a giant, buzzing ball. Somewhere in the middle is their love and hope and future—their queen.

Kathy doesn’t have to worry in the presence of queens like that. Even when some of the bees get out of their container. That’s because they could care less about Kathy Weulander and David Heiller. No, any escapees will cling to the side of that screened box, from Texas and Oklahoma to Missouri and Minnesota without even a sideways glance at Iowa.

One did take a sideways glance at Cindy last Sunday though. We were taking a sauna, and a dozen or so bees had made their way into the hot room. Maybe they were attracted to the heat and moisture. Maybe they were dirty. I’m not sure. But Cindy sat on one, and neither she nor the bee liked it very much.

The bee was in no shape to complain. He bought the farm. Cindy complained, and showed me the sting on her back forty. I didn’t have my glasses on, so I had to look very closely, but I did finally spot the little welt.

That was the first time Cindy had ever been stung by a bee. Noah and Mollie have beaten her to it, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve been stung.

At first it hurt Cindy’s, uh, backside, a lot. After she put a hot washcloth on it though, the pain went away.

But Mollie and Noah started seeing bees in their bathtubs, bees on the floor, bees everywhere, most imaginary. Mollie had just washed up with soap. She started crying and itching everywhere. She mistook her poor rinse job for bees. I doused her with fresh water and her bees went away.

Bee stings are like that. They can make you panic. I guess it’s understandable, but it’s a bit foolish too.

I was talking to Albert Chada about this the other night. Albert is an old beekeeper from Sturgeon Lake. He told me about one such incident.

He was at the food shelf in Moose Lake when he saw a lady running in circles around her car, swinging a broom. “I thought there must at least be a mad dog in that station wagon, you know,” he said. “She’d turn and start running down the street, then she’d run back.”

Albert, who is 73, ran up to her and asked what was wrong. “There’s a bee in the car, there’s a bee in the car.,” she yelled.

“She was just frantic, like there was a man-eater in there,” Albert said. “I reached in with my hand and made a swipe and the air pressure pushed him out.

“If it would have stung her, she would have passed out right there,” he said.

A small child was in the car, watching all this, and when Albert opened the door, the kid said, “Me scared too.”

It’s a funny story, but it’s sad too, Albert said, sad to be so frightened like that over a bee.

Preparing the hive for the
newly arrived bees.

I like to bring my kids out to the bee hives, especially in June. The bees seem gentler then. We lift off the lid, and pull out a frame and watch the bees scurrying back and forth. Sometimes we can even spot the queen, laying eggs non-stop. Or the workers, with big globs of pollen on their legs. It’s a lot of fun. When the kids have company, they always want to show their friends our bees. Which I proudly show them.

I told this to Albert. He’s taught a few children and grandchildren of his own about bees. “Those children will go all through lives and they’ll never be frightened by bees,” he said. Some things we should be frightened about, but not bees.”

Albert remembered one time when his son got stung a half-a dozen times or so. Some bees had crawled inside his veil, which made him panic and run for home. (If anything will make you run, that will.)

“I said, ‘Panic is about the worst thing you can do,’ and he said, ‘Yes I know’,” Albert said. Albert watched his son strip off his shirt; hives broke out over his body. Albert thought about panicking too, rushing his son to the doctor. But he kept cool, and put ice cubes on the stings instead. The hives soon disappeared. “He was just about building up an allergy right there,” Albert said.

“Half of my neighbors say they’re allergic to bees,” Albert says with a laugh. “They’re not allergic to bees. Plus most “bee” stings are from hornets, not honey bees.”

After I talked to Albert, I went upstairs to ask Mollie a question: “Are you afraid of honey bees?”

“No, but I’m afraid of hornets,” she answered. She must have something in common with Albert. I hope she does.

I like this poem a mother wrote after her two-year-old daughter was stung by a honey bee. When you put it with this picture, it’s pretty funny.

(This is not David's sister,
nor anyone we know...)

A bee stung Lynn beneath her eye

And though it hurt, she didn’t cry

It soon began to swell and close

And sister asked, “Do you suppose

Her eye’s asleep, or do you think

It stuck when Lynny tried to wink?

That’s something to think about the next time you get stung by a bee.

Banjo lessons a reminder of the big picture ~ January 14, 1999

David Heiller

Learning new things isn’t easy, but it sure can be fun.

I bet watching students learn is one of the greatest reward for teachers. Watching your children learn is great too.

Our son is picking people’s brains these days about rifles. He’s learning a lot. He’s reading about motorcycles. He’s excited about them, and expanding his knowledge.

Our daughter is practicing her one act play parts, and getting better day by day. Her singing is getting better too because she is practicing her songs for voice lessons. She’s learning a lot, improving too, and it’s fun for her. The key word is fun.

Malika and David playing at the Askov Fair.

These days, playing the banjo is my favorite learning activity, although when I call it a learning activity it doesn’t sound very fun. But it is.

My wife, Cindy, bought me two banjo instructional videos for Christmas. When Ι have a spare hour, I put a video tape in, and learn a song, or try to.

The teacher, plays it through slowly, and breaks it down into parts. She’s a good teacher, very patient. And if you don’t get it, you can rewind the tape until you get it again. It’s a perfect way to learn something like the banjo, better than a face-to-face lesson in many ways.

I feel like I’m making progress on the banjo thanks to the tape. It’s hard. It doesn’t come as naturally to me as it does for some people.

But I’m learning new things. It’s exciting and fun. I wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t fun.

I've been playing the banjo for about 22 years. I’m not “all that good,” although some people would disagree.

Stringing the banjo and the baby...

For example, last summer I was playing the banjo at my mother’s house, and some kids who were riding by on their bicycles stopped and listened. Nothing will stop a kid in his or her tracks like live music. They thought I was pretty good. As they were leaving, one of them said, “You’re the best banjo player I ever heard.”

That prompted another of the kids to wax eloquent and say, “Yeah, you’re the best banjo player Ι ever heard.”

The kids were about eight years old, and I doubt very much if they ever heard anyone play the banjo before. It was pretty funny.

Sometimes my playing ability bothers me, because after 22 years, I should be really good on the old five-string, and I’m not. The insecure, competitive side of me thinks that.

On the other hand, a banjo teacher I had in college told me that if Ι practiced six hours a day for a year straight, I would be a good player. That’s what it will take, he said.

I didn’t have that kind of time in college, and that was before I was married with two kids and a job and commitments galore. I sure don’t have that kind of time now. Most of my practicing gets done late at night, when the kids are in bed and the house has settled down, and my brain is shutting down.

Cindy is patient with me. She shuts the bedroom door to get her sleep. Quite often Noah will call down for his bedroom to say that he can’t sleep with me playing. I respect that, and I quit playing then. I’ve heard it more than once in my life.

Not having enough time to pursue the finer things in life can be frustrating. But I usually keep in it perspective.

Here’s a quote I read recently that I like from a banjo player, Ian Perry; in a magazine called Banjo Newsletter.

“Playing music should be an expression of your feelings and the person you are inside. It’s too easy to be tempted by flashy licks a the opportunity to impress people with what you see as your incredible talent and ability. But the banjo isn’t a competitive sport (or at least it shouldn't be!) And you may find that if you think too much about technique or trying be a better banjo player than someone else, you will be missing the best of what playing music has to offer.”

That sums up my feeling about learning it doesn’t apply just to the banjo. I bet it applies to your job or hobby too.

Have fun, and keep learning. That’s the key to the big picture in whatever you do.