sws4420
02-27-2005, 02:51 PM
All I know about this guy is that he was some sort of hippy freak, but check out what the rest of his tree-hugging family and friends did once he killed himself:
ASPEN — Hunter S. Thompson heard the ice clinking.
The literary champ was sitting in his command post kitchen chair, a piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot through the mouth hours earlier.
But a small circle of family and friends gathered around with stories, as he wished, with glasses full of his favored elixir — Chivas Regal on ice.
"It was very loving. It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky," Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, said Thursday night in her first spoken comments since the icon's death Sunday. "It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here."
Anita Thompson also echoes the comments that have been made by Hunter Thompson's son and daughter-in-law: That her husband's suicide did not come from the bottom of the well, but was a gesture of strength and ultimate control made as his life was at a high-water mark.
"This is a triumph of his, not a desperate, tragic failure," Anita Thompson said by phone, "He lived a beautiful life and he lived it on his own terms, all the way from the very beginning to the very end."
Yet Anita Thompson quickly came to embrace Hunter Thompson's gesture with a .45-caliber handgun.
But upon seeing Hunter Thompson's body, she embraced him. "Since he'd done this, I did not want to make it difficult for his spirit," she said. "I wanted to make it loving."
"He did not say anything about killing himself," she said.
The official time of death is 5:42 p.m.
But did Hunter Thompson shoot himself while on the phone with his wife?
"I did not hear any bang," she says, noting that Hunter Thompson's son, who was in the house at the time, believed that a book had fallen when he heard the shot.
"I don't know if it mattered if I was here," Anita Thompson says. "I just like to think, and believe in my heart, he felt happy in his life."
A woman at the gym saw Anita Thompson in the bathroom. She asked if Hunter Thompson was OK. Anita Thompson pretty much blew it off. Rumors about Hunter Thompson were always in the air. Anita Thompson replied, "Oh yeah," but added, "he's been pretty stressed out lately."
A strange look was on the woman's face. She told Anita Thompson to check her phone messages. The woman said she would stay at her side.
Now she was shaking, and could barely dial.
There was a message from Juan Thompson, Hunter's son. "Anita, you have to come home now, he's dead."
Anita Thompson then spoke to the sheriff on the phone.
Had Hunter Thompson intended for his wife of two years to be in the house?
"I don't know, and it's not that important," Anita Thompson says. "I know he loved me. There's no question ... I know he did not want me to find him alone. He knew I was opposed to it."
ASPEN — Hunter S. Thompson heard the ice clinking.
The literary champ was sitting in his command post kitchen chair, a piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot through the mouth hours earlier.
But a small circle of family and friends gathered around with stories, as he wished, with glasses full of his favored elixir — Chivas Regal on ice.
"It was very loving. It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky," Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, said Thursday night in her first spoken comments since the icon's death Sunday. "It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here."
Anita Thompson also echoes the comments that have been made by Hunter Thompson's son and daughter-in-law: That her husband's suicide did not come from the bottom of the well, but was a gesture of strength and ultimate control made as his life was at a high-water mark.
"This is a triumph of his, not a desperate, tragic failure," Anita Thompson said by phone, "He lived a beautiful life and he lived it on his own terms, all the way from the very beginning to the very end."
Yet Anita Thompson quickly came to embrace Hunter Thompson's gesture with a .45-caliber handgun.
But upon seeing Hunter Thompson's body, she embraced him. "Since he'd done this, I did not want to make it difficult for his spirit," she said. "I wanted to make it loving."
"He did not say anything about killing himself," she said.
The official time of death is 5:42 p.m.
But did Hunter Thompson shoot himself while on the phone with his wife?
"I did not hear any bang," she says, noting that Hunter Thompson's son, who was in the house at the time, believed that a book had fallen when he heard the shot.
"I don't know if it mattered if I was here," Anita Thompson says. "I just like to think, and believe in my heart, he felt happy in his life."
A woman at the gym saw Anita Thompson in the bathroom. She asked if Hunter Thompson was OK. Anita Thompson pretty much blew it off. Rumors about Hunter Thompson were always in the air. Anita Thompson replied, "Oh yeah," but added, "he's been pretty stressed out lately."
A strange look was on the woman's face. She told Anita Thompson to check her phone messages. The woman said she would stay at her side.
Now she was shaking, and could barely dial.
There was a message from Juan Thompson, Hunter's son. "Anita, you have to come home now, he's dead."
Anita Thompson then spoke to the sheriff on the phone.
Had Hunter Thompson intended for his wife of two years to be in the house?
"I don't know, and it's not that important," Anita Thompson says. "I know he loved me. There's no question ... I know he did not want me to find him alone. He knew I was opposed to it."