Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Remembering A Literary Hero - HST

Yesterday, February 20th, was the second anniversary of the self-caused death of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson was an inspiration to many and an idol to me. His brutal honesty and honest brutality came through in the words he wrot. If he felt it, he wrote it or said it regardless of whether it was the politically correctthing to do. As an example, here's a eulogy he wrote in 1996 for former President Richard Nixon, who he didn't really care for: http://www.english.ilstu.edu/hesse/bradway/thompson5.html

SinceI have a couple of dachshunds, I got a laugh out of this quote from the speech:

“He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by the head with all four claws.
That was Nixon's style -- and if you forgot, he would kill you as a lesson to the others. Badgers don't fight fair, bubba. That's why God made dachshunds.”

Hunter is missed by many.

2 comments:

Lori said...

My daughter, who was 17 at the time, woke me up sobbing. She was a huge fan. It was at that moment I knew I had a future writer on my hands.

Ron DeYoung said...

You can be proud of her then. Of course she may have gotten that from her mother