This webpage is dedicated to the memory

of my big brother, Randy Riolo, who in 1979 never came home

from a ski trip to Big Bear.

He was very tall, 6'4", and was a star basketball player at his high school, Monte Vista (which is now the Sheriff's Academy in Whittier).  He graduated in 1976 and was going to college majoring in Business Administration and minoring in Political Science.  I remember he worked at "Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour and Restaurant" adjacent to the Whittwood Mall.  Then from there he worked at Chief Auto Parts in La Mirada as an assistant store manager.  I used to love going to Farrell's.  It was loud, noisy, it had the best hot dogs and ice cream.  The candy room was exciting for me as a little kid.

I remember he once caught me peeing on the dining room carpet.  I must have been 5 at the time and was too lazy to go all the way down the hall to the bathroom.  I was busy probably watching Speed Racer.  He said that if I were to ever do that again, he was going to tell mom and dad.  Suffice to say, I have never peed on the dining room carpet ever again.

Another memory is the last Christmas Eve we spent together, he let me stay up after mom and dad left for a friend's holiday party and let me play with my new Godzilla toy and Battlestar Galactica Viper Launcher.  When mom and dad returned home, he had me run back into bed.

He gave me beer inside Alpha Beta (the nearby supermarket on Santa Gertrudes), which was disgusting.  To this day, I don't drink beer. Lasting impression.

His Mustang was very loud and when he would pick me up from school, I felt like the coolest kid in the world.  By the way, his car is the background image for this webpage.

He took me to see Star Wars and the double feature Whittwood Theater, across the parking lot from Farrell's.  He also got me my first Star Wars action figures.  So this is the major reason why I am such a freak over Star Wars. It's all his fault, blame him.

I remember being into a black and gold trimmed race car back in the 70's (which I now know as the John Player Special Lotus F1 race car) and Randy took me to the car races once.  It was very exciting to see it whiz by.  Randy had a blue motorcycle helmet and I would wear it while I rode my big wheel up and down the sidewalk while he worked on his car.  In fact, the image you see is scanned from the picture he had of me in his wallet. When I saw what was in his wallet later on as an adult, it struck me pretty hard that he carried a picture of me, his little brother, with him, and it was with him when he died.  I know he loved me, but to see that kind of proof, affection, is still very emotional for me. 

I just wish I could remember his voice.  I do have a feeling that if I were to ever hear it again, I would immediately recognize it.

Growing up after his absence, I always felt like something or someone was missing. And that was due to the fact that my parents thought it was in my best interest not to go to his funeral. That I was "too young at the time to understand what was going on." So a neighbor across the street took me to Knott's Berry Farm. In hindsight, my folks and I agree that was a bad idea because, in my mind as a child, Randy was still coming home. Even though there was the crying, the grieving, the immeasurable pain, I was not cognitive enough to realize he died and that death was permanent.  Plus the fact that he was missing for 34 days in the snow. There was that hope he was going to come home. When I was around 16 years old, his loss really hit me like a ton of bricks. I saw friends who had siblings, brothers and sisters celebrating the Christmas season, and I realized... wait a minute. I had that. Where did it go? Where was Randy? He died from exposure to the cold.  He was not coming back. Even though I had been to his grave many, many times, it never sank in. Being 16 and grasping what had happened 10 years earlier was very lonely for me. The subject of Randy is not something you bring up around my mother without being prepared for a tear fest. And rightfully so, he was her son. But I couldn't get to know him through her or ask questions without her losing it each and every time his name came up.

And then his best friends had trickled away from contact. At the time of his passing, he had a girlfriend name Robin Goldstein, who was a total gem. I adored her. She was so kind and loving.  She would come around every now and again and visit my mom until 1985 when she moved away to San Francisco. Gary Seymour, his best friend, became a sheriff, got married and had a baby and that was the last I saw of him, around the same time Robin left. Everyone was moving on with their lives. Even my parents tried their best to move on. 

In 1980, my parents decided it was best to move. Their mourning made them decide to move to Mexico, leaving the house, the memories, our family and our friends. My father took a job electro plating job there for 6 long months. I didn't really like the change and it was impossible for me to follow along in a school that spoke absolutely no English. Plus, it was a Catholic school, and from what I remember, those kids sure were twisted. Later, we moved back over the border to a city called Calexico. There I was able to catch up in school work and my dad was still able to commute to his job in Mexicali.

In 1982, I found myself living in La Mirada once more. Once again, I was pulled from familiar surroundings and thrown into a new school. This is where things slowly started to go down hill for me. It was good being close to all my old friends and family again, but the damage had already been done. It wasn't my parents fault - they thought they were doing the right thing by bringing me back to La Mirada - but in the process of 2 years, I was taken in and out of 4 different schools. Scott Avenue in Whittier, (next to La Mirada), Mexican Catholic Bootcamp in Mexicali, Dool Elementary School in Calexico, and then to Dulles Elementary School in La Mirada. Things didn't start to smooth out for me until I finally rejoined my old classmates from Scott Avenue Elementary and Granada Jr. High in Whittier. And this was about the time Randy's friends went their different ways.

Then of course 2 years later, when I was 16, I needed them most.  I needed someone.  I needed my brother.  But that's life.  You get what you are dealt and you make the best of it.  If I could go back and change things, I would tell Robin and Gary to never lose touch, to always be there.  Hell If I could, I'd tell Randy not to go skiing with his co-workers from Chief Auto Parts.  Postpone it a day AT LEAST!

So what happened was, Randy had taken up skiing and really liked it.  He went up to Big Bear with some friends and was going to spend a couple days teaching them how to ski.  One late afternoon, from what I recall, he wanted to ski down the big slope and was tired of the 'bunny hills' where people learn to ski.  Everyone was going back into the ski lodge because a storm was coming.  Plus it was getting late and Randy went off alone.  His friends let him go.  Now I am not putting blame on them, they had no idea what was going to happen, Randy was responsible for his own actions. But come on. A storm is coming?  It's getting dark?  And he's going up to the top of the mountain on a fucking ski lift... alone?

Six weeks later he was found by an unidentified hiker three miles from the ski run in a place called Bear Creek Canyon where search and rescue had combed the canyon with snow depths reaching 7 feet. His skiis were nowhere to be found and it is thought that he was trying to walk to safety after having climbed the slope 4,000 feet down. My mom says it was a terrible blizzard, called a white out, where he became disoriented and climbed down the wrong side of the mountain. My dad believes he got tiered and took a rest. He unzipped his jacket and took off his mittens. When hypothermia sets in, your thinking gets fuzzy. By unzipping his jacket, he let his body heat escape and then he fell asleep.  That's what changed my life. 

If he had lived, everything would have turned out differently.  My folks wouldn't have made such drastic decisions out of their grief, I would have had a relationship with him that would have helped mold and shape me into probably a better person than what I am today.  Granted, my friendships and relationships over the years would not have happened, so who is to say life would have been better?  For all I know, he would have hated me for being gay.  He could have gotten married and moved away and then there I would be, all alone again.  So who is to say?  We will never know. All that matters is, he was a person, he was my brother, and he was loved.

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