It was a typical day in the restaurant business, there in about 2015 — the kind where the regular chef is out sick, the dishwasher’s on vacation, and 200 customers who’ve heard you’ve got something good to offer have all decided to come try it out on a hot summer morning.

I was clearing tables and seating people at Elmer’s, not particularly worried by the stresses of the day when, over the music system came a song that straightened me up in a wave of “How in the world did we get from there to here?” and nearly made me walk off the job in a fit of introspective wonder, so intense was my reaction to it.

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought I was cool before, but I will now implant that knowledge deep into your heart because the song that came over the airwaves that morning was Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” and, some 20 years before I opened the door of Elmer’s Store in Ashfield as my own, I worked for Mr. Buffett. While employment in Paradise involved no less exertion than owning a restaurant does, it also contained a daily friendship with Jimmy and created a world of fantastical wonder. But what wrestled me to the ground that particular morning was the magic monster of time and evolution where I had gone from daily interactions with Jimmy Buffett to a world where his music was simple background to my immersed routine. How does that work?

My first connection to Jimmy came in 1993. He was heading to New Orleans to play a stadium show and asked his friend Quint Davis, producer of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, for help in creating a Margaritaville-themed event for the venue. As I was head of the jazz fest’s art department, Quint tasked me with designing and implementing the environment. I did, and Jimmy liked it enough that a couple of weeks later he asked me to bring my set to specific shows around the country.

After that, he asked me to conceive, create and take to the road with the decor for his entire 1995 tour. I was never the designer for his stage set; all of that was well-established. I was doing new stuff, designing and erecting a tropical wonderland set out among the Parrothead crowd, drawing them ever closer into the fold of Margaritaville.

And every single night I got to sit side-stage and watch the show, jumping up to dance to the encore, never onstage but I somehow attracted the attention of Harrison Ford one night at the Hollywood Bowl. After the show, Mr. Ford walked over to tell me how much fun I was, dancing there side-stage, as we all hung out backstage in the world of Jimmy.

Yup, that was my life back then.

In the off-season, Jimmy hired me to decorate and fluff up his burgeoning Margaritaville restaurants. I began with the one in New Orleans, then moved to those in Key West and Charleston, South Carolina, where my then-business partner and I built a plane and a life-sized shark that we hung from the ceiling, pirated the place up with cannons and a ship, and painted a huge mural of Jimmy on the wall. I was given articles from Jimmy’s collection to decorate the clubs with, including his very first music contract from a gig early in his career. It had been framed, and I was to install it on the wall at one of the restaurants. Surprisingly smart for my age, I recognized that the piece wouldn’t make it through a single night’s revelry, so decided against the installation and took it home until I could return it to Jimmy’s people.

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Time passed, and after Hurricane Katrina drowned most of my belongings, I had a friend go through my house and pull out what was left, and I transported it up north, storing it all away until I had the emotional capacity to go through the pile. And when I did, I found Jimmy’s contract, bundled up, safe from the flood waters, but still in my possession.

Even after I landed in Massachusetts and stopped working for him, Jimmy and I enjoyed visiting at the jazz festival when he played there. The last time I saw him, in April 2022, I was able to finally give him his contract back, there, backstage at the jazz fest.

Change happens; we’re good with that. But hardcore change, especially when it takes out such an important figure in one’s life, never establishes itself as the norm. It seemed there would always be Jimmy, the friendship, the memories, the possibilities of future fun.

Now all that’s left is the recognition that Jimmy Buffett liked my work.

And, really, that’s enough coolness for a whole lifetime of hip.

Nan Parati lives and works in Ashfield, where she found home and community following Hurricane Katrina. She can be reached at NanParati@aol.com.