Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller How do you define baseball? If you are a six-year-old girl, it’s by the length of the licorice, and the taste of the pop, and Kirby Puckett’s first grand slam. I took Malika to her first game last Friday. Before the game, I tried to engage her in Baseball Talk ( BT ). This is the second most boring language in the world (behind the mating noise of a three-toed ground sloth). You say things like, “Wow, Puckett has seven hits in his last 12 at bats.” And your friend answers, “But Lieus can’t hit worth beans with men in scoring position.” Boring. Fortunately Baseball Talk on Friday was tempered by Kid Talk ( KT ), which has all the logic of a computer that just fell off a desk. It almost makes sense. Here are some samples of our dialogue, which I jotted down on the back of my scorecard. Daddy~Daughter Dynamic Duo BT: Larkin is playing right field. KT: Who’s Larkin? BT: You know, Gene Larkin. KT: Who’s Larkin? What’s a Larkin, Dad? KT: I see Kirby—...

David Heiller We wanted to show Adam the world, or at least our world. Adam is my sister’s 11-year-old son. He’s from a suburb of Dallas, Texas. He recently stayed with us for 12 days. My sister wanted him to get out of the city and see a different way of life. We wanted him to get to know our son Noah better, since they’re only a year apart in age. It was a dangerous proposition in a way. We only get three TV channels—no cable. Noah’s closest friend lives four miles away, not four blocks. Everything that you find in a city is glaringly absent in Birch Creek Township. No parks, no pools, no malls. I was a little worried that Adam might be impatient with our way of life. Adam I shouldn’t have worried. He said more thank yous than I could count, even to people like Palmer Dahl who sharpened Adam’s tomahawk. “You paid for it,” Palmer said in a surprised voice. He wasn’t used to a polite kid either, but Adam meant it. I knew the rest was working out on Adam’s third night. H...

David Heiller We did a lot of fishing when I was a kid, growing up on the Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota. I have a thousand memories, but one stands out. It’s so old, I only remember remembering it, if you know what I mean. It was a summer evening, when I was about six. We were fishing off a dock south of Brownsville, in the backwater. The dock was full of us kids. I had a cane pole, of course, and stood at the edge of the black water, which lapped over the old wooden planks and onto our feet. It was that still time of day, with the warm smell of summer evening in the air, a smell kids know, a mixture of fish and water and wet wood and mayflies and warm sunshine. I remember that smell, and I remember my cane pole just about jumped out of my hand as a fish took the huge bobber under. I pulled up, the black line straining, and suddenly a huge bass lay thrashing on the dock. It shook out the hook, and started flopping toward the water. Glenn, my older brother, stood...

David Heiller When the sun and stars finally showed up last weekend, people stretched and smiled and went for walks under blue and sparkly skies. Eight straight days of clouds make you appreciate a bright November day and night a great deal. I had to work on Friday, the first sunny day. When I got home at 3 p.m., my niece, Sarah, put her hands on her hips and said, “You’re late.” She had the deadly tone of a married woman. A little Sarah loving. Then she added, “Let’s go for a walk,” and I was saved, because there’s nothing that heals a nine-year-old’s feelings better than a walk down the road. Yes, nothing better than a walk with a niece you see about twice a year under a sun that you see about twice a month. I cut up an apple as we walked, a golden delicious that Mom had brought with her. Some people bring a bottle of wine or a bag of pastries when they go calling. In Morocco, you bring a cone of sugar. Mom brings apples, which is good, because a walk wouldn’t b...

David Heiller “Daddy, will you take the training wheels off my bike this morning?” I looked at my son on that bright May morning. It was not the first time he had asked the question. “I took them off once before, and that didn’t work so well,” I reminded him as gently as possible. They were off for about two weeks, and 14 bruises later, back on again. Noah lifted each hand, as if weighing a couple of cantaloupes in a grocery store. That was his gesture that signaled the coming of a profound, four-year-old statement, "But Dad" he said, shrugging and raising his hands, "that was before. I'm older now. I'm almost five." The bike with the training wheels. There appear to be no photos  AFTER the training wheels were gone, I guess because, he never stopped! “And Matt can ride his bike,” he added. That’s the real reason, I thought, grabbing a wrench from the garage. We had been riding along the Hinckley Fire Trail a month earlier, Noah perched on...

David Heiller There are few words more frightening in the human tongue than the voice of a two-year-old from the bathroom late at night saying, “I need someone to clean up my mess.” So Cindy and I sat up in unison when we heard Malika call out from the bathroom at 10 o’clock Sunday night: “I need someone to clean up my mess.” Earlier on that hot day we celebrated Noah and Malika's birthdays. We were sitting in the kitchen playing “Rummikub” with Cindy’s mother when the words came. We didn’t expect them, because any upstairs creaking had been muffled by a large fan that hummed by the table. We hadn’t checked on Malika or Noah for half an hour. The last time, it was black magic marker on her wall, doll, and pillow. The time before that, it was green felt-tipped pen on her legs. As Cindy and I looked at each other, we both wondered, “What color is it this time?” After a couple minutes of debate, I stood up from the kitchen table to see what Mollie’s mess was this ti...

David Heiller 1:12 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: The light is on over the bed. Cindy is sitting bent over slightly at the edge. Her face is tight. She’s looking at her watch. “Five minutes apart, 45 seconds long,” she says in a breathless way. “The contractions.” “Huh?” I mumble, feeling very cozy under the blankets of this cool dark morning. “Let’s go, Dave,” she says. “I think this is it.” Suddenly, very suddenly, I’m awake. 4:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve just dropped Noah off with a friend in Rutledge. So far, so good, with our Plan. Suitcase is packed, dog and cat fed. We even had time for a quick sauna before leaving. We are on our way to the hospital in Duluth. Cindy spies the gas gauge. Less than a quarter of a tank. “Do I have to take care of everything?” she asks. “This is the first time in two weeks I didn’t get gas,” I say in a weak voice. So much for that part of the Plan. “Why, just today, I pulled into the Deep Rock, but I didn’t have any checks with me. ...

 David Heiller Birthdays come but once a year. But if you have two kids six days apart, then throw in a grandmother and a friend or two, birthdays seem unending. Our son, Noah, celebrated his third birthday June 12. But his friend, Joey, was born two weeks earlier. When Joey had his birthday party and Noah attended, he was included in the celebration. Noah and Joey on Joey's third birthday. “Joe’s three now?” he asked on the ride home, his stomach full of cake and ice cream. “Yes, he’s three,” I answered. “I’m three too?” “No, not yet. You’re almost three.” Then one week before Noah’s birthday, we went to Minneapolis to his grandmother’s house. She held a birthday party for her son, but made it a combo effort since Noah’s was only a week later and our daughter, Malika, was born a week after that. It gets complicated. But Noah filled upon cake and ice cream, sang happy birthday, blew out candles, opened presents, and asked once again: “Am I three now?” “No, not ...