There is so many stories but I’ll share this one. When Charlie had recently moved to his new home in woodland.  I went over to hangout or  “Laaaay” as we called it. I got a tour and I told him it was a nice and very big house. I jokingly told him he has to fill it with kids or I was moving in. We laughed and he said noooo Monch not yet.  I responded with wouldn’t it be funny if you had twins! He said oh hell no and we laughed some more. A few months passed i was at the gym and I get a text message from Charlie with a image attached. I opened it to see his wife’s sonogram with twins. I said congratulations! He tells me his wife Adriana told him during the ultrasound “tell Sal I blame him”. 

Carlos, you will definitely be missed. Thank you for your authenticity and jokes on those long service days. Sending many prayers

In 2014, Charlie and I worked together for the summer at D&K Orchards in preparation for almond harvest. One day at work we got to planning this bike trip and came up with the bright idea to try and ride our bikes to Williams and talked about how we should eventually also try to ride to Colusa and Maxwell.

So on a hot summer Sunday, we started our bike ride from Arbuckle to Williams using Highway 99. We must have not thought out the trip very well because neither of us brought a water. I don’t recall exactly how long it took us to finally get to Williams (I believe roughly 2-3 hours) but once we did we went to La Fortuna to ask for a water that we could pay back at a later time, since neither of us had our wallets either. 

After drinking what felt like the most refreshing water known to man, I turned to Charlie and said, “the bike ride here wasn’t that bad, huh?” We both laughed because we knew how much it sucked and still had to ride back home. We thought about calling someone to pick us up along with our the bikes but decided to be stubborn and road all the way back home also. Needless to say, after the experience of riding to Williams,  the bike trip to Colusa and Maxwell never happened. 

During Charlie’s junior year of high school, my senior, I made him cookies on the first Friday of football season. He said they were good luck so for the remainder of the season, I baked him something every Thursday to have for Friday. His favorite were peanut butter cookies with a mini Reese’s cup in the middle. He still brought up that memory not long ago. I wish I could make him a million more cookies. 

I love my brother so much and would have done anything for him. When Charlie moved away to attend UCSB, he didn't know how to do laundry. I tired to explain to him over the phone, but he just had too many questions. I told him to wait for me and we would do it together. I drove 6 hours to teach him how to do laundry. We then went to Kmart to pick-up snacks for him to have, we went to dinner, and then I drove back to Sacramento.