In the mid-1970s, while in my corporate career-building phase, I spent an extended period of time in the home office of my employer in Costa Mesa, California, about one hour’s drive from El Segundo, where my brother Sam lived with his wife, Barbara, and daughter, Stephanie.
In his mid-thirties, Sam discovered the joys of snow skiing at Mammoth Mountain, about a six hour drive from his house. He took it up with his normal focus and passion: he bought the equipment, read the ski magazines, saw the Warren Miller movies. He did it all, all the normal things of one with a consuming focus on whatever new challenge he faced. It was like this with each new area of interest: shooting pool, water skiing, sailing a Hobie Cat, nutrition and running, and building or repairing something at home. He and Barb even bought a condo at Mammoth. I’m not sure I have known anyone who could make himself so singular in his purpose when striving to master a new skill.
I had been skiing much longer than had Sam, and I had attained a skill level a bit beyond his reach at this point, although he could certainly keep up with me. O. K., I made sure he could keep up with me. He was quite proud of me for my skill at this. He wanted me on board each of his trips, and they were frequent. It took some badgering to get me to accompany him on those occasions when I could escape my other obligations. Fortunately, I was able to break away from career and family and expend the required funds a few times. These were always at Sam’s determined urgings. Here is how the phone badgering would typically occur:
“Hyland Labs, good afternoon. This is (someone from the pool of admin assistants from our office). May I help you?”
“This is Sam Molinaro and I want to talk to my baby brother,” he would say.
“Oh, Hi, Sam. How you doing today?” one of them would respond. He called often enough and employed that line on nearly each occasion, so everyone of these ladies, about three or four of them, had become familiar with the routine, appreciated it, and always responded with good humor. I was able to observe that it generated a genuine laugh, or at least a smile, on more than one occasion.
“Your brother is so funny,” I heard from a couple of them. “I always like getting his calls.”
“Hold on, Sam, he’s right here,” she managed to say, phone held up in her hand, shaking her head, still laughing. “Line 2, Nick,” she said. I think she was trying to recover her breath.
I went back into my office to take the call. I heard one of the others say laughingly, “What did he say, this time?”
“What did you say to her?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Same as always, ‘I want to talk to my baby brother.’”
Clearly, he was not going to tell me what he said to set her off.
He started the badgering that would inevitably compel me to agree to the ski trip on the coming weekend. I had neither funds, nor time for this trip. With the badgering concluded, and having surrendered again, I walked out of my office and up to the desk of, well, I have forgotten her name; let’s say, Eileen; that has a familiar ring to it now.
I said nothing, just stood at her desk smiling, looking down anxious to hear what he had done this time. She looked up at me smiling and shaking her head. Her appearance was one of someone who had just concluded some vigorous physical activity, like jogging or something. She was nearly perspiring. Each of the others was laughing heartily now.
“Your brother is the funniest man I have ever dealt with over the phone,” she said. Here is how she related the call:
“Hyland Labs. Good afternoon. How may I help you,” she claimed to have said.
“Who is this?” came the response in an angry, aggressive tone.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I said that. This is Eileen. How can I help you?” she replied.
“Eileen who? What’s your last name?” he demanded.
“Eileen Riley. What can I do for you, Sir?” she offered.
“Riley . . . Riley? ARE YOU THE ONE WHO’S BEEN FOOLING AROUND WITH MY BABY BROTHER?”
“This is Sam Molinaro and I want to talk to my baby brother.”
“Oh, Hi, Sam. He’s tied up right now. Do you want me to have him call you later?” she offered.
NOTE: I think this was Barbara Prospero. This Barbara was a pleasant and rather serious person, not real talkative, focused on her work. She and I would exchange occasional jokes about our Italian heritage. She actually had a wicked sense of humor once she reached a comfort level with you. I know Sam enjoyed the banter with her. So did I.
“OK, which one of you girls tied up my baby brother this time?” he wanted to know.
“All of us, Sam, and GODDAMN, it was good!”
He loved that one.
“C’mon, Nick. Must be six feet of snow up there, and the lodging is all taken care of, just cost you for your lift ticket and food. No, I’ll buy the food, you just pay for the lift ticket.
He had taken away the main obstacle, and of course, I caved. We’d be taking “The Gypsy”,
a Ford van conversion, fitted with stove, sink, closet, bed and another amenity or two. He loved that thing. He and Barb camped in it with Stephanie. I think they usually took the dog with them. It was real Americana.
With a scheduled departure on a Friday night, as they always were, I had to leave work a bit early to beat the southern California traffic. We gathered at Sam’s house: Karl Bailey, Bob Enright, Larry Larson, and I, the junior member of the party. All these guys were Sam’s contemporaries; he was five and one-half years my senior. I was walking in tall cotton. These were grown men I had known all my life who still called me “Nicky” into my early thirties. They didn’t quite tussle my hair and call me “Squirt” or something, but clearly I was still “Sam’s Little Brother” to them, and I was always a bit awed in their company.
To say that I looked up to Sam is to badly understate the case. To me he was nearly invincible. I thought he was the fastest, toughest, quickest athlete ever. I thought he knew everything about mechanics, carpentry, plumbing, hydraulics (his career, actually), property acquisition, poker, dice, pool, anything that involved a need to master something complex and difficult. I doubted that he was more powerful than most locomotives, and saw no way that he could leap some of those taller buildings at a single bound, but that being faster than a speeding bullet thing, well I would not have bet against him on that one.
I am not sure if Sam ever did anything as relaxing as read a novel or other work of long fiction completely. It was not within his area of interests. He had no patience, no willingness to sit through the hours it takes to read something that non-utilitarian. He read newspapers and magazines from cover to cover and technical papers, yes; but an entire novel all the way through? I doubt it. He would have found nothing to apply after reading a novel. He would have no functional object, no new structure, nothing utilitarian that he could see and manipulate and know that he built it or fixed it. There had to be a tangible result to his reading or he would have no interest in it. He just had a deep interest in structural things and an ability to figure out how to construct, or deconstruct, any mechanical device or structure, and that’s what he liked.
So, here I was in the company of my elders joking with them, hearing the teasing and banter and the exchange of faux insults as though I belonged, knowing that I belonged only because I was Sam’s little brother.
“Nicky! How you doing?” “Hey, Nicky. How you been?” “Ready to go, Nicky?”
I’m going to attend an informal gathering of high school graduates from El Segundo soon. I expect to hear all of that again from one or two of these same guys and a few others. Even a few of my contemporaries still call me “Nicky”. I’m incrediblly old and still viewed by many as “Nicky. You know, Sam’s little brother.” This happens to younger siblings whose older siblings are so prominent within the village. The appellation has been attached to me for as long as I can remember, and now I find hearing it generates nostalgia, comfort, and affection.
Nothing so focused my mind as the prospect of a road trip with my big brother, especially a ski trip. Once having caved in to the badgering and committed to the trip, the anticipation dominated my thoughts. I could still function otherwise, but my thoughts would return quickly to the prospect of the trip; not exclusively on the snow and the exhilaration of skiing, but the “on the road” experience with Sam and the guys.
On this evening, before our departure, Sam is jovial, but anxious to get going. He banters along with the others, but clearly he’ll be just a bit tense until he can get everyone into the Gypsy and get under weigh. We head north on the San Diego Freeway, five grown men clowning like boys, ski gear stacked inside the van with us (he had no ski racks at the time) and parkas, snow pants and other paraphernalia piled in the center. I have retained this clear image of Karl Bailey’s long legs resting on the gear as he sat in the back facing the windshield.
The Gypsy was equipped with a dinette structure in the center that collapsed into a full bed. The cushions were flimsy foam that offered minimal support. The bench-like seats formed a three-sided, rectangular “U” around a table supported by an aluminum post. Sitting there required one to face the sliding side door so that your sight was perpendicular to the road; not so good on a long trip, or facing the windshield with an obstructed view of what was ahead; a little better, or facing the rear of the vehicle; bad. We’d be dealing with this for six hours or more. I was stuck on the bench with a sight line facing the side of the road; not good. It put me in mind of the military air transport I had endured a decade prior in C-123s and C-130s in which we sat, elbow to elbow, wearing full field gear, with backs to bulkheads; the worst.
We all felt the discomfort and expressed minor complaints about it. Sam said we were a bunch of pussies. He had no thought about discomfort; he was driving and, therefore, happily in control of 3,500 lbs. of a moving, mechanical object. He was occupied with bright prospects of fresh powder snow, the freedom of being on the road, the relative comfort of his captain’s chair, and his Carole King eight-track on a continuous loop.
"For it’s too late baby, now, its too late, though we really did try to make it. . . ."To him, not much could be better than this moment, and he did not want to hear a bunch of whiney,
cry-baby complaints from the back.
I think it was Bob Enright who expressed it first:
“Sam, you got anything else you can put in that eight-track? This must be the sixth go round now for Carole,” he implored from the back.
“Nope,” came the response.
"Something inside has died and I can’t hide and I just can’t fake it. . . ."
My eyes met Larry Larson’s, who then looked at Karl Bailey who glanced at Enright. One or two of us did that eye roll to the ceiling thing.
"One more song about moving along the highway . . ."
Later: Enright again, or perhaps Larson started this exchange:
“We stopping in Lancaster to eat?”
“Nope,” came the response.
“Palmdale?”
“Nope.”
“Where we stopping?”
“Mammoth.”
I saw Sam’s reflection as he looked up in the rear view mirror grinning broadly, quite pleased with the torment he was dishing to us. He turned up the volume on the eight-track.
"Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? It would be so fine to see your face at my door . . ."
We stopped in Lone Pine, roughly the midpoint of the trip. It was likely Sam’s plan at the outset.
Much of the remainder of the trip has faded from memory now, but I recall a great time on the slopes. Skiing with these guys was stress-free, full of fun, and unencumbered with worry of any kind. There was genuine camaraderie and continuous humor and banter among us. Snow and weather conditions were wonderful and the weekend crowds were not bad. Nothing went wrong and we endured no hardships other than the congestion and bad seating in the Gypsy on the way home. On this return leg, we loaded up with tacos and beer at one of the favorite spots off of Highway 395. Consequently, “gotta piss” breaks were frequent, and remarkably, Sam willingly pulled over in good humor and with great patience each time.
This trip was the highlight of all my ski trips; nothing subsequent to it matched the shear enjoyment I experienced with Sam and his friends that weekend.
"My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue, an everlasting vision of the ever changing view . . ."
In his mid-thirties, Sam discovered the joys of snow skiing at Mammoth Mountain, about a six hour drive from his house. He took it up with his normal focus and passion: he bought the equipment, read the ski magazines, saw the Warren Miller movies. He did it all, all the normal things of one with a consuming focus on whatever new challenge he faced. It was like this with each new area of interest: shooting pool, water skiing, sailing a Hobie Cat, nutrition and running, and building or repairing something at home. He and Barb even bought a condo at Mammoth. I’m not sure I have known anyone who could make himself so singular in his purpose when striving to master a new skill.I had been skiing much longer than had Sam, and I had attained a skill level a bit beyond his reach at this point, although he could certainly keep up with me. O. K., I made sure he could keep up with me. He was quite proud of me for my skill at this. He wanted me on board each of his trips, and they were frequent. It took some badgering to get me to accompany him on those occasions when I could escape my other obligations. Fortunately, I was able to break away from career and family and expend the required funds a few times. These were always at Sam’s determined urgings. Here is how the phone badgering would typically occur:
“Hyland Labs, good afternoon. This is (someone from the pool of admin assistants from our office). May I help you?”
“This is Sam Molinaro and I want to talk to my baby brother,” he would say.
“Oh, Hi, Sam. How you doing today?” one of them would respond. He called often enough and employed that line on nearly each occasion, so everyone of these ladies, about three or four of them, had become familiar with the routine, appreciated it, and always responded with good humor. I was able to observe that it generated a genuine laugh, or at least a smile, on more than one occasion.
“Your brother is so funny,” I heard from a couple of them. “I always like getting his calls.”
Sam Breaks Up The Office Crew
I remember on one occasion, while in my office, hearing an outburst of hearty laughter, the kind you cannot mute or subdue. It continued and strengthened in vigor. I thought that someone must have told a great joke. None of the ladies out there typically carried on this way. When it went beyond the point at which I thought it would stop, I heard one of them say, “Oh, Sam, I didn’t recognize your voice. You are too funny.” I stuck my head out the door and observed one of the usually more sedate ones still laughing, tears in her eyes. The others were caught up in the infectious laughter not knowing its source.“Hold on, Sam, he’s right here,” she managed to say, phone held up in her hand, shaking her head, still laughing. “Line 2, Nick,” she said. I think she was trying to recover her breath.
I went back into my office to take the call. I heard one of the others say laughingly, “What did he say, this time?”
“What did you say to her?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Same as always, ‘I want to talk to my baby brother.’”
Clearly, he was not going to tell me what he said to set her off.
He started the badgering that would inevitably compel me to agree to the ski trip on the coming weekend. I had neither funds, nor time for this trip. With the badgering concluded, and having surrendered again, I walked out of my office and up to the desk of, well, I have forgotten her name; let’s say, Eileen; that has a familiar ring to it now.
I said nothing, just stood at her desk smiling, looking down anxious to hear what he had done this time. She looked up at me smiling and shaking her head. Her appearance was one of someone who had just concluded some vigorous physical activity, like jogging or something. She was nearly perspiring. Each of the others was laughing heartily now.
“Your brother is the funniest man I have ever dealt with over the phone,” she said. Here is how she related the call:
“Hyland Labs. Good afternoon. How may I help you,” she claimed to have said.
“Who is this?” came the response in an angry, aggressive tone.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I said that. This is Eileen. How can I help you?” she replied.
“Eileen who? What’s your last name?” he demanded.
“Eileen Riley. What can I do for you, Sir?” she offered.
“Riley . . . Riley? ARE YOU THE ONE WHO’S BEEN FOOLING AROUND WITH MY BABY BROTHER?”
More Badgering
I got this account of a different episode on another occasion directly from Sam:“This is Sam Molinaro and I want to talk to my baby brother.”
“Oh, Hi, Sam. He’s tied up right now. Do you want me to have him call you later?” she offered.
NOTE: I think this was Barbara Prospero. This Barbara was a pleasant and rather serious person, not real talkative, focused on her work. She and I would exchange occasional jokes about our Italian heritage. She actually had a wicked sense of humor once she reached a comfort level with you. I know Sam enjoyed the banter with her. So did I.
“OK, which one of you girls tied up my baby brother this time?” he wanted to know.
“All of us, Sam, and GODDAMN, it was good!”
He loved that one.
“C’mon, Nick. Must be six feet of snow up there, and the lodging is all taken care of, just cost you for your lift ticket and food. No, I’ll buy the food, you just pay for the lift ticket.
He had taken away the main obstacle, and of course, I caved. We’d be taking “The Gypsy”,
With a scheduled departure on a Friday night, as they always were, I had to leave work a bit early to beat the southern California traffic. We gathered at Sam’s house: Karl Bailey, Bob Enright, Larry Larson, and I, the junior member of the party. All these guys were Sam’s contemporaries; he was five and one-half years my senior. I was walking in tall cotton. These were grown men I had known all my life who still called me “Nicky” into my early thirties. They didn’t quite tussle my hair and call me “Squirt” or something, but clearly I was still “Sam’s Little Brother” to them, and I was always a bit awed in their company.
To say that I looked up to Sam is to badly understate the case. To me he was nearly invincible. I thought he was the fastest, toughest, quickest athlete ever. I thought he knew everything about mechanics, carpentry, plumbing, hydraulics (his career, actually), property acquisition, poker, dice, pool, anything that involved a need to master something complex and difficult. I doubted that he was more powerful than most locomotives, and saw no way that he could leap some of those taller buildings at a single bound, but that being faster than a speeding bullet thing, well I would not have bet against him on that one.
I am not sure if Sam ever did anything as relaxing as read a novel or other work of long fiction completely. It was not within his area of interests. He had no patience, no willingness to sit through the hours it takes to read something that non-utilitarian. He read newspapers and magazines from cover to cover and technical papers, yes; but an entire novel all the way through? I doubt it. He would have found nothing to apply after reading a novel. He would have no functional object, no new structure, nothing utilitarian that he could see and manipulate and know that he built it or fixed it. There had to be a tangible result to his reading or he would have no interest in it. He just had a deep interest in structural things and an ability to figure out how to construct, or deconstruct, any mechanical device or structure, and that’s what he liked.
So, here I was in the company of my elders joking with them, hearing the teasing and banter and the exchange of faux insults as though I belonged, knowing that I belonged only because I was Sam’s little brother.
“Nicky! How you doing?” “Hey, Nicky. How you been?” “Ready to go, Nicky?”
I’m going to attend an informal gathering of high school graduates from El Segundo soon. I expect to hear all of that again from one or two of these same guys and a few others. Even a few of my contemporaries still call me “Nicky”. I’m incrediblly old and still viewed by many as “Nicky. You know, Sam’s little brother.” This happens to younger siblings whose older siblings are so prominent within the village. The appellation has been attached to me for as long as I can remember, and now I find hearing it generates nostalgia, comfort, and affection.
Transport by Gypsy
Nothing so focused my mind as the prospect of a road trip with my big brother, especially a ski trip. Once having caved in to the badgering and committed to the trip, the anticipation dominated my thoughts. I could still function otherwise, but my thoughts would return quickly to the prospect of the trip; not exclusively on the snow and the exhilaration of skiing, but the “on the road” experience with Sam and the guys.
On this evening, before our departure, Sam is jovial, but anxious to get going. He banters along with the others, but clearly he’ll be just a bit tense until he can get everyone into the Gypsy and get under weigh. We head north on the San Diego Freeway, five grown men clowning like boys, ski gear stacked inside the van with us (he had no ski racks at the time) and parkas, snow pants and other paraphernalia piled in the center. I have retained this clear image of Karl Bailey’s long legs resting on the gear as he sat in the back facing the windshield.
The Gypsy was equipped with a dinette structure in the center that collapsed into a full bed. The cushions were flimsy foam that offered minimal support. The bench-like seats formed a three-sided, rectangular “U” around a table supported by an aluminum post. Sitting there required one to face the sliding side door so that your sight was perpendicular to the road; not so good on a long trip, or facing the windshield with an obstructed view of what was ahead; a little better, or facing the rear of the vehicle; bad. We’d be dealing with this for six hours or more. I was stuck on the bench with a sight line facing the side of the road; not good. It put me in mind of the military air transport I had endured a decade prior in C-123s and C-130s in which we sat, elbow to elbow, wearing full field gear, with backs to bulkheads; the worst.
We all felt the discomfort and expressed minor complaints about it. Sam said we were a bunch of pussies. He had no thought about discomfort; he was driving and, therefore, happily in control of 3,500 lbs. of a moving, mechanical object. He was occupied with bright prospects of fresh powder snow, the freedom of being on the road, the relative comfort of his captain’s chair, and his Carole King eight-track on a continuous loop.
"For it’s too late baby, now, its too late, though we really did try to make it. . . ."To him, not much could be better than this moment, and he did not want to hear a bunch of whiney,
cry-baby complaints from the back.
I think it was Bob Enright who expressed it first:
“Sam, you got anything else you can put in that eight-track? This must be the sixth go round now for Carole,” he implored from the back.
“Nope,” came the response.
"Something inside has died and I can’t hide and I just can’t fake it. . . ."
My eyes met Larry Larson’s, who then looked at Karl Bailey who glanced at Enright. One or two of us did that eye roll to the ceiling thing.
"One more song about moving along the highway . . ."
Later: Enright again, or perhaps Larson started this exchange:
“We stopping in Lancaster to eat?”
“Nope,” came the response.
“Palmdale?”
“Nope.”
“Where we stopping?”
“Mammoth.”
I saw Sam’s reflection as he looked up in the rear view mirror grinning broadly, quite pleased with the torment he was dishing to us. He turned up the volume on the eight-track.
"Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? It would be so fine to see your face at my door . . ."
We stopped in Lone Pine, roughly the midpoint of the trip. It was likely Sam’s plan at the outset.
Much of the remainder of the trip has faded from memory now, but I recall a great time on the slopes. Skiing with these guys was stress-free, full of fun, and unencumbered with worry of any kind. There was genuine camaraderie and continuous humor and banter among us. Snow and weather conditions were wonderful and the weekend crowds were not bad. Nothing went wrong and we endured no hardships other than the congestion and bad seating in the Gypsy on the way home. On this return leg, we loaded up with tacos and beer at one of the favorite spots off of Highway 395. Consequently, “gotta piss” breaks were frequent, and remarkably, Sam willingly pulled over in good humor and with great patience each time.
This trip was the highlight of all my ski trips; nothing subsequent to it matched the shear enjoyment I experienced with Sam and his friends that weekend.
Carole King Will Not Quit Me
I downloaded a music program called Pandora a few weeks ago and made my initial artist selections. Carole King is the first one I picked."My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue, an everlasting vision of the ever changing view . . ."