Celebrating Pine Islanders: Dusty Harrington
Islander Dusty Harrington said he wouldn’t choose to describe himself but if he had to, he said he’s a man with too much time on his hands and not enough energy to use it. Although folks often find him to be quite comical, he said he never pursued stand-up comedy as a career.
“I think the comedian side of me is more by accident than design. I’ll say something I think is serious and then judging the reaction I see that people thought it was funny,” Harrington said.
What he did find himself pursuing was a bit on the wild side, as he said he was a roadie and sound man for numerous bands in the 1960s and 1970s. After tiring of life up North, Harrington said he ended up with a café in Madeira Beach, Florida. It wasn’t long until he became a commercial fisherman in the St. Petersburg area, but a back injury forced him to stay with a relative in Virginia.
“I met my wife while I was there and ended up going to Boston to go to school for locksmithing,” Harrington said.
Harrington decided he wanted to move to Florida with his wife, Jeannie, and her daughters, Heather and Jennifer, although not back to Madeira Beach, as the town had lent itself too much to the single-life, he said. He and Jeannie had rented a house for three months on Pine Island in the summer of 1990, which ironically ended up being the house they bought after moving here.
“It was funny because when we rented this place for that three months, I couldn’t get out of the house fast enough, I hated this place. Now, they’re gonna have to carry me out in a box — it’s a matter of time, depending on what falls apart first, me or the house — I think I’m winning,” Harrington said.
Harrington said he doesn’t leave the island unless he has to and that he knew Pine Island was home the first time he drove down Stringfellow Road. Shortly after moving here, Harrington said he began telling people, in the winter there are a lot of people around, but in the summer, if you’re headed down Stringfellow and you see a car coming toward you that you don’t recognize, you’d better follow it to see what they’re up to.
It wasn’t long before he became accustomed to life on Pine Island, he said. After he opened Pine Island Locksmith, Harrington bought another business called Pine Island Rod and Reel, where he worked as he waited for the locksmith business to take off.
“So I’ve been the locksmith here since 1990 — got my captain’s license and was running charters, fishing, sightseeing, shelling, snorkeling and ended up being a captain for Towboat US for about 8 years,” Harrington said.
One way in which Harrington has demonstrated his affection for Pine Island was in becoming a volunteer firefighter for 10 years.
He said his greatest wish for the island would be to secede from the U.S. and make Pine Island a country of its own.
“I’d like it to be an independent country. That would be really good. If we could become independent of all the developers and politicians, we’d be better off,” Harrington said.