Introducing The Great American Dead Writer's Society Tour of 2024

From Jimmy Buffett to Robert E. Lee, with so many stops between

Before traveling out west, we visited Jimmy Buffett’s Key West, Florida.

On this Labor Day, I am dedicating this travel post to Jimmy Buffett, who died this weekend, leaving Parrotheads across the nation grieving. I never went to his concerts, and I was not a PH, but gosh, I loved what Jimmy did for me.

During my first summers writing and publishing my Newburyport newspaper, the Undertoad, I was poorer than poor, lived constantly in the Land of Past Due, and never traveled anywhere. (I never spent a night outside of that quirky Yankee City for my first seven years.)

Jimmy Buffett first became a fixture when I lived in a one-room flat on Water Street above a coffee shop overlooking the sewage treatment plant and the Merrimack River. I could see where the river fed into the Atlantic from my door. Some days, I was blessed to watch the seals gathering on rocks and bell buoys.

I only owned one set of music discs, Buffett’s Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads. And I’d play it repeatedly, especially …