Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller Every year about this time, Bob Dutcher comes to the American office and says “I’ve got some fish I’d like to show you, Dave.” Then I grab my camera and follow him outside, where he and a fishing partner hold up chain of fish. David, on a later, more successful trip. That’s when I go blubbery and make a fool of myself. I cannot look at a five pound largemouth without weeping. So last Friday Bob came into the office and said, “I’ve got some fish I’d like to show you, Dave.” Sure enough, he and his friend, Mike Anderson, held up a chain of fish. This time he had TWO five-pound bass on it, along with an assortment of other fish. (You don’t notice other fish when you are in the company of five pound bass.) I can’t describe a five pound bass. If they were people, they would be weight lifters or pro football players. They are almost grotesque; they are so huge and fat. I held up well as I took the pictures, asked all the right questions, how they caug...

David Heiller The porch at Bob Eikum’s house in Moose Lake always seemed special to me. It had no lights, no heater, no glass to cover the screens and keep the cold out. Bob and his wife, Boots, had planned it that way. The better to view Mother Nature, to let her come into your life. Bob Eikum, Mother Nature and David's friend. Mother Nature came into that porch a lot, sometimes with a house full of people at an Eikum potluck, sometimes alone. Even at the end, cold and raw in September, she came to settle on Bob as he sat in a wheelchair one last time, soaking it up on his porch. Nature was Bob Eikum’s life, from the time he grew up in Mankato, while he studied forestry at the University of Minnesota, when he worked as a forester in Alabama and Florida and Tennessee, as a Boy Scout leader, every job he worked, he worked with nature. When he retired and moved to Moose Lake with Boots in 1978, he worked with nature as a photographer and as what he called an enviro...

David Heiller Bob Dutcher sat in his boat. I couldn’t see him. It was still dark, although the stars were starting to disappear. “Hi, Bob,” I called out. I knew he was there, because his truck was sitting by the road, and he said he’d be there at 6 a.m., and Bob isn’t late, at least when it comes to fishing. “Hi, Dave,” Bob’s voice answered. I felt my way down the bank, to where I could make out the boat and Dutcher, and crawled in. “Isn’t this a little early to be fishing?” I asked as Bob rowed us onto Mud Lake. It was 6 a.m. Bob assured me that it was NOT too early to go fishing. It’s never too early for Bob Dutcher, Askov, Minnesota, to start fishing. Why, bass bite all night. So do walleyes. And you never know when you’ll catch a northern. They are early risers, like Bob. We each put a frog on a hook and started casting toward the lily pads off to our left. Bob worked the oars expertly, keeping us just the right distance from the weeds. Day broke fast and clear....

by David Heiller The Transformation began about two months ago. This Transformation has a capital T, but it is anything but holy. Diabolical might be a better description. I was attempting to put a 10-foot piece of roll roofing onto the garden shed, in a pretty stiff breeze. With my carpentry and coordination, that is a two person job. There were two, of us, but one was my daughter, Malika. Being only 14 months old, she didn’t count. Not much scared Malika. I rode that roll roofing like a magic carpet a top the garden shed, trying to keep an eye on Mollie, who was playing on the swing-set. As I put one nail in place, the wind lifted the other end out of place. I turned around to nail it straight, glancing toward the swing-set for the kid. She was gone. That didn’t worry me, since the only real danger at our house is the county road at the end of the driveway, and I had a clear view of that. So I concentrated on the rolling roof. As I nailed it into place, I glanced...

David Heiller Mouse season started at our house on Sunday, October 15. Cindy had found some mouse pebbles in a drawer in the bathroom vanity the day before. Her make-up sponge had been gnawed on pretty well too. Must have been a female mouse. “Time to set the mouse trap,” Cindy told me. I found the trap under the bathroom sink, which is its permanent location. I smeared peanut butter on it, then re-set it. I knew the action would start soon, and I wasn’t disappointed. “Mouse in the trap, “Cindy hollered matter-of-factly when she got up Sunday morning. She called it out like a ship’s bosun might call, “Officer on board.” Some people panic a bit with a mouse in a trap, even if it is dead. Not Cindy, although her voice did have a tone that said, “Please don’t wait too long to get rid of it.” I lifted out the dead mouse by the tail, carried it outside, and flung it toward the back of the outhouse, which by the end of this winter will look like Boot Hill. “We should ke...

David Heiller A couple weeks ago I asked Mom if she still had any red cedar for making a walking stick. Mom of course knew exactly what I was talking about, even though the subject of walking sticks hadn’t arisen in the old homestead for about 10 years. “Yes, in the far corner of the basement, by the furnace;” she said. David with his walking stick and his  sister  Jeanne walking through  the hills of Brownsville. Sure enough, there they were, just as I had left them after a stick-gathering walk in the woods a long time ago. Maybe 20 years, not 10. I hefted several of them, and found the right one. It’s going to be a Christmas gift for a certain someone. I’ll call him “Alex.” (I always like how the advice columnists put names in quotation marks to hide their identity.) Alex is a lot like me, although without a 52-year-old girth. So I figure if I like the stick, he’ll like it. I took it home and could hardly wait to peel off the cedar bark and trim ...

David Heiller If you’ve got a spare hour or a spare day, take a walk in the woods, and do it soon. Our family tramped around Banning State Park on Monday of this week. Cindy’s sister, Nancy, had been looking after Mollie, so she packed a lunch and we met at Banning for a picnic and hike. We spread tuna fish on crackers and cut up a couple of homegrown tomatoes and had a meal that fit the day like a glove, pretty and simple and good for you. Then we hiked, following the Kettle River south toward Sandstone. Other people had the same idea. Usually Banning is deserted during the week, but not last Monday. We saw a young man sleeping on a picnic table, using his knapsack as a pillow and using the sun as a blanket. We pulled over as another guy met us coming up a narrow, rocky trail. We saw several couples, young and old. The sun moved in and out from its skirt of cotton clouds. When it shone, it warmed us like toast, and when it didn’t we walked a bit faster to keep the chill aw...

David Heiller The time bomb is set to explode at our house. It’s doesn’t look like a time bomb. It looks like a woodpile. But because the woodpile will fall down, I think of it as a time bomb. David and his maul: the never ending  battle to keep the wood box full. Hopefully no one will get hurt. My woodpile fell last spring while I was on a canoe trip. It covered three bicycles, a garden tractor, and a compost shredder. I had to buy a new front rim for Noah’s bike. But it didn’t crush my children or wife, thankfully. It took a year for that woodpile to fall down. That was a long stretch. I remember once when my brother-in-law and I spent the day stacking wood. He had to go back to college that afternoon, so I drove him to Moose Lake to catch a bus. I drove home thinking how great it was to have a brother-in-law like Randy, what a great job we had done stacking wood together. When I drove into the driveway, the woodpile looked like someone had shot a cannon throug...

David Heiller It was one of those fishing moments that don’t come along real often. I had just brought a big sheepshead to the side of the canoe when something hit my other line. It was even bigger, and the way it fought, heavy and hugging the bottom, I knew it was another sheeper. This one finally surfaced by the first one, and for a few seconds my two rods sliced the air like a conductor at Carnegie Hall. Only this was much nicer than Carnegie Hall. Both fish ended up in the bottom of the canoe, one 26 inches, the other 21 inches. Some people aren’t real fond of freshwater drum, which is the fancy name for sheepshead. I like them fine. I want to try smoking some, and these two will work well for that experiment. Autumn view towards the quarry at Fairy Rock It It was a fitting end to a fine fall day. The sun was setting on Wisconsin, and the hills stretched to the north, dappled in calico. Brownsville ended the procession, jutting out further than the others. I’ve al...

David Heiller The apple tree has been good to us this year. It’s half-dead and gnarly the way old apple trees look, like a bent old man. But it keeps on giving good fruit year after year. It gives us other pleasures too. I don’t know what kind of tree it is. It starts bearing fruit by mid-August. A lot of apples go to waste on the ground then. We aren’t ready for them, and they are tart. But by mid-September the ones that have survived the thunderstorms and climbing kids are big and sweet. The insides are very white. They start to turn brown within a few minutes after you cut them or take a bite. Tyson and Malika My daughter Mollie and her friend and I picked the tree three weeks ago. I got out the step ladder, which is old and shaky. One of the kids would climb as high as she could, while I held the ladder, and passed the apples down to the other kid, who put them in a bucket. It wasn’t the most efficient way to pick apples, but it was fun, especially for the kid on ...