July 26, 2007 Issue

There is a litmus test for determining whether someone is a true native of Destin. It involves a very simple question. “Do you know “Little” Jimmy Shirah? Some of the people who have relocated to Destin over the past few decades knew Jimmy. But everyone who is from Destin knew “Little” Jimmy.

If you didn’t know him, you won’t get to now. Jimmy died Sunday afternoon.

“Little” Jimmy Shirah was a net fisherman. He adapted to modern life in Destin, but not very well. When the net ban took effect (partly in 1996 and then totally in 2000) Jimmy was devastated. I don’t know of anyone who was as affected by the ban as Jimmy.

Many people were hurt financially by the ban. But the legislative taking of his livelihood cut Jimmy much deeper. Net fishing was his life and he was very good at it. Their catch consisted primarily of cigar minnows, herring and skipjacks. Growing up, learning from Buck Destin, Reddin Brunson, and others, the idea that one day he would not be allowed to practice his trade never occurred to him.

Jimmy tried to find ways to stay in the bait business. He used different nets that weren’t outlawed. He tried fishing the Alabama coast. But, it wasn’t the same.

Someone asked me this morning if Jimmy was an old-timer in Destin. I told him that the last time he and his father, “Big” Jimmy shot a wild hog, it was where the Donut Hole is now. I think that qualifies.

People who grew up in Destin were well aware of one thing that you didn’t do with Jimmy. Nobody ever shook his hand for a second time. He may have been missing a finger from a fishing accident, but he had a grip that was stronger than any vice clamp. As the unsuspecting victim withered under the pain of his grip, there was always a distinct twinkling in Jimmy’s eyes.

Jimmy became friends with my parents more than 25 years ago. They live on Calhoun Avenue and large schools of mullet swim just off of their dock. When the fish would show up my mother would call me. “Tell “Little” Jimmy that the mullet are here,” she would say.

Late in the afternoon Jimmy and his father would slip down to my parent’s dock and quietly wait for the fish to show. My mother would wait for them to catch mullet so she could feed a fresh one to White Paws, her cat. That was her fee for them fishing from her dock.

My father would try to engage Jimmy in conversation. Jimmy thought that my father was “a big shot Washington lawyer.” Jimmy liked knowing my father was his friend. There was no telling what their conversations were like. Except I know that my father talked to Jimmy about politics and the law. Because that’s what he knew. Jimmy talked to my father about mullet. Because that’s what he knew.

Some years after they became friends, my father developed Alzheimer’s. I’m not sure that at the beginning, it effected their conversations much. I doubt Jimmy knew what my father was talking about anyway. And Jimmy’s knowledge of mullet far outweighed my father’s interest in that species of fish.

Jimmy was a bear of a man and I can’t imagine him being scared of anything. However, one day, shortly before we took away my father’s car keys, Jimmy walked up to me with an ashen face.

I had given my dad a 1968 red Pontiac Bonneville convertible for father’s day. Occasionally he would drive it to the old post office on Hwy. 98 and sometimes if he had guests in town he would take them on a bizarre tour of Destin. He had frightened many people before he lured Jimmy into his car.

“I’ve been through hurricanes, and shark attacks, and I’ve sunk a few boats, but I’ve never been as scared in my life as just now, driving over the Destin Bridge with your father,” he told me. “He never looked up at the road the whole time he was driving. He just kept looking at me and talking. Hell, he didn’t even know where he was going.”

Jimmy and I have had an arrangement for the past 20 years. I would give him a pair of sunglasses in the spring and he would provide us live mullet for bait during the cobia tournaments. I tried for years to get him to fish with us, not out of friendship, but because I had a feeling he would have been pretty good at spotting the cobia. Goose and I told Jimmy he could drive the Hey Baby, and be our captain, but we never could get him to go.

Last night, my family and friends sat on the dock that Jimmy built for my parents on the south side of Choctawhatchee Bay. The water is shallow there, and as the sun set yesterday, with no wind, the bay was slick calm. School after school of mullet glided along in two feet of water. The evening was cool and clear and occasionally a fish jumped.

If you had ever seen Jimmy throw a cast net, you would have known you were in the presence of a master. It was like a work of art. Jimmy threw a 16-foot net and his lead line was 5/8-inch chain link. I could barely lift the thing. But with a flick of the wrist Jimmy threw a perfect silver dollar every time. Those mullet last night would have been Jimmy’s.

As I’ve gotten older, I am far less sensitive about the way people treat me, but I’ve become more aware of the way people treat my parents, and my children. I will never forget the kindness Jimmy Shirah showed my family and me.

There has been an account set up with First National Bank and Trust for the Jimmy Shirah Family Fund.
Please see Peggy Threadgill in the Destin office if you can help and there will be an old-fashioned Destin fish fry at Harbor Docks at 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 29th to honor Jimmy.

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