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Bio: Nick Molinaro
Recent Posts: Each image is a link to the full story.
01/02/2012 Eco/Wilderness: I post an account of a day of kayak fishing on the northern California coast.
10/05/2011 Eco/Wilderness: I post a narrative about rigging my kayak, a project with no time limits and no budget. It's like a golf obsession: I think of it constantly.
10/31/2011 Eco/Wilderness: I struggled to get my yak up onto the roof of my high profile SUV, so I assembled a very small trailer and had some old time smitheys in Vallejo, CA retrofit it with a nine-foot tongue.
09/07/2011, Musings: Fishing from a kayak with professional guide Allen Bushnell out of Santa Cruz, CA. I decimate stocks of Pacific Rock Cod, acquire knowledge about sea kayaking, and experience my first capsizing.
Somewhat More Seasoned Posts:
A Senior Strategy This story is true. It occured one evening when I was to pick up my wife at the Oakland, California airport upon her return from a frustrating business trip. I think the red headed SW agent was on to my scam.
A Brother Lost: PSA Flight 182 Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 collided with a private plane while approaching the San Diego, California airport on September 25, 1978. No one survived that collision. There were 135 people onboard the PSA jet. The two men aboard the private plane died, as did seven people on the ground in a San Diego neighborhood.
Happier Musings about My Big Brother My niece made me more conscious of how painful a story can be to readers when she sent me an email describing her reaction to my earlier story about her parents and the plane crash that killed my brother. She indicated a desire to read something happier about her dad, so, here is a memory of a road trip I took with him, for her.
Camp Holloway, Vietnam 1969-70 
There was a U.S. Army base, Camp Holloway, on the outskirts of Pleiku in the central highlands of South Vietnam that housed the 4th Infantry Division. I was there for one year. I recount some of my experiences and recall a particularly troublesome 1st Sergeant.
The Dinner Party and the Moon Landing Carl Fiorelli enjoys his golden years. Happily married for over forty years, he is optimistic and enthusiastic about each day's adventures in general. It has all worked out quite well, all in all. At times, he has thought his life nearly perfect: Love, family, health, adventures, wonder. He keeps the travails of the past distant and directs his focus where he likes to keep it.
Bob, The Wager, and the Handshake Bob Van Hosen, who was married to my sister for 53 years, died in July 2007. This account is a true enactment of the events of our first meeting and of my experience with him in his final days.
"Ike" Dougherty Was My Coach Back in the 50s and 60s, we had a very dedicated, generous, and colorful high school football coach named Clyde "Ike" Dougherty, who had enjoyed a distinguished football career at Arizona State University as a quarterback in the early 1940s.
The Courtship of Sam and Babe I heard a few stories about my maternal grandfather, Francesco Basta, born in the latter part of the 19th Century a couple of decades after Garibaldi and Mazzini fought to unite Italy during the Risorgimento.
When My Dad Shot Mr. Ford's Horse Mr. Ford spent a lot of time with his horse. I forget the horse's name and only vaguely remember its appearance, being only about four years old when my dad shot the "poor, sick creature", as he later described him.
Tourettes Guy and TrailmixThis is factual and recounted in exact detail. I enountered a young man with Tourette’s syndrome while on a long flight and observed his technique for dealing with his symptoms.
A Drink With Harry at the Cosmo Rouge Harry Rittenberry became our Oak Cliff neighbor in Dallas, Texas a little over two years ago when my wife and I bought the craftsman style house next to his and began our renovation project. Harry loved the construction, I think, because he loved the idea of renewal, and perhaps, after years of ill health, wished it for himself.
Six Fat Little Babies I pursued an old inside family joke by inquiring about the girl's heritage pictured with my son to ensure that he would be serious only about an Italian girl, as though that really matters to any of us. But it is something I have used to tease all my children. The girl thought that was cute and commented back asking my son if she really looks Italian. I commented back trying to explain the joke. It occurred to me that I could expand my brief explanation.
Cousin Frank and the Lamp The events here are fictional. The depiction of my father’s intense protectiveness toward even distant family members is quite accurate. Cousin Frankie is a few years my senior, which makes him an unqualified senior citizen now. As I remember my aunt, his mother, she was a diminutive, gentle woman. How she gave birth to a living block of granite was an occasional item of conjecture within the family.