Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller Monday evening at 6 p.m.: I had just finished taking my first break between a busy day and an even crazier night, and some summer sausage and a cold rainbow trout have saved my sanity. It had been a hectic day. Piles of ads to write, people to call, stories to edit. I wasn’t half done, and started steeling myself for an All-Nighter on Tuesday. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s working all night. It used to be an adventure, like during the Askov fire. Hot news. Murders. Sex. (My imagination works overtime too during an All-Nighter.) But not anymore. There’s about as much adventure in your normal Askov American as there is at a canasta party. I knew it would be this way. I had taken a three-day weekend to Brownsville to visit my mother. And now I was paying for it. David's mother, Fern, and David Once during the day I even told Cindy that we shouldn’t have gone to Brownsville. “But we went to see your mother, David,” she answered, and I felt like a heel...

David Heiller The flashers on the front of a deputy’s car made my stomach sink. I was zipping to work, my mind already plotting out the day, when I met the Houston County squad car on the curve below the Robert Snodgrass home on County Road 3. A hilly road, some curves, and a  lovely day. A perfect day to speed, or get caught at it... But for many, including David, a warning does suffice. A quick glance at my speedometer confirmed my midsection’s queasiness. Let’s just say I wasn’t going 55, “Please please please,” I said to myself as I slowed down and kept going. I scanned my rear view mirror for the next mile into town, expect ing to see bright lights blinking in my rear view mirror, but that didn’t happen. The deputy had made his point with the electronic fireworks display from the front of his car. I had slowed down. I had been warned, and I really appreciated that that was all I received. It came in handy the next morning too. There I was, at the ope...

David Heiller WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, we used to talk about the “generation gap” a lot. The generation gap was some sort of chasm that separated kids from adults, ranging from different values to different styles of clothing. Noah opens the cabinet door  to begin  his selections for the  mornings' radio station. If your father didn’t like the length of your hair and told you so, this was the generation gap. If you believed in free speech to the point of certain four letter words, and your mother disagreed with a bar of soap in hand, you were victims of the generation gap. If you protested the war in Vietnam and your neighbor fought there, the generation gap was taking its toll. I never put much stock in the so-called generation gap. I always thought it was just a phrase, an easy way to express something that is very complex. It was a cliché, because it was used too much. But now the generation gap is back on my mind, in the form of my 11-month-ol...