Another colorful character from Sacramento’s past is gone. Go with God, Pat Melarkey
When I first moved to Sacramento in November of 1989, Pat Melarkey was a big deal. He owned a bar on Broadway called Melarkey’s Place. It was directly across the street from the Tower Theatre. It’s a Japanese restaurant now, but then? It was right in the heart of an avenue housing Sacramento’s classic theater and the still thriving Sacramento business empire of Tower Records and Tower Books.
Melarkey’s was packed on Saturday nights and I wish my memories were more vivid but, well, tequila. I went there with other young Bee reporters, of which there were many in those days, although it wasn’t until later that I learned how big Pat Melarkey was.
He had been a Sacramento County Supervisor of note in the 1970s. He was a dentist with his own practice who made good money but gave as much or more of it away, even if it was to his own financial detriment. But Patrick Melarkey was more than that. He had a big spirit, a big smile, a big shock of silver hair, a big heart. For many years he was known by a phrase that has gone out of fashion.
He was a man about town.
And in the finest traditions of Irish Catholic Americans, Patrick Melarkey gave his heart to the poorest among us. He was known for fixing the teeth of poor people who crossed his path. By all accounts, many of them in the Bee archives, Melarkey did this all the time. And if it doesn’t sound like much, consider how much you are charged in your deductible on your dental plan. Or how much you have to pay out of pocket when go for your dental work.
Those deeds faded with the years as Melarkey’s generation of Sacramentans began passing away. They faded as he grew too frail to join his groups of friends who used to dine with him every week at Biba. Biba Caggiano died last year. Lina Fat soon followed. All those big names of Sacramento’s past are giving way to time, to new generations of capital residents who are remaking the old town and creating new stories, new legends.
It’s frowned upon in The Bee newsroom now, but if this were the old days – if this were back in Melarkey’s 1970s heyday – I would pull a bottle from my desk drawer and raise a glass to Patrick Melarkey, who died on Tuesday at the age of 88. His funeral arrangements are pending.
A different time in Sacramento
“He was a true Irishman!” said Dan Visnich, an old pal of Melarkey’s and an old political hand from the state Capitol in the 1960s and 70s, when watering holes like Melarkey’s and Posey’s were the gold standard for gathering places of interesting people who cut deals over adult beverages.
“His family came here from Ireland in the 19th Century. He was a guy who lost a lot of money by helping people, probably died penniless. But he was a wonderful guy. We went to a lot of funerals together for our old friends. We had a marvelous time together and I’m really going to miss him.”
A 2006 Bee story described Melarkey’s political legacy this way: “Melarkey pushed for the county to sell its financially strapped hospital to UC Davis. He pushed for recycling before hardly anyone had heard of it. He defended the poor, the homeless, and found treatment for chronic drunks.
“In 1971, he urged the county to plan for the closure of Mather Air Force Base – 22 years before it happened – taking heat from almost everyone. He protested the Vietnam War. He was constantly trying to create new public parks. He thought government could fix things.
Seems he was always late, hustling into meetings with a smile and an apologetic shrug. In between, he would frequent thrift shops and stop at every junk pile he encountered.”
He graduated from Christian Brothers High School and Sacramento State. When the time came, he avoided the draft for Vietnam. “I was in the George Bush plan,” he told The Bee in 2006, poking fun at then President George W Bush, who avoided Vietnam as well. He tried to save the Alhambra Theater and failed. He soaked up life in Sacramento, good times and bad, with good humor.
“He knows the history of Sacramento better than anybody,” Monsignor Edward Kavanaugh, director of St. Patrick’s Home for Children, told the Bee in 2006. Melarkey visited the children’s home on Saturdays to care for the children’s teeth for free. “For that I will be eternally grateful,” Kavanaugh said.
The venerable Monsignor Kavanaugh died on St Patrick’s Day, 2018. And now, Melarkey has gone to join him. And if just for a moment, you could indulge my own Mexican Catholic biases for a moment with this: I hope those two great Sacramentans are together again in that heavenly place we pray for when we are still living.
I hope Patrick Melarkey is free of pain and free to share that big heart with everyone he encounters in the Kingdom of God. And for those of us still here? We can reflect on a life well lived by a man who lived with an open mind and an open heart.
May we all follow that example and never forget the people who tried their best to make this town a better place. Go with God, Patrick Melarkey.
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
