Blame it on Jimmy Buffett
From my personal Facebook page on September 2, 2023 — the day we learned Jimmy Buffett had sailed on.
I’m going to tell you a story that only a very select few people knew before now. Radio Margaritaville just played “Semi-True Story,” but this is a 100% True Story, and if I don’t tell it today I guess I never will.
In 1985, I moved back to upstate New York for a job. As the summer of 1990 approached, I was 30 years old and had been there going on 5 years. I didn’t love it there but the job had excellent benefits including a pension, so I began casting around for a reason to stay.
One of the things I did was place a personal ad in Metroland, the local weekly news and entertainment paper, composed of words from a very romantic short story I had recently read. Then I went on vacation. Upon my return, I found a packet in my mailbox that held – if I remember correctly – about 14 responses. I read them all, saying to myself, “What the hell was I thinking? I’m not going to call any of these idiots.”
Until I opened the last envelope and found a letter addressed to “Dear Island Girl,” which quoted a lyric from a song by the same name and author as the short story I’d cited, “I Wish Lunch Could Last Forever” by Jimmy Buffett. The phone number in the letter started with “457,” which meant the sender worked in the same building as me. I dropped the letter on the floor like a hot potato and said, “Oh shit, I have to call this one.”
We didn’t just work in the same building; our offices were on the same floor, on the same side of the building. Years later, going through a file at work, I saw an old meeting attendance sheet with both our names on it.
We met for lunch – it didn’t last forever, but he invited me to spend Saturday on his sailboat and go out to dinner on Saturday night. I thought that was very brave and optimistic – what if he hated me after the day on his boat?
We got married two and a half years later.
Until today, whenever anyone asked me how we met, I automatically said what we both always said, “at work,” which is true because we did first meet in the building where we both worked.
We didn’t tell many people the rest of the story because in those pre-Internet days “advertising” for love wasn’t as commonplace as it is now, was mocked by some and many of the other ads in Metroland were quite raunchy. (Looking at our ads now, it seems weird that we specified "W" but that was the convention then. And by the way, he was a couple years beyond the 30-35 I listed.)
We talked about doing a “reveal” at a significant anniversary party, but after awhile it just didn’t seem important.
Somehow it seemed important today, and now you know the biggest reason why I mourn a billionaire celebrity I never met. I’m not the only person whose life he changed. Maybe he changed yours, too. Think about this – if you knew Jim Sanford first and met me through him, you can blame it on Jimmy Buffett!