I’m a Parrothead.  Have been since fourth grade. Tim, my best friend, and I were separated by a back fence.  His teenage sister was playing Son of a Son of Sailor one day. Fell in love with the mythical land so far removed from the Gulf Coast I grew up in. The upbeat and the easy lyrics  in Cheeseburger and the entire A side of the double fold vinyl record with the killer inside album art became my favorite. Later in life, the beautifully crafted lyrics of the B side was the richer vein to be mined. When the four decade mark in my life rolled around, I was the Pirate floating along with the tide searching for my African friend. Tides I followed started with vinyl records, cassette tapes and CDs. My library is all digital now.

His ballads created the travelogues that had me walk into a Navy recruiting office one day. Jimmy split his first royalty check with his accountant and bought a boat.  I served on a forward deployed supply ship out of Guam.  For 3 years his songlines floated on the deep blue of the Pacific and Indian ocean with me. British  Hong Kong, Singapore, Subic Bay, Japan, Korea, Mombasa and Perth Australia. My world measured 300 x 40′ with all I owned under my rack and hanging in the half locker. Giving up personal space opened the world. A supply ship is always working. Always on the lookout for a Flying tiger doing a barrel roll.  There’s a special magic of the stars stretching to the horizon in the middle of the ocean that only sailors share.

On the family beach of Naval Station Guam,  Jimmy and Bob Marley witnessed the last Christmas of 4 friends. The Remittance man could be the theme of a modern navy. Rhiannon is my Little Miss Magic and Delaney has a teenager.  All of my concert experiences happen before the stadium tours.  1981 or 82 was the Astroworld amusement park.  The 300 or so of us at eye level with the Captain before the Circus came to town.  A couple years later from a hillside of the first outdoor venue in Houston. Long before the parklot show before the Show.  Some taglines have become my past. Other borrowed songlines proved just has empty as what they replaced.  Memories and wisdom are still waiting for me when those familiar notes start.

The island lifestyle mirage is Margaretville, has been interwoven with The Who, Jazz, Asleep at the Wheel, Dropkick Murphys, Billy Joel and other attitudes of the moments defined by music.  The desire to be one of 3000 rather than 30,000 in a huge stadium has been refined in supporting Detroit City. The newer hoards of Parrotheads of the 90s are following their versions of his songlines.  The lifestyle is now a brand.  But Jimmy got a romantic big and noisy flying boat out of it.  Not a bad life spent on the water and the air above it while not worrying about the cost of it all.  He was in his twenties when a ten year old found his Pied Piper. Thanks You Jimmy Buffett for a mythic coast I couldn’t see and a window in the places I missed.