I've always been an old soul - an analog man, living in a digital world.
When I was young, my case was extreme, so serious that at fifteen, my favorite musician was Jimmy Buffett.
While my friends listened to rap, reggae, and electronic music, I filled my headphones with the island ballads of the singer songwriter.
For most people, the name Jimmy Buffett conjures up images of frozen coconut shrimp, cheap airport bars, and baby-boomer decadence. For me, it was all about the music, particularly his early albums "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes," "A1A," Havana Daydreamin'" and "Son of a Son of a Sailor."
Growing up in Virginia, I suffered winters. Though not as brutal as some, the Virginia winter depressed me nonetheless. Every year, I dreaded the gray skies, dead leaves and cold dark mornings, the slushy snow and pasty pale faces. Buffett was my refuge.
As the years have gone by, however, I realize it wasn't just the tropical escapism I connected with. There was something more. His lyrics were capable of expressing things I wasn't.
For example, I never knew my biological grandfather. He passed away before I was born. The stories that I have heard about him are larger than life, like scenes out of the movie Big Fish.
He grew up on a dirt farm in Alabama. When hunger beset his family during the depression, he made money killing rabid dogs for the local town. When he was 15, his parents signed him over to the U.S. Navy and he spent World War II on submarines in the Pacific.
I often imagine him in his late teenage years huddled in an underwater craft with other scared kids from across the U.S. I see them silently clenching their teeth as depth charges explode in the water around them, shaking their vessel and forcing them to wonder if the next one would be it.
Later in the war, my grandfather was injured in a flare accident. His submarine dropped him off at port to recover then went back out to sea. None of the crew or the ship was ever located again. All of the men my grandfather fought with died. The war ended and he returned to the U.S. to start a family in Alabama. He never spoke of his time at war.
Reading this now, I can' t help but recognize I have nothing in common with this man. He confronted death daily at an age where my greatest concern was my SAT score. If he were alive today, I wonder if we would get along or if the rift across generations would been too great. I honestly don't know.
But I feel a great comfort, a great pride at knowing that I am the son of a son of a sailor.