We were in a Japanese restaurant and a little boy, spotting a statue of Buddha, asked why people worship idols. I was thinking in terms of deities and didn't have an answer. Yet there are celebrity fans like Parrotheads, as Jimmy Buffett fans are known, who take their worship to extremes. Concert tailgaters set up beach-like tiki bars replete with sand. One group of fans refers to itself as “Church of Buffett.”
Much of what I know about Jimmy Buffett I learned while researching the chapter about him in “Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys,” but our degrees of separation aren't all that much. A former Key West resident, Buffett has weaved tales about the natural beauty of these islands and some of their most colorful characters into songs that are part of what's become his own musical genre.
Many of us have our favorite Buffett songs. For Mom's brother, Larry, it was the well-known “Margaritaville” that Dad said he played often at the Eagle's Nest, a Yonkers, NY watering hole that he owned. Mine has been “Come Monday,” which I remember first hearing on a Windjammer Barefoot Cruises sail aboard the SV Fantome.
John, the Fantome captain I met through a woman named Sid, had a similar “star quality” about him. It was an easy confidence that gave him a presence whether he was sporting his white uniform or crew blues. John was an avid reader who had met up with Buffett somewhere in the Caribbean. He was also the reason I moved to the Florida Keys.
We first lived on Marathon’s Gulfstream Boulevard with friends and family, including John's twin brother, Harry, who often watched “Little House on the Prairie,” and “Grandma,” John's Southern belle of a mom and an avid gardener. Her driving directions for getting around town went something like, “Turn right at the hibiscus and left at the bougainvillea.”
Fortunately, most everything in Marathon is located on the main road through the Florida Keys – US1, or the Overseas Highway. It's good, too, to get off the highway and take time to smell the frangipani.
After eight years in the Florida Keys, I moved Palm Beach County where, at a Keyzee Jupiter tiki bar known as the Square Grouper, Buffett and Alan Jackson filmed the music video for "5 O'Clock Somewhere." Buffett himself, it turned out, had moved to Palm Beach.
This ultra-luxury island is a lot different than the more eclectic Key West, where Buffett maintains a Margaritaville Cafe & Store (the original) and a recording studio known as Shrimpboat (scroll down for video footage from inside it). For that matter, Key West is a lot different than it was when Buffett first arrived there in the post-Vietnam War 1970s: The military presence had declined, many buildings were boarded up, and transportation often involved a bicycle or a “conch cruiser.” The songs, "Blue Heaven Rendezvous," "Last Mango in Paris" and "A Pirate Looks at 40" are among those inspired by people and places in Key West.
Seeing Key West through Buffett's eyes, it's easy to fall in love with the place and the people all over again -- and certainly to appreciate them more. An advocate for the environment, he shows support especially for causes involving the oceans and waters that unite us. Yet he maintains a delicate balance, holding performances on the Gulf Coast and in Key West at times when the economy has been slack.
From the solar system to the seas, scientists and religious these days seem to publicly agree that the universe is all too perfect to have happened by chance, that some higher power had to have been behind it. Buffett and author Carl Hiaasen, who has perhaps been among my own idols, put their talents to use by raising awareness in a way that encourages people to be stewards of it.
In Orlando one day recently, I was walking with my corgi-Jack Russell, or “cojack,” Chico, and saw for the first time a cross-shaped cloud. It felt reassuring to think that that higher power might be watching out for all of us, including those with that elusive quality, that “je ne sais quoi,” that draws people to them. Some might consider them idols.
That was the day that Jimmy Buffett fell from the stage in Sydney, Australia during an encore performance of "Lovely Cruise." It brought to mind one of the new favorite songs that I came away with after writing “Historic Walking Guides”: Buffett's rendition of “Southern Cross” – a constellation, or pattern of stars that central Australians are said to have considered the footprint of a Wedge-tailed eagle, the dark patch its nest.
About Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys
Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys takes readers back in time as they travel off the beaten path from the edge of Florida's mainland to Key West. In Key West, readers can embark upon a series of historic walking tours, each centered around themes such as treasure hunting, commercial fishing, literary luminaries and, of course, two of the best known residents of all -- Ernest Hemingway and Jimmy Buffett. Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys is available in print through Destinworld Publishing and Amazon.com. It's expected to be available in a slightly expanded e-reader format by spring 2011.
