78 Going on 104 and in a New Job

Ben Rinaldo has made a career of making the best of his situation. In 11 jobs since high school, he has switched from Brillo salesman to Hollywood agent to producer, from teaching Navy hygiene classes to training employees for corporations. When he found himself out of work at age 75, he stopped for a few weeks and then parlayed his experiences into another career. Rinaldo, 78, and his wife, Martha, live in Studio City.

I was still ski racing up until two years ago. I used to ski 40, 50 days a year, and I traveled the world. I covered the Olympic games. I covered World Cup games. I covered ski racing.

After the war is when I fell in love with skiing. I saved a few dollars in the Navy and bought a mountain cabin up in Wrightwood. The first winter up there I discovered something just up the road a piece called a ski run. Two hours later, I was absolutely hooked on skiing.

The next year, 1951, I went on the ski patrol. For 15 years I was head of ski patrol on Table Mountain and I went into the ski world as a way of making a living and closed down my other business.

I went into public relations, advertising, marketing and promotion for skiing and wound up buying a little ski newspaper published here in Southern California. I changed the name to the Skier and went statewide with it. It subsequently became a national newspaper with a circulation of between 38 and 40,000, which is a helluva lot for a tabloid specialty newspaper.

I was the guy who sold the ads, paid the bills, handled circulation, emptied the waste baskets, did the paste-up and ran the whole show. I just learn how to do these things. I’m a quick study.

I don’t have any qualms about walking where angels fear to tread. Also, I’ve never had any hesitation of walking away from something when it started to look bad.

I never thought to start taking my Social Security when I was 65. I didn’t even start that till years later, when the government caught up with me. I think I was between 70 and 71, and they said, “Hey baby, this is the time.”

Three years ago, the Los Angeles Times announced that they were going to start a Thursday ski supplement in the sports section. By January, I was out of business. I had one advertiser left, so I just paid off the bills and shut it down.

I put in about 10, 12 weeks of some pure unadulterated hell. I hated sitting around here with nothing to do. The phone had stopped ringing, and I became very miserable, and my wife said, “You have to find something to do.” I went job hunting. Have you ever tried to get a job when you were past 70? Forget it. You are unemployable.

My wife and I had planned a trip to Europe, and I was in my travel agent’s office, writing him a check. I was moaning and groaning to him as I did to everybody I bumped into. And he said, “Why don’t you come to work for me?” I said, “Doing what?” He says, “As a travel agent. Over the years, you’ve been every place. See that desk over there?” He said, “Sit down. You’re employed.” I says, “You just hired me.”

I got all the address books I had and I sent out this gigantic mass mailing to everybody I knew, all over the United States, telling them that Ole Benjie was in the travel business now and I’d appreciate it if they weren’t tied too tight into their current travel agent to give me a shot. Business is coming from all over. I have a national travel business, not just Los Angeles. These are all old friends.

I’m doing more traveling than I did before. This year I’ve been to Australia, England, Canada, Alaska, all on travel assignments. Next year I’m already booked in February to go to China and in June to cruise the Danube River.

Working sort of half-time as a travel agent, I’m making more money than I was making in the ski world before that. And that’s ridiculous. And here I am 78 years old, going on 104 and I’m loving life, having a marvelous time. I have no intentions of retiring.