9) More Updates on Parkey
P.S.
P.S.: I still cruise the bars outside of Palo Alto to make a living. I meet the drunks and talk them into taking a taxi trip. Palo Alto is a dry town. Maybe they don’t like me because I associate with the drunks. Suits me. Everybody has to make a living their own way. Also the city council of Palo Alto in 1952 turned Parkey down for a parking lot in South Palo Alto. “Why?” says Parkey, “I had no taxi at the time and I was down and out and hungry.” I will never forget Palo Alto for that.
The city could have let me have that parking lot. It was vacant for years. Parkey even offered to pay rent for it. What’s the matter with people in this world?
Also once the Redwood City, California Planning Commission refused me a new cab stand in East Palo Alto in 1951. Some cranks did not want my cab stand and new office at this location. Also they would not give me the names of the cranks so I had a thousand cards made and splattered them all over the Redwood City Court House, telling them what I thought of them depriving me of a living. I still got by going to the bars and driving the drunks around.
One of my drinking customers tried to commit suicide in his kitchen at home in East Palo Alto. I looked in his kitchen window, he was lying on the floor with the gas jets on his stove wide open. I broke into the kitchen and opened all the windows and saved him from killing himself.
In 1948 I was put in jail in San Jose, California, the oldest jail in the United States, one hundred years old. It is now closed, torn down and made a park. I was thrown in a dungeon comparable to the ones in the dark ages. I was refused water, peep holes in the dungeon for air. I almost died for lack of air. Seems I had been in a night club night before with a taxi customer, and I paid a girl five bucks to take my picture. She never came back and I went to the police station to report her, and get my five bucks back.
On the way to the police station I got arrested for drunk driving. Bailing out of the dungeon next morning I got a lawyer, had a jury trial and was found not guilty.
P.S.: I also never found the girl who took my picture, or got my five bucks back.
One of the most famous taxi customers, says Parkey, was Clarence Chamberlane, one of the first fliers of airplanes to fly around the world in the late twenties. He hired my taxi in later years for a fifty mile trip to Santa Cruz, California from my East Palo Alto taxi stand. My taxi hit one hundred miles an hour over the mountains to Santa Cruz. Mr. Chamberlane said, arriving in Santa Cruz, “Sharkey, you gave me as big a thrill in your taxi as my flying in an airplane over the mountains.”
Parkey says in my twenty years of driving a taxi off and on, I never had one passenger hurt in my taxi except one drunk who got out my taxi and slammed the taxi door on his thumb as he was closing the door. He said he was going to sue me but he never did.
In 1939 when I had my parking lot in Palo Alto, I got to meet Ty Cobb, famous baseball player of the old days. He parked in my parking lot and refused to pay me the fifteen cents parking fee.
I said, “You got to pay, Ty Cobb.”
Ty said, “I don’t believe you are the operator of this parking lot.”
I said to Ty, “Let’s go to the police station across the street, and I will prove I am the operator of my parking lot.”
We did and the sergeant at the police station said to Ty: “You will have to pay, it’s Sharkey’s parking lot.”
Ty still refused to pay me so I went to the Small Claims Court in Palo Alto, and I sued Ty Cobb for fifteen cents. Cost me one dollar and a half, court costs. Ty settled out of court for the dollar and half and the fifteen cents parking fee.
People came into Sharkey’s parking lot for two weeks after to see the guy who sued Ty Cobb for fifteen cents. Sharkey’s suing of Ty Cobb was on the radio and in all the newspapers in the United States. One thing about my parking lot, says Parkey Sharkey, I never had the headaches of driving drunks in my taxi getting sick and refusing to pay the cab fare, or drinking somebody’s bottle in the back seat I had to deliver to another customer. One of my drinking customers tried to commit suicide in his kitchen at home in East Palo Alto. I looked in his kitchen window, he was lying on the floor with the gas jets on his stove wide open. I broke into the kitchen and opened all the windows and saved him from killing himself.
In 1958 I still had one good customer, an old retired guy. He gets an epileptic spell once in awhile. He had one in my little shack by the bay here, a few months ago. He was calling his son in San Francisco, and passed out cold as he was talking on the phone to his son. I hung up the receiver and tried to call the ambulance. I had such a shock seeing my customer pass out that I could not talk to the operator to call an ambulance. I had a case of nervous shock.
My customer was lying on the floor and I got his shirt and tie loose and he finally came to, and was alright. I thought my customer had died on me. I can’t afford to lose him. He has a Standard Oil credit card and gets me all the gas I want free. Also he has a meal ticket I can eat on when my business is slow with other customers.
Also, there is no more Peninsula where I lived for forty-one years. The San Francisco Peninsula Progress has ruined it. Too many cars, people, new homes. It’s like Los Angeles. Now all the towns have grown into each other. Old (Manginis) picnic grounds behind Stanford University has a motel on it now. I used to go to the Sunday dances there as a kid, no more. The old pool hall in Palo Alto is torn down. My old parking lot, Palo Alto, for three years 1939, 1940, 1941 - the new Palo Alto Times office is on it now. My old swimming pool in Palo Alto is torn down. I was king of the raft when it was open. Nobody could push me off it. Now there is a new pool, no raft, fancy life guards, and you can’t run across the lawns or they will blow a whistle at you to stop running. Nuts to progress, says Parkey.
In 1950 another one of my longest trips was to Mount Whitney, California, highest mountain in the United States. There is a little town below Mount Whitney, Lone Pine. We stopped at a bar in this little town and you can look out their front window as you are drinking and see Mt. Whitney. It was a hot summer night and the mosquitoes ran us out. I had a cash customer in my taxi at Lone Pine, he had a heck of a heat on the night before we got there, to climb Mt. Whitney. Sober the next day he changed his mind. He could not climb a flight of chairs. 1958... well, see you in the hills. I have had my fill of civilization.
P.S.: I never did get to the hills. I wound up as a janitor in a Menlo Park bar. I had the key to the joint and whenever I had a hangover on the job, I could sample anything in the ice box: American beer or German beer or Swedish beer. I always had a hangover. Now I have lost that job as janitor. Why? Well, one Sunday night I was at Mamma Garcias place, a restaurant behind Stanford. As I went to get up from the chair I was sitting on, I got my leg twisted in it, and fell over on the floor breaking my wrist. I thought it was a sprain. I had to get to work at this bar in Menlo. Getting out to my car I found that somebody had let the air out of the front tire, and I had no spare. I drove on the flat. The next thing I knew the left front wheel caved in and I had to leave my car and walk the rest of the way to work. Getting to the bar about four in the morning, I worked an hour. My wrist was still hurting badly from the accident the night before. Lifting a heavy stool I slipped over it and fell on the floor and hurt my wrist more.
I quit my work and went to Palo Alto Hospital for treatment. The doctor said it was broken and then put it in a cast. I went back to the bar and my boss was there. I told him what happened to me. The first thing he said to me was, “Were you drunk again, Sharkey?” He was so nasty to me, and my broken wrist hurt so badly. I told him to get another janitor to mop the cans and floors in the rest rooms for I quit. I had to quit anyway with my broken wrist. That day I had to sell my car as it could not be fixed. I lost my job, too. I have been getting a few cars to wash. I wash them with one hand; it is kind of hard to do, but you have to eat.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine is letting me sleep in his real estate office in Menlo Park. I sleep on the floor; there is no mattress and it is not very comfortable what with my arm in a cast. During the day I hang around his office and answer his phone or wash a car or two in order to earn money to eat. What am I going to do now is to still try and get to the mountain and stay there forever. The San Francisco Peninsula, as I said before, is too crowded; there are too many people, too many cars. It is just like Los Angeles now.
One thing about the mountains is that old Parkey Sharkey won’t have to worry about the traffic cops chasing him any more. Let them chase somebody else now! Parkey leaves the Peninsula with no regret. Parkey says you can have it! I don’t even think the Indians would want it now. It used to be so quiet and peaceful - no more. It’s the Los Angeles city limits now. Today a lady called me on the phone to find out if I wanted to paint her house. She would give me a car in trade for my work. I told her that it’s a deal. As soon as I finished it, I would have a car again, and be ready to leave for the mountains.
Cruising around the other day in my new 1940 Plymouth, I drove through my old town, Palo Alto. I saw an old taxi customer of mine hanging onto a telephone post with his bike. He was loaded to the gills. I said for “cripes sake” get in my car before the cops get here. I helped him in my car and put his bike in the back seat and drove him to the Veteran’s Hospital in Menlo Park where he lived. He thanked me for saving him from the “bucket.”
He gave me a buck. I thanked him, too, for I had no money to eat on that night. I said that us poor people have got to stick together, and I helped him out the car and said good-bye to my drinking friend. I am still trying to get to the mountains. I get up there on week-ends and then come back to the Peninsula. I can’t afford to stay up there forever, yet. If you ever come to California, readers, don’t move into the San Francisco Peninsula. It’s packed with people and is like living in a sardine can. As I end my story I am still trying to get to the mountains forever and not for week-ends only.
About my love life: I had quite a few girl friends, even a rich widow once. The rich widow was more trouble then she was worth. I would always be taking her to some bar. She was an alcoholic. She would drive me nuts at times. First thing in the morning she would want a pint of gin for breakfast. I had a lot of customers like her. I would have to be half drunk myself to put up with them. I drove so many drinking people around the Peninsula that I became quite a drinking person myself. I drove drunks to hospitals for the cure. It did not do them much good except get them off the stuff for awhile. That’s why I want to get to the mountains; my nerves are shot driving drinking people around. I want quiet and peace for a while. I’ll settle for the squirrels and deer for awhile, a cabin by a stream if I can find it. If I get thirsty again, I’ll build myself a still in the mountains.
The other night I went out and got myself loaded again. I ran into an old taxi customer. He wanted my cab to go somewhere and have some fun. He said, “Sharkey, where would you suggest a good place to go?” I said, “San Francisco--the town is always wide open if you have the dough.” We went to a bar on the San Francisco waterfront. One that is open all night. They charge a buck for a bottle of beer.
The joint was jumping. Couples were dancing and even men were dancing with each other. This was a new experience for me. Five girls at a table invited me and my two friends to drink with them. At a buck a beer we would have been broke in twenty minutes. We declined the offer. Then a guy who talked just like a woman sat down with me and my two friends at the table. He asked me for the next dance. I almost fell off my chair laughing. I said, “No, thanks, but I’ll buy you a beer anyway, I have my friends to drive back to Menlo Park.”
We finally got rid of him and then we watched two guys at a table holding hands with each other across their table. Every few minutes one of them would lean over and kiss the other guy on the cheek. I had heard of men like this, but it was the first time I had seen how they act in person and dance together.
Anyway, after me and my two friends had seen all these funny things at this bar on the waterfront, we got something to eat and headed home. Driving by the San Francisco Airport area at six in the morning I fell asleep at the wheel. My friend woke me up just in time. I almost killed the three of us. Anyway, we all got home safe. Don’t ever think San Francisco is a closed town like the newspapers say sometimes. If you have the money San Francisco is always wide open, especially at night. Old Parkey Sharkey knows - he gets around!
I get up to the mountains on a weekend, that’s all I can afford now and then I come back to the Peninsula after-the place I have now. I could start my taxi again, but it would just be my luck to get more traffic tickets and work for the judge again. Nuts to that! Well, as I end my book I am still trying to get to the mountains. I am going to a bar to have a beer now and maybe find a taxi customer to take a ride to the mountains for the day.
This little book is an amazing piece of Californian history. Buy yourself a copy.
These excerpts from the book Whiskey Road by Parkey Sharkey are published by Powerless Press™ and Chapin & Wardwell Book Publishers.
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