Melville House Books

“Dozens of cannon owners, from Civil War re-enactors in Pennsylvania to an Eagle pilot, who has specified in his own will that he be shot posthumously from a cannon, have offered the use of their weapons to Hunter S. Thompson‘s family” in order to fulfill Thompson’s wish to have his ashes shot out of a cannon. According to a Denver Post article by Nancy Lofholm, among the “frenzy” of offers pouring in, “A California company, Angels Flight Inc., is offering to blast Thompson’s ashes into the wild blue yonder in a 21-gun cannon salute or to shoot them off in a fireworks display. A Steamboat Springs radio station plans to shred some of Thompson’s books and blow them into the sky from a cannon in a confetti of words on March 5, the same day Thompson’s family and close friends will gather in a private ceremony of commemoration at an Aspen bar.” Says Joshua Fleming, a disc jockey at the radio station, ” I thought this would be a zany way to celebrate his life. I think that he would totally dig it.”

• RELATED: “He decided he’d done good work and was respected. His reputation as a serious writer has solidified . . . He was rested. He got a night’s sleep. He was calm,” says Thompson’s son, Juan Thompson, in a Denver Rocky Mountain News story. “A lot of people figure it was the end of a five-night binge. It was a deliberate choice. It wasn’t something made in a drug or alcohol fog.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.