Memories, unlike fish, don’t get away ~ May 23, 1991

David Heiller

Jim’s voice carried over the tiny lake with the hushed urgency that only Jim could give it while watching a fellow fisherman fighting a lunker.

“It’s a big sucker,” he said. “Work him in easy.”

I had heard that voice a year before, when an eight-pound lake trout graced the net which Jim held. Now it was Dave’s turn, with Jim again at the net.

David and Paul entering the BWCAW bleacher.

Dave’s gold and orange spoon clung to the mouth of a beauty, all right. Even from our canoe bleacher seats 40 yards away, we could see Dave’s arm muscles strain, could hear Jim’s urging.

Dave brought him in once, but this northern wouldn’t hear of that, and peeled out another 20 yards of line. Dave worked him next to the canoe again, and Jim brought the net around the head, and halfway up the belly.

That’s when the fish had had enough. It flicked the spoon into the net, plunged back-ward into the air, then hit the water and in an instant, was gone.

We were all a bit shocked, I think, and for a split second there was silence on the lake. It had happened so quickly. Then Jim let some carefully chosen words fly, unrepeatable here, and aimed at himself. Good fishermen are their own worst critics.

It’s funny, but losing a northern like that has its place on any camping trip. It’s almost as good as catching one. Dave could marvel at its girth, at how it had attacked his spoon the second it hit the water, at how its teeth had chipped some of the orange paint away, at how it wouldn’t fit into the dog-gone net. He could even give it a weight: 12 pounds.

So much more than fishing.

Dave wasn’t angry. Our main goal in this five-day trip into canoe country has never been catching 12-pound northerns or eight-pound lake trout. Then you might feel frustrated and swear bitterly and remember angrily those near misses. You see guys like that, guys who pack in two pails of minnows and a seine and a live-box the size of a trunk, who fish morning, noon, and night. That’s fine I guess, but I think they are missing something.

Like our trip up into that chain of tiny lakes, just north of Insula, where Dave’s 12-pounder still resides. We carried, pushed and pulled our two canoes over logs and rocks from lake to lake, until we could go no further. Then we hiked on without the canoes. In thick brush next to the stream, we found morel mushrooms covering the ground, and picked till two hats were full.

We came to another lake, and wondered when anyone had last sat in the sun with their shoes off at its bank, eating gorp, or sprang on the muskeg, or saw that blue racer snake through the grass, or watched an osprey swing downstream, like we did.

We pulled in two smaller northerns from Dave’s Bay, then headed back. The sinking sun turned the lake golden. It caught two hooded mergansers as they watched us sweep around a corner; then they skipped into flight across our bow, churning the water, etching their maroon-and-white beauty into our minds.

Dave L, the camp cook, always kept the gang satisfied.

Back at the camp, Dave whipped up a pot of wild rice, and Jim sautéed the morels, and Paul took out his fillet knife, and I caught another two-pounder, and we ate the freshest fish supper ever, with trimmings no restaurant could match, no where, no how.

We recounted Dave’s fish fight a few more times over the campfire. The moon hung like a thumbnail in the west, flanked by Jupiter and Mars. The lake was quiet. No campfires, no man-made noise. We were full, content, and we carried another slice of memories to go with so many others, five years’ worth. Memories like a big piece of pie, the kind that melts in your mouth and makes you want one more hunk, one more crack at that 12-pound northern, one more bushwhack, one more loon call hanging over the dark water, one more plate of food as wild as this beautiful wilderness that keeps calling us back.

Yes, fish get away sometimes, but memories don’t. We’re lucky for that.

A little peace and quiet ~ July 24, 1997

David Heiller

That’s what we experienced last week. Peace and quiet. Our two kids were gone.

Mollie went to camp, and Noah went to visit a friend. So from Tuesday to Friday,

Malika was at camp.

we didn’t have the kids at home.

This has happened a few times in the last 14 years, but usually not for more than a day at a time. A four day stretch was a lot different. It took us back to the good old days, and maybe to some new days ahead.

When we came home from work on Tuesday, we could lie on the bed and read. We didn’t have to start making supper right away.

The house was quiet. The kids weren’t there to tell us about the blow-by-blow of their day, what Noah said to Mollie, what Mollie did back to Noah.

The house was clean, just like we left it in the morning. We could actually see our dining room table. It wasn’t piled with a basket of laundry and a couple books and a wrinkled newspaper.

The floor didn’t need sweeping, the living room didn’t need to be picked up. We didn’t have to ask Noah to put his shoes away, or Mollie to take her dirty clothes to the laundry room.

There were no basketball games to play, no softballs to toss, no chores to supervise. No arguing!

Hey, Dad, play some basketball with me?

No Sepultura. No Hanson. Those are music groups, in case you don’t have teenagers. They’re not my favorites, to put it politely. But my kids don’t like my music either.

On Wednesday we left work early and went to Duluth. We took our bikes along, and rode through the ritzy areas looking at mansions. We found a book store in someone’s house and browsed through used books. That was fun. One form of heaven for me would be a good used book store, and all the time in the world to spend there.

We ate supper at Taste of Saigon, bought candy at Hephzibah’s, and walked the board walk to the rose garden. Not once did we think about calling home to check on the kids.

A date is always nice!

We came home to a dark and quiet house. We were childless again.

We did think about the kids, Cindy more than me. We wondered especially about Mollie, how she was doing at camp. She never wrote, so we took that as a good sign, that she was having too much fun, or that she was too exhausted. Or both.

We enjoyed our time alone. It was a break. We were able to get a lot done. Not just work, but “quality time,” to use a phrase from the nineties.

Spouses need that, so they can become a couple again.

During their absence, I wondered what our life would be like without children. I kind of liked all that peace and quiet! A sense of freedom returned, that old feeling that I could go anywhere and do anything.

“Simplify, simplify,” Henry David Thoreau’s famous words, came to mind. The details of our life had simplified greatly without the kids: The big picture details that are a constant presence in the back of my mind, like how we’ll save enough money to send the kids to college. And the mundane ones, like how we’re going to get the kids to and from swimming lessons.

All together again!

Then it all changed, when a car door opened on Friday night and I heard Noah’s voice call out, “Hi Dad.” It was like a bolt traveled through the air between us, connecting us, triggered by his voice, by those two words, and I forgot about my new-found freedom.

On Saturday it happened again, when Mollie called me at work and asked if she could have Sarah spend the night. She was home, safe and sound! Wow, it was good to hear her voice.

It was good to give them hugs. It was good to have them back.

On the one hand, it would be nice not to have the worry and complications that our children bring. I’m envious of childless couples for that reason.

But on the other hand, I wouldn’t trade them for all the gold in Birch Creek township.

In search of the elusive, good used lawnmower ~ May 23, 1985

David Heiller

Buying a lawnmower is no small event in our family. The questions rage: “Should we buy new or used? Off-brand or name brand? Three horse or three-and-a-half horse? Twenty inch cut, or 22 inch cut?”

And of course the main question: “How much does it cost?”

My wife and I anguished over the issue for the past month. We knew the hand-me-down mower in the garage would not make another summer. Cindy wanted to go with a new mower. She figures we have a big lawn, and will probably always have a big lawn, so a new mower would be a wise investment. She also figures that if we still had the money spent on used mowers and repairs over the past three years, we could have a very good new mower.

I can’t argue that point. We’ve had four used mowers—three bought, one given—since 1981. Each of those mowers was serviced at least once during the summer. That’s between $150 and $200 in mowers, for three summers of sporadic cutting and abusive language.

But since I was in charge of researching the new purchase, I once again stuck my neck out and bought a used mower. I kept thinking, “One of these times, I’m going to get a gem, one that was used by a little old lady with a small lawn who only cut the grass on Sunday.”

The model I bought was an off-brand, didn’t even have a name. Its carriage was painted bright green, with a clean, white, three-and-a-half horse motor. It looked in good shape, and had been given the once-over by the dealer. The cost: $42.20, with a trade in.

When I bought home, my nearly two-year-old son crawled onto the engine, as if to ride it around. “Mo-mower, mo-mower, he said. He moved behind it, reached up for the handle, and tried to push it. It wouldn’t budge.

The lawn mower in residence with
the lawn mower of the moment.

Cindy was not quite as excited. “Oh, you bought a used mower,” she said. “I thought we had agreed to buy a new mower.”

“Did we?” I asked. My mind is able to block things out quite nicely when called to. “Oh yeah, you’re right. But this one looks so nice. I gave it a test cutting. And it’s been serviced. The guy even ground the valves for me.” I don’t know what the valve grinding entails, but it impressed me, so I tried it on Cindy. She returned to the kitchen, looking unimpressed.

The next night the “new” used mower had its debut, its first major league start. Halfway around the apple tree, after five minutes of mowing, something clanked and whizzed into the weeds. I stopped the mower. The air filter had blown off. All I could find was a twisted circle of tin. I picked it up: It was engine hot, and burned my fingers.

I glanced toward the house, feeling like Ron Davis after giving up one of those game-losing home runs. Here came the manager. Cindy approached the mower and me as I knelt by its side, trying not to look at the air filter hole.

“It doesn’t sound very good,” she said. “I wouldn’t write home about that mower if I were you.” She was showing great self-control, just like Billy Gardner must have in those ninth-inning disasters. The words “I told you so” were nearly bursting out from every pore.

“Let’s give it a chance,” I said in a compassionate voice. “I’m not even a quarter done.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, and turned back to the dugout.

I resumed cutting. The mower worked fine for the next half hour. Then it started stalling in the tall grass. Soon it was having trouble with the regular stuff, so that I was taking baby steps to let the blade keep up with the grass.

Finally, with only a 10 by 20 foot patch left, it quit altogether, and I knew it wouldn’t start again. I tried five or six times. Not even close to a spark.

I wheeled it into the garage, and parked it. It’s still sitting there, looking very clean and nice, waiting for one more shot at the lawn, one more shot at the big leagues. Then it’s either here to stay, or it’s back to the minors, and me with it.

On the moonlit waters of Lake Insula ~ May 26, 1988

David Heiller

The moon slid above the western horizon about a third of the way into the sky before Paul spotted it through the pine trees. He and we three other men turned from our seats around the campfire to peer at it, yellow and soft in the spring haze. It didn’t throw much light as it approached its first quarter stage last Friday, May 20.

“Let’s go out on the lake.” I threw out the suggestion to my three companions, much like we threw out bait from the big rocks in front of our campsite on Lake Insula in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, hoping for a fish but not worrying about it.

“I remember once when we canoed in with a full moon,” Paul Dwyer said. The Duluth man was a veteran of this neck of the North Country.

“You couldn’t portage though?” I asked.

Paul answered with a healthy expletive, one not too strong for the campfire, but a little heavy for a weekly newspaper. “It was beautiful. Everything looked like a negative image of a picture.”

“So who wants to go out?” I repeated.

“Yeah, I’ve been out in a full moon like that,” Dave Landwehr answered, crouching over the cast iron grill that had “U.S. Forest Service” molded on top. “It’s nice.”

The Sturgeon Lake man’s voice said it was nice indeed, but it added a tone that said a soft seat on a boat cushion by a fire was nicer still.

Jim in the BWCAW

“C’mon Jim, whatdaya say?” I said, turning to Jim Ryczek for my last hope.

The Wisconsin man looked at the fire. “I don’t know,” he hesitated.

“Go,” Paul and Dave said almost simultaneously.

“I guess that's not such a bad idea,” Jim agreed.

We walked past our two tents, down to the bank to Dave’s 15-foot Grumman. We grabbed our Misukanis canoe paddles. I crawled in first, walking easily down the middle while Jim steadied the bow. It was easy keeping balance with none of our 100 pounds of gear on board.

Jim put one foot in the boat and pushed off with the other, leaving the shore without much notice. In that instance, we were in another world, a world of dark water and shadows and pale stars and that yellow, banana-shaped moon. For the past two days we had seen blue skies and bluer water. We had seen an eagle nesting atop a white pine. We had startled two moose, a cow and a spike bull, off an island hide-away, and paddled respectfully after them as they stretched and swam across a channel to disappear into the brush. We had seen mergansers mating, and 10-pound northerns flopping on the end of our stringers.

But the moon seemed to pull us to the dark water, and quickly showed us another side of the Boundary Waters.

We paddled west at first, seeking as much faint light as we could. We circled around a small bay, off the main western body of Insula. A thick shadow lay at the edge of the water, where the jack pines met their reflection.

“Get a little closer to shore,” Jim said, pointing his paddle to the northern shore. Butterflies rose in my stomach as we steered toward the trees, looming ever larger until they seemed to grab at the moon with their tips and smother what little light we had.

“I can see,” Jim said. “We’re fine.” Did he sense my butterflies, or maybe have a few of his own.

The whole crew.

We paddled along the edge of the bank, perhaps 10 yards off, maybe 10 inches. The darkness was too thick for me. But we could hear the shore, hear the closeness of the paddles as they dug into water, and the water as it split the front of the canoe and dribbled off with a metallic sound.

We cleared the bay and paddled across lake toward two islands north of the campsite. We could see the campfire’s red glow now, and see the two men lying on their pads alongside it. The water split up ahead, and we caught a blur out of the corner of our eyes. Then came a heavy ker-PLUSH, as the fish returned to the dark water from a high jump. The sound was repeated to our right. Some powerful northerns were showing off for us, and as their bellies hit the water with that heavy ker-PLUSH, I could imagine they were even bigger than the 10-pounders that Jim had pulled in three hours earlier a short distance away.

We continued on, around another island, losing sight of our campfire. But the moon stayed with us, following us south as we talked softly and paddled on. We came into view of the campsite again. Is there anything so reassuring on a dark, silent lake? We put our paddles down and floated. A slight breeze, barely noticeable, pushed us south, rocking the canoe slightly.

Then a loon called from the southern part of Insula, perhaps half a mile or more away. The cry was two syllables, the second longer than the first. The sound carried across the lake and bounced off the shore and back at us softly, so that the echo was repeating even as the first call hung in the loon’s throat.

Another loon to the north answered with a higher-pitched series of cries, like a gull, only deeper and richer. The sounds layered the lake, with the echoes adding to the spell. Their calls are hard to describe. Maybe they have to be heard on such a night to understand why the loon is the unquestioned master and symbol of the Boundary Waters.

The moon had climbed higher, now nearly overhead. Jim and I both sat up in the canoe at the same time, and headed back to the glow of the campfire. We had been guests of the moon and the water, the loons and fish. And we felt very lucky indeed because we knew we had been given something more precious than a fortune, an experience and memory to take back with us as we left the moonlight and the Boundary Waters.

It’s a memory we look forward to reliving, and exploring in a new light, again.

A day to remember ~ May 29, 1986

David Heiller

Graves stretch up the hillside at the Catholic Cemetery in Cork Hollow. The cemetery, with its manicured lawn, is ringed by hardwood trees and cornfields. The dead are Irish here—Graff, Colleran, Sweeney, Corchoran, Quillen. They named this valley after their Irish county of Cork, left behind a hundred years and more ago.

The boy's grandfather.

Around the cemetery, near certain gravestones, small flags flutter in the breeze. American flags mark the veterans, some who died in combat, some of old age. Blue and gold flags mark the ladies from the auxiliary, who served the same cause at home, in a much different way. They sold food at Friday night bingo, or sent care packages to Vietnam. Some raised babies alone while they worked and waited for husbands and brothers, or fathers and sons, to come home.

Cars drove into the cemetery on this hazy spring morning. Men got out, opened their trunks to unfurl flags and take out rifles. They were dressed in khaki, remnants of World War II and Korea. A few of the men wore J. C. Penney. Forty years can cause you to outgrow World War II uniforms.

The women stayed behind the men, dressed in white blouses and blue slacks, not uniforms really but the closest thing to it. They wore VFW pins on their shirts.

The men lined up behind their flag bearers and their commander. The 20-odd spectators stepped to one side. The commander barked his orders. “Attention!” Backs straightened. Stomachs flattened as much as possible, which in some cases wasn’t much. Rifles bounced around from one arm to the other, coming to rest on the right shoulder, as the men came to attention.

“Forward, hunh!” The men moved ahead, left foot first. “Left, left, left-right-left,” the commander said. A few of the men were out of step as they turned to the left and circled to a flag-marked grave. “Company, halt.”

The father, once very young.

Four men with rifles stepped up to the grave, a Vietnam veteran killed in November, 1969. None of these veterans had served in Vietnam. They were remembering the dead from the war many people have tried to forget.

As the chaplain finished his words, a man in the crowd reached over to pick up his three-year-old son “There’s going to be a big noise now,” he whispered. The boy widened his eyes. His small hands cupped his ears. The father inched backward, as four rifles swung upward.

Boom! The guns flared with flame. An explosion echoed up the valley. The boy began to cry. The father moved farther away. Shell casings flew to the ground. Boom! The second report came. The boy cried louder. Heads turned their way. The soldiers kept their spread stance, as more casings clattered to the ground. Boom! The final report. Smoke drifted upward, met with silence, except for a child’s cry.

A bugle’s notes floated down from the hill, playing taps. The child quieted, tears on his cheeks. The father, holding his son, had tears in his eyes too. He remembered taps as a boy, after the explosions as gray haired men stood in khaki over the grave of his own father who had served in World War II and had died eight years later.

The boy around the time of his first 
Memorial Day Service. When he was 
older, he scrambled for the shells.

The bugle stopped. The men reassembled, and several boys crept up to the grave, seeking the brass shell casings ejected from the rifles. One boy was dressed in a Cub Scout uniform, wearing a camouflage hat of Vietnam style, with a gold medal on the front.

The men led the way to a woman’s grave. The prayers were repeated, without gunfire, by a lady in white blouse and blue slacks. Then all marched out through the gate, to the cars. The guns went back into the car trunks, flags were rolled up again. The little boy climbed into a car, next to his father.

A man came to the car window. He had long hair, thin on the top, and a headband. His clothing did not give away the fact that he had served in Vietnam. His son was the boy dressed in Cub Scout shirt and Vietnam hat, who had searched for shell casings. The man reached a hand through the window. His hand opened, showing a brass casing. “Here, this is for you,” he said with a smile.

The little boy’s eyes widened again. His small hand grabbed the shell and held tight. It was his first Memorial Day.

Full circle, for now ~ May 23, 2002

David Heiller

Noah’s car was in the shop for a repair so I drove him to school a couple weeks ago. We didn’t talk about much. Just small talk, about the Twins and the weather. There was plenty of silence too, the comfortable kind that fathers and sons have when they are getting along.

Noah's graduation, 2002 Full circle, for this chapter

I took a left off Highway 61 in Willow River down the familiar street, then left into the parking lot to the entrance of Willow River High School with barely a good bye.

A lot of kids were streaming in, running just ahead of the first bell like Noah, and he joined them.

As I watched him disappear, an emotion hit me that I wasn’t expecting. It’s hard to describe. I suddenly realized that a big end had come to one of Noah’s chapters, and to one of mine.

First day of school, 1989

It was sadness a little, although it’s hard to be sad when you son^’s whole adult life is still ahead of him and you. I thought, “The things that we did in that school as parents are about to end,” and that brought a crooked smile.

I can’t begin to recount the memories here, and I would be in big trouble if I tried, because Noah has declared war on newspaper columns that include him, and I respect that mostly.

But they ran the gamut from good to not so good... as you might expect if you recall your own school years. I know he learned a lot, because Cindy and I learned a lot, and not just from helping him with math and proof-reading his English reports.

Like my sister Mary Ellen told me when I went to college, “Don’t let school interfere with your education.” The lessons Noah learned will probably not be what the chief export of Egypt is.

And since we served as general consul to those lessons, Cindy and I learned too. Phil Minkkinen should hand out honorary law degrees to all the parents on Friday night that can be redeemed at health spas or taverns.

I feel happiness for Noah and his classmates. Finishing high school is a big deal, and he’s glad to be doing that, and excited about his next move. I can still taste the freedom I felt when high school ended for me. It was like a chain was lifted from my torso. Yet I was kind of sad to see it go. That freedom is something to savor, because it doesn’t last. Chains come back, and by our choosing. There are good chains.

The other thought that hit me at that moment two weeks ago was that I was getting old.

Where did the time go? Was it really 13 years ago that Noah was getting on Dave Nyrud’s bus for his first day in school? I can remember it like yesterday, remember that he was wearing shorts (against our advice) and carrying a red back pack with a dinosaur on it. I remember the pride and sadness at that moment too.

We’ve come full circle. Now a new one is about to start, and I’m excited for Noah and all his classmates. There will be more milestones in Noah’s life. I’m looking forward to them. But I’m going to enjoy this one on Friday night in the Tom Stine gymnasium.

There’s more than fish to a fishing trip ~ May 21, 1992

David Heiller

We might even catch some fish. Last week’s column ended on that spurt of optimism, and it came true, except for Dave.

Dave Landwehr waiting for a lunker...
or a snag.

There comes a time every year, when we go canoeing up north, that Dave does his “Pretend I’ve Got A Lunker” trick. That’s when his lure gets snagged on a stick or rock, and instead of carefully working it off, he strains and jerks and bends the tip of his rod like he’s Babe Winkleman bringing in an eight pound lake trout.

That’s what he was doing on Saturday afternoon, when Paul and I paddled up. There he sat, making faces, groaning against the rod, snagged solid. It was kind of funny. We smiled like you smile at an old story that you’ve heard a few times.

Then suddenly Dave crashed back into his seat, and held up his rod and started swearing. The top section had broken clean in two. Now THAT was funny. We smiled, we laughed, we roared. It was an Oscar-winning performance, unfortunately better than even Dave had expected.

I figure that Dave tempted the fates one too many times, like the boy that cried fish. He never did catch one. But at least he can brag about the one that got away: it was so big that it broke his rod.

The rest of us did catch some fish, nothing to brag about, but enough for supper every night except the first night, when Dave made spaghetti with ground venison sauce which was so good we forgot about fish anyway.

The other three nights we sat around the camp fire full of boiled lake trout, wild rice, noodles, and potatoes. That’s a fine way to end a day in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

You can’t ask for any more than that, but you get it anyway. You always catch more than fish in the Boundary Waters.

Like when Dave and Paul saw a ruffed grouse drumming as they took trips to the biffy one morning. Or an otter in Cherokee Creek on Sunday, coming out. Or naps, sweet, long naps in the sun, no phones ringing, no power saws buzzing, not even any mosquitoes buzzing.

A beautiful morning

Or on the granite slab in front of our campsite before sunrise on Friday morning, reading Sigurd Olson and listening to the birds of the north, their songs fresh and new and wild like the lakes and islands of the boundary waters.

The lake was dark and silent, save for a rim of rose at the shoreline. The island 200 yards out front emerged from the gloom, the pine tree branches a lacey black. A loon called and another, far down the lake, answered hoarsely.

The clear sky changed as morning mists rolled in. The air became clammy and thick. The sun inched above the distant shoreline, then glowed like a spotlight above the trees, and the fog melted and crept away. That was my cue to make a fire for coffee. What a way to start a morning.

Old-timers scoff at such romantic descriptions. They remind me that this country was logged at the turn of the century. It wasn’t so pretty then. They mention the mercury in the lake trout, the USDA caution to eat no more than one fish a month. The water isn’t so pure after all. They shake their heads at how much poorer the fishing is now than it used to be in the good old days. “Before schmucks like you discovered it,” they almost say.

Let them say it. There’s enough room for everybody, as long as we treat the land and water with the respect it has coming.

A Gift in the Moonlight

Jim and I paddled into the moonlight on Friday night. First we hugged the shoreline. Patches of moss glowed eerily in the darkness. Tree roots loomed like misshapen monsters.

Jim and David on a daytime paddle.

We moved into the middle of the lake, and the moon instantly cleared the tree line and shone clear and bright. It brightened our spirits too, made us grin and talk. Talk can’t describe how bright and pretty a full moon on a quiet lake can be.

We paddled around a dark island, then came out to a shimmering path of moonlight that lead like a yellow brick road back to camp. Two loons swam through it, silhouetted for an instant against a glittering ribbon of yellow wonder. It was a vision worth a thousand words, a gift no money could buy. Even old-timers would have enjoyed it.

We followed the moon down a narrow channel, toward our camp. A beaver splashed on our left. The voices of Dave and Paul guided us home, their campfire an orange dot on the dark shore. What a beautiful, age-old sight.

Welcome home

I could go on and on, but anyone who has been to the Boundary Waters can rekindle their own memories. In fact, I feel a little foolish for this sixth annual gushing about our trip.

But one more gush: When we got to Dave’s on Sunday evening, his son Matt stood waiting by the mailbox. As we approached, he stuck his hand out like he was hitch-hiking. His eyes gleamed above a grin a mile wide. It was a look saved for only Dad, gone five whole days, from a 10-year-old boy. It’s not a look you see every day, and not a look you easily forget. A look of pure love and affection. If it’s aimed at you, you’re the luckiest person in the world. I know I am.

That’s another thing you get from a trip up north, maybe the best thing of all. It’s enough to make you forget about whether or not you catch a fish, or even break your rod.

The clouds had a silver lining ~ May 27, 1999

David Heiller

The blackflies swarmed over us when we stopped for lunch at the portage going into Ima Lake. They were bad on the paths before that, but at Ima they hit like a blizzard of giant gnats. They were so thick we could barely breathe.

We choked down bologna and cheese sandwiches—seasoned with blackflies—and quickly pushed off toward to Thomas Lake.

We had been traveling for five hours, and had four more to go. Dave paddled alone in his 17—foot Grumman, using a double-bladed paddle that he bought for the occasion. Jim and I had Jim’s Old Town Penobscot.

Dave solo, and in the rain.

Dave had quickly figured out the nuances of paddling solo. He looked like he was doing a martial arts exercise with the paddle, moving it fluidly back and forth, back and forth, wax on, wax off, into the water. He skimmed across the water faster than Jim and I could paddle, although Jim and I weren’t paddling very hard, except when we were trying to evade blackflies.

The only drawback for Dave was that his legs and boots got soaked from water dripping off the paddle with every stroke. And every time he hoisted the canoe over his head at a portage, water came dribbling out the back, upsetting the balance on his shoulders and upsetting anyone who might be in the path of his personal waterfall.

We reached a campsite on the east side of Thomas at 6 p.m. We were bushed. Sixteen miles is a heck of a day for us. But it’s amazing how a beautiful campsite in the middle of canoe country can lift your spirits. It’s like the feeling you get when you arrive home after a long trip. You might be dead tired, but when you step out of the car, you feel instantly better. We were home.

We threw out fishing lines and set up Jim’s big tent. Jim and I went looking for firewood in the woods behind camp while Dave got supper ready. About 100 yards in, I heard some heavy, crunching noises. There stood a moose looking at me, no more than 30 yards away.

I called to Jim. He was as dumbstruck as me, that we were so close, and that it didn’t run away. We both watched the moose for about 15 minutes. It seemed less concerned about us than it did about eating its supper of twigs and leaves. It didn’t have a calf, and it wasn’t the biggest moose we’ve seen up north, although its bony head still towered over ours.

Jim and I started walking toward it slowly. We got to within 15 yards before it turned and trotted away in giant strides.

Dave and Jim

“That made the trip worthwhile right there,” Jim said. “I don’t care what else happens.” That summed up my feelings.

As we were getting ready to eat a supper of spaghetti, something took my cisco, and after a 10 minute battle, complete with Jim’s play-by-play of how to keep the rod tip up and don’t give it any slack, I pulled in a 23-inch, four-pound walleye, the biggest one I had ever caught.

It wasn’t hard falling asleep that night, especially after the rain started. A moose, a lunker, and rain on the tent. Heaven. Is there a more blissful sound than rain falling on a tent? And Jim’s tent was waterproof! That isn’t always the case with my tents.

A silver lining: no bugs

The weather turned rainy and windy for most of the next four days. It hurt the fishing a bit, and dampened our urge to go exploring. But the rain clouds turned out to have a silver lining, because blackflies don’t like overcast days, according to Jim, who knows things like that.

Jim and David:
 Hey it's raining, but there are no blackflies!

It seemed to be true, because the only time the blackflies were bad enough to bring out the netting was Friday evening when the sun came out. Jim and I put head nets on then. Dave didn’t have one, so he made supper with his rain jacket on and his hood pulled up around his face like a nun. It was kind of funny, especially since the weather was the nicest we had the entire trip, no wind and the sunlight golden. All you could see was half his face, and he wasn’t smiling. But I didn’t say anything. Critters can go wild when pestered by blackflies.

A fish took my cisco about that time, and after another fight complete with Jim’s unnecessary advice, I hauled in a 32-inch, 10-pound northern pike. We had caught more fish than we could eat by then, so I let him swim away.

The happy campers in the rare sunshine on this trip.

We packed up on Saturday and went half-way out in order to shorten our last day. We camped at a trout lake, which had such clear water and steep terrain that it was like being in the Alps.

Jim sat under a jackpine on Sunday morning watching his bobber in the water. The lake was like glass, dimpled with a light rain. Mist rose off the surface. A loon took off in front of us, churning the lake to froth for about 50 yards before becoming airborne. Jim talked about what a beautiful spot it was, and how much the boundary waters meant to him. I had been thinking the same thing. He always beats me to those sentiments.

As if in thanks, about 10 seconds later Jim’s bobber went down and he pulled in a 16-inch brook trout. We ate it with one that Dave caught for a final, delicious breakfast.

The rain and wind picked up as we headed out, and on Snowbank Lake we were suddenly faced with waves two feet high. They took us by surprise. We had to turn into the wind or risk getting swamped. Jim and I plowed through the whitecaps head on, getting sprayed and working harder than we had all trip.

Dave, alone in his canoe, had the same idea, and he worked even harder. The front end of his canoe was too light. It slapped up and down on the big waves, which seemed to come in twos and threes. He didn’t have anyone up front to dig into the waves. He took in water, which went to the back of the canoe, making matters worse. But he kept going, stroke after stroke, and he reached the lee side of a big island just after we did. He’s the toughest paddler you’ll ever see.

We rested for the first time in half an hour and talked about the rough haul. It was one last test for us, and like the blackflies and the rain, we passed. Then we paddled on, under the protection of the island and mainland for the rest of the way, back to the parking lot and home.

Long live the clock radio ~ May 11, 2005

 David Heiller

The clock radio by our bed has survived 25 years of marriage, and our marriage has survived 25 years of that radio. I don^’t know which is the greater miracle.

Cindy has always had control of the radio.

That’s part of the deal. Note that I didn’t say that’s part of the problem; 25 years of marriage has taught me a few things.

1976 The year David and I met,
and the year I bought the clock radio.

She sets the alarm, which these days comes on at 5:23 a.m. When we want to turn on the radio, that’s Cindy^’s job, and when it’s time to shut off the radio, she does that too.

You see, that little Panasonic radio with the “simulated wood cabinet” is not as simple as it looks. From left to right are nine buttons: doze, sleep, time set (fast and slow), alarm set, selector (which itself has three options, off, radio, and buzzer), manual off-on, volume, and band.

So this morning, Sunday, May 8, when I reached over Cindy to turn off the radio, the conversation went something like this:

“Don’t touch that radio!”

“What?”

“Every time you touch that radio you screw something up!”

“What do you mean? It’s just a radio.”

“You always mess it up, and you know it.”

“I was just going to shut it off.”

“You don’t know how to shut it off.”

I paused just long enough that it proved her point. “Well, you just, I mean, there’s this switch.”

But she had me in her sights. I was history. The truth was my hand was going to travel from left to right, from doze all the way to band, and by the time I was done groping, we’d be listening to Vance Mitchell^’s favorite radio station, good old 1490 AM, at about 110 decibels.

So I let Cindy reach over, and with one simple digit, faster than the eye could see, she had that radio off. Wow.

That was that, until the subject came up a couple hours later in the car. I was fiddling with the fan and heat controls, using the same dexterity that I use on the radio. Cindy reached over and flipped a knob to the right setting, and somehow the conversation was back to that darned radio. The ensuing conversation went something like this:

“I can’t believe you don’t know how to shut off the radio.”

Silence.

“I bought that radio in college.”

Silence.

“We’ve had that radio our entire marriage.” Pause. “25 years.” Cindy is proud of those 25 years, and I am too.

I knew I had to say something. “OK, how DO you shut off the radio?” I guess I’ve been waiting to ask that question for about 25 years.

“You push the doze button.”

Oh. That made sense. “Then how do you turn it on?”

“You push the sleep button”

Now I remembered why I had never learned how to operate the radio. It didn’t make sense to my logical, Mars-type thinking.

At our 25th Anniversary dance.

Cindy went on to explain the reason why the radio works that way, and I remembered it as we passed Hurleys, and kind of had it in my mind by the time we hit Grabhorns. But at the top of the ridge, when the wind hit the car, I had blessedly forgotten everything Cindy said. That’s not always a bad thing, as 25 years of marriage can prove in many intricate ways.

My goal is to have this conversation with Cindy again in 2030, just in time for our Golden Anniversary.