Keep The Party Going!

“I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

Jimmy Buffett – Growing Older But Not Up

Let me first apologize for being delinquent in my promise to share a story on a weekly basis, but I have a good excuse… of course, I do! My good friend and baseball buddy, Stu, and his wife, Diana, invited Jaime and me to attend their youngest daughter’s wedding. The wedding was held at their beautiful home, about an hour south of Portland, in the Willamette (as in Will-ammit, dammit!) Valley.

We arrived in Portland on the Thursday before Labor Day Weekend and drove through misty rain in rush hour traffic with homeless encampments scattered along the highway. It looked like the homeless had taken over the Boy Scouts and were holding their annual Jamboree in Portland. I couldn’t help but wonder if “Labor Day” in Portland had been canceled.

If you find yourself in the Willamette Valley, then you feel obligated to consume as much Pinot Noir as possible – and we did! Friday, we were on the wine tasting trail – Brick House, Beaux Freres, Four Graces and Van Duzer – then we split a bottle of Ponzi at lunch. It was a successful wine tasting day – my teeth were purple, and my wallet was empty. I don’t remember how many cases of wine we ordered, but I’m sure the UPS guy will file a worker’s comp claim after he delivers all that wine to our house!

College Football Saturday – time to watch my Sooners play football. After last year’s performance, I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to watch, but I’m “Sooner born, Sooner bred and when I die, I’ll be Sooner dead,” so I put on my game face and checked my phone for the game time. The first thing that popped up was a news release, “Jimmy Buffett, Legendary “Margaritaville” Singer, dies at 76.” I was shocked! My first thought was a quote from his song, Growing Older But Not Up, “I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

Joie de Virve

Buffett was known to refer to his music as “drunken Caribbean rock ‘n roll,” but the overriding theme of his music was to embrace life and have fun. It didn’t matter if he was singing about margaritas or cheeseburgers or brown-eyed girls, it brought a smile to my face and made me want to dance. He will be missed, but his music will live in my heart forever.

In 2013, I took Jaime to her first Jimmy Buffett concert in Frisco, Texas. When we arrived at the Toyota Soccer Stadium, we found the parking lot filled with Parrot Heads dressed in grass skirts and coconut bras finishing up a two-day pre-concert tailgate party. The alcohol was flowing, and the sweet smell of reefer was in the air – it was time to escape to Margaritaville!

As we descended the stadium stairs, we ran into a big fat “Merman” wearing a seashell bra and a blue fish tail. Jaime had to have her picture taken with this soon-to-be common species, but she didn’t anticipate that Mermen tend to sweat profusely. Yuck! Just be glad there were no “Fins Up” in this story!

Jackson Browne was the opening act! How times have changed – in the 1980s, Jimmy would’ve been opening for Jackson. I must admit that I was a fan of Jackson Browne long before I was a fan of Jimmy Buffett. The first time I saw Jackson Browne, he played at an outdoor concert near Town Lake in Austin, Texas. It was my birthday and my brother invited me to join him and his buddies for the concert. It was nostalgic getting to hear Jackson Browne again. Running On Empty brought back good memories!

After Jackson finished, Jimmy took the stage barefoot wearing a pair of yellow board shorts and a tee-shirt. He was bald, but not trying to hide it. Growing old but not up! The crowd was on its feet during the entire concert. He played all his old songs. It was a trip down memory lane – paradise past, present and future. That’s what we paid for, and Jimmy delivered. He brought the house down, but after two days of tailgating, it didn’t take much!

The following year we went back for another dose of Margaritaville. This time I got us some better tickets, twelve rows from the stage. John Fogerty, of Creedence Clearwater Revival fame, was the opening act for Jimmy. We got to our seats early and there was an older couple sitting in front of us. I saw the woman fish something out of her purse and hand it to her husband, then they both stuck orange earplugs in their ears. I elbowed Jaime and pointed at the two oldsters with their earplugs, and we both laughed. Why in the world would you come to a concert and plug your ears with orange foam? 

A few minutes later, Fogerty took the stage and hit the first chord on his electric guitar – I felt like the guy in the old Maxell Cassette commercial when sound blasted from his speaker and knocked him out of his chair! The difference was that the sound at the concert blasted for two hours! The next morning, we almost missed the hotel’s checkout time because we didn’t hear our alarm go off. I’m sure the desk clerk felt sorry for the deaf couple that kept yelling at each other as they checked out. When it’s quiet outside, I can still hear steel drums ringing in my ears.

I loved Jimmy Buffett’s drunken Caribbean rockin’ roll music, but what I’ll miss the most was his Joie de Vivre. Everything he did reflected his joy for life, and we should all be thankful that he shared that joy with us. I still have the last verse of Jimmy’s Cowboy in the Jungle above my desk as a reminder to keep that Joie de Vivrein my heart.

“We’ve gotta roll with the punches

Learn to play all of our hunches

Make the best of whatever comes your way

Forget blind ambition

And learn to trust your intuition

Plowin’ straight ahead come what may”

Let’s raise our glasses for a toast to Jimmy Buffet – in his final words, “Keep the party going!”

The Wedding

Let’s get back to the wedding story.

Jaime and I were last seen traveling down the Willamette Valley wine trail on our way to Stu and Diana’s youngest daughter’s wedding. We were staying at a historic home in Silverton with Gordon & Helen; John & Laura; and Ronnie. Gordon and Ronnie’s husband, Brian, played minor league baseball in the Braves organization with Stu and me in the late 1970s. Warning! This wedding could result in a volatile mixture of ex-baseball players and alcohol. Hide the women and children!

Stu and Diana have a beautiful home located on acreage outside of Scott Mills, in which they created an outdoor wedding venue overlooking a vineyard. The perfect place for their daughter, Madison, and her fiancé, Jake, to tie the knot. Of course, when the wedding day arrived, there was still lots to get done for it to be ready for a 4:00PM wedding with 135 guests. Never fear! Gordon, Helen, Ronnie, Jaime, and I were in the bullpen ready to help Stu & Diana’s kids save the game! We all rolled up our sleeves and started setting up tables & chairs, folding napkins & placing silverware, and most important, finished setting up the bar. Gordon and I thought we were finished; we were ready to go back to the house to shower and put on our coats & ties. But no! We were voluntold to put exactly ten M&Ms in each of the 135 cellophane bags to be given out as party favors. Why not just pour the 1,350 M&Ms in a bowl and let the guests grab what they want? Never mind; we had two outs in the bottom of the ninth, so we just punched that motherfucker out – GAME SAVED!

The wedding went off without a hitch. They both said, “I do.” Jake kissed Madison. The knot was tied. Let’s party! Not quite yet. First, we had to toast the newly married couple. Madison’s sister, Emily, the matron of honor, led off with a beautiful toast that only a loving sister could deliver. Then Jake’s best man followed with a funny toast – men usually opt for humor, so they don’t choke up and start crying. Stu delivered the final toast. A father giving away his youngest daughter. It touched everyone’s heart. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Everyone wiped their eyes and pretended they didn’t tear up. Now let’s dance!

The party started slow, but after we got some dance lubricant in our system the ball players took over the dance floor! We were just getting warmed up when the DJ put on The Isley Brothers – Shout! We started jumping and shouting like teenagers at a sock-hop! Next thing I knew, we were all on the floor doing the gator! OMG, call 911!

The music stopped, and the ball players gathered around Stu with shots of Irish Whiskey for the final toast of the evening, “You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road.”

Postscript:

I want to thank Stu & Diana and their kids, Sam, Emily, Madison, and Davis for including us in such special occasion. You have a wonderful family, and Jaime and I are proud to be your friends. I want to wish Madison & Jake all the best in their life together! I also want to thank Gordon & Helen, and Ronnie for making this the most memorable Labor Day weekend of all time! Only a goldfish would forget this Labor Day weekend!!

A final shout out to “The Woman to Blame.” It’s my own damn fault!

Thank you for reading my story. Let me know if you have any good Jimmy Buffet stories to share! 

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