Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

by David Heiller The call of the bittern almost shook the windows in the house last Friday morning. I stepped onto the deck and looked toward the pond. I couldn’t see anything, so I went back inside and grabbed the binoculars. When the call came again, I was able to zero in on a bird standing on the south side of the pond. He blended in perfectly with the dried grass all around him, two feet tall and very stout. American bittern. I’m saying it was a “he” because I think he was calling for a mate. It was one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen. The call started in his midsection, as if he was gasping for air. Then he puffed out his feathers and stretched out his neck like he was about to throw up. His chest bulged up like a hot air balloon. Then out came this big, wet, hollow call. Glug-Ga-GLUG, Glug-Ga-GLUG, Glug-Ga-GLUG, Glug-Ga-GLUG. It sounded like Paul Bunyan using a plunger in an echo chamber. The nickname of the bird, “slough pumper,” comes from that uniq...

David Heiller Our canoe trip got underway with a thud last week. The goal was to get from Snowbank Lake to Ima Lake, which is only six miles. But one thing stood in our way from Snowbank to Parent Lake: ice. The ice was an issue. It was pack ice, rubbery sheets of it. Some the size of a table, some the size of a football field. Some thick and white, some black and broken, all sloshing together like ice in a glass. We launched our canoes amidst it, and travelled a total of about 15 feet. We thought we could slip through the ice, but the leads closed up. We tried to blast through the rotten stuff like an Alumacraft icebreaker, but it was too thick for that. A whack with the paddle wouldn’t break it either. The last thing we wanted was to get wedged in an ice jam. So we had to turn around, take out our packs, and carry the canoes 50 yards through the woods to open water. As we approached the portage to Parent Lake, we saw that it was surrounded by half a mile more of the...

by David Heiller When I was a high school student, my dream was to be a beat writer covering the Minnesota Twins. I covered high school sports in Caledonia to prove that I could be another Dave Mona or Sid Hartman, two of my heroes. One time when I wrote a baseball column for the “Smoke Signal”, a grocer in town came up to me and shook my hand. “It’s just like something Don Riley from the St. Paul paper would write,” he said with a laugh. Don Riley became my new hero. I’ve never forgotten that compliment. But after writing sports at the University of Minnesota, I ran into one too many muscle-bound egos, and gave up my dream of beat writer for the Minnesota Twins. I ended up as beat writer for the Askov American. But last Friday night, the old dream came back for a couple hours when the Twins gave me a press pass to cover the Minnesota-Cleveland game. I usually do this once a year, and come up with a column on how not to interview people like Kent Hrbek or Frank Viola (the ego...

David Heiller I knew that if I asked, the water tower crew would say yes, and that would mean I would actually have to follow through on my request and climb the darn thing. It’s a love-hate relationship, me and heights. I’m not acrophobic, but I do get nervous when I’m high. (No wisecracks, please.) At first I wanted to climb the old Askov tower, and get a shot of the guys working on the new tower. A bird’s eye view. I asked the foreman, Jerry Burgess, what he thought. He told me in a thick southern accent that he wouldn’t climb the old tower, no way. I thought he was joking, or testing me in some way. These guys aren’t acrophobic. But he was serious, This picture of the Askov water tower is courtesy of  Keith J. Semmelink.  Thank you, Mr. Semmelink! It’s old, he explained. Some of the rungs on the ladder could be rusted. But I was welcome to climb the new tower, he said. He would even clip my camera bag on a rope and bring it up for me. Great, I ...