Brother Don

When I was a boy, I would sneak into the low ceiling attic of the small bedroom were brother Don slept, before going off to WWII as an army private. He was shipped of to India with a load of mules, possibly with the intent of packing supplies over the Himalayas to China if the air lift faltered, I don’t know .

The attic was filled with model airplanes (stick and paper, covered with model dope), all sizes and shapes so light and delicate. Balsa gliders, that were said to fly for blocks when properly balanced and flung. And stacks of magazines, showing every type of Allied and Axis aircraft along with model airplane books, all in perfect order. It was a wonderful place for a boy.

Brother Don, the meticulous mathematician, wanted to fly I am sure, was designated  a master sargent Postmaster by the army, while his older brother Wally was assigned too be a radio man, flying PBYs out of Whidbey Island, in the San Juans.

I lifted and touched all the models even though my mother would not allow anyone into that attic while she waited for her boys to come home.

Later when Don did came home and took up residence in the small bedroom while working and attending St Johns university, he would take me to St Cloud to visit the model shop. A narrow building with balsa pieces of all sizes and shapes and box upon box of red and blue containers, full of all sizes and types of stick and paper airplane kits.

Then he would take me across the Mississippi and buy me some fresh made caramel corn at a little shop at the foot of the bridge

I spent much of my youth constructing these planes. However if I wanted to see the great and ever growing airplane collection, I would have to travel to St Cloud in Stearns county Minnesota to the basement of Brother Don's home, probably purchased on the GI bill.

Brother Don in his 80s assembled and built models most every day, but told me on our last visit together:

THEY JUST DONT FLY LIKE THEY THE ONES I USED TO BUILD, I DONT KNOW WHY?