Woot woot Mary Nilles! You Deserved To Win.

I helped build Dakota Hospital in a day, but couldn’t tell you where I lived.

Over the years, Dad's Popular Mechanics mags guided him through our school projects — projects like building a glass enclosed tornado generator, a marble and teetertotter-powered wooden replica of a beating human heart — or family fun stuff like building a sailboat, paddlewheel boat, and a carboard replica of the Mercury space capsule.

But sometimes, Dad ventured with just his imagination, like the time in 1967, I asked for help on my second-grade homework assignment from Sister Peter in which I was to fashion our family house out of a shoe box.

“We don’t have a shoe box,” Dad said distractedly. He was busy helping my big brother Teddy with his math homework.

With my hopes dashed for a quick homework assignment completion, I slumped my shoulders dramatically and started to synthesize tears.

“Look Dad, the Beav here really needs your help,” Teddy said, as his hopes grew for a quick ending to Dad’s homework help.

In disputes or other opportune moments, my siblings switched my name to Beaver because I had sucked my thumb when I was little and bucked my two front teeth.

“I am not a beaver,” I cried and stuck my thumb in my mouth.

“I thought you gave up sucking your thumb,” my little sister Connie whispered to me. She was right. Two years before, she and I had made a pact to break our evening habits—mine was the left thumb, hers was the right index finger. We even went so far as to shake slobbery falanges on our pledge.

Witnessing my relapse, Connie eyed her finger and wondered how good it would be to once more taste and take a drag on it.

“Judi, pull your thumb out of your mouth. Connie, don’t even think about it. Teddy quit teasing your sister,” Mom ordered, displaying motivational parallelism to General Patton in his speech to the Third Army before the Allied invasion of Normandy.

She had just marched in the door, armed with a box of Red Owl groceries.

Dad eyed the Red Owl box.

“Okay, Judi, quit worrying about a shoe box. I have a better idea,” he said. His blue eyes sparkled behind his Clark Kent glasses.

“To start, help your mom empty the groceries from that box,” he instructed.

“Instead of building a boring house, we’re going to erect a magnificent hospital—the Dakota Hospital,” Dad orated. Dakota Hospital was built in 1964 and stood as a modern, fairly large building for the southside of Fargo, North Dakota.

“But why make a hospital?” I asked.

“Because we can,” he boomed as if that explained the change in my homework assignment. “Now go to the front closet and grab the deLendrecie’s box for the gloves I gave your mother last Christmas.”

As I dug out the glove box, Dad ran to the basement and reappeared with his trusty wrench, and a half dozen of bolts, nuts, and washers.

Beginning to work up a sweat, he quickly bolted the glove box lid to the top of the grocery box and bolted the glove box bottom to the bottom of grocery box.

“See?” he exclaimed. Instead of focusing on the bolts, I watched a bead of sweat from his forehead splat on the top of the boxes and expand quickly in all directions like Stoa kids set loose at The Bowler’s buffet on Mother’s Day.

”See?” He repeated, breaking my trance.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Any child of three can see that the glove box top looks like the power, air conditioning and heating area on the roof of the hospital. And the bottom box looks like the first floor of the hospital.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Oh never mind. You’ll get it in a bit,” Dad said. He was used to others not following his creative thinking. “Now go out to the backyard and grab a handful of sand from the sandbox,” he said.

I looked at Mom. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I married your father because he was quirky, smart, and cute. I’m pretty sure he’s not crazy; go do as he says.”

Dad had me dump my mittful of sand into an old can of paint he had brought in from the garage. He mixed the concoction and handed a paintbrush to me.

“Alright. Paint the outside of the boxes and be careful not to get it on the kitchen table."

“Okay,” I said panting, excited to do something other than fetch ingredients for Dad’s latest pet project.

“See how the color and texture of the sandy, beige paint imitates the cement and bricks of the hospital?” Dad asked.

“Hey, yeah, I said excitedly.

“Quirky Junior,” Mom muttered as she patted my head before leaving the kitchen to start the evening bathing line up.

When the sandy paint coat was dry, Dad applied masking tape in vertical rows around the box.

“Now, paint this dark brown in between the tape lines,” he told me. After I finished, he removed the tape and I could see brown strips running from top to bottom around the big main box.

“I don’t get it,” I had to say again.

“Those strips represent the large vertical brown steel beams around the entire building,” Dad explained.

“Oh,” I said.

“Now cut out windows in the main box,” he said and handed me scissors before he left the kitchen.

About 15 minutes later, he came back to check on me. While the actual hospital had four floors with windows across the top three floors, Dad saw I had struggled cutting only a couple of holes.

“Let’s make this easier on both of us. Your hospital will have only two floors of windows.”

“But the hospital has three floors of windows,” I cried at his decree. Artists are temperamental.

“No sweetums, calm down. This is what we call artistic license. All true artists do it.”

“Really?” Connie asked. She, Larry, Monica, Angie and Jon had each been a part of Mom’s catch and release bathing program. They had been dried and PJed and now stood near the kitchen table, mesmerized by our activity. The Dad and Judi hole cutting show was better than the ‘Bewitched’ episode playing on television.

“Yes, artists never copy something exactly. We make changes. We call it, interpretation,” Dad said, smiling at his captive audience while he took the scissors out of my hand. He had momentary trouble getting the scissor’s thumb ring over my saliva-soaked and puckered thumb.

“Okay, now. Go get the aluminum foil from that kitchen drawer,” he said as he cleaned up my ragged chops and cut out the remaining windows. “We’ll put the foil inside the box against the window openings to imitate, light reflecting off the windowpanes.”

“No Ted! I am really low on foil,” Mom said as she put away dishes from the drying rack.

“Ah, Phyl, what do you need aluminum foil for? We never have leftovers.”

Dad had Mom there. Leftovers were unheard of with ten of us at each meal.

Mom shrugged her shoulders and sighed. She hung up her apron and pulled out a sheet of paper and pencil to make a list for the next day's grocery run.

“There,” Dad exclaimed proudly, sounding very much like Darren McGavin’s ‘old man’ character looking over his glorious leg lamp crossword puzzle award, in ‘A Christmas Story.’

“But Dad, the tin foil doesn’t look like lighted windows; it just looks like tin foil,” I said quietly, sounding very much like the boy in Hans Christian Anderson’s ‘The Emperor Has No Clothes.’

“Well, that’s your artistic interpretation. And we could have done better if you’d given me more time,” Dad said.

“But Sister Peter just told us today,” I replied.

I inspected the large replica of the hospital and began to cry. This time for real.

“Now, what’s the matter Judi? You and your dad have made a grand Dakota Hospital,” Mom said, cupping my face in her hands.

“But Sister Peter wanted us to make our house out of a shoe box and to put our address on it so that we could learn our home street address,” I said repeating from memory what Sister told us.

“It would have helped to know that earlier,” Mom said stifling her laughter.

After two beats of my sobs and Mom’s muffled guffaws, Dad said, “Well, anyone can learn their home address. Ours is 1709 14 ½ Street South Fargo, North Dakota, 58102. Go ahead. Say it.”

“1709…I can’t remember!” I cried.

“You’re just tired,” Mom said, giving me a hug and looking over at Dad.

“Well. Ahh. Well, you can learn your address tomorrow before school. And don’t worry that you didn’t build a house. Anyone can do that out of a shoebox. But not everyone can make a Dakota Hospital,” Dad said, first patting the top of his newest hospital and then the top of his oldest daughter’s head.

“But it’s supposed to be our house,” I cried.

“Oh this is better,” Dad said. “It’s artistic inter”

“Pretation,” I said and rubbed my eyes.

“That’s right. Now go to bed and think ‘1709 14 ½ Street South, Fargo, North Dakota, 58102,’” Dad said and gave me a kiss goodnight.

Sounding like a decrepit jalopy failing to get into gear, I sputtered parts of our address as I headed to bed.

The next day, similar to how Dakota Hospital rose above all else around it on South University in those days, so did my homework assignment rise above the surrounding shoe boxes in the classroom. All of the shoeboxes were adorned with second-grade scribbles, colors, and pastings.

Except for one.

It was Mary Nilles’ shoe box.

Mary’s looked like a real, honest to goodness, house.

Sure, it was a shoe box, but what artistic interpretation. It was a white house with a slanted, grey and green shingled roof, a pretty front door, and windows with green shutters. There were flowers around the foundation. It had a foundation! And. The creme de la creme, the Nilles address was printed neatly in white numerals and letters across the green front lawn.

Mary’s eyes shown brightly as she stood by her dad’s and her creation. Sister Peter lavished praise upon all the houses. But Sister could not ignore the dad-built elephants in the room, so she commented on the Dakota Hospital and Nilles’ residence.

“Saints preserve us,” Sister said. “It looks like your fathers helped a wee bit.”

Mary and I shook our heads affirmatively.

“Well, I guess that’s okay. I’ll have to say the award for the best project goes to Mary Nilles as she will undoubtedly know her home address from this point on,” Sister proclaimed.

Then sister glided—back then all nuns glided Darth Vader-like in their black flowing gowns—to her desk and pulled out a Tootsie Roll from her top desk drawer. She presented the prize to Mary. Everyone clapped, including me.

As Sister Peter glided back to the front of the room, I noticed Mary Nilles was looking at me. Mary nodded affirmatively and smiled; she had spackles of taffy-like chocolate in her teeth. I smiled and nodded in return.

Even without the prize, I felt good. Mary and I -- and our dads of course -- had done some good work.

That day in Sister Peter’s second grade class I learned a life lesson. You feel good when you cheer on someone else and have mutual respect.

Beyond that, I learned another lesson: people may be hospitable to your artistic interpretation, but you won’t win the Tootsie Roll if you don’t address the real assignment.

Judi Stoa’s Donchyaknow Life Lessons to see and bring out the best in yourself and others.

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