My first encounter with Hunter S. Thompson was when I was invited to the Woody Creek Tavern in Colorado in December 1994. Someone said, “Why don’t you come down, and you and Hunter will have a drink.” So I went down to Woody Creek Tavern, and I’m sitting way in the back of the place against the wall, looking at the front door about 50 yards away. Suddenly I see the door spring open, and I see sparks! I realized there was a large-ish, three-foot cattle prod and a Taser gun, and the sea began to part—people were leaping and hurling themselves out of the path of the mayhem that was approaching—and I heard the voice first say, “Out of my way, you bastards!” He was using them as “just-in-case weapons,” but it was a very economical way for him to clear the path. He made the Red Sea part, arrived at my table, and said, “How are you? My name is Hunter.”

It was from that very second, when he sat down, that I recognized before me the very definition of a Southern gentleman. We connected on the level of both being from Kentucky, both having checkered pasts in our youth, and a great love of literature.