Changes In Latitudes

 Wasted away again. 

Those were the words that came to my mind when I read the headline. Singer and mogul Jimmy Buffett dies at seventy-six. 

The man who taught me it was okay to grow older but not up will never be any older. While it is true that my Parrothead days are mostly behind me, if you were to cut me I would bleed a thousand margaritas. Before I started rabidly following New Jersey's favorite son, I worshipped at the altar of Buffett. Two t's is a Buffett. One t is a buffet. 

More summers than I can count were spent preparing for the annual trip to Red Rocks Amphitheatre to share a number of adult beverages with my closest ten thousand friends. We sang along. We knew all the words. We knew all the alternative verses. It was a beach party in the middle of a landlocked state. 

I have my older brother to thank for my introduction to Mister Buffett, no relation to Warren, and I spent many hazy nights and an equal number of blurred mornings cavorting and recovering. It was a lifestyle. Each new album was greeted with the anticipation of hearing it live. 

And singing along. 

I kept this avocation up when I moved to the left coast. Jimmy Buffett shows were not as easy a sell to those who had not been baptized at the altar of Parrot. After my son was born, it was even more difficult to rationalize the late night debauchery, even though at this point they were alcohol free. A friend of mine cajoled me into going out to a show with him in San Diego while my family was down there on vacation. In the parking lot, we came across a young man who was already chemically prepared for what he announced was his first Jimmy Buffet concert. I greeted him warmly, and asked if he had a song he was hoping to hear. "Margaritaville!" he roared. I assured him that he would not be disappointed. 

At which point he became very chummy. Putting an arm around my shoulder, he let me know that he thought it was great how Jimmy Buffett brought people together, "Your generation. My generation. It's great that we can get together like this." My vanity was battered but not bruised. Yes, I had spent a generation following the party, and though I still sing along, the party was moving on without me. 

But every summer, I still get a twinge to put on a Hawaiian shirt and see what's in the blender. Jimmy Buffett was the soundtrack to a great portion of my life, and always will be. He was a poet, a novelist, a singer of some renown, and the best party host one could imagine. He stomped on the Terra and he will be missed. Terribly. 

Aloha, Jim.