Reading another thread about “Remembering things that didn’t happen” led me to check on something that I “remember” from years ago.
This must have been in the late 70s or early 80s when I was working in Southern Sudan on an Oil drilling project. I “remember” the company was Parker Drilling and one day as I was sitting in the dining trailer one of the big chiefs who was on a visit from head office came in for a quick look round before ducking out again.
The big chief was Fess Parker of Davy Crockett fame and I assumed that Parker drilling was his company. I thought about it from time to time but never bothered to check if in fact it could have been Fess that I saw.
After reading the other thread I thought I’d just have check, out of curiosity, if my recollection was correct, but after some Googling I could not find any connection between Fess Parker and Parker Drilling. Both have lots of information available but there does not seem to be a connection between the two so no reason for Fess to have been there checking on the family business.
So unless someone else was there and also saw Fess at the Parker rig I will have to assume this an instance if my “remembering” something that did not happen
Fess Parker is from Texas, and Gifford Parker, founder of Parker Drilling, was from Illinois. Fess was born in 1924, 10 years before Parker Drilling was founded, so I can’t see any possible connection. From the poor pictures I can see, none of the three Parker men involved in the company look at all like Fess, although Robert L. Parker Sr. would be about the same age.
He also owns a hotel in Santa Barbara. I was involved with a conference that was held there - beautiful place, right across the street from the beach. I’ve been to his winery also. In the information about him, oil work was never mentioned. I rather suspect he made enough from Davy and from Daniel Boone to not have had to work that hard.
That’s really weird. I’m absolutely sure I saw him.
This was after the Davy Crockett thing had died down and nowhere in my mind, I just assumed Fess had diversified into another business as many do.
I see from the Web that he has in fact diversified into hotel and winery but nothing in the Oil drilling business.
At the time there was no reason for me subconsciously think of Davy Crockett, the last time I had seen a movie was years ago and at the moment of seeing him I thought “whats DC doing here?” it was not till some little time later I made the connection with the Parker name and put the two together seemingly getting 5.
If he’s still wandering around Santa Barbara maybe someone could ask him if he ever visited an Oil Rig in the Sudan.
The most noticeable thing about Fess Parker when he is in a room full of people is his height. He is literally head and shoulders above everyone else. At least that was true of him in the late 1960s. He was gorgeous and seemed to be pleasant enough.
Could be they asked him to invest and brought him in just to give him a tour. He might have ended up choosing not to, or his percentage is small enough that it’s not like it’s anything more than an occasional check in the mail for him.
