Memories of a terrific writer and Taxi driver: celebrating Peter McSherry’s life
The Toronto taxi driving community lost a staunch supporter with the July 27th passing of author, Taxi News correspondent, and long-time cabbie Peter McSherry.
He died suddenly at the age of 76, at home.
Former Taxi News editor Bill McQuat notes that throughout his 30-year-plus career McSherry was, โalways on the side of the drivers.โ And this support continued after he retired from driving, in the form of deputations at city hall and contributions to industry causes.
โPeter was very active and outspoken, and though not the easiest to get along with all the time, his heart was always in the right place,โ he says. โHe was trying to fight the good fight. And he was noble in (that regard).โ
โHe was also a very funny guy.โ
McSherryโs youthful interests included basketball, boxing, and chess. He also held a lifelong fascination with the life of crime, which would manifest itself in his first book, โThe Big Red Fox: The Incredible Story of Norman โRedโ Ryan, Canadaโs Most Notorious Criminalโ (1999. The Dundurn Group), which was short-listed for the Arthur Ellis Award For Best Non-Fiction.
Culled from 32 years of experience driving nights in Canadaโs largest city, his follow-up, โMean Streets: Confessions Of A Night-Time Taxi Driverโ (2002, the Dundurn Group), was short-listed for the Edna Staebler Award For Creative Non-Fiction. He said the book, โreflects the changes in the taxi business, and the city of Toronto over 30 years.โ
He also published 2013โs โWhat Happened To Mickey?: The Life And Death Of Mickey McDonald, Public Enemy No. 1,โ on the Dundurn imprint.
With considerable detail, insight, opinion and humour, “Mean Streets” documents McSherryโs encounters with drunks, punks, pimps, junkies, celebrities, etc, and explains how the night-time driver learns to read his customers, and when to diplomatically refuse a fare that โlooks like troubleโ — by-law be damned. In the bookโs introduction, he explained, โThere are people and situations out there on the streets of Toronto that the average intelligent, well-educated person cannot imagine.โ
But despite the obvious hazards, McSherry wrote, โI have always loved being a night shift driver and am not sorry for it. The job has given me freedom in my working life, along with some adventure, and cash at the end of the day.โ
Being the โquintessentially freeโ taxi driver — the fleet driver โ also granted him the freedom to become an author and writer.
Taxi industry insiders could find plenty to relate to in his recollections of unscrupulous garage owners, and dispatchers (along with some good ones), and in touching chapters like, โOld Cabbies I Have Known.โ
McSherry and McQuat first met when both were driving nights at Zakโs Taxi in the late Seventies. McQuat recalls many evenings when they would finish their shift at 4 a.m. go to Franโs Restaurant (Yonge and St. Clair) for dinner, and kibbitz.
โ(Peter) loved boxing,โ he recalls. โHe had great stories.โ
And as for his abilities behind the wheel, he adds, โ(Peter) was a great cab driver. He would work really hard at it for 12 hours. And he knew how to use the radio. I admired the way he worked at taxi driving.โ
In the forward to Mean Streets, McSherry credited former Taxi News publisher John Duffy with giving him the forum to develop his writing, over the course of many years. One of his most popular contributions to Taxi News was his frank and entertaining โDining Aloneโ column.
A lifelong bachelor, McSherry enjoyed long walks through the city. At the time of his death, he was close to finishing a fourth book featuring trivia questions about Canadian history.
โI related to Peter first, as a fellow writer,โ says Andy Reti. Reti published The Son of an Extraordinary Woman in 2001 and has written columns for various publications for decades. โPeter was at my book launch. I very much respected him, and I am very sorry for OUR loss.
โHe was quite a good writer, a good chess player, and a boxer and a brawler,โ recalls Reti. โHe was what we call in Yiddish โa mensch.โ
โWe talked a lot and had lots in common, how we felt about the licensing commission and the existing taxi establishment. My memory of him was always of a fair man, a man who understood the issues, and more importantly, was willing to do something about it. I had a lot of respect for him.โ
Reti and others recall that Peterโs passion for the Taxi industry was sometimes more than Toronto politicians could bear: โHe was passionate, and could get extremely emotional,โ Reti recalls.โHe was kicked out of City Hall a few times during the debates, first around Ambassador plates, and later around Uber.โ
Former Taxi driver Asafo Addaiโs memories of McSherry could be a book on their own.
โI spoke to him in July, and the last thing he said to me was, โIโm leaving now, Iโm going for a walk,โโ Addai says. โAt age 76, he surprised me, sounding so healthy and full of energy.โ
โThere are people and situations out there on the streets of Toronto that the average intelligent, well-educated person cannot imagine.โ
Peter McSherry, “Mean Streets”
Together, the two of them worked to expose a pair of Toronto police officers that were unfairly targeting Taxi drivers.
โI was standing at the counter at 14 Division, filing a complaint on these two officers, when the person at the counter told me, โOh, there is already a man here, filing a complaint about the same thing,โโ Addai recalls. โIt was Peter McSherry. Thatโs how I met Peter.โ
Addai and McSherry worked together to expose the scheme, in which the officers would pull over a Taxi driver and write multiple tickets, often amounting to hundreds of dollars. This would guarantee the driver would be motivated go to court to fight the charges. For their days in court, the officers were paid so much overtime that they wound up on the Sunshine List of public servants earning over $100,000 per year.
โOne year, Officer Pignatelli made more money than his Supervisor. It was incredible. But somehow, they made the mistake of pulling Peter McSherry over, and he freaked out on them,โ Addai laughs.
Addai notes that while the 14 Division scandal seemed out of character for McSherry as a police supporter, it was consistent with his commitment to justice and fairness: โAlthough Peter was very conservative, and he liked the police, that whole situation in 14 Division just disgusted him. From that point on, while we didnโt agree on everything Taxi, we stepped in each otherโs tracks, if you know what Iโm saying.
โPeter LOVED taxi driving; he loved the trade. He had a university degree and was a teacher, but he quit that job to drive taxi. He didnโt make a lot of money, but he loved driving Taxi.โ
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