8) The Latest on Parkey Sharkey
Finally finished?
Parkey Sharkey today, 1958, has just come back to Palo Alto again from Hollywood, where he had a main part in a TV picture “Confidential Files.” While in Hollywood Parkey worked in a parking lot for awhile, but quit because his boss was short-changing him on his weekly wages. While working in the parking lot of the famous movie stars’ cars; Jack Benny, Jean Parker, Ann Miller, Western Marshal Douglass Kennedy, etcetera.
At night after work Parkey would bump into movie stars like Jerry Colona, who he ran into coming out of a drug store one night. Other nights Parkey walks into a bar and who is the bartender? Nobody but Frankie Darrow, the former boy film star, who made over two hundred movies in Hollywood and now works as a bartender and gets a TV part now and then. As a remembrance of Hollywood Parkey had his picture taken with Frankie Darrow in front of the bar he worked in.
Parkey who appeared on Groucho Marx television show twice had a third appearance with Groucho on radio May 5, 1958, NBC, nationwide. Meanwhile, Parkey is back in Palo Alto, with still just one cab, and cruises the bars still to pick up a few bucks. Sometimes Parkey will park his taxi by the bay and reminisce to himself how he used to walk out to the bay from Palo Alto as a kid and go swimming there.
One day he and a pal of his found an old row boat in the dumps, and they took it for a ride in the bay. They did not know the bottom of the boat was rotten and it sprung a leak in the middle of the bay. Parkey and his friend could not bail out the water as it was coming in the boat too fast. The row boat sunk and Parkey and his friend swam ashore. Lucky Parkey was a good swimmer, or you would not be reading this story today about him. Parkey, while in the cab business, in later years had over thirty-five different taxis, one at a time. They always keep him broke by breaking down on him.
One of Parkey’s longest trips was to the Grand Canyon in Arizona in 1952. His customer paid him two hundred dollars, ten day trip. The customer was drunk for the whole ten days and never even remember having been to the Grand Canyon. On the way back from the Grand Canyon Parkey stopped in Las Vegas to try his luck. Parkey lost all his cab fare on the slot machines and dice games. Lucky Parkey’s fare had money left to buy gas back to Palo Alto. To end the story of Parkey Sharkey the one-time ring clown of California and taxi driver, he now hopes to retire and move from Palo Alto, the town that never gave him a chance, except what he did for himself. This booklet is only half the Parkey Sharkey taxi story.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Thank you,
Parkey Sharkey
Paul Coates Column
LOS ANGELES MIRROR-NEWS
Feb. 8, 1958
Paul,
I am in financial difficulties. The Proffeser gave me a job one day - the best he could do.
My wife just brought me two big beef sandwitches. A friend of mine who works in a resteraunt gave them to my wife.
The only thing I can think of now is to sell my life story back to Memphis Ward, Hollywood, for 25 bucks. It would be a payment on another taxi anyway.
Groucho Marx mentioned me in a Saturday Evening Post story last May without my permission. He did not mention my name but talked about a taxi driver on his show that crossed the San Francisco Bay without his taxi.
That’s when I had my small amphibious Jeep as a cab.
Groucho still doesn’t answer my letters to tell me why he doesn’t show the other show of his I was on on television.
Paul, I challenge Groucho Marx to fight me at Hollywood Legion Stadium, and that is no joke!
(Signed) Parkey Sharkey,
Palo Alto Hotel, Palo Alto, California
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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