I'M BACK!
"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." [Proverbs 26:11]
After a three week hiatus that included a trip to Florida for some golf and the Daytona 500, a vicious bout with the flu--sickest I've been in twenty years--and a brief period of mourning for my man, author Hunter Stockton Thompson, I'm back. While I was gone, sick, and mourning I had absolutely no desire to comment on this wretched business of ours. I mean, I'm in 70 degree Florida sunshine golfing, then thirty yards from the start-finish line where Aston Kutcher was seen canoodling with Demi Moore, swilling Coronas and Grand Marnier, and I'm going to comment on cutting fuel with kerosene to get through an upstate New York winter. I'm on a boat hopping from bar to bar on the intercoastal waterway and I'm going to stop to comment on the absolutely ludicrous (my opinion) 150 dollar unloading charge at Burris Logistics, Orlando, Florida. I should have driven the fifty miles to their warehouse and slapped the snot out of whoever arrived at the one-fifty figure and made them thank my driver for driving through a king-hell snowstorm to make his unloading appointment. And I did not even care when Mayrsohn International Trading Co., Inc., Miami, Florida did not exchange pallets with our truck (they never do) and we had to pay $132.00 for pallets for our backhaul.
No, sir, I was on vacation and did not care! Then, midway through our R & R, I was whacked by a savage bout of the flu and REALLY did not care. I do not take any medication because I am allergic to something--I have never bothered to find out what it is I am allergic to, although I think it is in Contact and NyQuil--so I stay away from all medications and tough my sickness out with orange juice. I'm in seventy degree Florida weather, my wife is tanning, and I am freezing because of a fever. When Jeff called to tell me two drive shafts and one rear end went on two tractors within forty-eight hours I just shrugged it off as an expensive cost in an expensive business. I usually go beserk, but I was shot, physically spent until my fever broke the day we left good ole Fla. for home.
On Monday, the day before we left while I was swearing at myself and wondering how I could possibly get the flu in Florida, I received a call from Lori, my daughter.
"Did you hear what happened to your friend?" she asked.
"What friend?" I said.
"Hunter Thompson," she said.
"MY MAN!"
"Your boy shot himself," she said.
"You're kidding!" I said.
"I'll e-mail you the article," she said.
I couldn't believe it. He didn't kill himself, I thought. He staged his suicide. This is just a cruel joke he is playing on us, his loyal readers. I could believe that my man dumped a motorcycle and wrapped himself around a tree after a gallon of 120 proof Wild Turkey. I could believe somebody put a bullet through his left eye while trying to whack an apple off his head...on a bet, of course...and after a gallon of 120 proof Wild Turkey. My man was one crazy writer, one of "The People Who Are Inexplicably Still Alive" according to Playboy (January 2004, pg. 223). After all the whiskey, after all the drugs, after all the outrageous behavior he was still alive. Why would he want to kill himself?
I found out later the good Doctor Thompson had been planning his death for some time. He wanted to die. Whether it was because of failing health or failed talent, he wanted to die. Anita, his second wife, said he did it right...very little blood, bone, and brain splattered all over the kitchen. He kept most of it together. He knew how to use a pistol.
So it was with a tired body and heavy heart that I returned home...to some cruel and expensive repair bills that made the cost of my trip seem like chump change. But I did not care because I returned home less one friend I had never met.
The Highway Reporter
After a three week hiatus that included a trip to Florida for some golf and the Daytona 500, a vicious bout with the flu--sickest I've been in twenty years--and a brief period of mourning for my man, author Hunter Stockton Thompson, I'm back. While I was gone, sick, and mourning I had absolutely no desire to comment on this wretched business of ours. I mean, I'm in 70 degree Florida sunshine golfing, then thirty yards from the start-finish line where Aston Kutcher was seen canoodling with Demi Moore, swilling Coronas and Grand Marnier, and I'm going to comment on cutting fuel with kerosene to get through an upstate New York winter. I'm on a boat hopping from bar to bar on the intercoastal waterway and I'm going to stop to comment on the absolutely ludicrous (my opinion) 150 dollar unloading charge at Burris Logistics, Orlando, Florida. I should have driven the fifty miles to their warehouse and slapped the snot out of whoever arrived at the one-fifty figure and made them thank my driver for driving through a king-hell snowstorm to make his unloading appointment. And I did not even care when Mayrsohn International Trading Co., Inc., Miami, Florida did not exchange pallets with our truck (they never do) and we had to pay $132.00 for pallets for our backhaul.
No, sir, I was on vacation and did not care! Then, midway through our R & R, I was whacked by a savage bout of the flu and REALLY did not care. I do not take any medication because I am allergic to something--I have never bothered to find out what it is I am allergic to, although I think it is in Contact and NyQuil--so I stay away from all medications and tough my sickness out with orange juice. I'm in seventy degree Florida weather, my wife is tanning, and I am freezing because of a fever. When Jeff called to tell me two drive shafts and one rear end went on two tractors within forty-eight hours I just shrugged it off as an expensive cost in an expensive business. I usually go beserk, but I was shot, physically spent until my fever broke the day we left good ole Fla. for home.
On Monday, the day before we left while I was swearing at myself and wondering how I could possibly get the flu in Florida, I received a call from Lori, my daughter.
"Did you hear what happened to your friend?" she asked.
"What friend?" I said.
"Hunter Thompson," she said.
"MY MAN!"
"Your boy shot himself," she said.
"You're kidding!" I said.
"I'll e-mail you the article," she said.
I couldn't believe it. He didn't kill himself, I thought. He staged his suicide. This is just a cruel joke he is playing on us, his loyal readers. I could believe that my man dumped a motorcycle and wrapped himself around a tree after a gallon of 120 proof Wild Turkey. I could believe somebody put a bullet through his left eye while trying to whack an apple off his head...on a bet, of course...and after a gallon of 120 proof Wild Turkey. My man was one crazy writer, one of "The People Who Are Inexplicably Still Alive" according to Playboy (January 2004, pg. 223). After all the whiskey, after all the drugs, after all the outrageous behavior he was still alive. Why would he want to kill himself?
I found out later the good Doctor Thompson had been planning his death for some time. He wanted to die. Whether it was because of failing health or failed talent, he wanted to die. Anita, his second wife, said he did it right...very little blood, bone, and brain splattered all over the kitchen. He kept most of it together. He knew how to use a pistol.
So it was with a tired body and heavy heart that I returned home...to some cruel and expensive repair bills that made the cost of my trip seem like chump change. But I did not care because I returned home less one friend I had never met.
The Highway Reporter
posted by The Highway Reporter at 10:10 PM
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