Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

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, rem...

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 h...

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 f...

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, an...

[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 y...

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 thi...

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 l...

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...