Hunter S. Thompson, The Wonder Years

Hunter S. Thompson spoke to me because I was just too late for the '60s. Oh, I certainly knew about them. I watched the evening news with dad. Heck, I lived in freakin' San Francisco. But I didn't hit puberty until around 1970, after the heyday had gone. By the time high school rolled around and drugs and free love could actually be invited into my life, the Haight Ashbury was dead, Vietnam was pretty much over and disco was king. I and my friends felt cheated. If only we'd been born just a little bit sooner ...

So Thompson's first person style of reporting from the field caught the eye and heart of me and my friends. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was the lost weekend we all dreamed about but didn't have the nerve to pull off. "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" explained all the fire over the McGovern campaign and loss we just missed. By the time I was ready to vote it had come down to Ford vs. Carter, dull and duller. There were no organized hippies, no antiwar demonstrators pounding the campaign pavement, just Jimmy Carter apologizing for having "lust in his heart." For adolescent boys, who have lust running all over their bodies, it was hard to understand this one.

Thompson also offered a warning. Part of his drug fueled mania seemed motivated by his taking life and politics just waaaay too seriously. I considered and still consider a life around politics a good life indeed, but I would never want to get to the point where it sent me into hallucinogenic depression. Hallucinogenic alone would do fine as an end point. I've always tried to keep this in mind, as I've swallowed life under Republican ascendancy over the last twenty years. The Republic keeps standing, gays are prevalent on teevee and black people anywhere in the media are never poor. Progress keeps up, regardless of how often people themselves seem to want to slow it down.

So I settle into my chair and watch the sunset over the Central Valley with a cold beer and memories of the Summer of Love I never lived. Which is even better, considering that this way I can make it all up.

Bye Hunter. See you in the afterlife, I'm sure.

Go here for the New York Times's retrospective on the life and times of Hunter S. Thompson. (Registration required)