April 14th, 2011

While I usually refrain for posting local AC “death news” on this site to avoid it becoming a depressing obituary column, this is one I felt I had to mention.    Daddy Derry, owner of Thi-Hi Bar on  Perimeter Road, passed away from heart failure this past Tuesday.  I believe he was around 73 years old.

Now Thi-Hi’s is a small hole-in-the-wall type bar up on Perimeter Road, that some of you probably never even stepped foot in, but for the old-timers and AC vets out there, you know just how special and iconic of a person Derry was to Angeles City.  He was a living representation of the glorious yester-years of Angeles, a retired Army vet, with a lifetime of stories for anyone who entered Thi-Hi.  A gruff and grizzled outward persona, but an easy-to-sense warmth on the inside.

I’ll always remember my first trip into Thi-Hi’s seven or eight years ago.  Derry greeted our group with a tray of sweet-tasting shooter drinks he called “Gecko Juice”, as was his custom for everyone.    I never heard one bad word said about him, only good things like I’ve mentioned above.  No, his bar wasn’t the biggest or brightest, and didn’t have the most glamorous looking girls (usually 30+ MILFs which I preferred anyway, hehe), but it had something a lot of the bars today down on Fields Ave are missing:  Character.

Character like his “Gecko Juice” shooters he offered to you when you entered, or the “Thi-Hi” garter and stocking costumes his ladies always wore, or the pet cat he had that was friendly like a dog, or how he would sleep upstairs in his office, or all of the stories from the base days he would tell, or the sign in the CR that read: “Want great sex?  Get a Filipina.  Want true love? Get a fucking dog!”  I’ve been in & out of nearly all the bars in AC over the years, but few stick out in my mind as much as Thi-Hi does.

To anyone that knew him, his death certainly isn’t a shock; he appeared in poor health for the past 10 years I would say.  But it is profoundly sad because a good man is gone, a true living icon of the place we love is no longer there to welcome us back, which is yet another stark reminder that times are ever-changing.   An end of an era.

Derry Parker had more Angeles City in his left PINKY than all of the ping-pong balls, body paint and poppers in Dollhouse Group, Golden Nile and La Pasha combined.

Rest in Peace, Derry.  We’ll miss you.

Derry Parker - Thi-Hi Bar - Angeles City Icon - R.I.P.