The Longfellow Mafia: Saving Parke Wright on Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay, where two kids learned boats, wind, and how to look out for each other.

When I was fifteen, I was lucky enough to live on Tampa Bay. My best friend then was Parke Wright, an only child of Maria Lykes of the Lykes meat fortune. His father was president of the company. Parke was my teacher on the water—he showed me how to sail, throw a net, water-ski, and run a boat the right way.

One day out on the Bay, things turned bad fast. Long story short, I pulled Parke out and kept him from drowning. No bravado then, just instinct and a grip that wouldn’t let go. We got him back in the boat, shaken but breathing.

His parents never forgot. They thanked me in a hundred ways, the kind that make you feel seen. When I was in Vietnam, care packages from the Wrights kept showing up like clockwork—coffee, snacks, odds and ends that felt like home. Once, they even told the captain of one of their steamships, the Maria Lykes, to pick me up and let me call home from the ship’s radio room. That’s a kind of kindness you don’t forget.

Parke and I are still friends, though these days he moves in more rarefied air—kings, sheiks, presidents. He’s turned into quite the philanthropist. We still laugh about those Tampa Bay days and call ourselves the Longfellow Mafia—named for the street he lived on.

I sometimes wish I’d taken him up on the invite to his cattle ranch in Cuba. He sold it before the rest of us peons were allowed to travel there. Even now, Parke doesn’t remember half of what his parents did for me in gratitude. They were wonderful people—gracious, generous, and yes, richer than Croesus—but they never made me feel small.

That’s the story. Two kids on the water, one close call, and a lifetime of friendship that followed. When the tide of life pulled hard, the Wrights threw me a line. I won’t forget it.