Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller Α couple images will stay with me for a while from last Saturday. The first clicked at about 4:30 p.m. We were walking across Duane’s field, the five of us, when the sun dropped below its skirt of clouds. The soft light of late afternoon instantly spread a golden glow on everything, the grass, the plowed field, the faces of the four people walking over them. It didn’t hurt that those humans were walking with a purpose. There was a glint of adventure in their eyes. Alex and Laura, Malika and David, and I hiked cross-country to  Freeburg  to hear Bob and Gail perform at Little Miami. It was a fine little adventure. It wasn’t a huge adventure, mind you. We were hiking from our house to Freeburg, a whopping four miles at best. Little Miami awaited us there, good food, good music, perhaps a cheering crowd. Well, two out of three at least. But it put a spring in our step. The sun left us about the time we hit the state land and its plantations o...

David Heiller There are 13 steps to our upstairs. I actually counted them for the first time tonight, after six and a half years of living here. The reason I counted them is that I just walked down them for the fifth time in the last hour. I’ve been trying to match wits with a two-year-old girl. “Not another column about that kid of yours?” you moan. Yes, one more. But it’s not really about Malika. It’s about universal, ever changing growth and development, the human psychological phenomenon of putting a two-year-old to bed. Sleeping beauties, but not that night, I guess. I had put the kids to bed about 7:30 this Monday evening. They lay with me in Noah’s bed for a minute, then I separated them into their own rooms. There’s no door between their rooms, so I put a gate in place. It’s a gate that is made to keep toddlers out of rooms they shouldn’t be in. The design is perfect except for the barbed wire they forgot to string across the top. Toddlers look upon such ...

David Heiller There comes a time in every child’s life when they cease being babies, and become something more. It is a metamorphosis from a helpless bundle of pink skin into a human being. Mothers may not know what I mean, because they spend more time with their babies, and probably never think of them as helpless bundles of pink skin. But to dads, who roll around on the floor with them perhaps for only a few minutes a day, the metamorphosis hits all of a sudden, and sometimes it hits hard. Malika with her bearded and bespectacled daddy.  She's thinking about, the last time she got hold of that beard,  or the next time she scores his glasses.  That’s what happened at our house last weekend. Cindy had been telling me how our six-month-old daughter had been going through a growth spurt, guzzling more milk per hour than a young Holstein. Cindy had pointed out that Mollie was sitting up by   herself now, and laughing at her big brother, and babbling...

David Heiller “Come on, kids, we’re going skiing.” I made that statement on Saturday morning, and it didn’t sit well with Noah, Malika, and Jake. They had watched th re e hours of cartoons. Their eyes were glazed over. They were hypnotized by laugh tr acks and sound effects and chocolate covered cereal commercials that are SO nutritious. Hey, that’s what the announcer said. Their grumbling didn’t last long. Off went Bugs Bunny. Out went the kids. On went the skis. And along came the old man with a collie and two oranges and a bottle of apple juice. Take it from the old man: what a day for skiing it was! Temperatu re in the twenties. Sun shining. Three inches of new snow over an old ski trail. You folks who have gone south for the winter don’t know what you are missing. You kids who are still watching cartoons don’t either. Skiing, and turning around, and talking lead to this. She doesn't seem too mind much though, does she? Jake and Noah led the way. They quickly...

Editor's note: This is by our dear friend, Marlana. She and her husband, Tony bought the Askov American from us in 2003. She wrote this for the readers of the Askov American, after David's death. David Heiller lived life like he played cards. He never held back and never had a card up his sleeve. What you saw was what you got. Dave started with his highest trump and played the high cards out as if there might not be another chance to play them. Straight-forward. Without reservation. Jumping to Daddy, and other games. “What are you waiting for, Mar? Why’d you hang on to that joker?” he’d ask me in disbelief as each card dropped. “You’re gonna miss your chance if you play like that.” Tony and Marlana, 2003. That’s how he lived his life. He didn’t save his living for another day. If something was worth doing, he’d do it. His family, writing, music, photography, camping, fishing, friends. He made sure he fit it all in. Neatly. With planning and purpose. Dave’s l...

David Heiller The cabin sat on top of a high hill overlooking Moose Lake. Below you could see two islands, pine covered and rocky. They looked like ships in a smooth white ocean. We had to ski there first. I insisted, with a hunger that I couldn’t explain. Moose Lake, not the one in Carlton County but the one northeast of Ely, is a jumping-off spot into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I had seen it from the front of a canoe three springs ago, had followed it through Newfound and Ensign and Missionary Lakes and beyond to an eight pound lake trout, the nicest fish I ever caught. And with the nicest friends too. So last Friday afternoon, Cindy and I strapped on our skis and headed up Moose Lake with a wind at our back and the sun setting low in the southwest sky. We broke our own trail for about half a mile, until I hit slush and my skis turned into two-by-fours of ice and snow. Stopping for a sunset. We headed for shore, and picked up a dogsled trail. It was sli...

David Heiller When it comes to good timing, the ice storm had it down perfectly. Still, it was a sobering couple of days this past Saturday and Sunday. The ice started forming on Saturday morning, New Year’s Day. That’s what I mean about perfect timing. Whο goes anywhere on New Year’s Day? At first it was snow, huge flakes. But that changed to freezing rain by noon. I called Cindy at work at about 3 p.m., and she was ready to head out the door, thanks to some thoughtful co-workers at Casual Corner in La Crosse. She got home by 4 p.m. after a very cautious drive. Ice built up slowly the rest of the day from sporadic spurts of sleet. It hit harder at about 9:30 p.m. I started to say to Cindy, “This weather is really getting” — then boom, a crack of thunder sounded. “What did you say?” Cindy shouted from upstairs. “God just finished the sentence for me,” I replied. Thunder on New Year’s Day? Very strange. By Sunday morning it was ugly. Half an inch of ice covered every...

David Heiller   Cold is relative. It always takes a cold snap to remind me of that. In December of 1977, we had a stretch of very cold weather, 20 and 30 below for a week or so. I remember standing outside and playing my banjo when the temperature rose to zero. This past Sunday morning was like that. I shoveled snow in my bathrobe and slippers, after the temperature shot up to 17 below zero. That was the warmest it had been for a day and a half. On Saturday afternoon, the thermometer rose to 21 below. Cold~cold~cold That was the high for the day. The night before we had minus 33. Steve Popowitz went outside Saturday morning. He thought some people were chopping down trees in his woods. Then he realized that the trees were popping from the cold. Pop. Crack. Pop. Crack. It sounded just like someone chopping trees with an axe. It was louder and faster than he’d ever heard. He had 35 below. He was trying not to boast when he said it. But it feels good anytime you can beat ...