Some of those people are named in these letters, others remain in the shadows for good reasons or for no decent reason at all. Sitting here in this grand old hotel, knowing that dawn is certain to bring anger and inquiries about that fire and about that other rumor about a teenager’s body in the parking garage, it seems those people are still Out There, braced for the inevitable third woe, which indeed cometh quickly.
Louisville, Kentucky
December 13, 1996
Virginia Thompson with her sons Davison (left) and Hunter. (PHOTO BY WALTER FISKE; COURTESY OF HST COLLECTION)
1955
LOUISVILLE IN THE FIFTIES … SLOE GIN, SLEAZY DEBUTANTES, AND THE GOOD LIFE IN CHEROKEE PARK … FROM ATHENAEUM HILL TO THE JEFFERSON COUNTY JAIL … WELCOME TO THE PROUD HIGHWAY …
So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
—Hunter S. Thompson, age seventeen
THIRD PRIZE ESSAY—NETTLEROTH CONTEST
“OPEN LETTER TO THE YOUTH OF OUR NATION”
BY HUNTER THOMPSON, 1955
Although the young Thompson was forever in trouble with the law, his Louisville Male High School English teacher Harold Tague deemed him “brilliant and unpredictable.” Thompson’s sardonic essays for the Athenaeum Literary Association’s bound yearbook, The Spectator, consistently poked fun at middle-class conformity.
The Athenaeum had been a respected literary society based at Male since June 1862—the month that Robert E. Lee took command of the Confederate army.
Young people of America, awake from your slumber of indolence and harken the call of the future! Do you realize that you are rapidly becoming a doomed generation? Do you realize that the fate of the world and of generations to come rests on your shoulders? Do you realize that at any time you may be called on to protect your country and the freedom of the world from the creeping scourge of Communism? How can you possibly laugh in the face of the disasters which face us from all sides? Oh ignorant youth, the world is not a joyous place. The time has come for you to dispense with the frivolous pleasures of childhood and get down to honest toil until you are sixty-five. Then and only then can you relax and collect your social security and live happily until the time of your death.
Also, your insolent attitude disturbs me greatly. You have the nerve to say that you have never known what it is like to live in a secure and peaceful world; you say that the present generation has balled things up to the extent that we now face a war so terrible that the very thought of it makes hardened veterans shudder; you say it is our fault that World War II was fought in vain; you say that it is impossible to lay any plans for the future until you are sure you have a future. I say Nonsense! None of these things matter. If you expect a future you must carve it out in the face of these things. You also say that you must wait until after you have served your time with the service to settle down. Ridiculous! It is a man’s duty to pull up stakes and serve his country at any time, then settle down again.
I say there is no excuse for a feeling of insecurity on your part; there is no excuse for Juvenile Delinquency; there is no excuse for your attitude except that you are rotten and lazy! I was never like that! I worked hard; I saved; I didn’t run around and stay out late at night; I carved out my own future through hard work and virtuous living, and look at me now: a respectable and successful man.
I warn you, if you don’t start now it will be too late, and the blame for the end of the world will be laid at your feet. Heed my warning, oh depraved and profligate youth; I say awake, awake, awake!
Fearfully and disgustedly yours,
John J. Righteous-Hypocrite
THE SPECTATOR
“SECURITY”
BY HUNTER THOMPSON, 1955
Watching Marlon Brando in The Wild One inspired Thompson to become a “Louisville outlaw” with no use for anyone who chose security over adventure.
Security … what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?
Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? Has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better. What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?
Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must be laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a tread-mill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.
As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
THIRD PRIZE POEM—NETTLEROTH CONTEST
“THE NIGHT-WATCH”
ANONYMOUS, 1955 (BY HUNTER S. THOMPSON)
Although he excelled academically at Louisville Male High School, one month after writing this poem the seventeen-year-old Thompson found himself convicted of robbery and sentenced to six weeks in the Jefferson County jail. On graduation day, when his classmates received diplomas, Thompson sat alone in his cell.
I could see the moon hung high in the sky and the mocking grin on his face.
I know he was looking straight at me, perched high in my lonely place.
His voice floated down through the crisp night air and I thought I heard him say,
“It’s too bad my boy, It’s an awful shame that you have to go this way.”
This chilled my heart and I shuddered with fear, for I knew he was right as right could be.
It was then that my skin began to crawl and I thought, “What I’d give to be free!”
&n
bsp; Her face came back to me then like a flash, I remembered the touch of her lips.
I remembered the beautiful gold of her hair, her sky-blue eyes and the touch of her finger-tips.
Then I cursed myself and tore my hair for I knew I’d been wrong from the start.
I’d thrown away every chance I’d had and finally broken her heart.
My grief was of that special kind that only comes to men when they reach the end of a lonesome road and see what they could have been.
I cried as I thought of the people outside who were happy, and honest, and free.
And I knew that not even the lowest one would care to trade places with me.
Cold sweat broke out on my forehead now and my scalp felt tight and drawn.
What could I do to escape my fate, the electric chair at dawn?
I seized the bars, and shrieked, and wailed, like a soul who is lost in hell.
But the only voice that answered me was the mid-night toll of a bell.
Photos from The Spectator, 1954. (COURTESY OF HST COLLECTION)
Airman Thompson at Eglin Air Force Base. (PHOTO BY GEORGE THOMPSON; COURTESY OF HST COLLECTION)
Thompson (shown here with Air Force buddies) became a legend at Eglin for both his journalistic skills and his nonconformist attitude. (COURTESY OF HST COLLECTION)
1956
YEAR OF THE MONKEY … UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU … BIRTH OF A SPORTSWRITER … A NEGRO VISION OF HELL … WELCOME TO FAT CITY … DOOMED LOVE IN TALLAHASSEE …
The story of Joe Louis is an old one; the story of the star which has out-lived its light; the soaring meteor which failed to explode in mid-air at the height of its climb, but plummeted down to the same earth with the millions who, moments before, had stared wide-eyed at its beauty.
The world likes to look up at its stars. A meteor which falls out of the skies not only is dead when it hits, but digs its own grave by the force of its fall. Just as the crowd stares curiously at a fallen meteor and then wanders off, the crowd is beginning to thin around Joe Louis. He stands painfully bewildered in a world which he never took the trouble to understand. The applause of the worshipping thousands has died into the whispering of the curious few. The end is inevitable.
—Hunter S. Thompson, “Fame Is a One-Way Ticket,”
Command Courier, December 17, 1956
TO GERALD “CHING” TYRRELL:
Tyrrell was a childhood friend of Thompson’s, dubbed “Ching” when he joined the HAWKS Athletic Club after returning from China, where his father had been British consul general until the fall of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in 1949. Ching had attended the same three schools as Thompson: I. N. Bloom, Highland Junior High, and Louisville Male High School. They shared a deep interest in American literature forged through the Athenaeum Literary Association. At this time, Ching was an undergraduate at Yale University. Thompson had graduated from Scott Air Force Base’s electronics program in June 1956 and was assigned to Eglin Air Proving Ground in Pensacola, Florida.
September 22, 1956
Eglin AFB [Air Force Base]
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
AALLLLLLOOOOOOOOO……!
From out of the most deserted and god-forsaken spot in the Continental United States, winding its lonely way over the sand dune and through the swamp grass; comes the mournful cry of a man in the throes of mortal agony. With the return of the football season, come memories of people, parties and far-off places: the cold and clammy feel of a beer can clutched in my hand, the witless screech of the crowd at a football game, the memory of soft brown eyes and bubbling laughter, the sight of a young and palpitating breast; all these and many more race through my mind as I sit at my desk and pound out this missive which will bridge the gap from me to the mythical world of gay laughter and tinkling glasses. Ah me … when the winter is over … I can no longer repress a desperate cry of thirst and need.
With this opening, I offer a capsule of my first feelings of this wretched Saturday afternoon. This is the first weekend I haven’t made the trip to Tallahassee and I feel like an opium-eater undergoing the “cure.” Each weekend since late July has been spent in the company of a young and passionate lass1 and, as Saturday night approaches, my palms begin to sweat profusely and my imagination runs amuck, causing me to leer at some of these fabulously beautiful WAFs. However, with an iron self-control, born of recent necessity, I will get a steel grip on myself and begin thinking about next week’s sports page.
Perhaps I’d better explain my newest and most successful venture. In a resounding and incredible triumph over regulations and first sergeants, I managed to effect a transfer to the Information Services career field. More specifically, I am now Sports Editor of the Command Courier, the official voice of Eglin AFB.2 Now you know, and I know, that I’ve never written a word for a newspaper of any sort. And you know that it’s ridiculous to even speak of any experience on my part, as far as layout or page arrangement goes. In short, we both know that I’m no more qualified for a post like this than I am for the presidency of a theological seminary; but there is one major fact that makes it possible for me to hold this job: the people who hired me didn’t bother to check any too closely on my journalistic background. I’ve managed to keep them in safe ignorance for about a month now, by nodding my head knowingly at any mention of a term which sounds journalistic, and using a few simple ones on occasion, whenever it seems comparatively safe. Just out of mild curiosity, I’d like you to look over the sports page of this edition and send me an opinion of some sort. I’m afraid to ask anyone around here, and I seem to remember that you know something about this type of thing. With the advent of the latest issue (sports), I think I’m pretty well entrenched around here, but I still think that it would be best that I don’t make any display of my total lack of tangible knowledge on the subject, lest they become fearful of what might happen when my luck runs out.
Although I think I now have the best deal I could possibly have in the Air Force, acting the part of the experienced, competent journalist day after day has been quite a strain on my nervous system. I now tip the scales at a vastly reduced 168 pounds and I look rather silly when I attempt to wear the pants which fit me last spring. I had to give up cigarettes when my daily consumption topped the 3-pack-a-day mark, and I now smoke about two packs of tobacco per day, via the pipe route. Also, without the slightest exaggeration, I drink approximately 20 cups of coffee every 24 hours and manage to sleep about 5 hours a night. Of course, it goes without saying that I’m jumpy as a cat and am extremely unpleasant and sarcastic most of the time. I’ve developed an arrogant and forbidding attitude, which keeps most of the numbwits away from me. Naturally, as I am sports editor of the base paper, most people know who I am, but very few of them care to talk to me; which is fine. I’ll save my social intercourse for Tallahassee and live like a hermit during the week.
Life down here is so damnably different than anything I’ve ever experienced. During the week, I might as well be on a ship at sea. We can only pick up radio broadcasts from the immediate area, and the only contact with the outside world is through the eyes of the Mobile, Birmingham, Jacksonville and Pensacola papers, which I scour avidly each day. I’ve been drunk only once; in Panama City at an orgy which beat all I’ve ever seen. Believe it or not, I have yet to enter a bar in the state of Florida. The sum total of my alcoholic consumption could be purchased for under $5.00. Dates are plentiful at Florida State U. in Tallahassee, and I spend most of my time there on weekends. It’s about 160 miles from here to Tall., but I’ve come to consider it no distance at all. By the same token, I’d think nothing at all of thumbing the 250 miles from here to New Orleans to see Ike3 at Tulane. He wanted me to come over this weekend, but my poverty stricken condition prevented such an undertaking. However, I intend to make the trip as soon as possible. I had a slight misunderstanding with my pretty friend in Tall, last weekend and I saw fit to forgo the unpleasantness of going over there and dragging her out of her sorority house and off to a secluded s
pot. Now however, the sap is rising and my regret is manifest. Ah, how women can get on one’s nerves.
I got quite a kick out of your social plight in the fair city of my birth: as I remember her, Sarah McNeil is about as pleasing to the average eye as a wart-hog with Bright’s disease. On the whole though, you seem to be managing quite well. I’d appreciate a few impressions of Old Eli, if you can find enough time to send a letter to me in my desolation.
As I’m writing this with Porter Bibb4 in mind as well as you, I’ll request that you see that he peruses it and writes me a line or so. By the way, am I right in assuming that Richard5 is up there also? If so, give him my most poetic regards and inform him that the life of a dedicated scholar is indeed thorny and that it would really be best to become a Jewish pawnbroker. Speaking of pawnbrokers, I was forced to pawn my $133 typewriter recently for the meager sum of $13 … ah, fortune and fame, where art thou?
I fear that lack of paper and time necessitates my closing, so I’ll keep with the mode of the times and say, au revoir my friend, until we meet again.
Hunter
TO VIRGINIA THOMPSON:
Virginia Thompson, a Louisville librarian, shared her son’s reverence for American literature. Hunter regularly wrote her newsy letters.
September 29, 1956
Eglin AFB
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Dear Mom,
Usual apologies for not writing sooner, also usual excuses. Anyway, I appreciate your letters and all the clippings. Please continue.
Hurricane Flossie was nothing but a troublesome scare; however, word has it that another one is brewing somewhere in the Gulf: nothing definite yet. In any case, don’t worry; these things are nothing but big winds that give everyone a chance to play here for a while. Flossie caused me to have to work all night Tuesday, without a wink of sleep until 3:30 Wednesday afternoon. This job has its drawbacks …
Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 Page 4