From Polio to Philanthropy: Seven Fearless Decades in Life and Business

By Richard L. Crocker

When Richard Crocker beat polio, the disease that almost killed him as a child, he discovered two truths. One, there wasn't much left in life to fear. And two, there was an awful lot more left to live.

Hellbent on finding as much adventure and success as he could, Richard spent the next seventy years living life to the fullest. By fifteen, he had one of the largest paper routes in the region. By nineteen, he bought his first home. He went on to build his real estate development company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

All by embracing his singular motto: Have no fear.

Follow Richard every step of the way as he worked hard, played hard, traveled the world, and met the love of his life. Learn about the deals he made, why he made them, and, ultimately, why he believes success isn't just about making money—but knowing when to give it away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781544521916

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From Polio to

Philanthropy

Seven Fearless Decades

in Life and Business

Richard L. Crocker

Copyright © 2021 Richard Crocker

All rights reserved.

From Polio to Philanthropy: Seven Fearless Decades in Life and Business

ISBN 978-1-5445-2190-9 Hardcover

978-1-5445-2189-3 Paperback

978-1-5445-2191-6 Ebook

I dedicate this autobiography to my beautiful and loving wife, Theresa. Not only are you an inspiration to me, but you are the glue that keeps this family together. You keep me balanced with work and family, and your encouragement never ends. Thank you.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Early Years

Chapter 2 Grit

Chapter 3 Time to Be a Man

Chapter 4 Gumption

Chapter 5 Survival on a New Frontier

Chapter 6 The Difference between House and Home Life

Chapter 7 Under the Influence of Theresa

Chapter 8 Transactions

Chapter 9 The Adventures Continue

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Introduction

My wife’s great-grandfather Getz was a real estate magnate in San Francisco. According to a real estate appraisal booklet my father-in-law gave me, the man owned about twenty properties in the Bay Area in the early twentieth century. One of them was valued at $12,000 in 1927. At that time, San Francisco had a population that was just shy of 500,000 people. Dead set on becoming a major metropolitan area, it had rebuilt and vastly expanded after the 1906 earthquake and had just broken ground for an airport. Today, that piece of property is worth somewhere in the millions. Clearly, the man knew what he was doing.

Reading through the booklet inspired the idea in me to leave something similar to my kids, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. But while reading about real estate appraisals and transactions is interesting to me, I know my descendants may not give two hoots about it. They may, though, be interested in learning about what made their dad and grandfather tick. What fueled his business drive? How did he negotiate and problem solve? When he said he saved himself from a fate worse than death in a real estate or economic environment, what did that mean? And how did he know what to do?

So I thought I’d try to answer those questions and maybe a few more in a book of my own. I’ve never seen myself as the kind of man to write an autobiography. But in the event that someone in my family is interested in how I got to where I did, here’s the story.

Chapter 1

The Early Years

When I was a young adult in college, I wrote the word success in big, bold letters on a piece of paper and stuck it to my refrigerator. I had no idea what the word meant, nor did I have the time to figure it out. I was attending college full time and working full time. I was married and already was a father. With hands that full, there was no room for contemplating things like big objectives. There was just enough mental and emotional space to drive me to find success, whatever that meant.

I did know what success was not. My childhood had provided ample opportunities for me to figure that part out. By being poor, I learned the value of hard work. By being the son of a lazy and resentful man (in my opinion), I learned to be self-reliant. By coming close to death from polio, I learned fear was overrated. So while I may not have had a clear idea of where I was going, I knew how I would get there: I would work hard. I would rely only on myself. I’d take care of my health. And I’d fear nothing.

Introduction to the Restaurant World

I was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1943. A couple of years later, my brother Ted joined the family. Then, when I was six, two momentous things happened: we moved down to Watsonville in Santa Cruz County, California, and my youngest brother, Greg, was born.

In some ways, our family was very typical of a poor post-World War II family. It was an era of hope and innovation. People thought they could do anything. And the nation was experiencing an economic boom. Perhaps feeling that energy, my dad had bought a little restaurant in Watsonville. It was a corndog place called Pronto Pup Drive-in. The franchise had originated in Portland and was exploding in growth across the country. I guess my parents thought if they had one, they’d be able to stake a claim to their fair share of the American pie.

Pronto Pup Drive-in had carhops serving the customers, and both my parents worked in the restaurant. When we were very little, my brothers and I would sleep on cots in the back of the business since our family was too poor to afford babysitters. Naturally, we grew up working there. You could say I cut my restaurant teeth while I cut the french fries. As a preteen, I made hamburger patties, washed dishes, and did whatever needed to be done. We kids were hard workers. I learned early on not to be afraid of hard work. My mother was a hard worker, too. My dad, meanwhile, not so much. He may have put in the hours at the restaurant, but he didn’t extend himself much beyond that. My mom, though, was a force to be reckoned with. As you’ll read later, she was very active in social events, the PTA, and the Women’s Club, and she spearheaded the March of Dimes for Polio.

Not So Much

Every family has its own dysfunctional dynamic, and every family member has his or her own unique perspective on that dynamic. That might explain why my brothers have a more favorable view of our father than I do. Greg still thinks the world of the man. Even though our father passed away several years ago, Greg continues to text me on Dad’s birthday, letting me know how old he would be if he were still alive.

Ted didn’t idolize our father as much, but he was still very close to him. Actually, my father had made it very clear that Ted was his favorite child. Even when we were all adults, my father would favor Ted. Occasionally, Dad would come to me for business advice, but he never took it. However, he hung on every word Ted said and followed it to a T.

Perhaps it has something to do with that oldest child idea that we’re more independent. Or maybe it’s because each generation has tendencies to rebel against the generation that came before, but from an early age, I just couldn’t connect with my dad. Instead of having a close relationship with a man I admired, I felt distant from him. I saw him as lazy, somewhat arrogant, and bitter.

His parenting skills, for me, were completely lacking. Thankfully, my mother made up for what he didn’t provide, but I still noticed he was unavailable. He seldom communicated with me except to give an order or express his disapproval. And his tendency to be selfish and lazy left a bad taste in my mouth.

Eventually, when he had made enough money that the family could take vacations, he’d decide where we would go and what we would do. He didn’t even consult my mother. Instead, he’d pick a time and place, tell us to pack the little motor home he’d bought, and we’d be off. At some point, he’d stop in an RV campground and order us all to go outside and dig holes under the wheels to level out the motor home. We kids would be digging in the hot sun, not really sure what we were doing, while he sat in the air-conditioned vehicle smoking cigarettes. Maybe as the man of the house, he felt justified in such selfish behavior. But I couldn’t justify it then or now.

All throughout my childhood, he proved over and over to me that I wasn’t a meaningful part of his life. But periodically, my mother would attempt to make him act like a father. Once, when I was a young teenager, I thought I’d take up boxing as a form of exercise. To create a punching bag, I needed a duffel bag that I could fill with sawdust. Back then, they sold them at hardware stores. Everyone knew how important it was to me to stay healthy and fit, so it was not an impulse buy, nor was it expensive. My father was home, not working, and with nothing to do. Yet, when I asked him if he’d take me to the hardware store, the answer was a hard and sharp no.

My mother snapped at him and made him take me. So he did. Little did he realize that he gave me a great gift that day. That gift came in the form of a lesson: he taught me to judge a person by their actions, not their words. Yes, he said he’d take me, which by the sound of the words, meant he wanted to because he valued my health the way I did. But his actions in the car—the look of disgust on his face, the resentment coming through his body language—told me plain as day he meant the opposite. Interestingly, though I probably didn’t realize it at the time, my actions that day told him I didn’t care how he felt about me. I tolerated his presence in the car and didn’t let it deter me one bit. I got my duffel bag and turned it into a punching bag.

Later, in a similar incident when his actions didn’t line up with his words, he proved the kind of man he was once more. I was in high school then, and letterman jackets were all the rage. They were the kind with leather sleeves, and you could put patches on them that your school gave you for athletic activities. My dad scoffed at the idea of getting one for me.

I can’t be spending money on stuff like that for you, he said. The employees would think I have money to spare and demand raises from me!

On the one hand, his explanation made sense. But on the other hand, it showed me just how self-centered he was because he had no qualms about going out and buying himself a brand-new car whenever he wanted.

Being able to buy motor homes and new cars makes it sound like my dad was a hard worker and a successful businessman, things that would suggest I should find admirable in him. But I can’t tell you how many times I heard my mother yelling at him to get his ass out of bed and get to work! Those kinds of things leave an impression on an observant kid like I was. And unfortunately, he lived out his life never trying to do anything to change himself; hence my opinion of him never really changed either.

When he was older, he wound up needing knee replacement surgery. He had broken his knee when he was a child, and then as an adult his laziness only made that weak joint worse. He was overweight and smoked a lot. Exercise was anathema to him. His poor diet would eventually lead to his death of a heart attack, which he’d been warned about, but he never did anything to prevent that from happening. So perhaps it’s no surprise that after his knee was replaced, he ignored his doctor’s recommendation to start walking. He simply refused.

I asked him why. Why didn’t he take advantage of having a knee that worked and didn’t hurt and get some exercise? His reason: I don’t want to wear the new knee out. I promised him his new knee would last longer than the rest of him, and he proved me right.

Maybe he just didn’t know how to communicate with young kids. Maybe he was just tired. I don’t know. My mom tried to make excuses for his behavior by blaming it on the fact that he grew up in the Depression and that he’d had a tough childhood. Her words just didn’t sit right with me. And frankly, they made it even harder for me to respect the man. He was alive and well for the most part and physically present with us. What he went through as a child was long over. As an adult, in my eyes, he should have been able to move on and make the best of the life he had.

I used to be resentful about having him for a dad. I would hear athletes praise their fathers and call them heroes. Heroes! What an honor that must be to have your kid call you a hero! But I’m not so resentful anymore. In fact, I think it was because of him and his ways that I was motivated to achieve the life I have. I wanted to be the opposite of him. I wanted to be totally independent and self-sufficient. I wanted to have good relationships with my kids. And so, not because of but in spite of him, that’s exactly what I did.

By the age of nineteen, I had purchased my first home, had a wife and child, and was attending night