Nora Parks
Washington DC and San Francisco,
From:
Women's History Month: Bike Messengers by Rebecca Reilly
Nora Parks stands out as one of my early heroines. She was one
of the toughest, most adventurous of all the DC messengers.
She was known for being able to handle anything. With her two
brothers Larry and Greg, they plied the street and showed the rest
of us how to be consummate professionals. Nora was a sturdy
woman with an unruly head of dreadlocks, which back then in the days
of discrimination against people of color sporting natural hair, was
a real statement. Certainly, the overbearing white imposed
beauty standards on Black women’s hair, is still prominent today.
But back then, it was really the punk rock, Afro-centric and counter
culture types that proudly displayed their hair in its natural
form.
Nora didn’t apologize for anything, she was simply, herself.
She was as strong, if not stronger than a lot of the guys on the
crews she worked on. She was a lioness among us. We basically
all recognized her regal character and certainly, her brothers, not
slouches in their own right, were also quite proud of her. I
first met Nora’s personality on a bar stool in the Covered Wagon
Saloon, a messenger hang out in SF. I had scored an interview for my
book with another legendary veteran messenger. He had heard
that I’d come out from DC, and as is the custom when someone knew
someone from another city, you inquire about people. Nora had worked
in SF for a time. She was one of the first bike messengers to start
travelling city to city. Her trip to SF had predated my
national tour by at least five years.
“How is Nora?” NoSmo King asked me. My heart stopped, clearly,
this was a good friend, I could see the genuine warmth in is eyes
when he said her name on his otherwise default setting of a grumpy
face. I had heard a few months earlier from friends in DC that
she had died. Clearly he didn’t know. I hated to be the bearer of
bad news that she had passed away. NoSmo King was devastated and got
really quiet. “She was really great,” he paused, “You don’t
know, she was REALLY great.”
