My Dad, Mike Coffman

Michael Scott Coffman’s memorial service will be held at Crosspoint Church, 1476 Broadway, Bangor, ME at 1pm Saturday, July 8th. A reception will be held at the church immediately following.

Mike Coffman was a loving husband, father, and brother. I  I asked his sister, Joann, about interesting stories from his past.  She said, “Nope,” too fast. After all, they raised each other in Anaheim and Fullerton, California. They had a very close bond I only realized recently, after my dad took ill.

I think that she’d lie for him in a heartbeat if he wanted her to. Now that he’s gone, of course, I expect all sorts of stuff to come out. There is a statute of limitations to such things,and I’m hoping for juicy gossip. For instance, my dad claimed he never smoked a cigarette. This could be true--it was certainly consistent with how he raised us. He also never smoked marijuana until very very recently. This is a bit disappointing, as I wonder what he did during the ‘60’s. (Hint: I think he was a Republican then, too). I hope Joann has an additional stories--forbidden ones-- from my dad.

Some of these stories have already come out. A few days before he died, my mom found eight faded pictures of girls from high school in his nightstand. On the backs were writing “Love you,” and “miss you” and other affectionate notes.

“I haven’t seen those in decades,” my dad said. My sister Tamera wonders why he had them at all. I wonder why he didn’t show me how to date eight girls while in high school.

My dad  got a bachelor of science from Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, just a hop, skip and jump away from the Grand Canyon.

He met Mom at school in Arizona. She was pretty then-I've seen pictures. She’s pretty now, I’m sure, but she’s my mom, and I can’t tell. Eww. My dad was quite the hunk at 20. I can only remember him as a worried middle aged man chasing me as I ran headlong into trouble. I’m surprised he had a full head of hair when he died. Neither I nor chemo could ruin his hair.

He and my mom, Suz, often hiked into the Grand Canyon. Just a few days ago, Mom reminded me (for the eighth time) how I should take my girlfriend on a hike to Havasupai Falls. Mom and Dad often spoke of the West with a hushed, reverent tone: Havasupai, Lake Tahoe, Big Sur, Glacier National Park. They loved Maine, of course. We have Mt. Desert Island, blue ocean, sharp rocks, and a jagged coast. And mosquitoes as big as most birds. There is a lot to love about Maine, and I think they loved the Mosquitoes most of all. They don’t have them out West.

He married my mom while they were both very young, 20 and 19, I was told. His mom had to sign for him, he was so young. Why my mom didn’t need a signature is beyond me, but that was in the paleolithic era, where such things weren’t needed for women. On November 2nd, 1963, he wrote his dad from NAU, Flagstaff:

"I suppose you know that I have pinned a girl up here. In case you haven’t heard the lowdown, she is a Freshman from Palo Alto Calif. And is majoring in Physical Elementary Education. She is coming home for Thanksgiving so you’ll be able to meet her. As far as I know she is the girl that I’m going to marry. That won’t be for at least 2 more years though.

I won’t say any more about her as you’ll see her in a couple of weeks except that she is a  real nice girl.

I’ll get to studying now. See you at Thanksgiving.

Mike"

It’s so cute--he said “pinning.” People still did that back then. He was wrong about the date of the marriage--he waited only until July that next year. He was wrong about her major, crossing off the Physical and writing Elementary. I guess he was right about everything else. She was a nice girl, and turned into a wonderful mother.

My dad got PhD in Ecosystems Management (read “Forestry”) from University of Idaho, Moscow. He knew his trees. And his tree roots. He told the story of digging in an Arizona forest counting roots, when he heard the buzz of a rattlesnake, just above his head by the edge of the trench. He crawled out from the other end of the trench. Many people don’t know, but forestry is a dangerous business. Think of the sacrifices of people like my father the next time you wipe yourself.

After school, he became a professor of Forestry at Michigan Technological University in Houghton Michigan. He loved to teach. He was born to teach. Why he chose to teach in the Great White North is a bit of a mystery. Houghton is farther north than most Canadians (this is true). We lived across the canal in Hancock in a small, prebuilt house that leaked in the winter on warm days. “In the winter” in Hancock meant from October through early June. “Warm winter days” occurred on or about January 15 and June 1st (this seemed like it was true).

 We ended up in Bangor, Maine, which for many parts of the US would be considered rural, but for my father and most Mainers, it is Big City. Hancock had no stoplights or fast food. Bangor has at least two of each. In Hancock, “Coming Soon to a Theater Near You,” was a lie, since it took at least 6 months before a movie would arrive.

My dad wrote books and articles on the threat of all the following:

• Radical Environmentalism (in general)
• The myth of man-made global warming (in specific)
• Radical Islam
• The Progressive Agenda (“Radical” would have been redundant in his readers’ minds)
• Broken America
• The Global Government

I’d recommend buying these books on Amazon, or better yet from my mom. She’s a widow now. Even better, just donate and don’t get the books.

He was also a popular author and columnist for Range Magazine, a publication I believe is devoted to the above, as well as the wonders of living in the West. He was so well known as an conservative environmentalist, he has an IMDb page, in part because he appeared on the Daily Show in 2013. He and I have opposite views on the politics and agree on the glory that is the West. We couldn’t debate the politics. We had a truce that included him turning off Fox News when I visited, and me turning off NPR when he visited. Fortunately, he never found out how much I liked Samantha Bee or John Oliver.

He traveled a lot when he was a forester, and when he consulted later. I travel a lot, too. He had a certain way in meetings. I could see this when I attended some of his deacon’s or elders meetings. He spoke a certain way, with assurance and authority. Dad was quick to teach. He loved teaching, and did so in meetings, at conferences, at church, everywhere. I got my love of teaching from him. My sister must have, too, because she actually teaches and gets paid for it.

He was a passionate Christian and a spiritual man. If there is anything in this obituary that describes dad, it is this. He, as I mentioned before, not only attended church, but helped lead them as an elder and deacon. He led at least five or six different churches in the various cities he lived in. So many people have learned from him. Most of the readers of this obit know him from his spiritual journey. His spiritual journey included his stand against environmental activism and big government, so I’m including the rest of you in that group, too. Everything he did in life was connected to his discipleship of Christ.

Many of my memories from childhood was him teaching Sunday school. He didn’t teach children’s Sunday school, but adult Sunday school. This is not surprising, since his subject matter was quite brainy.  He’d do research for days and days for a single one-hour lesson. His rooms are libraries filled with reference books. I have memories of Dad in his study pouring over his Bible or reference books early in the morning or late at night. I learned about the patriarchs of the old testament, the gospel of the new, Greek words, Hebrew words, the occasional Aramaic word. My childhood was more rigorous than most pastors’ seminary. My dad didn’t stop with direct Bible knowledge. My dad liked to round out his teaching with entire sections on marriage, personalities, even business.  I learned about personality types based on the Myers Briggs and the temperament theory based on the Jungian view of personality types. Yes, this was Sunday school taught by my dad.

He was what I’d call a C.S. Lewis Christian, that is a scholar, a christian, and a teacher, in equal parts. Perhaps not as much a philosopher as CS Lewis, nor did he like fantasy or philology. I mean, who loves philology?  

Dad (and Mom) raised Tamera and I to be loving and giving people. He was an example to many of you as well. Dad never stopped giving himself, even when he was ill.

Dad’s departure left a gap in all our lives. Tamera and I lost our father, our patriarch, our rock. Mom lost her husband and life-mate of 53+ years. Joann lost her brother, the only one left who remembered her when she was young. Dad left a hole in our hearts, one that is not easily filled. It’s hard not to use Biblical terms here, and I don’t mean to imply Dad was God or anything. That would be mom, of course. OK, Ok, Mom’s more like the Holy Spirit, whispering what we should do in our ear (“Put your dishes in the dishwasher!!!”). Dad was the paragon of fathers. He was reliable, steady, a compass rose to the map of the whole world. A world that included rattlesnakes, Havasupai Falls, Biblical studies, compulsive research, Fox News (when I was away), and teaching teaching teaching about anything and everything.

Dad, you made a difference in this world. We will miss you.

Jon Coffman