License To Chill

Cowboys and country singers seem to be spending more time at the beach. Have you noticed? Well, not being one to let a cultural phenomenon pass me by like a misguided comet, I was happy to see the migration coming my way. As you well know, I have been parked on the beach for a while and the older I get, the more attached I become to it, like some hermit crab holding onto his shell. But, in case you didn't know, it has been going on for quite a while.

Picture this. It is a summer day in 1942 and a young welder/musician finishes his workday at the local shipyard on the banks of the Mobile River, where he has migrated from Montgomery. He is fastening huge steel plates together with his high voltage statically charged welding torch that will eventually become the hull of a Liberty ship that will carry the supplies to the American army locked in deadly combat across the Atlantic and Pacific. It is a hot day and welding steel plates in the heat of an Alabama summer is a far cry from driving an ice cream truck and ice cream is not the thirst quenching choice of this boy.

The whistle blows at five. He changes clothes in his truck, tosses his guitar in the front seat and races out of the parking lot with the rest of the day shift. Most of them line up to make the journey through the Bankhead Tunnel back to Mobile, but our welder hangs a right. He stops on the causeway to fill a cooler with ice and beer and buys a few pounds of boiled shrimp. In Daphne he stops at a local cafe where he plays guitar on weekends. A lovely young waitress springs from behind the screen door and hops in the truck. The radio is tuned to the local country station as they travel down U.S. 98 through Fairhope, Magnolia Springs, Foley, Bon Secour and finally to the spot where the potato fields and pecan orchards give way to white sandy beaches and clear cool waters. The place is called Gulf Shores - as it should be.

There on the deserted beach, they set up. Crabbing gear is unloaded along with the guitar. The lines are rigged, baited with chicken necks and tossed into the sea. It is time to get wet. After a swim, and a few more beers, they check the crab lines and harvest a dozen blue crabs that snap at their feet in defiance. Dinner has been secured. Sunset arrives as usual and they gather driftwood for a fire. The waitress takes the cast iron pot to the water's edge and fills it with one scoop and then rests it securely in the coals of the glowing fire. The welder grabs his guitar and starts to play. He only knows a few chords, but they seem to work and the lyrics he creates paint vivid pictures with simple syllables and rhymes. One day in the future, they will be heard by a lot more people than just the welder and the waitress.

Most of this story, I just made up, because that is what writers do. But, part of it is true. Hiriam Hank Williams worked at the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company from 1942 to 1944. In his own handwriting, he scribbled his occupation on his job application as "welder/musician". I know this because I read the file after my mother discovered it when she worked at the shipyard. She thought it was something I would be interested in. She was right. As was my brother-in-law. Thomas McGuane wrote in the liner notes for "A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean" back in 1973, "What Jimmy Buffett knows is that our personal musical history lies at the curious hinterland where Hank Williams and Xavier Cugat meet with somewhat less animosity than the theoreticians would have use believe." They were great words but I really didn't know that what they meant. Now I do. I have been a country singer for a long time.. So here's to Hank and all the great cowboys and cowgirls who came down to the beach and helped me apply, study for and be granted my license to chill.

Jimmy Buffett
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 12 March '04