In many ways, the story of Santa Cruz’s Coonerty family is the story of the American family: from immigration to higher education and becoming part of their community, their story follows a familiar path.

Where it diverges is where the modern American family has largely gone awry. Today’s broken families, absent fathers, and emotionally damaged children will probably dominate the news this Father’s Day, but they don’t have a place in the Coonerty saga.

The Coonerty family’s American story starts with Irish immigrant Kevin meeting his future wife Anna, the daughter of Irish immigrants, on the boat back from a visit to Ireland. Kevin and Anna married, and then, in Neal’s words, “his life was broken by World War II when he served in the army.”

Broken, but stronger. Limited by his high school education, Kevin used the post-war years to get educated, encouraged by his wife, who was a U.C. Berkeley grad. He then spent a career as an engineer at Rocketdyne, raising three children, including Neal and two sisters.

“I remember a lot of lessons that he taught us,” Neal, now a grandfather himself, explains. “He taught us to properly sit up at the table. He had a great sense of humor. He got involved in our lives, but it wasn’t the time and he wasn’t the parent who went to your Little League game. You came home and had three sentences to tell him what happened. You didn’t need him cheering you on. We had a very good relationship, but it was a bit more 1950s.”

Neal followed in his father’s path at least as far as marriage was concerned: He met his future wife Candy in Ireland when they were both students. They married and settled in Santa Cruz, deviating from his father’s career by buying a retail store—Bookshop Santa Cruz.

There is no hint, however, of any disapproval on Kevin’s part for Neal’s choice. In fact, Neal’s parents responded to their new role as grandparents by moving up from Southern California to be neighbors down the street, and strong influences in the lives their grandchildren.

“Both my parents worked so we spent a lot of time with our grandparents,” remembers Neal’s son Ryan. “He was very quick and he appreciated quick conversation. He’d tell stories about his service in World War II, which was endlessly fascinating to a nine-year-old boy!”

Young Ryan and his sister Casey were also raised in the family business, first for fun — Neal remembers Casey inviting her friends to the shop for a “gigantic game of hide and seek” — then for employment. Casey now runs Bookshop and Neal is a common sight behind the counter.

But though the life of a retailer is never simple, and the book business is even more tumultuous than most, Ryan remembers the times his family relaxed together.

“We’d drive and rent a house at Sea Ranch or Tahoe or Pismo Beach,” Ryan remembers, “and we’d spend four or five days together playing games, eating dinner… I think that’s under threat in our constantly wired world, and so when I think back on the most valuable time I had with my family it was times when we were disconnected and focused on each other.”

Though he remembers vacations fondly, Ryan cites his parents’ business as a strong influence on his and his sister’s lives. “Both of us chose career paths where you envision the life that you want to lead, and then you build that life, rather than expecting to go work for somebody else. It’s almost incomprehensible to us that you go and work at a job.”

Ryan Coonerty’s jobs, though, are not ones that he can choose not to show up for. Along with helping out at the Bookshop, he teaches law and government at U.C. Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College, wrote a book published by National Geographic (Etched in Stone – Celebrating America’s Enduring Word), and is the former mayor and a present City Council member in Santa Cruz.

The job has put him in a position that many sons might find awkward, but that he and Neal relish: He has both worked with and against Neal, who as a County Supervisor had to take opposite sides from his son in a dispute involving the University, the City and the County.

Did it cause a rift in the family? Hardly.

“Both of us are much more competitive in protecting each other than in protecting ourselves,” Ryan explains. “Whereas we might let slights go when they’re directed at us, the staff is always reminding us that we have to pull back a little bit when it comes to one another!”

Neal adds, without any hint of politicking, “Ryan’s a much more skilled politician than I am. I’m immensely proud of watching him making his way.”

Ryan is not yet a father, but he is proud of the fathering and grandfathering that he received.

“Family was central to my life growing up, and is central to what I want from life,” Ryan explains. “One of the things people always say is, ‘Did your dad encourage or force you going into politics?’ He actually never directed me toward anything. He was always encouraging me to find what I wanted to do. He was very supportive of whatever I chose, which is something I really value.”

Ryan also cites his father’s openness toward his and his sister’s friends, which included opening up Bookshop to hide and seek, as well as opening their home to Ryan’s friends. “As a result, my friends have a close relationship with my dad that allowed me to spend more time with him,” Ryan explains.

Neal says that his fathering style was not in opposition to his own father’s, but rather just a widening of possibilities. “I just did it because it was a different time. My generation of fathers were more involved in the family.”

Neal also says that Bookshop was central to his fathering. “Persevering is what I always taught them. If you’re in competition, staying in the competition is half the battle. If you just persist and keep going, you can succeed in what you want to do a lot of times.”

And how does a successful father-son relationship go forward? In the case of the Coonertys, it involves running, which has so changed Neal’s physique that he felt it necessary to explain to shoppers in the Bookshop newsletter that he’s not sick, just newly healthy.

“He’s trying a lot harder than I am,” Ryan says of his father’s dedication to running. And of their relationship? “We are full of respect for each other.”

And enthusiasm, love, and admiration. It’s a recipe for fathering success.


Suki Wessling is a local writer and the mother of two children.
 

By Suki Wessling

A recipe for fathering: