Tom Sico
Sharon and family, we are very sorry for you loss. My wife says that Sam was the most polite and best gentleman of my friends that she had met. He was in Columbus for a deposition in 1981 when she was pregnant with our son, and we had a very nice dinner together.
Sam and I had jobs at Grumman Aviation towards the end of our senior year. They hired 16 of us from Farmingdale HS to work on the F-111 sweep wing bombers. The fuel was to be stored in various places in the fuselage, and we were hunched in the nooks and crannies of the fuselage scrapping out the excess gunk with some toxic solvent so the fuel lines would not clog with stray gunk and to reduce the plane's weight. The solvent was called 8802, and I bet Sam would remember that detail.
I worked in a plane with Sam, just the two of us in a plane, four hours a night from 4 to 8 p.m., talking non stop about everything you could think of, school, politics, anything, often singing songs. Sam had a tremendous memory for music. He was the smartest person I knew, but humble about it, great to talk with every day. I am glad to have got to know him.
Tom Sico