Happy Father's Day To My Dad

You know how "they" say as you get older, you start resembling your parent?   In my case, that's a good thing.

My dad, Howie Coates, didn't have it easy when he was growing up and that's an understatement...

Besides growing up during the Great Depression, when he was 15, his father, Thomas Coates, became very ill with Parkinson's disease and he couldn't work any more.  So my Dad, his mother Elsa & his father packed up everything and left their home in Berkeley, took a very difficult three-day, three-night train trip to Duluth, Minn., to live with my Dad's brother.  

Howie's brother Thomas Jr. was a Lutheran Minister working the C.C.C. (Civilian Conservation Corps) camps throughout Minnesota delivering sermons in German & English and was living in Two Harbors, MN.  

There is a very poignant letter from my Grandmother to her Aunt dated Aug. 24, 1933 talking about the trip and mentioning several times how Two Harbors is so nice, pretty and green.  It's very difficult for me to imagine getting uprooted from sunny California and moving to near the Canadian border as a teenager.

My Dad kept a scrapbook with newspaper clippings with the following headlines: From 1933 - "Mercury Drops 53 Degrees as 40-Mile Gale Rages Here, Coldest Wave on Christmas - Thirty Degrees Below Zero with Road Blocked & Telephone Lines Down Marks 1933 Christmas, Yule Coldest Since 1879 But Warmer Today and SNOWFALL - Transportation System Is Paralyzed.  From 1935 - "Death, Destruction Follow in Wake of Bitter Cold Blanketing Nation.

After two years of that, my Dad ran away from home and worked on the railroad between Ogden, Utah, & Oakland, Calif., selling sandwiches and soda pop. He joined the Army in 1939 and was on a transport ship heading for the Philippines when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. He got Malaria in New Guinea and his foot locker went missing. He wrote President Truman and got his locker back eventually, although it was empty.

On the bright side, he was chosen along with his brother to be in the Terman Study of the Gifted.  We still call him "Boy Genius."  He became an Accountant after WWII and where most accountants are pretty dull, my Dad is definitely the funniest accountant in the world.

Back in the day, he and his crazy pals improvised their own stories and for character names, instead of Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart & Betty Grable, it was Edward G. Robbingsomebody, Humphrey Pushcart and Betty Grabass.  They recorded this on 78 speed vinyl records.

Maybe in spite of or because of his circumstances early in life, he was always very optimistic about everything. He still is today. I'm very lucky to still have him around.

I don't know if smarts, humor & optimism are passed down by genes, but I got all of them from my Dad, who's definitely the World's Best Father.