IN EARLY MAY I RECEIVED GREAT NEWS. CALIFORNIA General Assembly Member Jim Beall Jr. invited me to Sacramento to speak to the California Congress. State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth introduced me on the Senate floor in Sacramento to share my story on behalf of Assembly Bill 12, a bill to extend foster care programs for kids until they turn twenty-one years of age.
It was a successful effort, and the congressmen and senators assured me that the bill would pass in September and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would undoubtedly sign it. I was ecstatic! Whether project Meet Me Halfway had any influence on the decision, I may never know, but I was thrilled that the goal was in sight. I was bubbling over on May 4, 2010, as I left Sacramento for Albuquerque, on my way back to Fort Sumner to resume my walk. The anticipated positive results in California motivated me to return to the walk with even greater purpose.
I had landed and was in the transport vehicle, when at 2:23 p.m. my phone rang. I noticed the call was from my management company. “Hey, Jenny,” I answered, and I immediately began babbling about the victory we had experienced in Sacramento. Jenny remained surprisingly subdued as I recounted the events of the morning.
“Jimmy,” she finally interrupted in a serious tone of voice. “We need to talk with you.”
Another familiar voice came on the call. I recognized Mike Kraski’s voice. “Jimmy, this is Mike here,” he said, “and we have some bad news for you.”
I listened somberly as Jenny Bohler and Mike Kraski informed me that my friend Scott Borchetta had dropped me from the Valory Music Company. The message had been delivered in an e-mail from Scott’s general manager. Although I had a number-one song for three weeks, and I had “Sara Smile” on the charts at the beginning of the walk, it was “just business.”
Somebody has said, “Money doesn’t change people; it exposes them.” I was seeing the truth of that statement revealed more and more every day in the music business.
I was devastated, not so much that my label was letting me go but that my friend—the guy who discovered me, signed me, and helped develop me as an artist—did not call me himself. Had Scott said, “Hey, Jimmy, you aren’t selling enough product, and we’re going to have to make some adjustments. Let me help you find another opportunity,” I’m sure I could have handled it. But he didn’t. It hurt me deeply because Scott was the one person besides Bea Costner I thought genuinely believed in me.
I fulfilled every obligation that had been previously scheduled. Even during the walk, I continued to perform concerts, including an appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, which by tradition gives all performers the same small fee. The payment wasn’t enough to cover a one-way ticket to Nashville, let alone the flight back to my New Mexico location, where I resumed walking.
I didn’t miss a single concert date due to Meet Me Halfway. I actually booked some dates along the routes I traveled. When I arrived in a town, I simply went to the hotel, where I showered and rested a bit before the evening performance. The audiences loved it when I said, “I just walked here from Nashville!”
If I wasn’t selling enough product to keep the label happy, it could have easily waited until the Meet Me Halfway walk concluded. I wasn’t recording any new albums while on the walk, and while I wasn’t selling in large numbers, I was probably doing as well as my label-mates, Justin Moore and Jewel. Most disappointing to me, the music was increasingly my main means of getting the word out about the kids who need help.
When I received the news, I was heading into Fort Sumner, the place where Billy the Kid was killed. The parallels between Billy the Kid and me hit too close to home: He was an orphan kid who migrated west on the orphan train. His foster mother’s name was Sara. He was a singer, he was rejected by the people who supposedly loved him, and he was betrayed, shot in the back by his best friend, Pat Garrett. I visited his grave that evening before the sun went down, wiping away my tears. Was I disappointed? Of course. But as I thought about it, another incident from Bea’s life helped me put my own loss in perspective.
I recalled a time shortly before Bea closed the woodshop. She sent out notes to her long-term clients who had purchased churns and baskets from her over the years to resell them in their shops all around America. She informed her customers that she was closing her doors and this would be the last time they could order from her. One customer from Ohio ordered more than five hundred churns from Bea! That was the good news; she had a huge order. The bad news, of course, was that it took a lot of work to make one churn, and she now had hundreds to make—all by herself.
Bea spent the next four months working and sweating over the saws and hammers and building those handmade churns, one by one. When she finished, she shipped the entire order to the client, along with an invoice. Months went by, and she received no payment. Bea sent more invoices, but the customer never paid her.
When I found out that someone had ripped off Bea, I was ready to drive to Ohio and get Bea’s money. But Bea wouldn’t hear of that. “No, Jimmy,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.” And she just walked across the yard with a smile.
The way Bea handled that situation was an example I would never forget. Had she been done wrong? Definitely. Had someone she trusted taken advantage of her good nature? Absolutely.
But Bea refused to harbor a grudge. Rather than allowing herself to get bitter, she chose to forgive, cut her losses, and move on.
As I tossed and turned that night, thinking about my lost recording deal, I knew what Bea would do. She had a lot more experience at forgiving than I did, so following her example in that area wouldn’t come easily for me, but I determined that, with God’s help, I would try.
Amazingly, at daybreak, I was not nearly as despondent as I expected to be. There was work to be done and kids to be helped, and I was still a long way from Phoenix. Some people have asked me why I didn’t give up and go home when I received the news that my music career was taking a downturn. That’s easy. The walk was never about my music career; it was about raising awareness about foster kids who were at risk. And I could do that whether I had any support from a record label or not. If you really want to do something, you can find the way.
IN THE MIDST OF ENCOUNTERING DANGERS FROM RATTLESNAKES, being dropped by my record label, and a growing fatigue, an opportunity arose for a whirlwind trip to Washington, DC, to speak on behalf of FosterClub, a national network for four hundred thousand kids in foster care. I met with several US senators and congressmen and sat as part of a congressional information panel. I quickly realized that if I was going to influence legislators, I had to learn their language. For instance, when the senator said, “Jimmy, I’m going to take you down to the floor,” he was not picking a fight!
The next day my nephew, Brian, joined me on the walk as my support driver, replacing Rob. I was glad to have Patricia’s son share this experience with me, especially since his mom and I had benefited so much from the help of foster parents during our childhoods. Brian added a comedic element, too, with his deadpan sense of humor, and I enjoyed teasing him as well. I hired him and fired him at least a dozen times each day.
Part of Brian’s responsibilities was to keep the support vehicle far enough away that it provided an incentive but not so far that he couldn’t be of help if I needed anything. Unfortunately, when a spooky sort of guy pulled up beside me in a compact car as I was walking near Mountainair, New Mexico, Brian was nowhere in sight. I was walking up a long stretch of desert, the heat rising in waves from the road. When the man got out of his car, he looked to be six foot four and around two hundred forty pounds. He curtly said, “I want to walk with you.”
“Okay,” I said, “What’s your name?”
“You don’t need to know my name. I just want to walk with you.”
“Oh, all right. Well, let me take your picture,” I said. I always took a picture or a video of everyone who walked with me because I wanted to remember each person.
“No, no pictures,” he said.
“Can I take a picture with you?”
“No.”
“Well, if you won’t give me your name and you won’t let me take a picture of you, then you can’t walk with me,” I said.
I continued walking, and the man walked along beside me in total silence. I pretended that I was looking at my phone as I sent out a tweet on Twitter, asking the question, “What would you think if someone showed up in the middle of the desert, and he won’t tell you his name or let you take a picture?”
The initial Twitter responses were mostly whimsical. Many people thought I was joking. So I sent out another tweet, noting the most recent mile marker I had passed. By my third tweet, I said, “I need help.” The man still had said nothing to me, walking close beside me for more than a mile. He simply would not go away.
Approximately two thousand people who were following me on Twitter called 911 and reported that I was asking for help. A park ranger showed up and drove on past me. He stopped at the support car where Brian was immersed in playing games on a cell phone.
“Hey, is everything okay?” the ranger asked.
Brian hadn’t been paying attention to my tweets, so he said, “Yeah, everything’s fine.” The park ranger drove off. Shortly after that I sent out another tweet asking for help. This time a state trooper showed up and stopped in front of me. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, we’re fine,” I replied, winking at the officer several times while the silent man stood near me.
The trooper got out of the car and called out to the walker, “Hey, you. Stand in front of the car and put your hands on the hood.” The officer patted him down, handcuffed him, took him back to his car, searched his vehicle, and escorted him out of the desert.
I later received a tweet from the man who had silently walked with me: “Sorry, the suspect did not mean to harm you.” Meanwhile, Brian played on.
IF YOU’VE EVER WONDERED WHERE ALL THE OLD HIPPIES have gone, I can tell you: Pie Town, New Mexico. A real town with about sixty inhabitants, Pie Town is located atop the Western Continental Divide at an elevation of 7,796 feet. The Divide intersects the US from north to south, and it is the point where rivers and streams break either east toward the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean or west toward the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific.
Brian and I arrived in Pie Town on June 10, 2010. There was no one around, just twelve rusty windmills in one yard, dust, and the hot desert sun beating down. As I looked around at the mixture of log cabin–style structures, old buildings, and an assortment of patched-together homes and stores, the quaint village reminded me of an episode of The Twilight Zone. Either that or we had found the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” where you can check in but you can never leave! But if you get to Pie Town, you may not want to leave.
I wasn’t really planning to go to Pie Town, but Highway 60 runs right through it, so I didn’t have much choice. I had stopped to remove a rock out of my shoe when, out of nowhere, a white truck pulled up beside me. A man with a long white beard—somewhere between the guys in ZZ Top and Duck Dynasty—got out of the truck. “Hi, I’m Tony Shannon,” he said. “This is my wife, Joan.” He nodded toward a woman with straight gray hair in the passenger’s seat. She looked like a throwback from Haight-Ashbury, and she had a warm, sweet smile. “We heard about your walk on the radio and got word that you were coming through Pie Town. Come on over to the house, and Joan will rustle us up some spaghetti.”
Who could refuse an offer like that?
Brian and I followed them approximately three miles out into the desert to an odd-looking rectangular home with solar-powered windmills, old cars in the yard, colored glass jars decorating the shelves, and wind chimes—lots of wind chimes, everywhere!
There were also two wolves in a fenced lot, a dog on a chain, an old bus, and a ram’s skull sitting on the hood of a tractor.
Tony and Joan had an outdoor shower and a chicken coop covered with a trampoline, a greenhouse filled with tomatoes, and a pile of jasmine on the ground. The exterior of the house looked like a junkyard, but the interior of their home was clean. They had a woodstove in the center of the room and a bear’s head, with elk antlers attached to it, sitting on a shelf above the kitchen table. Not the standard kitchen décor, to say the least.
Joan served spaghetti while Tony shared his life story. Tony was extremely bright, and Joan was perceptive, as well, with great insights on life. We had a special time, and meeting these two wild, wacky, wonderful people was a truly gratifying experience. Much too soon, I had to leave for Albuquerque and catch a plane to perform some concerts.
When I returned to Pie Town to resume walking where I had left off, I was shocked. It was as if someone had yelled, “Action!” and a cast of characters had come to life. Unlike the day Brian and I had visited Tony and Joan, there were now people everywhere, smiling and laughing.
I walked into the Pie-O-Neer café, sat at the counter, and ordered a piece of cherry pie and a cup of coffee. Megan, the waitress, asked me what brought me to Pie Town.
I explained to her that I was walking halfway across America, and Pie Town was on the way to Phoenix.
She looked surprised. “Did you hear that Jimmy Buffett is also walking through here today?”
“Really?” I said, gulping hard and stirring my coffee. “He is?” Suddenly, it all made sense. That’s why the town was so alive and bustling with activity; everyone was excited and waiting on Jimmy Buffett.
I learned that Tony and Joan, the old hippie couple I’d met a few days earlier, had told everyone that “Jimmy” was going to pick up his walk in Pie Town after he returned from a few concerts. Jimmy Buffett was in the Gulf, performing a charity concert for the oil spill victims, and thus the confusion. Or maybe Tony and Joan only half heard what I had said.
Regardless, I knew we were in trouble. Kathy, the owner of the Pie-O-Neer, was busy peeling peaches in the corner. She was so excited, anticipating Jimmy Buffett’s arrival. “I’m going to give him a piece of homemade pie, and maybe he’ll tell the world about my delicious Margaritaville pie!” Kathy said.
I didn’t say a word.
Not only did I not want to break Kathy’s heart, but there were no police in this town. I didn’t know what would happen when they learned it was only me, instead of Jimmy Buffett, passing through.
I finished my coffee and pie, left an extra-generous tip, and then headed out the door.
A woman named Nita stopped me on the porch and invited Brian and me to the Jimmy Buffett party that evening at the Toaster House, a popular hotspot with hikers and bikers passing through town.
I politely declined her offer and told her I needed to go. I began walking down Highway 60, out of Pie Town, when a sudden hailstorm blew up, as they often do in the desert. I didn’t mind the hail that stung as it struck me then quickly melted as it hit the ground, but the vicious thunder and lightning strikes made walking unwise. I knew I had to find shelter—fast. Brian? He was already miles down the road.
Shelter? I reluctantly headed back toward the Toaster House and the Margaritaville party.
As I approached the Toaster House, it was easy to figure out where it got the name. Old toasters hung all around and above the creaky wrought-iron gate leading to the house, on the lintels, in the trees—there were toasters everywhere. I discovered that Nita, the woman I had met earlier, owned the house and had raised her five children in the home, but since she moved in the early 1980s, no one had lived there. Instead, Nita allowed bikers, hikers, and other passersby to stay in the cabin for free, as sort of a haven and hostel for hippies. A hand printed sign on the front door read: No one lives here anymore—please make yourselves at home.
Inside, the cabin was furnished with an old wood range for heat and cooking, two bedrooms, a washing machine, and shower. There was even a wall of shoes, where guests are invited to trade footwear if they see something more to their liking. A donation jar and guest book were the only hints regarding payment, but most guests leave some money in the freezer so Nita can restock it with food for the next travelers who might stop by.
When I arrived, there were already people gathered in the large living room. Some folks carried in pies, and others hauled in musical instruments. People brought along everything from a banjo, fiddle, and string bass, to a tuba and tambourine. They were all excited and waiting on Jimmy Buffett to show up. Looking around at all the excited faces, I mentally rehearsed the words to “Margaritaville.”
By the time the sun went down, the Toaster House was packed with people, picking and grinning, sharing songs and laughter. The chicken soup flowed freely, as did some other things. Everyone was having such a good time; it was almost as if they had forgotten why they were there. For all they knew, Jimmy Buffett walked through Pie Town after they had passed out.
I found a spot on the floor where I could catch some sleep, get up before everyone else did, and split. “May your moccasins leave many happy tracks,” a bleary-eyed musician said as I slipped out the door.
Pie Town: come for the pie, and stay for the show.