Catching up with Joe Parker in Texas

Published 8:02 am Tuesday, February 27, 2007

By Staff
Since I saw a picture of Joe Parker in the Daily News in 2001, I've been corresponding with him.
We have done a lot of reminiscing about Dowagiac in the 1930s and '40s.
It was a picture of Joe in his Navy uniform standing in front of his dad's store on Wayne Street, across from the old Oak Street tennis courts.
Joe now lives in Irving, Texas, and he catches my articles on the Dowagiac Web site since I started writing to him.
I'm sure a lot of folks remember Joe, as he once had a neighborhood grocery on Sherwood Street (this was also Graziano Hills at one time).
He said old George Chapman, who was a barber at Ray Foust's shop, used to whistle at any young gal going by, trying to blame it on the guy in the chair.
Another thing he told me was that Earl Hungerford used to park the Smith Trucking Co. behind the Kroger store, corner of Commercial to Front (now Underwood Shoes).
That way he could see a lit light bulb that hung on a pole in the tree in front of the home office (Weaver's Insurance).
When the bulb lit up, Earl was to come to the office to get the message.
Boy, a cell phone would have been handy back then, wouldn't it?
Joe said when you used to play cards at the pool hall, after each game the house got so much and the winner of the game got a "chit" good for five cents in trade.
Joe sent me a chit from Kennedy's pool room and told me good luck getting my five cents.
When Joe was in eighth grade, someone printed a few pages about the kids in school, stapled it together and it was called the "Hoo-Wa."
Don't you think they got their name from the Wahoo?
He said the name of the ball team at Oak Street was the North End Dirty Shirts.
Joe said he was on the trip up the St. Joe River with the Sea Scouts, with Dick Sifford, and he thought Chuck Moden was also with them.
He has a small, dollar-size mirror and on the back it says smoke the San Lorenzo five-cent cigar made by S.F. Snell, Dowagiac, Mich.
He also had a question for me.
Back in the 1920s and '30s there was what was called a bum.
He carried a guitar, went around to all the farms bumming for work for a meal and would work hard, too.
All the farmers knew he was good at picking your pocket, too.
He said one time his grandfather picked the old guy up in his Model T and gave him a ride to Cassopolis.
Grandpa asked him how he was able to pick someone's pocket without them knowing it.
Joe didn't recall what his reply was, but when they drive into Cassopolis, the old fellow looked up at the clock at the courthouse and told Joe's grandpa they should check the clock because it had the wrong time.
He asked Joe's grandpa what time it was by his watch.
Grandpa said, "Damn you! Give me back my watch."
Joe asked me to find the fellow's name. I had never heard about the old gentleman and there aren't many old timers to ask anymore.
I had a call on Feb. 16 from Mable Hartman. She said there was a robin in their heated bird water. At that time my thermometer was 10 degrees.