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.

Never look a gift tiller in the Tines ~ Spring 2000?

by David Heiller

The Hillbrand Boys came over last week with a tiller in the back of their truck.

I had been going to borrow Steve’s tiller, after I had first weeded the garden by hand. I like to weed first, then till. I use a Mantis mini-tiller, which is so light that it’s more like vacuuming the garden than tilling it.

I don’t like to till in weeds. I like clean dirt. I pull weeds out by the wheelbarrow-full almost every day at this time of year, then I till, and for at least a week, there isn’t a weed in sight.

But Steve said he needed the tiller and couldn’t let me borrow it, so it was now or never with the tiller. He was already unloading the tiller as he said this.

David tilling our new garden spot
 after we moved to the Denham area.

That put me in a dilemma. I wasn’t ready for the tiller, but how do you turn down a free till? Steve had tilling on his mind—I could see it in his eyes—so I said OK.

He backed the tiller out of a wooden box that his brother, Deane, had built on the back of his old Ford F-250. He eased it down two stout planks. It was like unloading a bull, and the tiller wasn’t a whole lot smaller than a bull.

We walked over the garden area that needed tilling. It was full of weeds—plantain, dandelions, thistles, and quack grass, to name a few. Steve suggested that we pull the quack grass, because that will spread when it is tilled up. We did our best, but pulling weeds isn’t easy when a tiller is pawing the ground nearby. Steve soon had the engine running, and pulling any more weeds at that point would have been dangerous to my banjo playing future.

“Are you sure it’s OK to till all this in?” I asked Deane. He has a degree in horticulture from the University of Minnesota.

“Should be fine,” he answered. That was what I needed to hear.

I turned to Steve for verification, but the gleam in his eye had turned into a wildfire, and I knew he would say anything just for the chance to till my garden.

And so the tilling commenced. Steve started out left, then went up the side. He turned to the right and gave it gas. He cut to the right, and swung the big beast around with the skill of a surgeon, He plowed down the middle, sinking up to his ankles in the black dirt. He whirled and twirled that tiller like a stout high school sweet-heart at the 1969 Paynseville prom.

“Got any more to till?” he asked when he had finished, and I could see I’d better find some more garden to till or there would be trouble.

So I pointed out another patch, and Steve tore through that patch with the same skill as an Indy 500 racer, chewing through sod and quack and a few small trees like a glacier in overdrive.

Oh, the joys of the harvest are more
 fun than making new beds. 
Noah and Cindy with broccoli joy.

Finally he was done, spent. He kneeled by the side of his tiller and tenderly cleaned the tines, getting ready for the next patch of ground that might be available for a free till.

Steve wrestled the tiller into its wooden cage and strapped it down securely. I thanked them, and I meant it. Then the Hillbrand Boys drove off into the sunset in search of fresh gardens.

Now the waiting has begun. I’m working in that Hillbrand soil, planting in it, scraping away the roots and leaves and seeds and stems and wondering if I will have the greatest garden in Birch Creek township, or the greatest patch of weeds.

Time will tell.

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.

We’ll try for some nice, nice fish ~ May 16, 1996

David Heiller

There’s something about planning a fishing trip on a Sunday afternoon that can’t be beat. Notice that I didn’t say Sunday morning, Hilma.

Actually, I did jot a few things down on the back of the communion card during the sermon. Cook set. Minnow bucket. My mind couldn’t help but stray to the canoe trip.

This year will be the tenth straight for Dave and Jim and me. Paul missed one for the first time last year, but he’s back into the fold.

A little ice on the lake.

We’re heading up to the ice-bound Ely area to find some fins, if we can find some open water. Lakes are still covered with ice from the Winter That Wouldn’t Quit.

Our trip follows the same pattern every year. At first I have thoughts about how I shouldn’t go, how I should stay home and get the garden in and the screens on and the lawnmowers tuned up and the soffits painted and the rain gutter fixed and on and on and on.

But something always kicks in about a week before we’re supposed to go, and I push those essential jobs onto the non-essential list in my head, and get excited.

The something is fishing.

No one in our group is a die-hard fisherman. We don’t take along coolers and live traps. We don’t carry big tackle boxes that spread out like suburbia when you open them. One year I even forgot my rod and reel. Last year only Dave caught any fish, and just one at that, a small lake trout.

But that’s our excuse for going. We call it a fishing trip. And deep down inside we do dream, if I may speak for the others, of catching a lunker. A big fish. Ten pound walleye. Twenty pound northern.

The bait-du-jour

That’s what I was thinking when I looked at my Slug-Gos on Sunday. A Slug-Go is a big fat rubber slug with a hook in the middle. I have two of them, purchased from Gateway Amoco in Moose Lake. I had read an article in the Duluth News Tribune by a guy who had taken a fishing trip into Canada. The only thing that had caught any fish was a Slug-Go. He caught a lunker with it, a big northern like you see hanging on the wall at Stanton Lumber.

So I bought three, although I have never caught anything with one. “Maybe this year the Slug-Go will deliver,” I thought as I carefully laid them in my Tupperware tackle box.

I read the sales pitch on the back of the Slug-Go card: “Meet Slug-Go... the unique, soft stick bait with the erratic, out of control action that instigates savage strikes and aggressive behavior from all predators...”

How can that NOT catch fish?

I went through the rest of the tackle, sorting hooks and sinkers, admiring lures, making a mental note to buy some leaders and swivels and big hooks for the Slug-Go.

Jim and a northern and, 
it is snowing...

Then Sunday night at 10:30, I watched Butch Furtman’s fishing show on Channel 10. I don’t watch it often. Just this time of year. We’re usually sound asleep by then.

Cindy rolled over and groaned when she heard the show on. She can’t stand the way they talk when they land a fish. It’s so bad, you just have to laugh, which we did. They say the same thing with every fish, which by the way is usually at least two pounds.

“Nice strike.”

“Ooh, nice fish.”

“Solid.”

“Nice, nice fish.”

“Full bodied.”

“Nice girth.”

“Nice color.”

“Solid.”

“Nice, nice fish.”

Just once I’d like to hear them say, “Lousy fish. Skinny. Weak. Faded color. Lousy fish.”

If one of us catches a walleye on our trip, it sounds more like this:

“I got one on.”

“Nice one?”

“I don’t know.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lose it. We’re running low on instant potatoes.”

“Get the net.”

“Hold your rod tip up, she’ll snap your line.”

“Shut up, I know how to—darn it. Lost her. !!@#$%&*+!!”

“Was it a big one?”

“Yeah, Nice fish, Nice, nice fish.”

We’ll see, next week.

Some young thoughts on Mother’s Day ~ May 11, 1995

[Cynthia's note: obviously David asked Malika to tell him about Mother's Day and mothers. He didn't technically "write" this column, but you see, this is the kind of man he was, so I am including it.]

By Malika Heiller, age nine via her daddy, David Heiller

A hug for a mama. It wasn't even Mother's Day!

Mother’s Day is like a holiday. It makes me feel like it’s a nice sunny day and you’re going swimming with your mother, but you’re not going swimming unless you’re planning to. It’s like giving her a great big bear hug and saying, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.”

I love my mother because she’s kind and patient. Even if I’m really naughty, she gets mad sometimes but she never loses her patience. She loves me and I love her.

Those out there who don’t have parents or mothers, I feel sorry for you, because you’re missing out a lot on having a mother, because mothers are really good to you.

Some kids give presents to their mom, but I don’t think you have to. Sometimes I don’t give my mom a present. I think just loving them is a big, big present.

Grandma Heiller 
and the kids
(and Queen Ida).

My mother is like a teddy bear. I get things that I really love and she lets me do things that I really like.

Even if I get an early bedtime, I still love her. Some people get a late bed time and they don’t get enough rest, and their mother isn’t the best, like mine.

My mother helps me on my homework, and I get A’s and B’s on my report card, but just to let you know, she doesn’t do it for me.

She makes really good food. Not like that’s important or anything, but I think she’s a great cook. But she doesn’t think I think so.

I have two grandmas that are almost exactly like Mom. They don’t live exactly like her, but they feel like a mother. Their names are Fern Heiller and Lorely Olson.

My Grandma Heiller, is like a big fat teddy bear. Not that she’s fat or anything, but giving her a hug is like giving a teddy bear a hug. She makes me sweaters. She’s just a really great person to be around. I wish someday I could move to where she lives, Brownsville, Minnesota. It’s a really neat place, where my dad grew up.

Grandma Olson and Malika

She hardly ever swears. She probably only said one swear word in her life. That was probably when my dad was growing up, she stubbed her toe. My dad said that they said she swore, but that was the only time.

I had a great-grandma Schnick. She used to live with my Grandma Heiller, but she died. She was 93 years old.

My Grandma Olson is a really great person too. She used to smoke cigarettes but we talked her out of it, because she’s a really loving person. My grandpa died of smoking, and I wouldn’t want my grandma to die of smoking too.

She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I see her maybe once in two months. I always look forward to a trip there. My grandma has these really neat little houses. You can’t play with them but they have lights in them. Her house is neat too.

Malika Heiller, nine, is the daughter of Cynthia Heiller, to whom this column is dedicated, and of David Heiller, Cindy’s husband.

More gifts from the Boundary waters ~ May 25, 1989

David Heiller

When I pulled into Dave’s yard at 3 a.m Wednesday morning, after a sleepless night of newspaper layout and school board meetings, I expected to see a light in the kitchen, and smell coffee on the stove. After all, this was the start of our annual canoe trip.

But the house was dark, Dave and Jim still sleeping. I gave a holler. For a moment I thought I was a day early. But then someone groaned awake, and the wheels of our tradition started rolling again.

For the third straight year, the Gang of Four was headed for the Kawishiwi River in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

We picked up Paul north of Cloquet, I think. It might have been north of the Arctic Circle. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before. The newspaper had been put to bed, but not me. The next thing I knew we were at a breakfast table in Ely.

Then out to the end of Fernberg Road, and into Lake One for our trip up the Kawishiwi to Lake Insula, 12 miles and six portages to the northeast. We’ve gone this route three straight years because it is close, and it is beautiful.

Arguments started as soon as our Misukanis paddles hit the water. Paul, my canoe partner, will argue anything. He’ll spend half an hour telling where you should make camp, but as soon as you agree, he’ll start praising the beauty of another campsite.

Proof the Hard Way

“The water’s not as high as last year,” he began.

“No, it’s a lot higher than last year,” said I.

We paddled east up Lake One and made the two portages into Lake Two. It was at the second portage that Paul admitted I was right about the water. But I almost killed us both to make him agree. We had carried our gear alongside a wild rapids, and put our canoe in about 20 yards above it, in a narrow channel. Paul sat in the bow, and I pushed off in the stern. Suddenly the current caught my end, and swung us sideway: toward the rapids, which now was 10 yards away.

A little fast water is good for the soul.

Adrenalin kicks in at times like this, the kind that gives a mother the strength to lift a car off her child when the jack breaks. We drove our arms and backs into our paddles, and straightened the canoe nose first upstream. For about five seconds as we strained, the river held us motionless above the rapids, 480 pounds of men, playthings to the grip of the Kawishiwi. Then the hand relaxed, and we inched ahead, and finally pulled out of the rough water. Jim and Dave sat watching in the calm river upstream, trying not to smile. They always managed to keep ahead of us.

“Damn, I think I cracked my paddle,” Paul said, peering at the shaft.

“You hit a rock?” I asked.

“No, just from paddling so hard,” he said.

“You can’t break a paddle like that,” I said. And so we continued, up the river to Lake Insula.

Dave Was Cookin’

For the next five days and four nights, we ate and explored and ate and fished and ate and paddled and ate and slept and ate. Dave cooked his pancakes every morning, just like he does six days a week for his family of seven in Sturgeon Lake. Dave is the Lou Gehrig of pancake making, and will someday wear out the cast-iron skillet that he uses exclusively for the task.

Dave L. King of the Camp Cooks, mostly...

Food is one gift of our Boundary Waters trip. Dave takes great pride in his cooking skill, though he won’t admit this. But that almost changed with Saturday night’s supper.

Dave was frying up two large northerns and a small walleye. He passed out the walleye first, giving us each small tidbits like a priest handing out holy wafers. We took them like the staff of life too. But when I bit into mine, it had the consistency of Wrigley’s gum… used.

“Say, Dave, this fish, ah, it isn’t quite done,” I stammered.

Silence descended on our campfire. “What’s that?” Dave said, as if he hadn’t heard right. “Come on. How’s yours, Paul? Jim?”

Paul and Jim either didn’t want to bite the hand that fed them, or else had thinner pieces of walleye. They chewed on.

Then Dave handed out the slabs of northern pike, which were an inch and a half thick. Paul and Jim stopped chewing in mid-chomp. “It’s not done, Dave,” Paul said gently. Jim agreed. We scraped our slabs of fish back into a kettle.

“Dissention in the ranks. I’m a failure,” Dave muttered, as he threw cedar sticks into the fireplace. The fire quickly blazed the way only cedar can blaze. The northern cooked through, and then some. Dave must have known it was my turn to do dishes. It took me half an hour to wash those frying pans. But that fish was worth it.

A Moose Gift

On Saturday afternoon, Jim and I set out for the northwest part of Insula to explore a string of lakes connected by a nameless creek. We didn’t get far before the creek confronted a pile of logs and rocks. We pulled onto shore, and scouted ahead. There was no portage, just a faint trail clogged with trees and muck. I wanted to plunge on, keep following the stream, which seemed to widen after this obstacle. Jim didn’t agree but he conceded the argument when I told him that I just wanted to spy a moose or two. And this was moose country. The mud we stood in was filled with their tracks and dung.

Jim and David, off on a little moose adventure.

Just as I bent low to pick up the canoe, Jim tapped me on the shoulder and pointed downstream. A large moose had stepped from the alder into the stream we had just paddled up.

We were upwind from the moose. Its large nose couldn’t pick up our scent. So we watched as it waded the stream, browsing like a huge work horse, up to its knees in water. Then we hopped into the canoe, and trailed behind as it followed the lake’s edge. The wind kept blowing toward us from the moose; we gained ground, and soon sat about 15 yards from the animal. It had no antlers, and no young one at its side, so we figured it was a male.

Suddenly the moose’s head lifted into the air, and its ears pricked up like a rabbit’s. It stared straight at us for about 15 seconds. We froze. We weren’t afraid, although it could have charged and caught us in five seconds had it a mind to. But of course it didn’t. Instead, it lumbered away, along the edge of the lake. We paddled quickly behind, watching it gallop like Kent Hrbek on an inside-the-park home run. Finally dipped into a marshy area, and was gone.

Jim and I stopped and looked at each other, and laughed like a couple of school kids. We had been ready to break our backs to spot a moose, when this one had almost read our mind and saved us the trouble. I think it was another gift of the Boundary Waters.

Down and Out

We headed back down the Kawishiwi on Sunday morning, straight into a 25-mile-an-hour wind. Paul fought the gale with his broken paddle and his huge back and some swearing that would have made voyageurs proud. As usual, Dave and Jim pulled away from us, and at one point were lost from sight.

When we stopped at the Lake Two portage, I wondered out loud to Paul why we couldn’t keep up with them. We did some calculating, and figured with our packs and body weight, our canoe weighed 200 pounds more than their Never mind that 150 pounds of that was in human flab.

You can take the paddlers out of the Boundary Waters,
but they always carry a little of it with them.

Dave snorted and grabbed our heaviest Duluth pack, and threw it in his canoe. He couldn’t stand listening to a couple of over-weight guys gripe. But low and behold, as we paddled through Lake One, we kept up with them. I’m not sure if they were letting us or not But it was a nice way to end the trip.

But really, there is no nice way to end five days on the Kawishiwi with good friends. It’s like leaving a loved one. When we pulled our canoes out for the last time at Lake One, Jim was all for going back. “The world ain’t going to miss a social worker and a newspaper editor,” he said.

He’s probably right about that. At least not as much as we will miss the Boundary Waters.

A miracle of new vision ~ May 9, 2002

David Heiller

The world is changing before my eye. My right eye, to be exact.

On February 28, 2001, I had a cornea transplant on that eye to correct a condition known as keratakonis.

Keratakonis means the cornea is misshapen and cone-shaped. Glasses can’t correct it. Contact lenses can, but because of the cone shape, contacts don’t fit well.

Waiting for the healing and the vision that came with it.

That was my status. A doctor diagnosed keratakonis in both eyes when I was in college. My vision has gotten worse ever since. Less ­than-perfect vision was something I learned to live with. And I know there are many people with way worse eyes than me.

The past 14 months had some ups and many downs, as my new cornea got used to its new owner. It was frustrating, because I use my eyes a lot as editor of this paper. But I told myself it was like road construction. You get frustrated with the detours and delays, but once it’s finished, you are glad for the smooth drive.

The last of the stitches were removed in March of this year. Then the big day: I had photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) surgery, a type of laser surgery, on April 24.

PRK is a little different procedure than regular lasik surgery. The recovery time is longer (four to six weeks or more).

A handy diagram

During surgery my eye was open all the time with the help of an instrument that held my eye-lid open. It only took about 10 minutes. First the doctor removed the top layer of the cornea with a spatula. Then he used a laser to reshape the cornea. All I had to do was keep looking at a pulsing red light.

For the first few days my eye hurt, and the vision was cloudy. It was like looking through a dirty window.

But now, wow.

It’s hard to convey what is happening.

I woke up the other morning and looked out the window and saw a squirrel on a tree branch outside the window. Without putting my glasses on. That hasn’t happened since we bought this house in 1981.

A few days later I woke up and could read the alarm clock without squinting. Another first.

On Saturday evening, I took a walk with my wife, and stopped and looked at her in the golden sunlight, and realized I could see her perfectly with my right eye. It was better than my left eye, which had a glasses lens over it. In just a week and a half, my right eye with its new cornea had left my left eye in the dust. It took my son about 10 years to do that to me.

Cindy had joked that I would leave her once my eye got better and I could see. I can assure you that will not happen.

Every day my vision gets a little clearer. The world looks like a spring rain has just cleaned the air.

I can barely tell it’s happening, it’s happening so slowly. But every day is better, and that is circumstance that doesn’t happen in life too often.

I’m the recipient of a great gift. Somebody—a person from Florida, I was told—donated their healthy corneas. I got one. I am very grateful for that.

I’m grateful for the technology that makes this a safe and relatively easy procedure. I’m grateful to Dr. Dan Skorich who did the transplant, and Dr. David Hardten who did the PRK surgery. (I said it was relatively easy, but I should qualify that statement: These doctors made it seem easy.)

It’s a modern-day miracle.

Now on to my left eye.

Editor's Note: Unfortunately the PRK procedure was wonderful only for a short time, and David needed a third cornea transplant. Luckily we realized that PRK wasn't going to work before he had the left eye done.
Still, he was thrilled with those few weeks of no-glasses-needed vision.

A fun and fishy canoe trip ~ May 24, 2000

David Heiller

We had paddled safely down the Little Indian Sioux River a couple miles before Paul broke the news to me.

“I’ve got a new air mattress this year.” We were heading into the Boundary Waters for our annual canoe trip.

“Oh yeah?” I tried to answer calmly. “Great.”

That was about the extent of our brilliant conversation. But I sensed that a red flag had been hoisted.

I don’t have a big tent. Tents are like packages of food. If the macaroni and cheese is supposed to serve four people, two people will probably eat it and still be a little hungry.

My tent is called a four man tent, but it can sleep two people OK, provided that one of the people doesn’t have a queen-sized air mattress.

That’s what Paul had brought, which we discovered three miles later when we found a campsite on Upper Pawness Lake. He even had a battery-powered pump to fill it.

Scoping out the possibilities.

Paul’s Air Mattress (it has to be capitalized) left about six inches of space on my side of the tent. Paul isn’t a whole lot smaller than his Air Mattress. He could play nose tackle for the Green Bay Packers.

Paul retired early that first night. He was already sawing logs when I went to bed a bit later. Did I mention that he snores? Loudly. I was worried that a lovesick moose would come and answer his call.

I crawled up on the Air Mattress. It was like climbing onto the deck of a storm-tossed ship. Every time I moved or scratched, every time Paul shifted and snorted, the Air Mattress would pitch and roll.

Five minutes later I left the Air Mattress for a grassy bed under the stars. That’s where I slept. Actually, I didn’t get much sleep. It was cold! But what a beautiful night. I enjoyed watching the full moon travel over the calm lake waters throughout the night. Every cloud has a silver lining in the Boundary Waters.

Besides, I had caught a mess of fish that afternoon, and good fishing will lift the spirits of even the most sleep-deprived soul.

The next morning, Paul stumbled out of the tent. “Did you sleep outside?” he asked when he saw my frost-covered bag. He hadn’t woken once.

Camp nap-time.

We spent the next day sitting around the camp, reading, talking, sleeping (yes, I took a nap), and eating. And of course we fished. Jim and I paddled up the river to one of the portages into our lake. The water tumbled over rocks and boulders for about 50 feet before spreading out into a pool 100 yards wide.

It looked like a postcard for a good fishing hole, and it was. We jigged minnows and worms across the bottom, and the fish grabbed hold. We caught one—or lost one—on almost every other cast. Walleyes, rock bass, northerns, perch.

At one point, after I changed to a spinner, I put the lure in the water next to the canoe while I prepared to cast, and a northern grabbed it right there.

It’s good we caught a lot of fish too, because a fair amount of the food had been left back at Dave’s house. He had discovered that the taco sauce was missing the first night when he was making supper.

Then when Jim went looking for his home-made deer jerky, Dave recalled that it was still in the fridge. Along with the turkey loaf. And the eggs.

I’m not pointing any fingers here. I didn’t get angry, even though I’m still dreaming about that jerky. Let’s just say that if there is a bed open soon in the Alzheimer’s Unit at Mercy Hospital. I’m going to submit Dave’s name for honorary membership.

Stringer full of dinner.

On the second night, I prepared to sleep outside again. Jim, always an adventurer, said he could ride out the night with Paul, and I could have his spot in Dave’s tent. I had to smile at Jim’s upcoming voyage. Jim was already grinning too.

I lay in Dave’s tent, which is the size of a two car garage, and listened as Jim crawled up the Air Mattress next to Paul.

“Whoa,” I heard him say. “This is like riding a bucking bronco.” I knew what he was talking about.

That’s when the laughter started. Remember those days in church when you were a teenager and you couldn’t stop laughing? That’s the way it was, for me in my tent and for Jim on the Air Mattress. We laughed till we cried. My face hurt, my eyes burned, my body shook. Every time Jim or Paul moved, Jim would start laughing again, and I would follow suit.

That laugh was worth a stringer full of fish. Jim mentioned it the next day too. He said that once he stopped laughing, he had been able to sleep just fine. I was glad to have slept in Dave’s tent, because a thin layer of ice covered the water in the pans and cups by the fire the next morning. I would have frozen outside.

Dave Landwehr and Paul on an expedition.

We explored a few nearby lakes and rivers over the next two days. That’s my favorite part of these trips that we have been taking since 1987. Getting a feel for the country, looking for wildlife. The main species we saw were beaver. They were everywhere.

I tested the waters with a lure that I read about called a Tiny Torpedo. I had to special order it, but it was supposed to be a sure bet for small mouth bass. Only one small mouth struck it. The fish danced on the water just long enough to see who was in the canoe, then it spit out the bait.

Small mouth bass are not native to the Boundary Waters. They were introduced in 1942. Now they are considered one of the premier species there, because they are such scrappers.

We had a good trip. Lots of fish, lots of laughs. I took a roll of pictures. My one regret is that I didn’t get a picture of the biggest catch of all, the Air Mattress.