Some good advice from Dwight ~ April 15, 1999

David Heiller

He was brutally honest. He wasn’t trying to make friends. Good teachers are like that, and Dwight Diller is a good teacher.

I would like to pass on a few of the things I learned from him last weekend.

Not so much about the banjo, although that’s what he was trying to teach 15 of us in St. Paul. His words, seen from a different angle, could apply to many aspects of life.

Dwight plays a clawhammer style of banjo that he learned growing up in West Virginia. I don’t want to condense his story too much, lest I misrepresent him. But it was pretty obvious that he draws strength from this very specific music from his home, and like most of us, Dwight’s home is where his heart is.

Not Virginia, or Kentucky, or North Carolina. He doesn’t play that music, even if you or I couldn’t tell the difference.

It’s not that he dislikes it. He’s not a musical racist. He has played it in the past. He is famil­iar with it. But he won’t play it anymore,

He sticks to songs from his region of West Vir­ginia. He learned many of them from a family that took him in at a dark time in his life, when he was a young adult. This family reached him with their music.

Dwight’s music is a very important part of who he is. I couldn’t help but envy that.

David playing his banjo on our deck.
We finally got to move to the River that he loved so well.

Ask yourself this: What do you have that tie you to a certain geographical area? Family, you might say, and that is very important, probably more than anything else. The land itself might draw you. I feel a kinship to the Mississippi River and the hills where I grew up that will never go away.

But things like music—and dancing, which goes along with it—are not something that con­nects many of us modern-day folks to a commu­nity, to a certain region, or to our past. Cars, television, jobs have taken it away from many of us. We’ve let that happen, which isn’t exactly a compliment.

My hunch is that Dwight could see that de­tachment heading his way. He stopped it with music. Now he not only is clinging to his music as a way to keep his roots and culture, he is teaching it to others, and trying to get them to do the same thing.

You wouldn’t call Dwight’s banjo playing fancy. He’ll never be confused with Earl Scruggs. Some of his songs aren’t pretty. He doesn’t want them to be. But they are honest and played from his heart. That’s what he does want.

He said that over and over last weekend. Play from your heart. Play honest music. Find the music that speaks to you, and play it. Play ­the music you are compelled to play, the music you keep going back to. Tell your own story.

But listen to the old people.

Don’t try to learn a lot of songs. If you only know a few songs, that’s fine. But learn them well.

Stick to one kind of music. Don’t do a buffet. You won’t regret it. Find your music, and learn to play it well.      

Play slowly. If you can’t play a song slowly, you certainly won’t be able to play it fast. Don, get caught up with speed.    

Be proud of what you do. Once you cross a line, don’t ever go back. Don’t let people put you down.

Those were some of Dwight’s words of wisdom. He got a bit preachy at times. He hammered it home. But he made his point, not only with his words but with his music. He taught us one song, called Shaking Down the Acorns, that conveyed more sadness than words could express. I felt it as I played the banjo and he played the fiddle.

Dwight taught me a lot, and not just about banjo technique. He reminded me about the many levels that music contains.

Dwight Diller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUkO4nv81fk

There’s the beauty of certain notes played together in a certain way, and the feelings that these can bring out. There’s the culture and the land that gave birth to the music. And there are the memories of the people who lived, and live in that culture and land. People like Dwight Diller.

‘I’ve got some bad news, Dave’ ~ April 3, 1997

David Heiller

I’ve got a friend from back home. I’ll call him Carl here. I’ve known him since eighth grade, when we shook hands over the line of scrimmage at football practice.

We became best friends in high school, and we kept that friendship through college, through the Peace Corps, and through my married life these past 17 years. He was best man at my wedding.

Carl struggled through one long relationship that didn’t work out. Then he met a woman that seemed right. They were happy together. They got married seven years ago, adopted a child, and bought two farms.

When Cindy and I would go to Brownsville to visit my mother, we would try to see them. They seemed like a happy family. You never know from a distance.

I called my friend last week to see if we could get together over Easter. We were going to Brownsville to see my mother.

The first words my friend spoke when he answered the phone stopped me short. “I’ve got some bad news, Dave. Mary and I are getting a divorce.”

For the next 20 minutes he told me what had happened. Infidelity. Mistrust. Differences of opinion on childrearing. Unforgiveness. Hardness of heart. Those are the broad terms that define what happened.

Carl narrowed down the problems when Cindy and I saw him in Brownsville on Saturday. We walked up a hill south of town, cut through hay fields, admired the broad river valley. Spotted a big tom turkey.

I needed to have the ground under my feet to hear Carl’s story. I needed to be moving, to hell me sort out the twists and turns that led to the end of Carl and Mary’s married life together.

It’s too complicated and inappropriate to sort out in this column. But I can say that all the dreams they shared have come apart. They had to sell both their farms. In the next couple months will come the worst part, the battle over custody of their son.

I feel profoundly sad for my friend. He is starting over, at age 43, both financially and emotionally.

Cindy and I have talked about Carl and Mary a lot. All our talk isn’t going to heal their lives. But it does help us see things in our own marriage that we could do better, and things that we have done right. We’ve steered through some of the sharp curves that threw our friends off the married way.

We are counting our blessings. It sounds crass but Carl’s divorce is making our relationship stronger. That’s the only silver lining I see.

It has reminded me of several things: The importance of working out small problems before they become bigger. The importance of being able to express yourself, the importance of listening, the importance of compromise and forgiveness.

These are lofty goals. They don’t work for everyone. But they work for us, if we work on them.

Divorce is everywhere. Two of my seven siblings have experienced it, and more are on the horizon.

No matter what slant you put on it, divorce is a sad occasion. The potential for a happy life together is lost, and the time together has essentially been wasted, except for the lessons learned, and they are hard lessons indeed.

Mama Bear and her family ~ April 8, 1993

David Heiller

My friend Deane discovered a mother black bear and her three cubs three weeks ago. He had been walking along his creek on Sunday afternoon, March 22, and came within one stride of stepping on a big black hole in the snow.

He stopped and peered in for a closer look. He could make out a mother bear and what looked like three cubs.

I visited the bear family the next Saturday, along with our two kids and some other friends. We tromped through knee-deep snow, and had to leap over a narrow stretch of fast water. The extra work added to the adventure of seeing a bear den.

Her den was just a little depression in the grass under a fallen tree. There wasn’t much protection, once the snow melted. One cub, about the size of a terrier, had crawled on top of her and was bleating like a lamb. We could hear other muffled cries, somewhere under the mother, which is maybe why they were crying. It was bear talk for “Move, Mom, you’re killing me!”We stood and watched from about 15 feet. The mother knew we were there, she would lift her head and peer at us groggily once in a while, but mostly she just sat and shivered and tried to go back to sleep.

I stepped on the ice of the creek, which was about 10 feet wide, for some pictures. The ice was six inches thick, but honeycombed and not very safe for a 220 pound man. But you don’t see a hibernating bear every day, so I took the risk. I wasn’t worried about myself: the water was only about five feet deep. But I did not want my $300 camera to get dunked.

Sure enough, the ice broke away from the bank and started moving downstream. I tossed my camera to a friend on the bank, just as the ice broke into two pieces. I jumped to the larger floe, then onto the bank. Everybody cheered. I felt like Jim Brandenberg.

The following Tuesday, the creek rose to the bear’s den, and the mother had moved about 10 feet up the bank. The next day, Deane saw the three cubs up a tree. He did not see the mother, and didn’t stick around to see where she was.

That was the last we’ve seen of this bear family. Discovering the hibernating bear family was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, made all the more special because it was shared with some good friends and our two kids. Maybe we’ll see them again. (Hopefully not by my beehives.)

Some bear facts from an expert

I called Curt Rossow DNR conservation officer from Willow River, on April 4 for some bear facts. He was very informative, as always.

It isn’t unusual for the sow to have three cubs, although two is more common. These cubs will stay with her for two years. They’ll get chased off when she comes into heat and attracts a male suitor.

“That’s usually when they get into trouble, that first year when they’re away from mama,” Curt said.

They were probably born in January. “The reason I know is that we had a logger disturb a den west of Moose Lake a few years ago,” Curt said. “The mother had left and the cubs were really cold. We thought they were dead but we put them on the dash of the truck and put on the defroster.”

The three cubs revived. They took them to the home of John Hummel, a conservation officer from Moose Lake and put them in his warm oven.

“By George if they didn’t come around,” Curt said. “Then we did take them back and put them in the den. The mother came back and got them. She accepted them.” The first thing she did was move them to a new location.

Right now the bears will eat dried grasses. They’ll be looking for green things too. If they find a dead animal, they’ll eat it. They may also kill a fawn or small animal. They also like ants and bees.

Pine County has a healthy bear population. “They really have no natural predators other than man,” Curt said, although large males have been known to kill cubs. We have an ideal habitat for bears: good farming country with lots of berries, hazel nuts, and acorns.

Their range is expanding, Curt said. He is on a statewide committee along with other wildlife researchers and game wardens that estimates bear population, and how many should be harvested. Minnesota’s bear quota will be increased by more than 700 in quota zones during this  fall’s hunting season.

“They’re doing it cautiously. They don’t want to wipe them out in the quota area,” Curt said.

[Editor’s note: The information in David’s original article was obviously dated. I call the current DNR Conservation Officer, Dustie Heaton for more update information.]

Pine County currently has both no-quota and quota zones. If you are in a no-quota zone anyone that wants to hunt bears here can buy a license and do so during season.

If a bear is causing damage, it may be destroyed by the landowner. Dustie would appreciate phone call first if it’s not an emergency. They like to try deterrents first. If you do shoot a nuisance bear you have 24 hours to report it. Dustie’s phone number is (218) 485-4851.

Dustie sells the carcass so that the meat and hide can be salvaged. They don’t like to see any go to waste.

If you are a beekeeper, or have a bear creating other nuisance, call Dave Johnson, area Wildlife Manager located in Sandstone, Minnesota at (320) 245-678 for assistance.