There wasn't a pot-bellied stove but in every other way this was a traditional old-south store, more a talk-shop than a business. You could tell how laid back it was from his sign: "Open most days about 9 or 10 a.m., sometimes 12 or 1 p.m., except when we are somewhere else but we should be here."
Jiggs Zingarelli died in September (2008), but the relaxed southern lifestyle that he epitomized lives on all over the Panhandle.
This part of Florida, bordering on Alabama and Georgia, is quite unlike the rest of the state. While most of Florida counts winter the high season, it's the opposite here. Summer is when the big crowds arrive, for the Panhandle is far enough north to be temperate from June onward.
"We have much more in common with the Deep South -- with 'Dixie' -- than with the rest of Florida," one public relations person tells me. "We're four hours from Birmingham, Alabama, five from Atlanta. But it's 12 hours to Miami, 16 hours, something like 850 miles (1,360 km) to Key West."
Everything reminds you that you're in the Old South: Drawls as thick as the local tupelo honey, zydeco music, grits for breakfast, bayous . . .
Daytime temperatures in winter run between 15 and 20C, not enough to attract its traditional vacation base from southern states but enough to draw northerners and Canadians who like rental rates that are far lower than Clearwater, Naples or Miami. (They say here that if they see someone swimming in February, he or she is a Canadian).
The visitors love the marvellous beaches: White sand of refined quartz, ground so fine it squeaks under your feet. Panhandle beaches are regularly voted the best in a state that's justly famed for its sands.
Still, there are pockets where the other Florida has invaded, where unspoiled state parks and beaches are cheek-by-jowl with T-shirt shops, mini-golf arcades and all the other kitsch. You'll find all the excitement you crave in such places as Pensacola Beach, Destin, Fort Walton and Panama City.
And naturally the Panhandle has its share of offbeat things, such as the world's smallest police station (it's contained in a phone booth in Carabelle), and the tin-roof shack in Two Egg (yes, that's the name of the town) where actress Faye Dunaway was raised.
The area was once known, rather snootily, as "the Redneck Riviera," referring to the summer hordes who descend from Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. But don't use that expression in south Walton County, where several high-end planned villages, with houses and condos priced in the millions (even in a depressed market) have sprung up.
First came Seaside, which is so picture perfect it was taken over by Hollywood as the location for The Truman Show in 1998. Seaside is modelled on a New England village; other upscale developments include Watercolor (Florida "cracker" style), Baytowne Wharf (southern fishing village) and Rosemary Beach (pan-Caribbean).
And then there's my favourite, Apalachicola, a real fishing village (80% of the state's oysters comes through its docks). But it won't be the same without Jiggs Zingarelli.
For further information, check the websites floridapanhandlevacation.com and visitflorida.com.
This tin-roofed house, above,now abandoned, was the childhood home of actress Faye Dunaway. It's in the hamlet of Two Egg in the Florida Panhandle.
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