A little superstition never hurt baseball ~ October 22, 1987

David Heiller

“Let’s see, I’ll wear the red checkered shirt, and my green pants, and my good tennis shoes. What T-shirt? Here’s the one from T & M Athletics. Last time I wore my Camp Courage T-shirt, but T & M should be just as good. Yeah, that’ll be O.K.” I stuffed my Homer Hanky in the right rear pocket.

It was so fun going to those games
in 1987. We went to one playoff game
 and one series game. I still have the
 beloved homer hanky. 

As I dressed myself Saturday morning, my mind fell into a habit as old as mankind, or at least as long as mankind has played the game of baseball. Baseball is a game of habits, and of superstitions. Ever notice how Kirby Puckett crosses himself as he steps up to the plate each at bat? It’s a habit, and it helps him hit .330 and make those catches in center field.

The way I dress to a Twins game helps too. I wore that red checkered shirt to the Twins first play-off victory this year. Those green pants, they helped Dan Gladden tie that game on that close play at the plate against the Tigers in the eighth inning. So without thinking, I dressed in the same clothes for last Saturday’s opener of the World Series. Luckily for the guy next to me at the stadium, the clothes had been washed. I’d have worn them if they had been rank.

Cindy and I drove to downtown Minneapolis shortly after five p.m. Saturday night. As we approached the stadium, along with streams of other people, we passed people standing on the corners with fingers held up, one finger, or two fingers, like someone from the sixties giving us a peace sign. They weren’t interested in peace now. They wanted Twins tickets. One guy stood in front of the stadium with a sign around his neck: “Need tickets, $ no problem.” I thought back to when I had pleaded with Cindy to buy the set of eight tickets offered to the Askov American for a mere $404. She had answered, “What if we can’t get rid of the extras?” Last Saturday night, we could have sold our tickets for several hundred dollars. Each.

We entered the Metrodome a full hour and a half before the game started. The stands were already one third filled. Banners draped the upper deck railing, things like “The Cards are stacked” with a drawing of some sickly birds piled on top of one another. In center field, I spotted a simple one: “Frank (Sweet Music) Viola.” Some kid had hung that bed sheet there 16 times this year, and the Twins had won all 16 games. Frank Viola heard before Saturday’s game that the kid couldn’t get tickets. Frank found him some tickets. Frank was pitching that night.

Baseball is a game of habit and superstition.

The noise of the crowd built as the field was cleared, the batting cage dismantled. When the announcers called out the Cardinal players by name, a few people booed, but most of us mumbled and rumbled. It sounded ominous in the stadium, like Moby Dick coming up for air. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Minnesota Twins,” the announcer called. Moby Dick exploded. The announcer’s voice was completely inaudible. They players came out, the cameras panned their face, but no one could hear a thing.

When the Twins took the field, Cindy decided the time had come for her first trip to the bathroom. She hadn’t even drunk her first diet Coke yet. That’s excitement. Dan Gladden played catch with the pitching coach in front of us. The crowd started cheering for Dan, because the left field gang knows what a nice man Dan is, and they wanted that baseball in his hand. Sure enough, as the game was about to start, Dan tossed the ball into the left field bleachers. It sailed toward me, and I mean right toward me. Then it hooked to the left. I leaned over, but the guy in the seat next to Cindy’s empty chair grabbed it.

“Cindy, you’ll never guess what happened,” I said when she returned. The guy on her left pulled out the baseball and laughed.

“I never would have got it from him,” Cindy said. “Yeah, but at least you could have deflected it to me,” I answered.

The highlight of the game, as you may recall, came in the fourth inning. The Twins loaded the bases, then nickeled and dimed three runs across, without a single out. Dan Gladden stepped up. Kathy and Dave Weulander, from Askov, sat in the upper deck left field seats. “I never get to see a grand slam,” Kathy said. (I couldn’t hear at her at the time—Dave told me later.) The next pitch Dan sent into the left field seats again, this time with his bat. Cindy didn’t catch this one either, but it didn’t matter. That’s when the decibel level hit 118. We waved our hankies too.

After that inning, I stood up and visited the bathroom myself, and bought a couple hot jumbo pretzels. They look good on their rack, but they taste like something my son makes with flour and water at the day care center. On the way back to my seat, I ran into Jerry DeRungs, from the Moose Lake Star Gazette. Jerry had an attractive woman on his right side, and another looker on his left. He looked like he was enjoying the game too. I wondered if he had seen the grand slam.

The Twins went on to win the game, 10-1, as you may know.

As the game ended, I shook hands with Bill Paulson, a newspaper publisher from Mountain Lake, Minnesota, who sat next to me. “I went to the World Series in 1965,” he said.

“Yeah, too bad they lost,” I said.

“Yeah, it was, but I got the nicest souvenir,” he said. “You see those red, white, and blue buntings over the dugout? After the game, I took one of them, and I’ve still got it.”

“I was 11 years old then,” I said to myself more than to Bill. I wondered if it would be another 22 years before my next World Series. And I wondered if I would be sitting next to a young newspaper publisher and his wife, and telling him about my near miss of Dan Gladden’s baseball, or my Homer Hankies, or the 118 decibels, .002145 of which were mine.

There won’t be any “Yeah, that’s too bad,” when we recall the series of ‘87. Not this year. I’ll see you then, and maybe sooner.

Just look for the guy in the red checkered shirt and green pants.

Bringing the past and the present together ~ September 3, 1987

 David Heiller

“I want Emlee.”

My daughter, Malika, lay in the strange bed in the strange house of my sister, in the strange state of Texas. It was the first night of our vacation.

“You want what?” I asked with a smile.

“I want Emlee,” the two-year-old repeated.

I walked out of the room, Emily’s room, where Malika had staked her claim for a week. Emily sat in the kitchen with the rest of the family.

“Guess who Mollie wants to see?” I said, looking at my niece.

Emily laughed and walked past me to her room—no, to their room.

Malika and Emily

Emily and Mollie took to each other right away on our vacation last week. The first night, after saying goodnight to “Emlee,” Malika woke up several times. Emily held her for a few minutes, and told her, “You know, if you want, you can just come over to my bed, you don’t have to cry.” Some 12-year-old girls would have called to their mother for help, or at least complained in the morning. Emily didn’t complain.

“Oh, she woke up a few times, but I just talked to her and held her, and she went right back to sleep,” Emily reported the first morning. Even the five o’clock wake up time didn’t faze her.

After passing that test, Emily had Mollie’s trust. The next night, instead of crying when she woke up, she followed Emily’s instructions, walked over to her bed, and said, “Hey, pick me up.” She even started waking up later, setting a new personal record of 7 a.m. the last morning of vacation. Cindy and I were down-right jealous.

Emily had a few tricks of her own for Malika. Like most girls about to enter the abyss of teenage-hood, Emily has a growing collection of jewelry. The afternoon we arrived, Emily presented Malika with a bright cardboard box, half the size of a shoe box. Inside, Malika found a colorful beaded necklace and bracelet. Call it simple bribery, but Malika did not let that “necketts” and bracelet leave her sight for the next five days.

The real clincher game in the middle of the week. Emily, Malika and I had taken the car in for an oil change. Emily pointed out the nearby sites and stores. “And there’s a really good deli down there,” she added. “We ate there once.”

So I swung the car down to the deli. Normally I would not take Malika to a restaurant, even an uncrowded delicatessen at 10 in the morning. Putting her in a restaurant is like putting a screen door on a submarine. You usually end up with disaster on your hands.

But this time I did, inspired by the luck of Emily. I ordered pastries and bowl of fruit, plus a cookie for Malika. We sat at the table peacefully at first. But as soon as I opened the sports section of the morning newspaper, Malika slipped off her chair, and headed toward the kitchen.

“Grab her, would you?” I said to Emily without glancing up. She caught the whirlwind and set her at the table next to us. There, Malika discovered a small tray full of tiny packages of sugar, cream, and other fine playthings for a two-year-old. We ate the rest of our breakfast in peace, while Malika rearranged the tray and its contents. It was another miracle.

The day before we left, I went to the store with Emily and her father, Dan, to buy some food for the 1,000 mile trip home. Emily helped me find a few things, then disappeared to another part of the store. She met us at the check-out counter. With a self-conscious laugh, she showed me her bootie—a set of miniature cars for our son, Noah, and a new necklace and bracelet for Malika. When we got back to the house, Emily couldn’t wait to present the gifts. She helped Mollie open the package. Malika ran over to me with a smile. “Lookit my new necketts,” she said.

We left the next day. I said goodbye to Dan and Mary, their sons Peter, 16, and Adam, five. I gave a special hug to Emily. Malika did too.

We drove north through the night. First the kids fell asleep, then Cindy. As I sat alone with my thoughts, I thought back about the vacation. My mind drifted to Emily and Malika. I recalled when Emily was Malika’s age, how she couldn’t stand my beard, how she wouldn’t let me close enough for a hug until she was two years old. That was when she was Mollie’s age.

I remembered how I used to play my banjo for Emily and Peter when they were older, before they moved to Texas. I knew a whole string of kids’ songs, and they knew them too. Often when we would visit, I would sing them to sleep.

As I drove through the night, Emily and Malika seemed to merge somehow, like the diesel trucks that pulled alongside on the empty highway. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and still can’t. But I caught a glimpse of a cycle of life on the vacation. I remembered Emily from years ago, remembered vague, pleasant things that I now place with my own daughter. I saw how Emily had changed, how she could now give of herself, and be thoughtful enough even to buy a gift for Malika and Noah.

Giving, and loving, is a simple thing really, and yet the essence of life and of growing up. It’s a vacation memory to ponder, and to enjoy.

A short list of chores for Mom ~ May 6, 1993

David Heiller

It’s late on a Monday night. I should have written this hours ago. But I was too busy transplanting catnip and trumpet vines that my mother gave to me.

I was going to write this column about Mom, what with Mother’s Day around the corner. I was going to find some poignant way to say how much she means to me.

But I ended up planting three catnip plants and four trumpet vines instead. Mom would prefer it that way.

Never put off tomorrow what you can do today, she says, and I do too. It’s one of my favorite sayings.

We visited Mom last weekend. It rained most of the time, but that was fine. Rainy days in Brownsville are fine. You can sit and visit at the kitchen table, play the banjo or a game of Scrabble, maybe even watch the Twins play a game or national TV (they won!), and not feel too much guilt. It’s raining.

At one point on Saturday, I told Mom I was going to take the plastic off the basement door. That was on my weekend job list, along with trimming the trumpet vines and taking the glass off the storm door. It was a short list, as usual.

“It’s raining out. The water will run right down your neck,” she said, and she talked me out of that strenuous job without much effort. I could feel those rain drops falling three stories onto my head.

Fern, David, Malika and Noah

She wasn’t always this easy on me, and her kids weren’t always willing workers. Sometimes in the winter, the ice would build up on the porch, and she would ask Danny and me to chip it off with the ice spud. But Danny had his own theories about when that ice was ready to chip. The temperature had to be just right. The ice had to be slightly melted, so that when you chopped, it would come loose in big slabs. That happened about twice a winter, which wasn’t enough for Mom.

When she had finally asked enough times, she would take the ice spud herself, and start chipping away with quick, angry jabs. She was a prize fighter with that spud. Then Danny would slowly get off the couch and shut off the football game and I would follow his shining example and we would chop ice off the porch.

It was a trick of Mom’s that never failed, and even now, late on a Monday night 250 miles from home, I’m starting to feel guilty about not taking that plastic off the basement door, rain or no rain.

I’d like to say that Mom worked us hard when we were kids, but she didn’t. My sisters did the dishes and housework, as was customary in the 1960s. Danny and I took out the garbage, and burned the trash, and spaded the garden and spudded the porch. I work much harder now than I ever did as a kid. Maybe Mom knew that would be the case, and let me enjoy my childhood while I had the chance. I’m glad she did.

I asked Mom last weekend about the work she did as a child. She downplayed it as usual. She’s not one to brag about walking to school and back home, barefoot, through the snow, uphill both ways. But she remembered one of her jobs was filling the buckets with water and then doing dishes. Her mom would ask, “Have you got your water for the dishes yet?” It was always YOUR water, Mom said. It was expected of her. It was her job, no questions asked, no whining, no excuses.

There was nothing unusual about it, which is maybe why older folks don’t brag about how hard they worked. Still, I like to hear little stories like that. It helps me understand and respect Mom and her generation.

I asked her what she did to pass the time when she was a girl. Did she listen to the radio?

“Radio?” Mom asked, trying not to smile. “What radio?” They didn’t have a radio. Sometimes they would borrow their grandparents’ radio. There was no electricity, but radios had batteries. But batteries were expensive, so you couldn’t just turn on the radio any old time.

You know these stories of life on the northern plains in the 1920s and 30s, but you can never hear them enough times, especially when they are coaxed from your mother on a rainy day.

And you can never comprehend them fully, not in this day of satellite TVs and every luxury imaginable. It’s like looking at the stars on a clear night, and trying to figure out just how big the universe is and just how small you are.

That’s why I like to visit Mom. A pot of soup will be boiling when we arrive. There will be homemade cookies, and Spring Grove strawberry pop, and Jeopardy on TV, and a few stories about the good old days that weren’t all good.

And a list of chores that almost all get done.

Happy Mother’s Day.

A little luck goes a long way ~ June 14, 2006

David Heiller

Sometimes it’s nice to have a little good luck. I’m speaking about an incident last week with my car.

The car, a 1996 Ford Taurus, is a pure beater. Two doors don’t work, and the dash board has more warning lights flashing than an F-15. It has plenty of little dents, and a few big ones.

I’m almost embarrassed to drive it. But not quite. It still drives all right. The mileage is decent. And it’s paid for!

The car has seen just under 263,000 miles of action, first in Pine County, now in hill country. Nothing major has ever gone wrong with it, which I find amazing. That’s a testament to how much better cars are made these days.

The car almost suffered a fatal blow about six years ago, when I hit a deer with it head on. The impact broke the windshield, fractured the frame in front, and deployed the air bags. No one was hurt, except for the deer, but the repair estimate was $3,600. That was more than the car was worth, so the insurance company totaled the car, paid us the money, and towed it away.

This is just like the "Mauve-mobile"
 (We aren't the sort that takes photos of our cars.)
We got a good deal on her partially because of 
the color. David took a little heat for the color,
but that kind of thing never bothered him.

But about a week later, I got to thinking about the Mauve Mobile, as we had taken to calling the car based on its distinctive color. I wondered if I couldn’t still drive it. The body shop that had estimated the repairs said yes, the cracked frame would hold up. “Fix the windshield, stuff the parachutes back into the dash, you got yerself a car?”

So I bought the car back for one fourth of the settlement. The catch was I could not resell the vehicle because the air bags had been deployed. Fine with me. A little duct tape goes a long way.

Since then the Mauve Mobile has kept plugging away. Until last week. I was almost home on Tuesday night when the car came to a shuddering stop. It wouldn’t turn over. “Hmm. Gas gauge is on full. Plenty of oil, antifreeze is OK?’ But it would not start.

I towed it to Ron Cordes’ shop that night. He called the next morning with the bad news: “Looks like the fuel pump, Dave:’ Estimated cost, $375. Ouch!

So it was debate time. That’s never an easy one to figure out: How much money do you stick into an old car?

We finally told Ron to fix it. My loyalty to the old beater is akin to our ancient dog, MacKenzie. They have both been loyal friends.

Ron said he would order the part and install it on Thursday. That night I stopped in to pick it up.

Ron had a slight twinkle in his eye—a Cordes kind of look you might say—when I arrived. Then he told me the tale, also in a Cordes kind of way, which means he’ll get to the point if you just hold tight.

The car wasn’t getting gas, but Ron said he thought he had heard the fuel pump engage when he first tried it. No, it must have been the antennae going up. Then he and a helper heard the same thing the next morning. But no gas: Hmm.

Wait a minute. They ran a stick into the tank. Dry. The old car had run out of gas, both literally and figuratively.

Ron sloshed in a little Saudi Soup and checked the fuel pump again. Gas shot out. It worked great. He drove it to Kwik Trip, put in $10 worth of gas, charged me another $10 for his time and trouble, and that was that, thank you very much. There wasn’t even a restocking fee for the fuel pump.

“The fuel gauge is stuck on full, but for $375 I figured you could live with that, Ron said. He was right.

I left Ron’s feeling very grateful to have such a thorough mechanic. I felt as if I had just made $365. Maybe the Mauve Mobile thought so too.

A little luck never hurts anyone.

Some people sure know God’s thoughts ~ January 25, 2006

editor's note: This column is dated, at least the specifics are. The phenomena plays itself out over and over though, seems we hear about it every week. I thought it was worth sharing. 

David Heiller

I enjoyed reading a couple quotes from football players after the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Indianapolis Colts on January 15. (2006)

Colts kicker Mike Vanderiagt missed a field goal that would have tied the game with 21 seconds left. Vanderiagt commented, “I guess the Lord forgot about the football team.”

Just before that, Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis had fumbled the ball, almost costing his team the victory. His teammate Hines Wardsaid, “The Man above, He really looked down on Jerome and said, ‘I’m not going to let you end your career on a fumble like that’.”

So I guess football players know what God is thinking. Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, does also. At a Martin Luther King Day speech in New Orleans on January 16, 2006, Nagin said “This city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be.”

But Nagin and the jocks don’t hold a candle to televangelist Pat Robertson.

He thinks that God had a hand in the stroke that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon suffered recently. “He was dividing God’s land,” Robertson said of Sharon. “And I would say, Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the E.U., the United Nations, or the United States of’ America.”

Orlando, Florida, is in trouble from the Big Man too, Robertson feels. The city hosts an event called Gay Days, and that’s a no-no. “I would warn Orlando that you’re right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don’t think I’d be waving those flags in God’s face if I were you. This is not a message of hate—this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation, It’ll bring about terrorist bombs; it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.”

And then there are those chumps in Dover, Pennsylvania who had the gall to hold a democratic election to elect a school board that did not support teaching intelligent design in its science classrooms. Big mistake. “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city” Robertson said. “And don’t wonder why he hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because He might not be there.”

I’ll try my best to summarize God from all of these comments. He (not She) does not like homosexuals, Ariel Sharon, democratic school board elections, white people in New Orleans, or the Indianapolis Colts, And when He doesn’t like things, he reacts with crippling medical conditions, disasters, terrorist bombs, earthquakes, tornadoes, possibly meteors, and missed field goals.

I never knew God was such a racist Mean Cuss, or such a big football fan. But I’m still betting on the Steelers.