Lovely thoughts and quotes from Maureen Dowd's NYT column "Living and Dying in ¾ Time", celebrating the life of Jimmy Buffett (1946-2023):

“Well, I have learned one thing from my latest in a series of the ever-appearing speed bumps of life — 75 is NOT the new 50,” he emailed me. “Thinking younger doesn’t quite do it. You still have to do the hard work of, as the Toby Keith song says, ‘Don’t let the old man in.’ And that is my job now, the way I see it.”

and

“I have always loved books, reading and libraries, a gift from my mother,” Jimmy said. “The Library of Congress is a monumental treasure you don’t have to dig up; you just walk in the door of American history. ‘Margaritaville’ in the Library of Congress. I just have to giggle, but with pride. I haven’t received many awards in my profession, but I am OK with that. I think the best reward for a performer is to please the audience.”

and

But in the last couple of years, he often wrote from less exotic places, Boston and Houston, where he was being treated for an aggressive form of skin cancer, Merkel cell carcinoma. (Was there a price for trademarking the sun? Even so, I bet he wouldn’t have changed a thing.) He stayed upbeat on the “juice,” as he called his infusions to treat the cancer, and spoke proudly about his “all-female doctor team dedicated to keeping the old man out” on the road. He would say he had to “go into the pits for some adjustments” and reassure me that he was getting “weller.” He called it an irritation, a Southern fingernail on an English chalkboard.

_{(cf Bennett on Life (2000-03-19), Charles Lambiana (2000-10-24), Old Age (2007-05-22), ...) - ^z - 2023-10-02}