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---
title: The Oysterman — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER
date: 2015-04-10T00:37:55Z
source: http://bittersoutherner.com/the-oysterman
tags: writing, ocean, food
---
### _The first time I set foot in Apalachicola, I had my first meal at the Wheelhouse Raw Bar. _
It was a cold November night, and I sat alone inside, devouring a dozen oysters and some mullet dip. Outside on the dock, facing the river, were two men — two sailors — warming themselves in front of a Chiminea: Mike from Massachusetts and Richard from Michigan. They lived on their sailboats and made ends meet by doing odd jobs in town. [Melanie Cooper Covell][1], owner of the Wheelhouse, let Mike dock his boat in front of the restaurant. They told me stories about the place and gave me a long list of characters to seek out while I was in town.
I figured Mike and Richard would've moved on by the time I made my way back to Apalachicola eight years later. But nope, they were still there.
After the oyster feast at Unk and Gloria's in Eastpoint, I drove back over the bridge to Apalachicola and my temporary home above the old Steamer's. It had been a long day, and I was tired, but something told me to take a turn toward downtown and see what I could find happening on a Tuesday night in this sleepy little fishing town. Bowery Station looked like it was hosting a lively crowd of locals, so I decided to stop in for a well-deserved drink after a long day on the bay. Within five minutes of being there, I noticed a familiar face at the bar: Mike's.
"I still have all of those blues CDs you gave me," he said almost immediately. I ask about Richard, and Mike pointed to a portrait of him on the wall. He was still around and a celebrated character in town. I grilled Mike about all of the other people whom I hoped to find while I was in the area — people I had interviewed all those years ago. He told me that Melanie sold the Wheelhouse. The old Deep Water Marina and Boat Yard was now condos, and its former caretaker, [Wes Birdsong][2], was living over in Eastpoint.
The next day I got an invitation to join Mike at Wes's house for drinks. We gathered in Wes's garage-slash-woodshop where we drank wine, ate steamed shrimp and talked about Apalach. I asked Wes if he kept anything from the Deep Water Marina & Boat Yard before it was torn down. He pointed to a tall stack of wood in the corner: salvaged floorboards.
Of the many people I'd visited with so long ago, I knew that two were already gone. Corky Richards, the tong maker, passed away in 2008. Later that same year, we also lost [Genaro "Jiggs" Zingarelli][3], a 90-year-old WWII veteran who spent his days printing oyster tags, the information labels that appear on each and every bag and box of bivales, and plied his trade in a time capsule of a shop in downtown Apalach. I knew what had happened to Jiggs, but I had no idea what became of his Franklin County Press. That is, until I went back. Sadly, Jiggs' old print shop is now just another gaudy boutique, selling high-dollar trinkets to tourists.
I found out that [Fred Millender][4], a salty one-of-a-kind character who operated Fred's Best Seafood in Eastpoint, passed away just a few months before my return. He had been in the seafood business for more than five decades and passed away last year at the age of 88. I learned about Fred's passing from one of his nephews. I had stopped in Fisherman's Choice Bait & Tackle in Eastpoint to say hello to owners [Charles Pennycuff][5] and his son Rex, whom I last saw in 2006. Charles was catching me up on how the seafood community was getting along, talking about how shrimpers were now using their boats to harvest cannonball jellyfish for the Asian market. All of a sudden, Charles called out to a large man who had just walked into the store.
"Ask him about the jellyfish," Charles said. The man introduced himself as Tony Millender, a shrimper, and I immediately asked if he was kin to Fred. Of course he was. We reminisced about his late uncle, and then he handed me his smartphone to show me pictures of his latest jellyfish haul. Afterwards, Charles took me to lunch down the street at Lynn's Quality Oysters — now Lynn's Oyster Bar & Retail Market — where we shared a few dozen of Franklin County's finest, the rare few that come through her doors. I got to catch up with Lynn, and had a front row seat to the gossip of the day.
This would be the theme of my trip. It happened again and again: finding people right where I left them, as if our conversation had just been interrupted for a brief moment, and I was circling back after taking a phone call or ordering another round of oysters. I found [James Hicks][6] and his wife Oddys behind the bar at Papa Joe's. I met [Tommy Ward][7] and his son T.J. at their 13 Mile retail market downtown. And on one particularly fortuitous morning, I happened to drive by the long-shuttered Taranto's Seafood to find [Anthony Taranto][8]'s son Joey working inside, loading up all of the metal to sell for scrap. Anthony, now 83, came down minutes later, shared stories about his family's old seafood house, and then drove me around for the better part of an hour, pointing out landmarks and reminiscing about the days gone by in this tight-knit little fishing village on the Apalachicola Bay.
[1]: http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/melanie-cooper-covell/
[2]: http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/wes-birdsong/
[3]: http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/genaro-jiggs-zingarelli/
[4]: http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/fred-c-millender/
[5]: http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/charles-and-rex-pennycuff/
[6]: http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/james-hicks/
[7]: http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/tommy-ward/
[8]: http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/anthony-taranto/
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