Growing Up Cooper – Part 2

Along with the questions I am so often asked about my father, I can share with anyone who may be interested some aspects of his character that are not part of the normal dialogue regarding Jeff Cooper.

1.  He was a good singer.

          Dad could not only carry a tune without accompaniment, he could harmonize at will.  He had a good ear for music and a very nice baritone singing voice.  As a family of five, we learned two pieces that we sang often.   One was the Orchestra Song, where Dad was the tympani.   Mom started it off as the violin.   Christy and Parry were the clarinet and the trumpet and I was the horn———–only one note since I was the youngest and that was the easiest part to handle.  Dad joined last as the tympani and we ended in a lovely five-part harmonic note.  Such fun.

          The second piece we sang as a family was Hark, How the Bells (Carol of the Bells) at Christmastime.  I remember learning this together in the upstairs office portion of the local Catholic church in Big Bear.  I do not know how that came about, but I enjoyed singing it immensely and the last sustained note was the lowest of the entire song, held by Dad.  Lovely.

2.  He was an occasional and inventive cook.

          Mom learned how to be a great cook after she married Dad because he was a sophisticated foodie and she needed to up her game from the simple things she learned growing up.  Dad would occasionally step in with an idea and take over, mostly at breakfast.  He invented “Russian Eggs” (a dish with black bread) and Eggs Estilo Us, which was his take on huevos rancheros.  Both delicious.

          He was also an accomplished bartender and was fond of making very strong rum punches for the parties he and mom held in our home.  A dessert dish he invented was a rounded scoop of vanilla ice cream, rolled in coconut and then doused with a little Kahlua.  Did not have a name………………..did not need one!

3.  He wrote poetry.

          He was very fond of Rudyard Kipling and wrote many poems in that style, always insisting on exact rhyming and scanning.  I picked up the habit from him and we would sometimes collaborate.  Lots of his poems were never written down.   If I could remember them all and add them to the poems he did write down, I would have an entire volume.   Some of these are scattered throughout his published writings.

4.  He was a fine actor.

          I don’t remember Dad ever mentioning any theatre training or experience in his schooling, but he was a theatre goer and enjoyed movies as well.  His mother was an avid amateur actress and his sister actually dabbled in acting in a more serious way and married a director.   His brother married an actress with several Hollywood productions to her credit.

           Dad took part in the local theatre group in Big Bear and memorably played the bad guy in one of their dramas.  When we were growing up, we would go to “the movies” in downtown Big Bear whenever a good one came to town.   As a family, we would come home and discuss what we had seen in detail, with special attention to the casting and the acting.

5.  He was an excellent dancer.

          With his ear for music, Dad had a good sense of rhythm and was naturally athletic and well-coordinated.  He also mastered what is called “Latin movement” which is that sexy, loose sway in the hips that is often foreign to white males.  He met his match in my mother, who was all those things and more.  As a couple, they used to dance all over Los Angeles and San Francisco in their dating days, and once won a Latin dance contest in the heart of the Latino district in Los Angeles.  I remember his mambo well.

6.  He lettered in fencing at Stanford.

          Dad was very fond of football, but he was too thin to play it well and other sports did not appeal to him in the same way.  I think he took up fencing because it was unusual, required the balletic talent he displayed and it was also a fighting skill, however watered down, and he was interested from a very early age in the art of fighting.  I remember a story he told about being chastised mildly by his fencing coach for being too quick and too aggressive.  He thought that was just a little ridiculous, since being both quick and aggressive won the fight, if not the point.

7.  He was an archer and a horseman.

          Neither of these became a passion, but he approached them both with an eye toward mastering the basics so as to be able to use these skills if called upon to do so.

8.  He was a skilled race car driver.

          Dad was fond of fine automobiles from an early age, but was more intrigued by their speed and handling than he was by their luxury, panache or cost.  He began to follow road racing, especially Formula 1.  He was never too interested in oval speedways, but the skill involved in taking turns behind the pack and coming out ahead at the end seemed to him admirable and something to emulate.

          He did some racing himself and was proud of the fact the he once took second at the Riverside Raceway.  He rubbed elbows with Dan Gurney, Stirling Moss and Carroll Shelby.  He had a hand in designing the Los Angeles International Motor Speedway which never became a reality because of the problem of perpetual high winds at the proposed site.

          He decided Porsche made the best race cars and had a few of them.   He had a red SC that became his favorite and he used to try to shave seconds off his best time from the Big Bear Dam to the orange groves in San Bernardino.  I remember him coming in the door all smiles because he had just clocked his best time so far.

I think the local California Highway Patrol just looked the other way when that red streak flew by.

          Dad would occasionally permit me to drive his Porsche into town.  That was a very big deal.

9.  He played the bongo drums.

       Dad had a great sense of rhythm and was fond of Harry Belafonte and Calypso music and the exotic orchestral sounds of Martin Denny and his orchestra.   He acquired a set of bongo drums and would sit on the end of his contour chair with the drums between his knees and pound away to the music.  He was quite good at it and never missed a beat.

I think of my father as a Renaissance man–interested in everything and skilled at many things.  Life with him was never dull!

Lindy Cooper Wisdom

September 2025