Dear Larry (and list) You made my morning! I am now imagining some cross between Liberace and Jim Carey! I am also wondering if Romeo was related to the Moses Coates line. We have some poems penned by Elmer Ruan Coates (, who seems cut from the same "coat" cloth. Quite the poet, if you like that kind of poetry! Elmer was a brother of Ann Lucretia Coates (1811-1875). Ann was daughter of Caleb Coates and Elizabeth Gilbert. Caleb the son of Moses Coates. Our Ann Lucretia married John Alexander Rogers, who had supposedly owned slaves, so Ann was voted out of Quaker meeting. Elmer Ruan Coates apparently owned an auction block that had been used for auctioning slaves. He wrote a poem "The Auction Block" which I have not seen, but which apparently made quite a stir at the time. I am assuming that, as a Quaker, he was opposed to slavery. I am still giggling at the thought of Robert Romeo Coates arriving in his diamond studded seashell! He seems the modern day Brit who smash their guitars & more to attract attention. One of a long line of eccentrics! Warm regards and appreciation to you and your trivia-collecting wife from Albie Muldavin "Coates" Davis, in Thomaston, Maine, about an hour from Bath, Maine. And, speaking of bad theater, who auditioned for a local community theater production of "Anything Goes" last night. Yep, Anything Goes still lives on! Our local theater group is great, but I can't keep a tune!