We woke up this most recent Saturday, the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, prepared for the onslaught of visitors for the last time this summer to our beach town on the Jersey Shore. What we were not prepared for, was to pick up my phone and discover that the night before, on Friday, September 1st, Jimmy Buffett passed on. No, we didn’t know Mr. Buffett, but like millions of his fans, we knew Jimmy, and he was just like an old friend!

Susie and I first became aware of Jimmy 20+ years ago, when we were invited to a birthday party on the beach our good friend Steve was giving for his wife Pat. The theme and the whole being of the beach party was based around Jimmy and his music. Not being really familiar with his music, we bought a “greatest hits” CD and we started listening to it. Jimmy Buffett’s Songs You Knew By Heart contained songs like Come Monday, Boat Drinks, Fins, Pencil Thin Mustache, He Went to Paris, and of course the song that kind of started it all, Margaritaville! We were hooked!

Since then we were customers for every CD Jimmy put out, and loved so many of the new songs on his albums. We also saw him perform live outdoors at Jones Beach with an incredible parking lot party. We saw him at Madison Square Garden, where we had to sit sideways in the seats to see the stage, and went home on the Long Island Rail Road with ridges in our knees. We also saw him several times along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City at Boardwalk Hall, the same place Miss America used to strut her stuff! We were also lucky enough to attend some of those concerts with all 3 of our kids, who also love Jimmy. Everywhere we saw him, we loved being a part of the Parrot Head Nation, knowing we were all fans of Jimmy.

We’ve also been long time subscribers to Sirius/XM Satellite radio, and have spent countless hours listening to Radio Margaritaville in the car! We’ve traveled with Jimmy to his spiritual home of Key West, to visit our kids in North Carolina, Florida, and New York, and before we were retired, back and forth between Long Island and Ocean City. We’ve literally spent thousands of hours listening to Buffett Buffets, old and new concert replays, and lots of Buffett trivia stories. I guess you could say that we have immersed ourselves in the Buffett culture over the past 20+ years, and frankly our lives have been better for it!

I think I’m taking Jimmy’s death so personally, even though I never met him, because in my opinion Jimmy is the troubadour of our generation. He was a Baby Boomer, and like so many of us, be you 57 or 77, we are always going to think of ourselves as young! In our mind, we are still 18, even if our bodies don’t buy that! Jimmy’s music and his life embodied the Baby Boomer mentality of “Forever Young”. His music is loved by many generations, but I think it was personal to those of us born in the Baby Boomer years! His death last Friday put a sad ending to that.

Yes, Jimmy is gone, but at the same time, he will always be with us. His music, that for many has been the soundtrack of their lives, will continue to be with us. We will listen to his advice, be it his financial advice in Carnival World where he tells us, “Spend it while you can, Money’s contraband, You can’t take it with you when you go, Spend it while you can, Before it’s taken from your hand, There’s no free ride in this carnival world“. Or his advice for dealing with all life bestows on us he gives us in Changes In Lattitude, Changes in Attitude, “With these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, Nothing remains quite the same, With all of my running and all of my cunning, If I couldn’t laugh I just would go insane.” Or his lyric in Barefoot Children In The Rain that reminds us, “Wrinkles only go where the smiles have been.”. How bout the lyric and the song title giving us the way to get through things when they’re not the best of times, “Breathe in, Breathe out, Move on.” Or the one that I’ve always tried to live by, and that in my mind epitomizes Jimmy Buffett, his life and his philosophy, from the song Growing Older but Not Up, Jimmy sings, “I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead!” You certainly did that my friend!

Jimmy Buffett lived enough life for 20 people. Against all odds, he became a successful song writer and a top 10 artist. He parlayed a beach song about a tequila drink, into an empire of beverages, bars, restaurants, hotels, and resorts. But he was always humble about what he did, calling his career a “Summer Job” and saying, “I still consider it a summer job, though. So, I try to maintain that summer job as long as I can. But it’s exciting to be able to have the opportunity to do things I always dreamed of as a kid.” For 50+ years, Jimmy’s summer job continued, and the whole world was better for it!

Thanks Jimmy for loving us as much as we loved you! Smooth sailing to the Son of a Son of a Sailor! Hope you’re at the wheel with your Grandpa telling some good stories! God Speed…