Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
Page 12
And I can see your dilemma—in wanting to believe in this thing, yet not being able to find a way to believe in it and eat too. Keep in mind that the ability to create is an integral part of the makeup of man. If a lack is encountered, it lies not in the ability, but in the scope of perception of one’s own creative ability.
With that, I leave you to your efforts on the assembly line. I don’t write many letters like this, so don’t be afraid to drop me a line.
Cheerio …
Hunter
TO LARRY CALLEN:
In late October Thompson learned that he would be given an honorable discharge from the U.S. Air Force. He was ecstatic at the prospect of beginning his civilian career as a journalist, as he wrote to Callen, who had been editor of the Command Courier when Thompson arrived at Eglin and was now assigned to an Air Force post in Iceland.
October 30, 1957
Eglin AFB
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Dear Larry,
By the time you get this letter, there will be no “H. S. Thompson” listed on the payroll of the nation’s bird division. Colonel Campbell called me at the PGN [Playground News] office this morning that the Comm Sq sergeant had a message for me—to report for my discharge physical tomorrow at 7:15.
And so, after two years of “arduous service,” the walking anomaly that is HST has escaped into the jungle of insecurity called civilian life. Yes … it’s an honorable.
Surprised? You aren’t alone. A little disappointed? You still aren’t alone. At any rate, I knew you’d be interested.
You’ll also be interested to know that I recently finished reading The Fountainhead. To understand something of the philosophy I’m now flirting with, all you have to do is, first, consider my overall attitude—then imagine how it was affected by reading The Outsider and The Fountainhead one right after the other.
I’m not exactly certain that this is the most desirable kind of attitude to carry back to “civilization” with me, but I am sure that I’ll never be able to sincerely believe in anything until I’m convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that god doesn’t live in the mirror.
They say that “he who flies highest, falls farthest”—and who am I to argue? But we can’t forget that “he who doesn’t flap his wings, never flies at all.” And with that, I’ll stop trying to convince myself that I can’t fail: how dull the whole thing would be if that were true.
If you get the time, drop me a line at the Playground News and tell me a little about what you’ve done since your arrival in the far, frozen north. I probably won’t be at the Playground News very long, so make it soon, if you make it at all.
As for some of the incidentals down this way: the purge of the Command Courier spts ed will probably interest you most. Yes, they finally got me. Fred [Fulkerson] took over and is doing surprisingly well.
And that last sentence recalls the letter I got from that captain at AFPS, in which he said that my work for the ComCourier was “enviable” … which also recalls your comment on Barrie French—something about damning with faint praise … which also makes my point.
Naturally, I continued with the Playground News, although my dual life was made considerably rougher by a master sergeant in the radio shop, who did his best to do me in. In the end, though, it was he who almost tearfully pleaded with the classification board to delete my radio AFSC—thus making me eligible for an early out.
For the past month, I’ve been the “official statistician” for the football team, working one or two days a week, living off base, and making trips to Denver, Louisville, and Washington, D.C. for games.
I don’t mean to gloat, but I can’t help it today. It’s almost too much to believe—but don’t let me put words in your mouth.
I’m running out of paper, so I’ll cut this short. Drop me a line when you can and look for me in the first breadline you see when you get back. Until then, I remain, your friend.… Hunty
TO KRAIG JUENGER:
While enjoying the clever way he finagled an honorable discharge out of the Air Force, Thompson was considering moving to St. Louis to work for the Post-Dispatch or the Globe in order to be near Juenger.
November 4, 1957
Eglin AFB
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Dear Kraig,
First and by all means, foremost…: the case of THOMPSON VS THE USAF has come to a boiling, bubbling climax. The mule train of military bureaucracy, with the help of a few expertly placed jolts of high-detergent oil, has been rolling in high gear for the past two weeks and, believe it or not, has finally come to a logical conclusion: that being that “a square peg cannot exist in a round hole.”
And so, with that truism staring him straight in the eye, old Uncle AF has decided to arrange a suitable burial for AIRMAN Thompson. Sadly enough, the burial will have to be accomplished without the usual fanfare—trumpets, sobbing lovers, and that sort of thing—and the ceremony will be brief and without melodrama of any description. It will nonetheless be final—and wild.
There will be a few tears—and some sighs of relief. There will be some angry, dumbfounded protest—and some shrugging of shoulders. A military manner will prevail where pandemonium used to exist. The sports pages of the Command Courier will once again appeal to the military mind.
There will be no “Scoop” Thompson serving vodka-flavored coffee in the Eglin AFB fieldhouse—nor any Cuubley Cohn12 to grace the Sports Section of the Playground News. In short, a vicious, dangerous, radical individualist has finally gone the way of Marshall Zukov: purged—rooted from the ranks—and discharged.
Yes Kraig … Cuubley finally made the grade. The “Thompson plan for moral redemption” has met the final, acid test. It took a few shots in the dark, a few master strokes, and no little luck—Thompson will shed his mantle of shame and emerge into the light once again—as a civilian. And for you and anyone else who might have underestimated the “Thompson touch”—it’s honorable as hell. A miracle, possibly: but a reality, nonetheless.
After reading your letter this morning, I thought you’d be expecting some word on the above subject, but even I had no idea it would be this soon—or this perfect. Needless to say, I’d like nothing better than to wind up my stay in Florida with a few pleasant hours on the beach with you; but I’m afraid you’ll have to hurry if you don’t want to miss me.
Naturally, if you intend to come down anytime soon, I’ll postpone my departure for a few days and stay around to harass Rosan.13 Nevertheless, I intend to be home for Thanksgiving.
Just let me know when you intend to get here, and I’ll make my plans then and let you know. Incidentally, I’m also a little curious as to why you’re coming to this wretched wasteland—if you’ll pardon my asking.
Although I’d enjoy a night on a deserted beach, any disappointment I might suffer in missing it will be definitely dulled by the thought of my imminent departure from this worthless region. I don’t imagine I’ll find it too difficult to make my way over to St. Louis (and Collinsville) sometime in the near future. As a matter of fact, I’ll have two reasons for heading over that way: you and the possibility of a job on the Post-Dispatch—or the Globe. At any rate, it shouldn’t be too long before I get there.
I enjoyed your letter, but there are several things you mentioned which I think should be straightened out post haste.
In the first place, you know as well as I do that I’m far from “insultingly unconcerned” about Kraig. You also know you haven’t “made a fool of yourself” and that I’ve hardly cracked a smile—much less laughed—about this situation, since the first time I saw you. And if I’d had a “I have nothing to lose” attitude about it, you’d have known it by now.
And finally: you only prove what I said about your “not knowing me very well” by presuming that I might be hurt by any development or group of developments in this situation. You let me worry about my reasons for caring about you, and you concentrate on doing what you think you should do about your various ent
anglements. God takes care of fools and drunks—and Cuubley takes care of himself.
So, until I see you—whether it be in Collinsville or on the white sands of the miracle strip—it’s … Cheerio.
Hunter
FROM HUNTER S. THOMPSON, NEWS RELEASE:
As his parting salvo at the Air Force, Thompson wrote his own news release and had it printed in the Command Courier. It caused quite a stir.
NEWS RELEASE, AIR PROVING GROUND COMMAND, EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA
EGLIN AFB, FLORIDA (November 8)—S/Sgt. Manmountain Dense, a novice Air Policeman, was severely injured here today when a wine bottle exploded inside the AP gatehouse at the west entrance to the base. Dense was incoherent for several hours after the disaster, but managed to make a statement which led investigators to believe the bottle was hurled from a speeding car which approached the gatehouse on the wrong side of the road, coming from the general direction of the SEPARATION CENTER.
Further investigation revealed that, only minutes before the incident at the gatehouse, a reportedly “fanatical” airman had received his separation papers and was rumored to have set out in the direction of the gatehouse at a high speed in a muffler-less car with no brakes. An immediate search was begun for Hunter S. Thompson, one-time sports editor of the base newspaper and well-known “morale problem.” Thompson was known to have a sometimes overpowering affinity for wine and was described by a recent arrival in the base sanatorium as “just the type of bastard who would do a thing like that.”
An apparently uncontrollable iconoclast, Thompson was discharged today after one of the most hectic and unusual Air Force careers in recent history. According to Captain Munnington Thurd, who was relieved of his duties as base classification officer yesterday and admitted to the neuropsychological section of the base hospital, Thompson was “totally unclassifiable” and “one of the most savage and unnatural airmen I’ve ever come up against.”
“I’ll never understand how he got this discharge,” Thurd went on to say. “I almost had a stroke yesterday when I heard he was being given an honorable discharge. It’s terrifying—simply terrifying.”
And then Thurd sank into a delirium.
TO LIEUTENANT COLONEL FRANK CAMPBELL:
After Thompson left Eglin, he initiated a lively correspondence from Louisville with Campbell that would last for the next three years. Campbell often asked “Airman Thompson” how he was making out in the world of “cutthroat journalism.”
November 29, 1957
Louisville, Kentucky
Lt. Col. Frank Campbell
723 Osceola Circle—Capeheart
Eglin AFB, Fla.
Good Morning …
And it is a good morning indeed: for I have a job—and a good one at that. Yes, the child prodigy has talked himself into it up to his neck this time: for, on the ninth day of December, I take over as the sports editor of the Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, Herald—a morning daily serving Jersey Shore, Lock Haven, and Williamsport, with a combined population of 100,000 or so. Naturally, I have no idea how I’m going to manage it. I’ve never even worked on a daily, you know, and it should be interesting, if nothing else.
But the real fine thing about this is that I got it without pulling strings or begging for aid. I had already accepted a job on the Seymour, Indiana, Tribune, as wire editor, when the Pennsylvania people replied to my ad in Editor & Publisher. The Seymour people had offered me $260 per month, so I wrote to Jersey Shore and asked for $300. The editor called me today and offered me $325. Strange indeed. But, at any rate, I shall leave for Williamsport next weekend, praying that my car doesn’t fail, and plan to take up my duties on the ninth. I simply don’t understand how I got a job at all without a letter of flowery recommendation from Pug.14 I thought god had a hand in everything. Maybe Darwin was right—there might be something to this “survival of the fittest” thing. You might tell Pug about Darwin.
And, incidentally, has he shipped you out to New Mexico yet? I’ll send you my address when I get to my new spot, and wait for a letter informing me of the fortunes of an officer who doesn’t bring his superior an apple each morning.
My little brother, incidentally, played his final game for his high school yesterday, and is sitting back now to survey the mob of college scouts who’ve been hounding my mother since October. I am the new bargaining agent, and expect to enjoy the position thoroughly. (Just heard Gen. White’s proclamation that we “have Russia zeroed in from all directions.” I am waiting now for Vannevar Bush and Ed Teller15 to announce that our new supersensitive radar picked up a rash of heart tremors from the direction of the USSR, immediately after White’s remarkably insignificant statement. I could almost hear Karl Marx laughing in his tomb.)
But don’t be alarmed over my apparent lack of patriotism. I merely get these quips out of my system in letters, rather than the sporting editor’s column of the Jersey Shore Herald. On that note, I’ll leave you,
forever optimistic …
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
TO VIRGINIA THOMPSON:
Upon arriving in Jersey Shore, Thompson dutifully wrote home full of concern about the obvious dullness of the Pennsylvania mining town. In later years he would write about his harrowing Jersey Shore experiences in Songs of the Doomed.
November 29, 1957
Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania
Dear Mom,
You probably have my other letter by now, so you should have a fair idea as to how things stand. To put it all in a nutshell … the situation is about as fluid as a situation can get.
I have paid my rent for one month. The apartment seemed horrible at first, but I’ve been working on it most of the day, and it looks a little better now. It is old: the floors slant, the lights hang from the ceiling, the walls are filthy and cracked, and the furniture is all but worthless and anything but functional. It is, nonetheless, an apartment. The address is 1220 Allegheny Street, Jersey Shore, Pa. I live in the rear apartment on the second floor. My view—a northeastern exposure—consists of an eyesore of a barn about 100 yards to the rear, several run-down houses in the vicinity, and another eyesore of a hill—covered with scraggly trees and grass, rising into the smoggy sky which shrouds this smoggy town. Needless to say, north-central Pennsylvania in itself is not an inspiring sight: and the small blot called Jersey Shore is one of the least inspiring sights in north-central Pennsylvania.
So, as you see, being accustomed as I am to relying on my eyes to satisfy any aesthetic tension, I am now facing a neurosis of the worst sort. There are no waves pounding a sandy beach, no sea gulls soaring lazily over a fishing boat, and no glass-front bars in which to sit and watch the rain pelt down on a motionless bay. I must, in short, rely on something else: and whether I can derive any satisfaction from that “something else” will be the deciding factor in whether I stay here or not.
I’m speaking of my work: not just the newspaper, but other writing I can do. If a man really wanted to bury himself, I can think of no better place to do it than in Jersey Shore. I will have time—I can see that now—and the only pressure on me will be that which I put there myself. As compensations for the complacent squalor of this town, I have New York and Philadelphia within six hours driving distance, the possibility of a new car, and the privacy of an apartment.
But the ultimate factor will be the degree of freedom I have with the sports section. I don’t mean that anyone will interfere with or censor my work—far from it. I will have to be able to make it as good as I want it to be … and that’s where I may run into trouble.
Frankly, the paper is not good. The stress here is on speed and efficiency, rather than quality. And, rather than fight a system which will inevitably dull my ardor, I will have to leave. In one respect, this desolation is good. Having no other outlets for my energy, I will be able to pour them all into my work. But if I’m frustrated there, I can see no point in staying here.
I’ll be clear on this point by the middle of January. By that time, the new sys
tem will have been in effect for about two weeks. I’ve already been informed that, in addition to the responsibility of a four-page sports section (which is really nothing at all when you have 2 wire services) I’ll also do the final layout of the front page each morning. This means that, at night, along with an old but genial reporter, I’ll be running the paper in the capacity of an editor. If I can do what I want with it, I think I’ll like it here. But if I’ll have to subject myself to the system here, as I said before, I’ll leave. You will hear more on this.
The people are all very nice. I’ve been to two banquets in two nights—meeting hundreds of people and receiving numerous invitations to dinner and that sort of thing. It’s always Mr. Thompson and “sir,” and all slightly embarrassing. […]
Tell Memo that her “extra” $5 was a great help—especially since I had to pay the rent in advance. Also tell her that I’m in great need of a radio. It will help during the holidays. Naturally, I’m going to hate being away from home: especially in this ghastly hole. I think, however, that it may do me some good—writing-wise. I enjoyed my last stay immensely and hope to get home again sometime soon … and it may be sooner than we think.
But I’m going to close now, for I don’t feel real well; not any physical illness, of course, but a sort of emotional turmoil. I know that I’m in a period of crisis now, and I’ll probably be keyed-up and touchy until things begin to clear up.
Write soon and tell everyone hello for me.
Love,
Hunty
P.S. send any packages c/o Regan’s Grill (same address). That’s the taproom I live on top of. My mailbox won’t hold packages.
TO LARRY CALLEN:
A few weeks in Jersey Shore and Thompson was envying Callen for being stationed in Iceland.
December 12, 1957
Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania
Dear Larry,
So you think Iceland is bad: ha! Let me tell you about north-central Pennsylvania.