One evening, when my son Slade and I were in Long Beach for The NBM Show this summer, I left the location for our late supper totally up to him. He suggested we drive over to the Queen Mary—now a hotel across the harbor—to have something to eat and walk the decks of that grand old ship.

 

It was a great suggestion, and the clear, cool night (especially compared to Texas summer nights) made the walk around the historic ocean liner a pleasant diversion from our business trip to California. 

 

As we walked, I told him about a young soldier who sailed on the Queen Mary back in 1944, along with thousands of others, a few weeks before the Normandy Invasion. His name was Jesse Molina, a small Mexican American kid from Houston, Texas, and Jesse had told me that on the trip back, on that same ship, there weren’t very many left of his original brigade. He had been lucky though and survived unharmed. 

 

I knew all this because Jesus Salvador Molina, “Jesse,” was my old boss the summer I was introduced to the sign business back in 1972. I had just graduated from high school, and it was my mother’s suggestion that I use my artistic inclinations working part time at a sign shop back in the days when everything was drawn and painted by hand.

 

For one of the most interesting years of my life, Mr. Molina taught me how to sketch sign layouts with various letter styles and how to handle the fitch, flat and quill lettering brushes that were the sign painter’s tools of the trade. And he seemed to like having this strapping gringo kid around his shop and out on jobs in the field with him. 

 

Sometimes, after a sign install, I would climb up on top of the small ladder boom he had on his old Ford flatbed, and ride back to the shop sitting up on the ladder. And, any chance he got he would swerve to harmlessly swat me with lightweight low hanging branches, laughing all the way. Sounds crazy now, but we were having a good time working together. And in other ways, he would tease or challenge his young apprentice who, after a few months, was lettering 90 percent of the sign jobs that went though his shop, freeing up his time for the other important things of running a small sign business.

 

I remember one time when I wasn’t paying attention, I managed to misspell two or three words on one sign. The customer picked up his sign, but returned in a day or two to have it fixed. When he came in the door of the shop, he loudly exclaimed, “Molina, you must have been drunk when you painted this thing, look at these mistakes you made.”

 

Very calmly Mr. Molina replied, “You’re probably right. Leave it with me a day or two, and I’ll get it fixed before you return.”

 

He could have said, “Well, I’m not the one who lettered it,” or some similar response, but he took the blame, and once the customer left, merely showed me how to fix it. Of course, he knew that since his name was on the sign outside, he was responsible for anything that went out the door, something I understand very clearly today.

 

When I left his shop to do freelance signwork on my own schedule while going to college, I think Mr. Molina was more than a little disappointed. I went back to visit several times, but it was a long time before he seemed to enjoy my visits, and after several years we lost touch. 

 

Sometime back, however, I was called downtown to look at a sign that needed redoing, and recognized his style of hand lettering. I asked the client if Mr. Molina had originally done the job, and he verified my suspicion. Then I told him about working for Molina, and that I needed to go over and visit with him while he was on my mind. The customer told me not to bother as Mr. Molina had died fairly recently. I was very disappointed, and more than a little mad at myself for not having made that visit earlier.

 

I should have gone, and greatly regretted that I mentioned the visit to this fellow as it was six months or so later when I saw an obituary for Jesus Salvador Molina in the local paper. My last chance to see Mr. Molina, and tell him how much I appreciated all he had done for me those many years ago, was lost forever.

 

Jesse Molina, World War II veteran and longtime sign maker, was part of what is now called America’s “Greatest Generation,” and they are all rapidly disappearing from our numbers. Their contribution to our country will always be incalculable. 

 

All of our lives have been touched by what they collectively, and individually, have done.

And in a very specific way, my life was changed by one young army recruit, who walked the wooden decks of the Queen Mary on his way to D-Day, and came back to start a family, and later a sign business in Longview, Texas. 

 

I missed my last opportunity to tell him how much I appreciated his friendship and influence in my life. But, there are others of his generation still with us, so I write this “Trenches” in their honor, and as a reminder that there are other visits that need to be made, by this signmaker… and perhaps a few other signmakers out there.