Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller It’s kind of fun to process a deer, and this year was even more enjoyable, thanks to Rosie the dachshund. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm for cutting up deer. I asked Nathan Hahn how he liked it, because I knew he had shot a deer. His proud mother, fill, had announced it to her coworkers at the Caledonia Argus. Even Rosie couldn't handle  this hunk of venison Nathan replied, rather forcefully, that cutting up deer is not his favorite activity. That came as no surprise. I was 16 years old once.  It's not a chore that most young folks relish. In fact, Jill chimed in, her family was giving the deer away. The weather was warm, and they didn't know when they would get to it, and they had so much meat already, being Hahns and all. And that led to me getting a deer that cost me nothing more than a sincere thank you. It was an even better way to acquire a deer than last year, which came at the expense of the bumper of my Honda Civic. So I took half...

David Heiller WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER   13, 1991: It’s 8:15 a.m. My back is sore from digging Binti’s grave. It’s funny how soft the earth is under 18 inches of snow. Binti is resting on the rug in front of the refrigerator. She likes that spot, and won’t move, even though it’s hard for us to get things. Back in the old days, we would have made her move, but not lately. She’s had royal treatment lately. After 12½ years, she’s earned it. Binti and the family the day before we said good bye. I could write a book about Binti. Most people who have grown old with a dog could. Now it’s the final page. She can’t shake hands anymore, like before when she would almost bowl you over with her big left paw. She can’t hear a sound. She won’t eat, not even canned dog food. I never thought I would buy a dog canned food, but we did for Binti about a month ago, when she started looking so gaunt. Now she won’t even finish a can. About all she can do is wag her tail, and even that is we...

David Heiller My daughter’s room is a mess. I’ve told her time after time to clean it, but she doesn’t do a very good job, at least to my adult standards. I know what the problem is. It’s two fold. One, she needs a little adult supervision. Someone to help her find the boxes that hold her dishes, someone to help her organize her books and her doll clothes. Malika was always busy in her bedroom. Second, she needs time. My time. It will take some time to clean it up right. Her and me and couple hours of time. Time. It’s something money can’t buy, something we don’t have enough of. And it’s something that is at the bottom of any job well done. I sometimes find myself rushing from job to job and place to place, especially when there are deadlines like getting a story written before the paper is put to bed on Tuesday. Or getting in firewood before snow and the true onset of winter. I bet you can name a few deadlines of your own. They are a fact of life, and they have bee...

David Heiller It really wasn’t fair, the way Randi Vick hood-winked me. She had come to The Argus on Monday, October 11, beaming about a dog that one of her home health care clients needed to give away. David and Rosie and her cauliflower. Rosie was truly an omnivore “It’s a miniature dachshund,” Randi said. That caught my ear. My wife, Cindy, and I had been talking just the day before about getting that very breed of dog. My sister Kathy has one that we like, named Willie, and some friends from Duluth who had just visited us have one too, named Peanuts. Miniature dachshunds seem to lend themselves to spunky names like Willie and Peanuts. So I told Randi to find out more about the dog, how old she was, what she was like, that kind of thing. Randi said yes, she’d do that on Friday, and let me know more. I told Cindy about it that night. We agreed again that it wouldn’t be a bad idea. We already have two dogs, but one, MacKenzie, is 11-1/2 years old, and is showi...

David Heiller David loved working with his tractors! (And he wasn't afraid of getting stuck, either.)   The field was wet and muddy But I trusted to my luck, And with a load of firewood I got my tractor stuck. My darling wife had warned me Not to take the tractor out To the woods on Saturday. “You’ll get it stuck, no doubt, Like you did the last time.” Yes, I remembered well, Hauling in a load of ash. It made me mad as heck. But part of making firewood Involves a little luck Hoping that you don’t get hurt Or that you don’t get stuck. I knew that it was a risky But that’s what makes it fun When you take a chance at work And when that work gets done. So I hung my muddy pants On the clothesline outside. And came in wearing boxers And a grin of manly pride, And I told my darling Cindy, And I took the “Told-you-so’s,” And hoped by Sunday morning That the soft would be froze. We had a low lying fi...

David Heiller The best laid plans of Day Care and Babysitter … We thought we had The Plan this time. Malika, our four-year-old daughter (sometimes known as Mollie the Hun), had finally reached her limit. Malika (a.k.a. Mollie) and her magic wand. Maybe it was magic that made her behave? Three weeks of not brushing her teeth, of not going potty at the right time or in the right place. Three weeks of throwing her brother’s mouse stamp in the wood stove, of writing with a magic marker on her forehead and on a living room pillow, of doing laps around Marilyn Edin and Becky Lourey in the Oak Lake Church basement. Three weeks of sending her to bed, of yelling. Three weeks of Cindy and I wondering out loud: “What are we going to do with her?” We brainstormed ideas. The Rack. Drawing and quartering. Taking her to Joint Powers Board meetings. Making her empty the chamber pot. Nothing clicked. Finally Sunday night, when Mollie ran from one last outstretched toothbrush, Cin...

David Heiller “Fifteen-two,15-4,15-8, and a double run of 10 is 16.” Grandma spoke those words and in a slow and steady hand, moved her peg 16 holes down the cribbage board. Grandma Schnick in her living room. There they lay in front of me, those darn cards, 6-7-7-8-9. I counted them for myself, just to make sure she didn’t miss any points. If she did, I’d claim them for my own. But Grandma never missed points, and I didn’t either, because she would do the same to me. Grandma and I played cribbage at the card table that was always set up in her living room. She lived upstairs in our house, and she always had the cribbage board out on the table, or on the buffet that held old photographs and a magnifying glass and paper and pencils and other grandma stuff. The cribbage board was always waiting, just like she was, for a game of cribbage. I played a lot of cribbage with Grandma when I was growing up. She always won a few more than I did. She was a little...