Flying with Jimmy Buffet

My tribute to a singer who defined a generation..and a flight.

I was saddened when I heard of Jimmy Buffet’s passing a couple of days ago. In my so far mediocre Baby Boomer Generation life, Jimmy Buffet was, to me, the epitome of what many of us Baby Boomers wanted to be, maybe not the singer part, though the money would be nice, but the beach, bars, and babes part…throw in boats for good measure.

I was not an early devotee to his music and the lifestyle it glamorized, only because I wasn’t exposed to it. Yeah I heard the song “Come Monday” and no doubt the entire human race knows the song “Margaritaville,” and sings to it under their breath when they hear it, but the expansiveness of his musical repertoire was largely unknown to me until I sat in the steamy cockpit of an MD-11 parked on the ramp of Pudong airport in Shanghai.

This was FedEx’s third flight in as many days flying into Shanghai. It was a new route we started and I was excited be doing something as exciting as operating in China. On that day’s flight we were to operate from Shanghai to Beijing and then turn and come back to Shanghai. We were to leave Shanghai about noon and fly the roughly one hour flight to Beijing, do a one hour turn and get back into Shanghai and the hotel in time for happy hour.

The Captain on this flight was Lou, a man with whom I loved fly. Besides being an outstanding pilot, he has a charm and character very few pilots possess. He and I had flown into Singapore together more times than I can count and then from there we operated in and out of Asia: Hong Kong; Subic Bay (We had a huge lightning strike right after take-off one night there, the lightning bolt split in two in front of us and pounded, with a heavy thud and bang, both the left and right side of the cockpit, hitting just below each of our windows, not more than two feet from our left and right arms respectively); Penang, Osaka, Tokyo, Taipei…and finally, to top it all we walked atop The Great Wall of China, in awe at the engineering of it all and imagining the massive amount of labor it took to construct; somewhere there is a picture of Lou and I walking on it.

As Lou and I got to the aircraft on that dreadfully hot and humid day, the Ramp Agent informed us that we were delayed, 4 hours, due to severe thunderstorm blocking the way to Beijing. To add insult to injury the APU on our aircraft was inoperable, which meant no air-conditioning while we waited in the cockpit. Ah the glamour of being a cargo pilot! A passenger pilot would be hanging out in an air-conditioned terminal, eating a burger and being admired by the passengers as he/she, they waited to depart. But, no Lou and I climbed into a very hot cockpit, drenched in sweat as we prepared our nests in the left and right seats respectively, getting the respective aeronautical charts needed for the short flight out, loading the FMS (Flight Management System) with the proposed route and doing the myriad number of preflight checks that one must do in preparation for flight. If you are wondering, we did have external electrical power applied, just no external air; we wouldn’t get a start cart (supplies external air to one of the engines in order to spin the starter that in turn spins the jet engine in order to start it) until just before we were to start engines.

After about 25 minutes of housekeeping in preparation to getting our clearance to Beijing, starting the engines and then departing to Beijing, Lou and I could go no further in the flight until cleared by the Ramp Manager. After getting as much stuff done as we could, we looked at each other and thought WTF do we do now? Lou was drenched in sweat, I was, it sucked. So, realizing we had 3 1/2 more hours before we could leave I went into the back, galley area, right behind the cockpit and changed into a tank top, shorts and sandals. I hung my uniform on a hanger and hung it on the coat rack in the cockpit. Lou, seeing me get comfy, did the same, but Lou took it up a notch.

He said “I know just the right music to play now,” and proceeded to get out his DVD player and attached by wires were two really nice speakers. Once the player was set-up, Jimmy Buffet’s “Boats, Beaches, Bars, and Ballads” four CD collection was produced from Lou’s bag. Starting with the first CD Jimmy Buffet’s lovely music filled the cockpit, fuselage, and the immediate ramp around us since the cockpit windows were fully open.

For a good 45 minutes Lou and I, our cockpit seats radically tilted back, each kept to our thoughts as we let the sometimes sultry, sometimes poignant, sometimes fun, but all the time imagination and memory enhancing tunes mollify the unpleasantness of the heat and humidity while we waited.

With my eyes closed, imagining I was on a Caribbean Island’s beach somewhere, drinking a margarita and admiring the tan lines of some lovely lady, the Shanghai Ramp Manager came rushing into the cockpit saying “You have to go! You have to go! ATC wants you to be wheels up in twenty minutes!!” Talk about a change in gears, rhythm, and tempo!

Trying to detach myself from Jimmy Buffet’s laid back beach and bar music I looked at Lou and said there is no way I can change into my uniform and be ready to go in 20 minutes. He said, “Fuck it, we’ll have to go dressed as we are and we can change when we get to Beijing.”

And that is what we did. We where wheels up in 20 minutes, it was my leg, and somewhere there is a picture that Lou took of me flying the MD-11, a big ‘ole thunderstorm just off my right side, and me with a smile on my face from ear to ear, knowing I’d never get a chance to fly a FedEx aircraft in shorts, tank top and flip flops….all the time I flew with Lou to Beijing, dressed as I was, I kept reminiscing of the Buffet’s lovely, emotionally decompressing ballads. I was hooked, totally, completely…I was a Parrot Head.

After avoiding a multitude of storms enroute to Beijing we blocked in, about two hours or so late. I can still see the face of the Beijing Ramp Agent’s face as I opened the aircraft’s door. She initially wouldn’t board the aircraft, in her Broken English she very timidly asked, “Are you a FedEx pilot?”
I laughed and said, “Yes, we both are,” because about that time Lou came up to the door in his shorts, tank top and sandals. What a sight and impression he and I must have made on those management folks on FedEx’s third inaugural flight into Beijing!!

After an hour, and a change back into our uniforms, Lou flew us uneventfully back to Shanghai.

In the summer of 2001 I took a girlfriend on a trip to an island that I had visited in 1985. Isla Mujeres, Mexico is a tiny, thin, beautiful island just north of the hotel zone in Cancun. In 1985 when I went to Isla with a fellow USAF buddy and his wife, it was sleepy, slow and wonderful. The people were friendly, always smiling and the vibe of the island matched Jimmy Buffet’s songs; well most of them anyway. Just before that trip to Isla in 2001 I was in a Walgreen’s in Cordova, TN buying something, and I remember this as if it was yesterday, as I was walking to the checkout counter I saw a CD that said “Feeding Frenzy.” It was a collection of live songs by Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefers. If ever there was a singer who sounded so much better when live than a studio recording it is Jimmy; in my humble opinion.

The next day, on my flight to Cancun Airport with said girlfriend, I played that CD. It was like a margarita in audible form. I must have played that CD, and many other Buffet CDs thousands of times in my days and nights as I visited Isla Mujeres.

That first visit, for my girlfriend, to Isla Mujeres turned into a 14 year love affair with a small little island, its people, and the the beautiful sea around it. A hotel room eventually gave way to the designing, by me and the girlfriend turned wife, of a house and then the dream of having that beautiful design become a reality.

In those beautiful and magical 14 years of visiting Isla Mujeres, eventually bringing my youngest two kids, Jimmy Buffet was my musical companion. His songs prepared me for my laid back days to come as I flew on the airliner down to Cancun (had to take a ferry to the Island from Puerto Juarez). Then when Jimmy’s songs were loudly played in the ex-pat bar called “The Soggy Peso,” the many drunks that frequented the place melded into each other as we reminisced of lives, loves, and adventures we’d never see, but dreamt nonetheless. Finally, on my return flight, Jimmy’s songs allowed me to live through my busy life of round the world flying, kids, and ex wives; listening to Buffet’s music while away from Isla, made my days more palatable until I returned; just to say this my favorite song of his is “One Particular Harbor;” that was my Isla.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to end and in 2016 I lost my Mexico house in a divorce…the Ex quickly sold it after getting it…said she never liked going to Mexico in the first place; I don’t think me encouraging her to get a tramp stamp (tattoo) after we both imbibed too much rum at the Soggy Peso helped in her feelings towards me, nor her son’s, sister, bothers…..

To say I was Crestfallen when I lost the house is an understatement, and it did come as a complete shock that the Ex said she didn’t like going to Isla. I never saw that. Who, what, caused the divorce could be conjectured between either side of the He Said/She said camp…but to quote Jimmy Buffet from Margaritaville, “I know its my own damn fault.”

Thank you for your music Jimmy Buffet, you will be missed by a generation of Parrot Head Baby boomers.

COPYRIGHT SEPTEMBER, 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ROGER JOHNSON