Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

  David Heiller My daughter, Malika, is good friends with Becky Lourey. There’s a 40 year gap in age between them, but they still have established a good friendship. I like Becky for a lot of reasons that Mollie doesn’t understand. Her convictions, her caring, her enthusiasm, her family commitment, even her organizational skills. How can you not like someone who is so organized that she folds her family’s dirty laundry before washing it? Mollie doesn’t understand those th ings,  but  she does understand a friendly face,  moles and all. Let me explain. It started at the Embassy Bar in Sturgeon Lake last fall. Becky A mole-less Becky. had a fundraiser there in preparation for her Minnesota House of Representative race with Doug Carlson. Becky, like a good politician, hugged Mollie, and talked to her. Mollie hugged back. She seemed to feel the energy, the glint in Becky’s eyes. Four-year-olds have a lot of energy, and glinty eyes too. Becky knows h...

David Heiller That’s what we experienced last week. Peace and quiet. Our two kids were gone. Mollie went to camp, and Noah went to visit a friend. So from Tuesday to Friday, Malika was at camp. we didn’t have the kids at home. This has happened a few times in the last 14 years, but usually not for more than a day at a time. A four day stretch was a lot different. It took us back to the good old days, and maybe to some new days ahead. When we came home from work on Tuesday, we could lie on the bed and read. We didn’t have to start making supper right away. The house was quiet. The kids weren’t there to tell us about the blow-by-blow of their day, what Noah said to Mollie, what Mollie did back to Noah. The house was clean, just like we left it in the morning. We could actually see our dining room table. It wasn’t piled with a basket of laundry and a couple books and a wrinkled newspaper. The floor didn’t need sweeping, the living room didn’t need to be picked up. We...

by David Heiller Noah came out of the house on Sunday eve ning carrying a baseball and two gloves, and I was reminded once again why spring is my favorite season. David and the kids. I got up from weeding the garden and walked over. He tossed me my glove. It was flat and soft and to my vivid imagination, almost eager for my touch. We walked to our favorite spot for playing catch, he at one end of the driveway and me at the other. We tossed the ball back and forth. I said to keep it high so I could see it against the sky. My right eye is still healing from a cornea transplant, and I can’t see very well from it yet. We talked about a lot of things, both trivial and profound. It’s funny how doing a familiar activity like playing catch can unplug the conversational sink. It isn’t always that easy getting a 17-year-old boy — or a 47-year-old man — to do that. But give a guy a ball and glove and he will sing like a canary. She's just his daughter . And on all kinds...

David Heiller It’s funny how something can sneak up on you and bring a smile. Cindy and I found that on Sunday afternoon, when we took a walk to the quarry by Reno. The view of the quarry from the top of Hillside Road We parked our car in the little lot on Hillside Drive, walked up the broad trail, then turned right and marched up the old road to the quar­ry. It’s a marvelous spot. The limestone stands sheer and beautiful, 100 feet high, and still looks amazingly fresh. You almost expect to hear a dump truck come rumbling up for a load. Of course, that won’t happen; there are a lot of trees growing in the quarry pit now, big birches that tell you it’s been three or four decades since this quarry was active. And that’s probably good, because another blast or two of dynamite might send the entire bluff onto Highway 26 and into the river. It’s really just a sliver of rock by nature’s standards. It’s a spiritual spot. A couple of young people have died tragically in rece...

David Heiller Noah’s car was in the shop for a repair so I drove him to school a couple weeks ago. We didn’t talk about much. Just small talk, about the Twins and the weather. There was plenty of silence too, the comfortable kind that fathers and sons have when they are getting along. Noah's graduation, 2002 Full circle, for this chapter I took a left off Highway 61 in Willow River down the familiar street, then left into the parking lot to the entrance of Willow River High School with barely a good bye. A lot of kids were streaming in, running just ahead of the first bell like Noah, and he joined them. As I watched him disappear, an emotion hit me that I wasn’t expecting. It’s hard to describe. I suddenly realized that a big end had come to one of Noah’s chapters, and to one of mine. First day of school, 1989 It was sadness a little, although it’s hard to be sad when you son ' s whole adult life is still ahead of him and you. I thought, “The things that we...

David Heiller We might even catch some fish. Last week’s column ended on that spurt of optimism, and it came true, except for Dave. Dave Landwehr waiting for a lunker... or a snag. There comes a time every year, when we go canoeing up north, that Dave does his “Pretend I’ve Got A Lunker” trick. That’s when his lure gets snagged on a stick or rock, and instead of carefully working it off, he strains and jerks and bends the tip of his rod like he’s Babe Winkleman bringing in an eight pound lake trout. That’s what he was doing on Saturday afternoon, when Paul and I paddled up. There he sat, making faces, groaning against the rod, snagged solid. It was kind of funny. We smiled like you smile at an old story that you’ve heard a few times. Then suddenly Dave crashed back into his seat, and held up his rod and started swearing. The top section had broken clean in two. Now THAT was funny. We smiled, we laughed, we roared. It was an Oscar-winning performance, unfortunately b...

 David Heiller The clock radio by our bed has survived 25 years of marriage, and our marriage has survived 25 years of that radio. I don ’ t know which is the greater miracle. Cindy has always had control of the radio. That’s part of the deal. Note that I didn’t say that’s part of the problem; 25 years of marriage has taught me a few things. 1976 The year David and I met, and the year I bought the clock radio. She sets the alarm, which these days comes on at 5:23 a.m. When we want to turn on the radio, that’s Cindy ’ s job, and when it’s time to shut off the radio, she does that too. You see, that little Panasonic radio with the “simulated wood cabinet” is not as simple as it looks. From left to right are nine buttons: doze, sleep, time set (fast and slow), alarm set, selector (which itself has three options, off, radio, and buzzer), manual off-on, volume, and band. So this morning, Sunday, May 8, when I reached over Cindy to turn off the radio, the conversati...

David Heiller Buying a lawnmower is no small event in our family. The questions rage: “Should we buy new or used? Off-brand or name brand? Three horse or three -and-a-half horse? Twenty inch cut, or 22 inch cut?” And of course the main question: “How much does it cost?” My wife and I anguished over the issue for the past month. We knew the hand-me-down mower in the garage would not make another summer. Cindy wanted to go with a new mower. She figures we have a big lawn, and will probably always have a big lawn, so a new mower would be a wise investment. She also figures that if we still had the money spent on used mowers and repairs over the past three years, we could have a very good new mower. I can’t argue that point. We’ve had four used mowers —three bought, one given—since 1981. Each of those mowers was serviced at least once during the summer. That’s between $150 and $200 in mowers, for three summers of sporadic cutting and abusive language. But since I was in ch...

David Heiller Paul, Dave, Jim and I had a chilly five days in the Boundary Waters last week. It froze most of the nights, and snowed most of the days. But we didn’t mind, because the fish were biting. Jim caught the first one a few hours after we set up camp on the Walter Lake. It was a 27-inch lake trout. We figured its weight, using a DNR formula, at 13 pounds. Jim and a northern in the snow. Later that afternoon, Paul landed a 42-inch northern. It weighed 21 pounds. The next day it was Jim with a 39-inch northern and Paul with a 38-inch one, 17 and 16 pounds respectively. Then Dave pulled in a 30-inch, eight pound northern. It’s funny how a person can put up with crummy weather when he is catching fish like that. Well, technically, I didn’t catch a fish like that. I caught a few smaller ones that fit nicely into the frying pan. It’s all luck anyway, right? The fish I’ll remember most is the one that got away. It took my cisco and bobber and ran with incredibl...