The Beautiful, Alluring, Imaginative, Unpredictable, and Whimsical World of Dominic

In the neighborhood that I grew up in I had everything a kid could possibly want.  The grade school I went to was a mile down the road.  Each weekend I would play soccer games coached by a family friend at a field a mere 5-minute walk away from our house.  

There was also a community pool and a field where all the neighborhood kids would gather in the summers for endless games of baseball.  

But without question, the best part of growing up was living 5 houses away from my best friend Dominic.

For 7 years each afternoon of my young life started with me running at full speed to the house at the bottom of the street. I would burst through the door that led to the kitchen, never once knocking, and would always be greeted by Dominic’s mom Patty.  She beamed as I entered with my spikey mousse filled hair. 

“Hi Nicky!  How are you?  I think Dom’s in his room,” she would say.

 Dominic’s family became my family.  I envied their loving dynamic, the fun they had together, and the freedom their parents gave each child to be who they were.  One of the things that I admired most was Dominic’s imagination.  He saw the world in a completely different way.  His take on life was always unique and imaginative, even for a kid. 

Little Miss Sunshine

His family would often invite me to their grandparents’ ranch in Paso Robles, a wonderland of horses, creeks, and endless hills.  It was about a 4-hour drive from Oakland in the family’s big blue van.  To a boy, a trip this long seemed like a voyage to the moon.  

Still, what made the time go by fast was listening to Dominic ask his dad the most imaginative questions.  “Dad, what would happen if you jumped off a 10,000 foot bridge without a parachute, but right before you were about to hit the water a giant pterodactyl swooped in and bumped you with his wing?  Could you survive? 

Or, what if you were falling in an elevator from the 200^th floor of a building in Nova Scotia and right before the elevator reached the basement you jumped up, but only using your left foot?  What would happen?” 

It took me a long time to appreciate the relationship between Dominic’s curiosity about the world and his love of books.  If I ever arrived at Dom’s house and he was buried in a book, I knew I’d have a better chance of parting the sea than prying the book from his hands.  He read like he breathed.  

Dominic's world was a place of questions, wonder, and possibilities unlocked by the pages of good books.  His passion for literature never ceased, enabling him to go to good schools, engage in important debates, and build his understanding of himself.