Childhood memories: Call it a case of 'Mother Knows Best'

Soon after Dad had uprooted our family to North Dakota from our lovely Minneapolis neighborhood to chase a business venture, I moped in the dank basement of our bland rambler, tapping the keys of a dilapidated piano left by the previous owners, hoping the plaintive sound would lead my mom downstairs to observe my misery and offer the comfort I craved. It did.

"Why are you here all alone?"

I whimpered that I didn't know. But of course we both did. It's impossible for a 9-year-old to hide homesickness.

"I miss my friends, too," she said. And she hugged me while I cried.

So naturally, she bought me a puppy.

That's what mothers do, right?

But that was a temporary fix until I found a friend or two, which for reasons I can't remember seemed to take a long time. It must have pained her when the dog didn't do the trick and I insisted on sequestering myself in my barren bedroom.

The wheat field I'd sooner forget about (but as you can see, I can't). The balsa wood model and the story of how it got there reminds me of a mother's love and understanding for her child.

Here's why:

Occasionally my parents' friends from Minneapolis would trek north to visit. Shirley and Manny Kipperstein came often. Back home I had idolized their teenage son, Howie, who had paid attention to me like the older brother I didn't have but wanted.

On their first visit, Shirley and Manny brought me a gift from Howie — that balsa wood model airplane. Buoyed in spirit because he hadn't forgotten about me, I immediately assembled it in my bedroom while the grown-ups kibitzed in the den. Never mind that the box had been opened beforehand.

Assembling Howie's re-gifted airplane was a cinch. All it took was slotting a few parts into some others. No need for instructions. But when I finished, one remaining odd-looking part, uniquely soft and malleable, stumped me. Guessing it might be part of the plane's propeller or rudder, I brought the nearly completed model into the living room and asked Mom about the mysterious leftover component.

Upon my displaying the piece — silence. Then came the unnerving staccato barrage of cryptic questions from Shirley and Manny. Particularly Manny:

"Did you find this in the box?" and,

"Was the box already opened when we gave it to you?" and,

"Do you know what this is?" and, to no one in particular,

"How could this happen?"

Mom must have sensed my growing panic and interrupted the interrogation. She gave me a motherly hug, proclaiming emphatically to all that I had done a terrific job assembling the balsa wood airplane, and declared just as emphatically that the mysterious part was, "… the pilot's helmet, of course."

She also commended the balsa wood airplane company for including humanlike authenticity with its otherwise dull as dishwater design. With that, Mom plopped the helmet onto the pilot's balsa head, making expert-like adjustments here and there.

The helmet completely engulfed the pilot's head. But no matter to me.

"There," she concluded. "Done. How's that, dear?"

Returning to my room, I decided never to fly the now-completed airplane but instead to display it proudly on the wall shelf facing my bed. I remember its constant presence providing me with much-needed jolts of self-esteem during that lonely time.

For quite a while the balsa wood plane remained a keepsake, a reminder of the comfort and security my mother gave me — even and especially after I learned the truth behind the events of that evening with the Kippersteins:

One day, Jerry, my worldly buddy, spied the model and immediately proposed a trade: the balsa wood airplane for three of his hard-to-get baseball cards: Mays, Maris and a Yankee team card.

Enticing, but I balked.

"Add Koufax."

Jerry counteroffered. "Then pick two of the cards and just gimme the rubber."

He pointed at the condom.

I was clueless. "No. That's the pilot's helmet. But OK."

The deal was done. Koufax and Mays for the pilot's helmet.

When I told my mother about the transaction, she smiled and we had a good talk.