Jimmy Heron
I had already heard so many Jimmy Herrin stories from John Gibney that I felt like I already knew the man before we had even met.
John’s little plywood cottage, which we more often refferd to as “the beach” had become a gathering place of old friends reunited after being separated by time and circumstances, as well as new people, new friends and new loves. (I met Habiba on one of those days when she had come to the beach with King.)
Ray Samuels and Sid Carter were regulars at the beach. Ray loved to play with Tommy (and Tommy loved to play with Ray. Hyacinth and Michelle, the poet Ghost, the culture bearer, Ital, the artist David Wegman, a contingent of Argentine expats even upscale Peter Bay people, were among those attracted to the energy of the beach.
Jimmy Herrin, a close friend of John’s, joined the group after being released from prison where he served time on a conspiracy charge involving drugs sold a long time ago and his refusal to cooperate with authorities.
David Wegman on Violin
There would almost always be music, an informal jam session, John on guitar, Ray and Jimmy on harmonica, and anyone else who wanted to join in.
King and danny playing West indian Checkers on Los Alamos table
We would often sit around an old wooden table that J. Robert Oppenheimer brought to St. John from Los Alamos, New Mexico, a relic of the Manhattan Project. We would sit, drink wine, and as they say in Hawaii, “talk story” far into the night. Sometimes Teri would prepare a delicious South Beach style dinner, or Mexican Ralph would cook up some of the foods of his country or Ronnie the mechanic would make a barbecue.
We’d enjoy good conversations and great back-and-forths, sometimes politically incorrect but always lively and witty. For example, in one of those exchanges between Jimmy Herrin and Ray Samuels, Jimmy asks Ray to explain, “how is it that you guys get all the Yellowtail, and we can’t get any Hardnose?
Ray hesitates for a few seconds and comes back with, “Jimmy, we can’t get any Hardnose either.
(For those of you who don’t get it – it’s probably just as well)
Jimmy had a sharp wit and fancied himself a righter of wrongs. He thoroughly enjoyed exposing hypocrisy, a practice that at times would often totally piss off the targeted “hypocrite.” You could say that Jimmy was edgy – like really edgy, but most times he was spot on. But underneath it all, in his twinkling blue eyes that peered out from behind that big beard there was a genuinely stellar human being, who would literally give you the shirt off his back
Jimmy was one of those guys who was accepted and well liked by just about everyone he came in contact with be they white, black, old or young (as long as they weren’t hypocrites).
A woman I know once told me how Jimmy saved her from a vicious assault, when he stood up to the attacker, a man much larger than himself. She felt that if Jimmy hadn’t intervened the man might have killed her.
Jimmy Heron
Jimmy, we’re going to miss you.
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