BuffettNews.com

I was about to post how wonderful it is to see the two new babies (newyear and yearend) in posts right after each other... Les and CaptP, you have to post right after each other as often as possible... Those babies are so dear and sweet they bring tears to my eyes! What a blessing! I'm going to love watching them grow on Buffett News!

Then, I saw this post from MY baby!!! I don't see him around here much...
He's such a hard worker! Good to see you, and thanks for the credit for your parrotheadism...

I may have introduced him to Buffett, but he introduced me to Buffett News. He used to go to COBO pre-BN.

I can't recall the exact date I became a parrothead as he can, but it was in my freshman year of college 1976-77, sometime after Cheeseburger and before Volcano. Love you, babe... thanks for posting!

Parrotthed wrote:The question here is "what day" you truly became a parrothead.
I can tell you the exact day....
Although I was familiar with some of Buffett's songs back in the mid 1970s, it wasn't until my first trip to the Florida Keys that I was truly hooked.
The day? Sunday, July 19, 1987 -- that's the day my wife, Carolinagirl, and I arrived in Key Largo for the night on our way to a week in Key West for the Hemingway Days festival.
All along the way from our home in South Carolina, my wife had been playing cassettes of Buffett albums she had taped from a friend of hers. By the the time we arrived in the Keys during the late afternoon, just a couple of hours before a brilliant sunset, I was hooked on Buffett ... and the Keys!
Buffett became the soundtrack not only of that trip but of many more trips to the Keys (and to many other beaches, places and spaces during the past 20 years).
So, I owe my parrotheadism to my wife and to my first mind-expanding trip to the Keys nearly two full decades ago -- and I'm itching to go back this July for a 20-year celebration!!!

Oh! and let me offically endorse this July '07 excursion!!!

October 14, 1992 ... the same night the Braves won NLCS game 7 to go to the World Series. I had been listening to Jimmy Buffett for 15 years already, got every album / cassette / CD when it came out, had been to a few concerts, got my Coconut Telegraph (very sporadically back then), sent Jimmy "Merry Birthday" presents, etc., but I think I was just a huge fan.

Since the baseball game had pre-empted "Later with Bob Costas," they re-ran a show from a few weeks prior with Bubba. Joe Merchant was about to take the #1 slot on the NYT Bestseller List. He talked a lot in that interview about literary influences, musical inspirations, his family, and reconciling with Jane. (A fave quote, "it's a dream come true)." I had sense enough to find a VHS tape and cram in the VCR and hit record. I've watched it several times over the years. Two things he said have really influenced me. I had a puritanical upbringing to say the least. Fun was never anything to be sought out. JB said that humor is an essential part of our existence. He also said that people are very tribal in nature ... we need to be together, have fun, have a sense of community, and went on about fan gatherings and the parrothead phenomenon. Anyway, that's when I really "got" him. My life has changed completely since that time. I am just goofy happy most days!!! I still work hard at everything I do, but I get it that FUN is important. I often think about how much more fun ALL of our lives are here at our home because of JB ... because if Mama's not happy ... well, you know the rest!

It's almost to the point of not being able to remember when I wasn't a Parrothead. I've been a fan since 76 77 period and a rabid fan since about 79.

When Fruitcakes was released.
Up until then I knew who Jimmy was, but wasn't addicted.

I just moved from Florida to Illinois and had to surrender my vanity plates there--- and because of lack of funds this year had to go with basic IL plates.


I have been to 7 concerts since, mostly within Florida and Texas.

I love TTWWY. I love the cover of Elvis Presley Blues .

I always knew of Jimmy Buffett before. I had heard of Margaritaville and Cheeseburger in Paradise and that was about it. Never got into him until a friend of mine in college (in 1990) played his then new live album Feeding Frenzy and I got hooked. Then I got the BBBB box set in 1992 and it took off from there.

It's embarrassingly recent. In 2003 a bunch of friends and I planned a group trip to Key West. I asked a guy at the hotel we were going to stay at where the music on their website came from (pan music) and he said "If you really want to get ready to come here start listening to Jimmy Buffett" Now I had of course heard Margaritaville and Come Monday and liked them well enough but had never been introduced to all his other music. I mentioned it to a "keet" at work and she loaned me Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and told me she went to GW every year. Well, that was the beginning for me. Then I started mentioning JB to other friends who, as it turns out, loved him as well - who knew? The day before the GW concert last year we declared it "JB Day" at the bank I work at (manager was on vacation) we all wore Hawaiian or JB T-shirts, beads, leis etc and played his music all day. Our customers in our tiny Vermont town LOVED it!

Now his music is the background music for my life. To the uninitiated I'm a crazy Parrothead but until I'm ready to really walk the walk and move out of Vermont to work at a marina somewhere (the dream) then I can't call myself a true PH - but I thank Jimmy for putting a sound to the thoughts I've always had.

I first stumbled on to Jimmy in 1984 at the tender age of 13. It was still legal back then, but the other s*** wasn't. Not yet anyway.

I was working with Dez...Hubby and I were, well, not doing so good. This was Pre-Mollie time (maybe 1997 or even 1996) She knew I had a long drive home and it took me over an hour to pick up Jim and get home. I sat in a lot of traffic. She gave me a copy of Riddles in the Sand to listen to. I LOVED it. Who's the Blond Stranger became a mood lightener. I went in the next day and we talked about other "Jimmy" things...like his companies and such. I was hooked and the rest is history!

Funny, I was just telling my 16 year old daughter the other day about when it was that I became a Parrothead. (Even though I didn't realize it!) Summer of '81...the year I graduated from 8th grade. My oldest brother was a JB-wanna be...he's a few years younger (57 now) had the same scraggily beard goin' on..and even had a small sailboat! He bought me my first pair of Sperry topsiders as a graduation gift. I remember seeing and hearing his JB albums all the time.. Didn't actually go to my first concert till '97. Boy- was I shocked at what THAT entailed! It kinda grew on me from there. Now my five 'keets are brainwashed in the ways of JB, too. Sirius channel 31 is the only thing I listen too- in the car & the house! Sometimes I even dance alone in the living room listening to concert replays. (Ok, so I'm a dork!)
I've come to realize it's just a wonderful "way of life"...I wouldn't give it up for anything!

I first considered myself a Parrothead a few years ago when listening to Radio Margaritaville for the first time. (At the time I was started to get INTO Buffett fairly hard and was looking for stations that played his music.)

I think it was when I first discovered that RM played "live" concerts that I really felt into the whole movement. There's just something about hearing a completely LIVE concert (not just a CD that splices a few songs here and there from multiple concerts) that gets you into the mood.

Plus it was on BuffettNews that I first met some "setlisters" and their devotion soon became MY devotion.

I was in the front row of the Friday Fenway Park show when Mr. Jimmy broke the Curse of the Bambino. I almost cried.

I thought I was a Parrot Head before the historic occassion in September, 2004 . . . but if I wasn't then that surely did solidify when stance as a true member of Buffett - Nation.

So many things came together: Hurricane Ivan did not hit the New England Coast. I was able to get up to Boston from Nantucket after numerous warnings that all inter - island service would be shut down. The Sunday Fenway/ Buffett show lacked the Curse Breaking Ceremony (I was out in the cheap seats).

It was huge. It was special. I always endorse Great Woods. I have always been a supporter of the Cause . . . but that day in September - MAN!

whats a parrothead?

I was reading these posts with Mollie, since she has a thread today and I asked her the same question. She said "Mommy, I guess the day I was born!...but maybe before that cuz you listen to Buffett when I was in your tummy!"

Let's hear it for the prenatal parrothead!!!!!!!