So long, old woodstove friend ~ June 17, 1999

David Heiller

The woodstove is gone. A neighbor bought it. We moved it onto his trailer last Friday, and it was no easy task.

I had grown attached to the woodstove. On the one hand, it was about as inanimate an object as you could find, steel and brick, and as solid as a tiny Gibraltar. There’s nothing colder than a cold stove.

On the other hand, when that stove was full of oak on a winter night, it was as good a friend as you could ask for. It was the center of our household universe, and it didn’t have to beg for attention.

Malika showing her great strength hauling 
wood for the stove. Noah got stuck
 hauling far more wood than she did,
 but that is the subject for a different column.

Our first dog would lie with her head under the stove. She would get so hot that we thought she might burst into flames. We called her the heat sponge.

My wife, Cindy, wasn’t quite that desperate for heat, but on cold days she would sit as close to the woodstove as humanly possible. Sometimes after her morning shower, she would stand with her back to the stove and steam would rise off her robe like she was on fire.

When company would come in the winter, often someone would comment about how good it felt to stand next to heat of the woodstove. “There’s nothing like a woodstove,” they say. It seemed to bring back a lot of childhood memo­ries, pleasant ones.

We told stories in front of it, lying on the floor and watching the coals shift and glow. Having a fire to focus on is an important ingredient in a good tall tale.

A kettle of water always sat on top, to fill the air with moisture. A whirligig sat there too, made by Red Hansen, He made it from a piece of aluminum and a piece of wire. When the stove top reached a certain temperature, the alumi­num would start to spin.

Sometimes the stove would get too hot. When company came in the winter, I had the bad habit of throwing a piece of wood on at the last minute. It would kick in at about the time we sat down for dinner. The person who sat closest to the stove would slowly turn red and break into a sweat and start shedding clothing. It was pretty fun to watch.

David would open the wood of the woodstove, sit on 
the floor with Collin, and tell stories.
 The woodstove a necessary part of the equation.

I asked a neighbor and friend, Tim Peebles, if he wanted to buy the woodstove. He had often admired its heat, and wished he had one in his house. Yes, he wanted to buy it. We agreed on a price, and he came over on Friday to take it home.

I’m proud to say that the two of us moved it alone. When I first tried to lift it, it wouldn’t budge. It seemed to be attached to the floor. Maybe it didn’t want to leave. It must have weighed 400 pounds. It was unbelievably heavy.

We slid two 2x4 pieces of lumber, eight feet long, under it, and lifted it like we were carrying a stretcher, although when we were done, I felt like I needed a stretcher. Even Tim, who used to play football for a college team in Ohio, had to strain a little. Amidst great groans, we moved it in short hops out of the house. Once it tipped a little, and for a second I thought it would fall and crash through the floor and end up in the basement. But we caught it in time.

To replace the woodstove, we are buying a gas stove. It will sit in the same spot, and will look like a woodstove. I’m glad we have made the change. It will be cleaner and safer, and will require less labor from me. I’ve written about that labor a time or two in this column, how much I loved it, and that’s true enough. But the one thing I don’t have enough of is time, and making 10 cords of firewood a year took a lot of time. It seemed to consume all my free time in the fall. I came to that realization about six months ago, at almost the same time that Cindy did, and we both agreed that it was time to make the switch.

I won’t miss some part of heating with wood, like the dust and dirt and ashes and grit, or the chore of cleaning the chimney. Our son, Noah, will definitely not miss bringing in firewood every day. At least he won’t miss it for a while. I used to have to remind him to fill it properly, to actu­ally fill it and not make a little clubhouse inside it. I predict some day he will look back on that chore with fondness.

I’m glad we have sold the stove to a friend who lives just down the road. He^’s going to get a knock on his door some day this winter, when it’s real cold, and I’m going to walk up to the old woodstove and stretch out my hands and say, “There’s nothing like a woodstove.”

Masked-marauders invade state park! ~ June 21, 1990

David Heiller

News reports I would like to see...

HINCKLEY (AP)—An unknown number of masked robbers broke into the personal belongings of two families at a campground east of Hinckley last week.

The unidentified assailants damaged property at St. Croix State Park, made personal threats, and carted off a quantity of food on Wednesday, June 13, before the campers could stop them.

Joey and Nora Shields and Noah and Malika Heiller: before the invasion.

The campers then withstood several more attacks by the group during a long and sleepless night.

No one was hurt, although two seven-year-old boys were visibly shaken when they had to abandon their pup tent to sleep with one set of parents.

Camper Cindy Heiller also had one attacker come at her for a short distance after she attempted to chase it away in the late afternoon.

The incident came after the Shields and Heiller families returned from a bicycle trip in the park. While the men were playing baseball with their children, three invaders approached the women and a 15-month-old baby.

They laughed at first. Then Cindy tried to chase one away, running at it half-bent, shaking her arms and yelling in a gutteral voice.

The invader bent over, shook its head, and ran right back TOWARD Cindy, who quickly lost her bravado and retreated to a picnic table.

The invader then started climbing into the trunk of a car to investigate its contents. The men returned at that time, and armed themselves with rocks to protect their family and property.

Both were heard to remark that they wished they were NRA members, or at least had brought along a small caliber pistol to take justice into their own hands.

Cindy also reported that the robbers destroyed a large Tupperware container full of chocolate chip bars which she had baked for the trip. She said they had passed up two bags of tortilla chips and marshmallows to get to the bars, which they also sampled and ate.

“At least they liked the bars,” her husband, David, said. Cindy had no comment to that remark.

The rest of the evening passed without incident. As darkness fell, the families tucked their two sons into an old pup tent for their first night of camping without adults by their side. David checked the latch on their cooler. It was shut tight. The campfire died down, and the nine people settled into their tents and sleeping bags.

The silence was broken when Carolyn Shields called out from her tent across the campsite, “Dave, is that you?”

Dave, who was reading by candlelight in the Heiller tent, wondered what she was talking about. “Yes, this is me,” he said.

Kevin Shield’s voice then broke the silence in a stream of yells that can’t be repeated here. A tent zipped open, pots crashed and sticks and rocks flew. Kevin ran from his tent in his underwear. His flashlight spotted one invader sauntering off with a roll of braunschweiger over his shoulder. Another one had a package of Hershey bars already opened and half-eaten. The thieves had removed these items from Heillers’ cooler. The braunschweiger and most of the Hershey bars were recovered.

After Kevin yelled and chased after them, they both dropped their goods, perhaps startled as much by Kevin’s attire as his words. But they made no attempt to run away. One continued eating a Hershey bar. Kevin’s flashlight revealed at least three invaders at the edge of the campsites.

“They sounded so methodical,” Carolyn said. “I thought it was Dave grabbing a midnight snack.”

Shields and Heiller packed everything edible into their cars and returned to their tents. But that didn’t bring peace and quiet. The invaders came again. Garbage can lids banged. Kevin started swearing and yelling again. The raccoons started snarling and fighting between themselves, apparently over a half-eaten candy bar. The kids started crying. David Heiller started laughing.

David had to rescue the two oldest boys from their pup tent, while the Shields’ middle daughter returned to Mommy and Daddy’s side.

After another 10 minutes, things quieted down in the campsite. Then, from the next campsite 20 yards away, a tent unzipped, gar­bage can lids clanged, and a stream of obscenities similar to Kevin’s could be heard in the night.

The next morning, the bleary-eyed campers discovered that no one was missing, and most of their food and property was intact. They even managed a smile.

They described the thieves as about two feet tall, with small hands capable of picking locks; wearing masks and scraggly fur coats, and having bushy tails with dark rings on them.

An investigation is pending.

Counting down to birthday number three ~ June 16, 1988

David Heiller

There are few words more frightening in the human tongue than the voice of a two-year-old from the bathroom late at night saying, “I need someone to clean up my mess.”

So Cindy and I sat up in unison when we heard Malika call out from the bathroom at 10 o’clock Sunday night: “I need someone to clean up my mess.”

Earlier on that hot day we celebrated
Noah and Malika's birthdays.

We were sitting in the kitchen playing “Rummikub” with Cindy’s mother when the words came. We didn’t expect them, because any upstairs creaking had been muffled by a large fan that hummed by the table. We hadn’t checked on Malika or Noah for half an hour.

The last time, it was black magic marker on her wall, doll, and pillow. The time before that, it was green felt-tipped pen on her legs. As Cindy and I looked at each other, we both wondered, “What color is it this time?”

After a couple minutes of debate, I stood up from the kitchen table to see what Mollie’s mess was this time. When I opened the bathroom door, I thought I was seeing things. Mollie was sitting on the potty, staring wide-eyed at me. She seemed to be wearing a pair of orange nylons. Her legs were orange, solid orange, from her ankles up to mid-thigh. It took just a split second to register—Malika doesn’t have orange nylons. Cindy doesn’t have orange nylons. No one has orange nylons.

Malika was covered with orange paint. “I’m a mess, Dad,” she said. It was the understatement of the year, even for her.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Malika had left a trail of orange paint from the potty to the rug in front of the sink, where she had stood for some time with a once-green washcloth, trying to get rid of the evidence.

The rug, once beige, was now mostly orange. We followed the trail upstairs into her bedroom, over the once-pink rug, onto the bedspread and her blanket, now both streaked with orange, onto the wall next to her bed. The wall had been marked with green and black strokes, but now the orange drowned them into insignificance. We’re talking Picasso here.

The crime, as we could easily piece together, had started with a bottle of Tempera paint on top of the filing cabinet in her room. She had scaled the dresser, using the handles as footholds. Once the paint was opened, she got more than she bargained for on her pajamas. She tried wiping it off, using the bedspread, then the wall. She thought about the bathroom and a wet washcloth, and succeeded only in painting her legs. Jackie Johnson could not have done a more professional job, nor John Clark. She finally realized it was no use, so climbed on the potty and called for help.

David and Malika. She always had a good time,
 or she'd manufacture it.

It took three adults one full hour to clean up the mess. I was assigned to Malika. She stood sobbing on the kitchen counter, looking like a sad Halloween character. I washed her several times in the sink, while Cindy scrubbed the bathroom and Lorely worked on the upstairs. When I was done with Mollie, we sat her on a chair in the middle of the kitchen.

“I don’t like you,” she said in defiance to the spanking and scolding. “I’m angry at you. I’m angry at Momma. I like Noah.”

“Noah’s upset with you, too,” I countered.

“I’m angry at Noah,” Mollie continued. “I want to go to Bobby Jo’s!” Bobby Jo is her best friend from the day care. Then Mollie hung her head on her chest and sat in silence.

We finally had the mess cleaned up enough so that Mollie could go back upstairs. Her mattress was soaked with paint and water, so she slept on the box spring in a sleeping bag. She didn’t say a word as I laid her down. At five minutes after 11, we sat back down at the table. “That’s what you get for raising such an independent daughter,” Lorely said with a shake of her head and a smile. “Another kid that age would have called for help. Mollie didn’t think she needed help. She thought she’d clean up the mess herself.”

I think that this little girl is 
plotting some fun/mischief.

And it could have been worse, Lorely went on: Yes, the Tempra paint permanently stained an expensive rug and bedspread. But it could have been worse. She might have drunk it instead of spilled it.

I’ll second that opinion. As I looked at Malika standing in the kitchen sink, covered with orange paint and crying, I didn’t know whether to be angry, or to laugh. Maybe I was feeling what Lorely had just expressed.

Anyway, I’ve written about Malika before. In fact, this is my third “Terrible Twos” column on her. It had better be the last, because she will be three years old this Saturday, and that gives Mollie just three days to destroy the world as we know it. Hold your breath.

A new world for Adam ~ July 1, 1993

David Heiller

We wanted to show Adam the world, or at least our world. Adam is my sister’s 11-year-old son. He’s from a suburb of Dallas, Texas. He recently stayed with us for 12 days. My sister wanted him to get out of the city and see a different way of life. We wanted him to get to know our son Noah better, since they’re only a year apart in age.

It was a dangerous proposition in a way. We only get three TV channels—no cable. Noah’s closest friend lives four miles away, not four blocks. Everything that you find in a city is glaringly absent in Birch Creek Township. No parks, no pools, no malls. I was a little worried that Adam might be impatient with our way of life.

Adam

I shouldn’t have worried. He said more thank yous than I could count, even to people like Palmer Dahl who sharpened Adam’s tomahawk. “You paid for it,” Palmer said in a surprised voice. He wasn’t used to a polite kid either, but Adam meant it.

I knew the rest was working out on Adam’s third night. He and Noah and I were taking a sauna, and Adam said out of the blue, “If I was at home, I would have watched about 14 hours of TV today.”

Instead, we had gone to the Northwest Company Fur Post in Pine City. Our family had never been there, but because of Adam, we went. At the post, a voyageur had taken us back in time. The kids watched him throw a tomahawk into a log, and that took care of any urge to watch TV.

When we got home, I gave them an old steel hatchet, and they spent hours throwing it against a slab of white oak. Later in the week, they went to a store and bought their own tomahawks, and Palmer Dahl put a fine edge on them, thank you.

The fur post got them talking about building a wigwam, like the one there. They didn’t do it, because they didn’t have time.

I had worried that they would have too much time, but I forgot how kids can fill time. I also forgot how much our area and rural lifestyle have to offer.

They shot Noah’s bow and arrow. Adam hit a rabbit, but it got away. They biked over to Noah’s friend’s house four miles away.

They spent an afternoon helping clean the calf barn and milking cows at our babysitter’s farm. Adam was amazed at how the cow manure was taken away through a grate in the floor. He described the size of the cows udders, spreading his arms like he was holding a 20 pound northern.

Noah, David, and Adam and
one of their favorite activities.

You won’t find that in Dallas.

Adam helped me weed the garden and didn’t complain. I showed him how to chop and split a log with an ax. He liked that. Why couldn’t he have come in the fall, when I have 12 cords of firewood to make?

We went to a pow-wow in Hinckley. He and Noah bought dancing sticks, and joined the Indian dancers in an intertribal dance. Cindy and I watched them until we finally got in and danced too.

This past Sunday, they spent all afternoon hiking at Banning State Park. Adam described how he climbed up some “kettles” or vertical holes in the sandstone rock. Cindy told me later, “He was definitely at risk a few times,” which translated into, “I’m glad he didn’t fall.” In other words, he was being 11.

When Adam returned, he asked me if we could go canoeing. Normally after a trip like that, on a Sunday night, I would say no. But I wanted Adam to go canoeing, if he wanted to, so after supper we went to Fox Lake and paddled for two hours. We told stories and sang and watched a mother loon holler at us as she kept her eye on the baby swimming by her side.

In the canoe, I told Adam about trips to the boundary waters; how you can drink the water. I wished we could have done that. It was on our agenda.

And that night, I looked up into the clear night sky, which is something we haven’t seen much this summer with all the rain, and I wanted Adam to see some northern lights.

Maybe next year.

The next time some old timer tells you that kids don’t know how to play anymore, tell me and I’ll give them Adam’s address. He’ll set them straight.

We did show Adam a slice of our world. Adam liked it, and that reminded me about how lucky we are to live where we live.

Our house is going to be empty without him. And that will remind me of how lucky I am to have a nephew like Adam.

A quirky vacation of turtles and blackflies ~June 23, 1994

By David Heiller

The black flies struck with fury when we arrived at Kawishiwi Lodge. They swarmed over me as I fished for sunnies in the shallow water in front of our dock. They bit rings around Cindy’s legs, so that she looked like she was wearing red anklets. They chewed a circle of bites around my daughter’s stomach, where her T-shirt ended. My son’s neck had at least 150 bites.

Ah, what a vacation.

None of us knew what a black fly was before last week. We don’t have black flies here. We have gnats. They swarm around your head when you’re playing softball. You swing and cuss at them.

Don’t cuss at them. Thank them for not inviting their big cousins, the black flies.

Black flies are like giant gnats, with machetes. They land and stab. Their bites make big red welts. They itch, and stain your shirt with blood.

They are worse than mosquitoes, because there is no repellant to keep them off. Nothing. We can put a man on the moon but we can’t make a spray to keep off black flies.

This is a picture from 
the newspaper of David 
in his blackfly-proof hat.
 You really can't see the netting, 
but trust me, it kept us sane, 
mostly, on this vacation.

We finally resorted to buying the goofy netting that you see in the photo. At first we felt silly wearing it. But if it’s netting or not fishing, I’ll take looking like a nerd any day.

Not that it helped our fishing much. I had spent so much time telling the kids how good the fishing was at Kawishiwi Lodge that I jinxed us. Noah sensed it right away, and bet me a dollar that we wouldn’t catch a northern over two pounds.

He won, but not without a close call. On Thursday, I fastened a small perch that had swallowed the hook onto my line. Something grabbed it and took off. I set the hook, and felt the biggest fish of my life on the other end. Bigger than that eight pound lake trout. Bigger than that 10 pound carp.

I finally brought it up to the dock and picked up the net with my left hand. I expected to see the northern of my dream.

But with a shock I saw something else: a huge snapping turtle.

It weighed 15 pounds, maybe more. I didn’t get too close with my DeLiar scale. It’s head was the size of my fist, and the jaws on that head took a snap at me.

Noah was awed by what the bear did
in the previous evening.

I wish I could say our vacation had perfect weather and lots of  fish, but it didn’t. Cindy and I wanted our nephew from Texas to catch a big northern so badly. We said we would pay $10 a pound for him to catch one, but we never had to pay. One lousy rock bass and small northern were all he brought in.

But in between the black flies and the snapping turtles, the rain and the diarrhea, we had fun. We paddled dozens of miles. We saw beavers and loons. We explored bays and creeks. We toured the wolf center and talked about the Root Beer Lady.

A bear tried to get into our cabin one night. It busted the screen door, then ran off when I turned on the porch light.

We stayed up late, ate meals at all hours. And there’s something about sleeping in a cabin on a lake in a thunderstorm that’s mighty peaceful and cozy.

A quirky vacation. Aren’t they all?

And man, that snapping turtle. Biggest one I ever caught. My nephew fried it up. It tasted just like chicken. Better than northern any day. Yeah, right Dad.

***~~***~~***~~***~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***

(The next week this letter appeared in the Askov American)

 Editor erred with game fish bait

Editor, Askov American:

In spite of your patronizing of law enforcement officials (see headline Sheriff 1, Train 0; editorial “3 Cheers, for Don”; article titled “Faulkner to seek second term” et al.) I’m afraid you may have run slightly afoul of the law if we can believe your column in the issue of June 23, 1994. You mention attempting to catch a northern by fastening a small perch to your line. I’m sure you must have known, being the piscatorial challenged nimrod you are, that it is illegal to catch or attempt to catch a game fish using “whole or parts of game fish, goldfish or carp for bait”. Since perch is classified as a legal game fish (the daily limit is only 100) I’m afraid you have admitted your guilt in front of the 3,800 people who subscribe to the AMERICAN.

Your only hope is that of the 3,800, none is a certified peace officer.

GLENN H. HEILLER Woodland, MN

EDITOR’S NOTE: My column last week was supposed to say “birch,” not “perch.” It was a typographical error. I fastened a small piece of birch to my line, and a turtle took it. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

David Heiller

Keep the gas tank filled – the baby’s on it’s way ~ June 27, 1985

David Heiller

1:12 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: The light is on over the bed. Cindy is sitting bent over slightly at the edge. Her face is tight. She’s looking at her watch.

“Five minutes apart, 45 seconds long,” she says in a breathless way. “The contractions.”

“Huh?” I mumble, feeling very cozy under the blankets of this cool dark morning.

“Let’s go, Dave,” she says. “I think this is it.” Suddenly, very suddenly, I’m awake.

4:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve just dropped Noah off with a friend in Rutledge. So far, so good, with our Plan. Suitcase is packed, dog and cat fed. We even had time for a quick sauna before leaving. We are on our way to the hospital in Duluth.

Cindy spies the gas gauge. Less than a quarter of a tank. “Do I have to take care of everything?” she asks.

“This is the first time in two weeks I didn’t get gas,” I say in a weak voice. So much for that part of the Plan. “Why, just today, I pulled into the Deep Rock, but I didn’t have any checks with me. Besides, you’re a week early, you know.”

Somehow, blaming Mother Nature is a watery excuse, and Cindy doesn’t bother to answer it.

4:45 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’re just picked up a friend in Moose Lake. Diane was with us for Noah’s birth, and will be labor assistant again. She sits in the back seat, rubbing Cindy’s shoulders and talking softly. Diane gave birth to all six of her children at home. Plus she’s helped quite a few others into the world. Her presence calms my butterflies somewhat. Still, as we approach the Carlton exit on 1-35, my stomach feels like Cindy’s. A combination of two cups of tea, a glass of orange juice, and a near-empty tank, all having their effect.

I pull over at a truck stop, fill the tank, and go to the bathroom. Suddenly things seem much better, for me at least.

8:15 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve been here for three hours. Contractions are down to three minutes apart, lasting a minute and a half Cindy is dilated to six centimeters. The doctor comes in for the first time. He’s been out of town all weekend, and a nurse finally got hold of him. Cindy’s face lights up when she sees him. It’s a look I haven’t seen before, the look of a woman about to try a natural birth, after a Caesarean Section, looking at the doctor she has trusted to help her.

“You’re processing well,” he says. “The baby is still posterior. It’s still got some rotating to do, but it’s moving down nicely into the birth canal. It looks good.”

The doctor gives Cindy’s hand a squeeze and heads for the door. “I’m going to make my rounds now, and go to my office across the street.” He looks at me, reads my eyes. “I won’t be more than three minutes away. Don’t worry.”

9:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: Cindy is lying on the delivery table, trying not to push. We’ve been waiting for the doctor for 15 minutes. Cindy is dilated 10 centimeters and can hardly hold back as the contractions sweep over her. The intercom is calling for the doctor at a steady interval. A nurse calls his office. Nobody says anything. We hardly look at one another. I glance at Diane as we knead Cindy’s back. “Where is he?” my look says. “We’ve got lots of time,” her look answers.

10:23 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve been pushing for 40 minutes. I say “we.” Any husband who has sat by his wife’s side at a birth knows what I mean. Cindy’s arms and legs feel like ironwood when she pushes. Deep breath, face contorts into a grimace. Knuckles turn white at her side, feet and legs strain against the stirrups.

The doctor checks Cindy again. No progress. The baby is about two inches from crowning, and not coming any further. The doctor can see its head. He shows me. “Oh, it’s a girl, she’s got brown hair,” I say. A few short laughs.

But there is no humor in the room. The baby, he or she, is stuck. It happened two years ago too, only that time there were forceps and an ambulance, and just enough doubts to make us try again.

‘I’ll let you push for another half hour, but to be quite honest, I don’t think it’ll go,” the doctor says. Cindy is exhausted. The pain is almost too much, since she has held off from any pain killer. “It’s your decision.”

I look at Cindy. “It’s your decision, Cindy,” I say. “No, it’s our decision,” she answers.

“That’s right,” the doctor says, looking at me. I’ve seen enough pain for a year in the last hour. “Let’s get it over with,” I tell Cindy.

She nods a reply.

11:58 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: I pet Cindy’s hair, sitting by her head in the operating room. A sheet separates Cindy’s head and me from the rest of her body. It could be a mile away for Cindy too. She can’t feel a thing from the chest down. Her eyes are clear of pain for the first time all morning, as she smiles at me.

Our nurse catches my eye, and lifts her chin with a come-here, motion. “You ready for this?” she asks. “Stand up.”

Malika Lynette, June, 1985.

And there it is, not it—he or she, this purple tiny baby thing that gets rushed to the warming table in the corner. A tiny voice cracks, a single cry that could split a log of oak. The newest, most anxious and pleading and happy-to-be-here sound, that has made moms and dads cry since memory itself.

“You’ve got a little girl,” the doctor says.

“A little girl, we’ve got a little girl,” Cindy and I both say as our cheeks touch, our tears touch. For a handful of seconds, time has stopped. And a new life has begun.

Birthdays get old for Mom and Dad ~ June 19, 1986

 David Heiller

Birthdays come but once a year. But if you have two kids six days apart, then throw in a grandmother and a friend or two, birthdays seem unending.

Our son, Noah, celebrated his third birthday June 12. But his friend, Joey, was born two weeks earlier. When Joey had his birthday party and Noah attended, he was included in the celebration.

Noah and Joey on Joey's third birthday.

“Joe’s three now?” he asked on the ride home, his stomach full of cake and ice cream.

“Yes, he’s three,” I answered.

“I’m three too?”

“No, not yet. You’re almost three.”

Then one week before Noah’s birthday, we went to Minneapolis to his grandmother’s house. She held a birthday party for her son, but made it a combo effort since Noah’s was only a week later and our daughter, Malika, was born a week after that. It gets complicated. But Noah filled upon cake and ice cream, sang happy birthday, blew out candles, opened presents, and asked once again: “Am I three now?”

“No, not yet, you’re almost three.”

The suspense was building, and with it mixed emotions about the big three. Noah had the habit of drinking a bottle of water now and then throughout the day, and at bed time. He knew that once he turned three, the bottles would have to go. We had been drilling him on that for about two months.

Noah woke up crying on his birthday—his real one—June 12. He crawled into our bed saying, “It’s not my birthday. I’m two.”

“You don’t want to have your birthday today?” Cindy asked.

“No, it’s not my birthday.”

“You don’t want to give up your bottle?”

“No, it’s not my birthday. I’m not three.”

Noah thought it over. Two hours later, he asked,

“Am I three?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not two anymore?”

“No, you’re three.”

“No more bottles.”

“Right,” Cindy answered, pulling her trump card. “Do you want to throw them away?”

“Yes.”

So Noah threw all his bottles into the waste basket in the kitchen. Cindy transferred them into the garbage bag. Noah went back to retrieve them shortly. He looked shocked to see the empty bag. Then he cried, screamed, and whined for two hours. But he hasn’t asked for them since. We are out about $10 in bottles, but the price is worth it.

Noah's birthday party at our house,
with Joe in attendance.

The authentic birthday party—his third one in the past two weeks—went well, with more cake and ice cream, and more presents. Then friend Joey had to come up on Sunday to help him celebrate, so another cake marked the honor, more ice cream, more presents. This time the cake said “Noah and Mollie.” NO way were we going to have another party on June 18 for our daughter. Then we’d have to include Noah and that would be his fifth party. He would overdose on sweets, and our check book would overdose on presents.

One thing is for sure though: Noah knows he is three. At first he asked, “Where two go?” but not anymore. I’m a little worried though. He came downstairs the other morning and announced, “I’m almost four, daddy.”

Not for another year, thankfully.

Between a rock and a hard place ~ June 27, 1990

David Heiller

The Kettle River showed off for us two Sundays ago, mixing beauty and power like a rose in full bloom and a Juggernaut on a winning streak.

Between County Roads 46 and 52 in northern Pine County, the river sprinkles a set of rapids every quarter mile or so. Not dangerous rapids, not Blueberry Slide or Dragon’s Tooth or those other killers at Banning State Park. Up north 20 miles, the rapids laugh WITH you, not AT you, gurgling and foaming, flexing their muscles a wee bit, letting you bump over hidden rocks just fast enough to make butterflies rise up in stomachs, just fast enough to make the kids duck their heads and close their eyes as the water bubbles by.

Our Aussie Shep., Kenzie, was David's canoe 
partner for several years. After this trip, it was quite
 a while before the kids got into a canoe 
on the Kettle River with their father.

“I’ve got to admit you made a good choice,” Cindy said as we hit a quiet stretch of water. She had asked me what I wanted to do for Father’s Day. This was my answer: borrow a canoe and paddle a few miles down the Kettle. Someday we are going to make a Boundary Waters trip. I keep telling that to my family, and to myself. Maybe that will help it come true. Maybe this was our trial run.

We scraped a few rocks here and there. One time I had to step out and push us along after we hung up on a boulder just under the surface. No one else crowded us. We had a cooler full of snacks, a beach basket full of swimming suits and towels, and of course my old transistor radio to keep tabs on the Twins, who were winning their 15th straight. It was perfect canoeing, mid-70s, sunny, a lush green-blue June day.

We came around a sharp bend, and Cindy pointed out a boulder in the channel on our left. Then she pointed out a jackpine which had tipped over on the right. It lay half-submerged, taking up a third of the 100-foot-wide channel.

The good news is we missed the boulder. But as I swung us sharply around it, the current swept us broadside into the jackpine. Then everything happened so quickly. With the water pushing us into the tree and branches scratching grabbing at us, the canoe tipped on its edge, and water rushed over the left side, sinking us down, pushing us through the limbs, kids screaming, Cindy and I hollering.

The next thing we knew, we were standing waist deep in cold, fast water, Cindy holding onto Mollie with one arm and a tree branch with the other, me holding onto Noah with one arm and my canoe paddle in the other.

(It’s a Vince Musukanis handmade paddle, with four years of memories on its blade. I had instinctively grabbed it, right after Noah.)

We stood for a brief time in mid-stream, not knowing what to say or do. We were safe. That’s all that mattered. I hauled Noah to a rocky beach on the far shore to our left, made a second trip for Malika, then finally helped Cindy, who was barefoot and wearing a denim skirt that acted like a giant anchor.

We all hugged each other. Mollie quit crying. The kids had life jackets on, but they could have been swept downstream too fast for us to catch them in time. We had been lucky.

We took stock of what we’d lost: Cindy’s and Noah’s shoes, Cindy’s paddle, our red cooler, which we had seen bobbing downstream when we tipped, and the beach basket. I guess we didn’t need the swimming suits after all. “This trip is going to cost us a couple hundred dollars,” Cindy said grimly.

“I lost my radio!” I added with a moan. My radio. It’s funny how I’d gotten attached to that old leather-cased transistor. It had been a “gift” from Deane Hillbrand, who was taking it to the dump when I rescued it. That radio had gone with me through the 1987 World Series and a last place in 1990, and hundreds of games in between. And it had gone with me till the bottom of the tenth inning on June 16, 1991 in Cleveland, with a two-run lead and one man on, and the Twins with 14 straight wins. Now it was gone. At least it died in the line of duty.

“I wonder if the Twins won?” Noah asked. We all laughed. Our priorities were straight. It was time to proceed.

I un-snagged the canoe, which was lodged under the jackpine, then managed to tip the water out and tow it back to our point. The picnic basket of swimming stuff had wedged under a seat, so that was saved. It was a good omen too. As we continued on, we found one of Cindy’s shoes, her paddle, and finally the red cooler. The river had claimed three shoes, and a radio forever suspended in extra innings.

The rest of the trip went fine. Not even a close call, just a few more sets of rapids and the same perfect day. By the time we made it to the bridge at County Road 52, we were almost dry.

It’s funny how a mini-disaster can define an adventure, or MAKE an adventure where none had been. It would have been a great trip without capsizing, but that blunder somehow made it more memorable. We laugh about it now. We wonder whether Noah’s shoes are listening to the Twins game. The kids say we saved their lives, which we don’t deny. That may come in handy sometime, never mind that it was us who almost killed them.

Rivers have a way of teaching these gentle lessons, like how to have fun, and how to steer between a rock and a hard place.

A creepy-crawly-slimey tale ~ June 14, 1990

David Heiller

I’ll never forget the day.

Jake, a friend of our son’s, came to visit and with a certain gleam in his eye, dumped a bag full of plastic dead flies on the kitchen floor.

I stared in disbelief. I mean, my jaw dropped. We have approximately 1,493 REAL dead flies on our bedroom window sill upstairs on any given morning, and Jake brings in a pile of fake ones!?!

Noah and Jake with a wooden lizard; 
one of many in a play menagerie

“Why dead plastic flies?” you may ask. I puzzled over that for quite some time too. Until Jake brought along his plastic tarantula.

Hold on. This is no ordinary plastic tarantula. Not like the weak pretenders of my youth. Those were brittle, cheap pieces of Japanese junk.

Jake’s tarantula is supple and subtle. Delicate and deadly. Black, with a hint of orange around the eyes, and white rings on the leg joints and the fangs. The kind of spider that crawls toward sleeping women in late-night jungle movie moonlight. It looks real. Like it could eat those plastic dead flies, and a few live ones, and a few 36-year-old men thrown in for dessert.

You see, Jake’s tarantula isn’t life-size. It’s more the size of Kent Hrbek’s baseball glove.

It also squeaks when you step on it, which I have done a few times in the middle of the night, with me making approximately the same sound as the spider.

Noah fell in love with Jake’s tarantula as only a six-year-old kid can fall in love with a tarantula. Star-crossed spiders. He would borrow it on every occasion. Jake would extort great collateral for it. Huge piles of dinosaurs. A fleet of Tonka toys that would shame some city maintenance crews. Anything for that tarantula.

So we shouldn’t have been surprised. We should have prepared ourselves. Noah celebrated his seventh birthday last Saturday with three friends, including Jake the Snake, and Jake had that Dead Fly gleam in his eye as he handed Noah the package, and Noah ripped it open and got that Dead Fly gleam in his eye and held up his very own giant tarantula.

“Look, Noah, it’s just like mine,” Jake said, reaching into a paper bag and pulling out his famous tarantula. I recognized it right away. And sure enough, Jake had found a first cousin. Noah’s had an orange back, red eyes, and a bit of green on the back. The hairs on the torso were longer, softer. Otherwise they might have come from the same batch of eggs.

Noah loved all manner of creatures, 
real and pretend, modern era and prehistoric. 
Here he is with a pterodactyl that Grandma 
Olson gave him for one of those birthdays. 

They also played with other gifts, including a black snake, coiled and ready to strike, and a set of 24 plastic bugs ranging from a Gigantic Ship Scorpion and Great Diving Beetle to a Death’s Head Hawk Moth and a Sheep Tick. Yes, we now have a plastic tick in our house to go along with the 1,493 REAL ticks that live in our front lawn.

It’s Jake’s fault.

Cindy called it “The Creepy-Crawly-Slimey Birthday.” An understatement.

After the kids had all returned to their homes, Noah discovered that Jake had forgotten his tarantula. He showed both spiders to me Monday night, lying in his bed in the moonlight. He pointed out their differences in a matter of fact voice. Like a scientist. Then he looked at me and smiled. What did he see in my eyes? Certainly not abject fear. No way.

I kissed Noah good night and brought the two tarantulas downstairs, to study them. I set them on my computer and watched them.

Just sat. And studied. And watched. And waited.

Did one of them just move?