John's Story
By John Killeen

Tradition

One spring Northwest Friday in 1980 the sun came out. It was clear from the night before that any time spent taking the scheduled major test, was going to be a waste of time. We had a motto for situations like this "Never let your textbooks interfere with your education". The only thing left to do was put on Jimmy Live and go to the local liquor store. Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma had a no alcohol policy at that time. Kind of like prohibition but the sun was out and Jimmy would have wanted it that way. As we started the Margaritas more and more of the faithful began to skip class and our first Margaritaville was born. The first one lasted three days.

25 years later the same faithful few gather each year to continue the tradition. Age now has the advantage that one of the originals son is old enough to make our Margaritas...we pass the tradition to the next generation of Friends, Sun, Boat Drinks and the man that always set the tone for our parties...Jimmy Buffett. Growing older but not up...

Lenny's Story
By Lenny Atlee

"My plans took a skid, when I smoked the whole lid". That’s how it started. I went off to Hawaii for 7 yrs, living near the beach, no electricity, no running water, no news of the WORLD. In 1975 I returned to Wash. St. and I was putting a FM radio in a van to travel across the USA. I heard an incredible sound... I mean a sound that I could relate to..... One I was familiar with... One I had been living with for 7 yrs in Hawaii. The album/song was "HAVANA DAYDREAMING by JIMMY BUFFETT"... I could really relate to that guy in the Jungle. The following year I took another trip, this time to Key-West, just to see if this guy JIMMY BUFFETT was making this stuff up... He wasn't... Key-West is a wonderful place not only to visit but to live. And live I did. I stayed at a trailer/camp area we called Margaritaville w/ 20 other "restless" people. It was all so much fun "living my life like a song" 6 months later I returned to the Seattle area, and enjoyed Jimmy's music constantly while living on my sailboat for 2 1/2 yrs. I realized that the changes in BUFFETT’S music pretty much coincided w/ the changes in my life. I survived by listening to his music and concerts that were more frequent then than today. JIMMY even came in one nite to a bar in Bellingham and played a set after his concert (good old days).

All this has had a profound affect/effect upon my life, and always will. I have been to 10-12 concerts and continue to enjoy the music and giving/loving lifestyle that JIMMY BUFFETT has promoted all these years...It's not ALL about drinking/drugging/partying...... It’s about DOING the things that make a difference for the community/charity/and for individuals in your daily life.... Now, we are not always perfect, but we (PARROTHEADS) want to seek a better way in our daily lives...... You see I realized that I was a PARROTHEAD 25 yrs ago and recently joined a club to continue my wild and crazy lifestyle, in a productive way . "I LOVE THE NOW"

"Life is just a tire swing"...........Havana Daydreamin in Seattle..... Lenny

Dave's Story
By Dave Monahan

I left Seattle in '79 for Phoenix and college. Neither turned out to be quite as much fun as I expected. I was frequently driving across the desert all night to get to San Diego for long weekends, and Stephen Stills and Gordon Lightfoot just weren't doing it. The sunroof would be open, the desert air hot, and me singing loudly (and badly) to stay awake.

My next door neighbor in my apartment complex was my landlord and friend, and she gave me a tape for one of my drives. Wish I could say I remember which JB it was, but I was hooked. Bought everything he had, and made road-trip tapes. I've listened to his tapes driving around in Australia, Italy, Mexico, and the Caribbean. I really haven't changed much since then, except they're CD's now. It was the tales of the tropics that hooked me at the time. Now that I've been to the tropics, they have even more meaning.

Patrick's Story
By Patrick O'Neill

I've loved and listened to Jimmy for years, and it all started when I was 13....

I was the typical good Catholic boy (12 years of Catholic school, altar boy, the whole works), and at the age of 13, I was just starting to fully realize exactly how much it SUCKED! Didn't want to go to Catholic school, didn't want to be an altar boy, didn't want to do what everyone else wanted me to do, and all that early teen stuff.

I was walking around at a swap meet on a sunny Saturday in the summer of 1979 (at the Midway Drive-in - they still have it every weekend!) and came across a guy that had a big table of used cassette tapes. I started looking through them halfheartedly and after a few minutes, I saw something out of the corner of my eye that needed a closer look. I saw the word "Jesus" in a song title, and the guy on the scratched-up front cover LOOKED a little like the 1976 Catholic-school version of Jesus (blond/brown hair, gentle smile, mustache). But this Jesus was wearing a wild lava-lamp colored shirt with a white sport coat over it. Upon closer examination, the album was called Havana Daydreamin', the artist was Jimmy Buffett, and the song that caught my eye was "My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus!"

Now, I had never heard of Jimmy Buffett, but this song sounded like the PERFECT teenage anti-Catholic anthem to me, so I gave the man my hard-earned 50 cents and took it home. After a few listenings, I realized a couple of things: 1) that darn Jesus song wasn't AT ALL about what I thought it was going to be about, and 2) this guy was kinda good!

A couple of weeks later, I was in my local Budget Records store (the one near Northgate Mall that devoted half the store to music and the other half to selling these really weird little pipes and things in glass cases ;-) and saw that this Jimmy Buffett guy had his own little divider section in the record bin. I took a chance on "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes," and was completely hooked for the rest of my life - a genuine Fool-Button-Pushin' Margarita-Drinkin' Parrothead!

Jet's Story
By Jeanette Lippert

I'm not sure when my first conscious recognition of Jimmy Buffett music occurred, but growing up in the coastal (and somewhat tropical) area of San Diego, I have been exposed to all forms of surfing, sailing and beach music. I'd say that the first time I realized that I was a fan was in 1985 as I was shopping in Nordstrom's Rack and found two Buffett T-shirts in the Men's section. Both had a Christmas theme with Palm Trees and lights. I just remember thinking "Wow, cool...Buffett shirts!" It figured that Jimmy Buffett would come up with a shirt that would depict the kind of Christmas I had always had, palm trees & sunny days.

Add in my son Corey and fast forward to 1988 when I heard my first tale of a Buffett concert. I sat wide eyed with my chin on my hands as a friend described sitting on the lawn with a huge group of people all decked out in Hawaiian shirts drinking Rum from a Watermelon and then cracking the thing open to consume the fruit. Oh how I wanted to partake....

About this time a few friends of mine & I started hanging out at Beach Bars, specifically the Pennant & the Beach Comber in South Mission Beach. These two bars are right next to each other in a primarily residential part of the Beach. It was not unusual to wait in long lines to get into either one. The roof of the Pennant was THE spot for Sunday afternoons after a day at the beach but they had to close the roof at 9pm because of the neighbors so we would all file down to the Beach Comber and dance the night away. We could count on a nightly bar choir rendition of "Fins", "Margaritaville," and "Why don't we get drunk...."

This went on for years. I eventually moved to Mission Beach and some of my fondest memories are of sunny Saturday mornings hanging around the house & the beach listening to Buffett Music. An inside joke between Corey and I was if either of us would say "I don't know" we would both break out into a few lines of Volcano...."I don't know where I'm a gonna go when the volcano blows..."

Fast-forward to 1995...my friend Laura found out that there was a Jimmy Buffett Fan club called the Parrot Heads who got together & did fun stuff and raised a little money for charity...we looked at each other and said "HEY! We're Parrot Heads!!!!" ...and so it was....we found the PHlock and joined.

Fast-forward one more time to 1997. Some friends from an Internet group were getting together in Las Vegas. I found out through the San Diego Parrot Head Club that Jimmy Buffett was going to be playing that same weekend. The dilemma came....how do I get tickets? and who can I get to go with me? I knew one of the guys who was going to the party was really into music and so I asked him the golden question (because only a true and worthy Buffett fan would know the answer) "Are you a Parrot Head?" and he answered....."YES! I kinda have to be...because my last name is Parrett" (of course pronounced Parrot).

For those of you who know us, you have figured out that the Parrot Head in question is Les Parrett. We met for the first time in Vegas on Thursday, November 16th, 1997 and after two days, many drinks, lots of gambling and some wild adventures, our first "date" was the Vegas Concert on Saturday the 18th. He flew back to Seattle and I flew back to San Diego and although we kept in contact, we did not see each other again for 3 months, but have been "together" ever since.

Les and I had seen each other every month from that point on until I finally moved to Seattle in July of 1999 and now we are together everyday. We run a very Parrot Head Household with most of our keets also big Buffett Fans. Our lives are filled with Buffett moments and we've made some of the most wonderful PHriends.