Some of Doug’s Treasures…
Doug’s Mom’s Pasta Gravy
The Saturday after Doug passed, his sister Mary returned to the kitchen to make their mother’s pasta gravy from memory — a recipe she hadn’t made in so long she couldn’t remember the last time. With Len documenting each step, Mary recreated the gravy entirely from her “steel-trap” memory. That evening, we gathered with Don, Gordono, Frank, and Len, sharing food, wine, stories, and memories of Doug. What began as dinner became one of those unexpectedly wonderful evenings we knew we wanted to preserve. Thanks to Len, the Cicione family gravy now has a written recipe — although, as Mary would probably tell you, some things you know when they’re done.
[Doug’s Mom’s Pasta Gravy (dubbed by Doug as his mom’s Mafia Sauce!)]
Recorded by Len Futaba, August 2026, from Mary Cicione’s recollection of their mother’s recipe.
The Economics of a Winning Ticket
A Theoretical and Empirical Determination of the Optimal Lottery Structure — 1976
Doug's fascination with the economics of lotteries began during his undergraduate years at St. Lawrence University, where his 1973 honors thesis examined and evaluated the New York State Lottery. Three years later, he returned to the subject with this paper, expanding his earlier research through economic theory, statistical analysis, and actual New York State Lottery survey data.
In characteristically Doug fashion, he wasn't content simply to study how a lottery worked. He set out to determine how it should work—analyzing ticket pricing, prize structures, consumer behavior, and expected utility to develop what he believed would be an optimal lottery structure for maximizing revenue and return.
Hand-typed, extensively researched, and complete with Doug's own charts and calculations, the paper offers an early glimpse of the analytical mind that would later define his professional life: curious, rigorous, independent, and always interested in finding the better answer.
Doug, on Paper — 1976
Found among Doug’s papers, this résumé dates from his years at Stanford Law School and the Graduate School of Business, where he was pursuing his J.D. and M.B.A. simultaneously. It captures an extraordinary young man already very much becoming the Doug we knew: accomplished, curious, competitive and wonderfully multidimensional.
Alongside Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, economics honors and his award-winning thesis are some delightful glimpses of Doug beyond the classroom—surfing, skiing, tennis, piano, accordion and even intermediate French.
And, of course, the mustache. Some things simply deserve to be archived.
