Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller We lost a friend on Saturday, a century old friend that we have known for the past six years. When we moved to our homestead in May, 1981, this friend welcomed us. He stood erect to the southwest of the house, leaning over the house towering above us, a full 70 feet. He made us feel at home, just as he made the family of orioles feel at home in their swaying nest our first two summers here. Orioles love elm trees. After the elm was felled, it started snowing.   Noah grabbed an  umbrella  and played  jack-in-the-box in the hollow stump.  The hollow stump held  flowers for many  years  before that too, had to be removed. But the next year, 1984, the orioles did not return. Our elm tree showed us why. A few of the outer limbs had turned brown in June, their leaves shriveling too early in the summer. The orioles weren’t taking any chances. Dutch elm disease had arrived. Still, for the next two summers, the elm...

David Heiller   Rain fell Sunday afternoon. It splashed off our garden beds at first, raising a dust storm for the bees and ants. Then it settled the dust and ran off the beds and finally soaked in. Malika, always moving to the next adventure. I stood in the doorway with my two children. They had been lobbying during the past hour for a trip to the park. I had been urging a compromise walk down the road. Their expressions as they looked at the rain fall outside the screen door reflected the overcast sky. “Now we can go to the park after the rain?” Noah asked. “Pahk atta rain?” Malika echoed. “Well, it’s pretty wet there,” I said uneasily. “Maybe we should stay home, then go tomorrow when it’s done raining.” I knew tomorrow would be better, what with their grandmother here for a visit. Malika pushed past Noah as I opened the door to breath in the late afternoon air. The rain was letting up, after just an hour. We needed more, the garden and hayfields needed more,...

David Heiller  My wife and I have been trying to sell our son on staying with his Grandma Olson ever since Noah brought the idea up two months ago. We had been visiting there, and Noah had enjoyed the fruits of the labor of a grandmother who has only two grandchildren, the oldest of whom is Noah. In other words, he’s had a darn good time with Grandma. Noah and Grandma (Lorely Olson) Grandmas who live in Suburbia have the keys to a wonderful world for a three-year-old. First there are the shopping malls, which have stores that sell nothing but toys for children. Grandma Olson is on a first name basis with every toy store clerk in Brooklyn Center. She can walk through Brookdale blindfolded. Grandma also knows about stores that are gigantic amusement parks for kids. They are like toy stores with the packages already opened. Gigantic trampolines, rooms with padded walls and huge balls to bounce off other kids. Children love them. So do parents who want to farm out...

By David Heiller Our son, Noah, and his great-grandma Schnick have always had a special relationship. He took a shine to her from the first time he could first crawl onto her lap. When we visit her and Grandma Heiller (my mother), Noah spends most of the day upstairs with Grandma Schnick. He shows off his block building skills, or talks non-stop about lions. Adventures come racing from his mouth faster than a three-year-old brain can process. Often Grandma will turn to me and ask, “What in the world is he talking about?” Noah and his Grandma Schnick “Your guess is as good as mine,” I answer. At night, he crawls into Grandma Schnick’s soft bed and sleeps by her side. Grandma has a lot of confidence in Noah to allow this. She knows she is playing Russian roulette with his bladder, which half the time can give a sleeping partner a rather rude awakening. Grandma Schnick doesn’t play favorites with her great grandchildren. At age 91, she knows better than that. She doesn’t l...

David Heiller Let the December winds bellow and blow, I’m as warm as a July tomato, There’s peaches on the shelf, potatoes in the bin, Supper’s ready, everybody come on in And taste a little of the summer, My grandma put it all in a jar. Processing summer to put in jars. I thought of that song by Greg Brown as I carried four jars of tomatoes in from the freezer. Cindy had promised a spaghetti supper if I would get the tomatoes from the garage. I carried the four cold jars through the January wind in my bare hands, and summer seemed very far away. The smell of tomato sauce filled the house as Cindy added her spices. Along with the basil and oregano, she added a sprinkle of sunshine, the buzz of a bee and shadow of a barn swallow. After a plate of homemade spaghett i, summer doesn’t seem so distant. After dinner, I lit the wood stove in the sauna for our weekly bath. By 5:30, the temperature had reached 110 degrees. That’s a good temperature for people who don’t...

David Heiller I walked up to the house on Saturday with my two kids. The grass was neatly cut, some thoughtful grandson’s handiwork. Peonies bloomed in front of the picture window. The garden patch showed off its neat rows of young vegetables. The pear tree swayed in the warm breeze. Grandma Heiller I stepped up to the picture window, half expecting to see the television silhouetting the hunched lady in her rocking chair. I gave a little knock on the window, remembering the first time I had done that in August of 1979. Grandma Heiller had peered through the glass, seeing her grandson for the first time in two years after he returned from overseas. She had stared, then smiled, and reached her right hand up to touch the glass as if it weren’t there, reaching for me. Standing on the porch, I opened the screen door, and knocked. The inside door still had its etched glass, looking frosty as ever. I knocked harder. No answer. I remembered Grandma couldn’t hear well, especially ...

David Heiller When Tom Leustek heard the crackle over his fire pager that a fire was burning south of Willow River last Thursday, he felt a premonition of disaster. “In my head, I heard, ‘This is it.’ I had pedaled my bicycle to school, and I pedaled against that wind, and I knew it was tinder dry. I work in the woods,” Leustek said. Tom Leustek had built his house in the center of a dense pine forest in Willow River in 1980. He loves trees. “I built there one reason—for the timber,” he explained. “A fool can see how pretty it is.” Tom Leustek, holding a poster that  commemorates May as Arbor Month,  a time to plant trees. So when Tom heard the fire call, and felt the south wind, and, saw the dense smoke, he knew. When Tom got to the fire hall, he jumped into a fire truck with Bill Kenyon and Bruce Bohaty. They raced south to the Eva Marcus farm, but the fire was past it already, and into the pine forest, heading north, straight toward Leustek’s home. ...