I don’t understand it.

I went to my first Jimmy Buffett concert in 1978. The concert was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Amazing Rhythm Aces opened the concert, Jimmy sang “God’s Own Drunk” and, like a good Catholic, apologized for saying a bad word on Sunday.

I remember a lot of things about that concert. But what I don’t remember is old people at that concert.

So why on this past Saturday night were there so many old people at Jimmy’s concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City?

It’s baffling is what it is.

The people at the concert in 1978 were a lot like me. They were young. They were hip. The guys had hip long hair and hip mustaches, and the girls had hip long hair that did that hip bang curling thing that had to be perfectly executed with a hip heated curling iron that often resulted in the girls wearing hip curling iron burns on their foreheads.

You know, good times.

But the people I saw at Jimmy’s concert on Saturday night were not young and hip. Well, I was, but the rest of them weren’t. Well, some of them were, but most of them were … well … and this pains me to say it: old.

“Why are there so many old people here?” I asked my wife.

“What are you talking about?” my wife said.

“Old people,” I said. “Why are they here?”

“We’re old people,” my wife said.

“Speak for yourself,” I said.

But later, when I went to get a beer for myself and a margarita (What did you expect?) for my wife, the nice lady who took my order called me “Sir.”

I looked around expecting to see an old guy, but there wasn’t anyone else around.

Sigh.

Was it possible, I wondered, that my wife was correct? Was it possible that the reason there were so many old people at Jimmy’s concert was because I’m old too? Has time passed so quickly? Has it, as Barbra sang, “rewritten every line?”

Nah.

Of course I did just make a reference to a song that was a hit back in the 1970s, so it’s possible that I am old, which would explain all the old people at Jimmy’s concert.

The thing is, the old people at Jimmy’s concert didn’t act like old people. In fact, many of the people at Jimmy’s concert acted younger than the young hip people at that concert in 1978.

Saturday night, I saw a guy wearing a beer barrel and a large cowboy hat. I saw a guy dressed up like the captain of a yacht with a fake parrot perched on his shoulder. I saw women in grass skirts and coconut bras. I saw men in grass skirts and coconut bras. I saw guys wearing large, fake shark fins on their heads. I saw women wearing elaborate Carmen Miranda-like hats. I saw men wearing elaborate Carmen Miranda-like hats.

And, to answer an obvious question, yes, I also saw those people drink alcohol.

So maybe, to paraphrase Jimmy, those people have grown older but not up.

I can see that. I have been called a lot of things by my wife, but “grownup” is not one of those things.

Saturday night, when I mentioned to my wife that I thought that the immensely talented Caroline Jones, who opened for Jimmy, was attractive, my wife said, “She’s young enough to be your daughter.”

Even though my wife knew I did not mean to be creepy when I said Caroline was attractive, she pointed out that Caroline was young enough to be my daughter just to mess with me. My wife does that a lot.

You know, to make me feel old.

Of course later, after the concert, when we got to meet Caroline, she called me “Sir.”

Sigh.

I’m thinking about growing a mustache again.