i remember it like it was yesterday… sitting in a bar in Fort Collins, 1998… an older gentleman sits next to me, & we strike up a conversation… quoted pretty much verbatim from our talk:

“I remember sitting in a hotel room on Larimer Street, back when that still meant something. i had hidden a bottle of muscatel under the mattress, & went to get it but found an unopened bottle of Wild Turkey. I opened that sucker & drank it while watching the rain fall on Denver. I though to myself “there’s got to be more to life than this, so in the morning i hitchhiked to San Francisco & joined the Grateful Dead.”

Happy Birthday Robert Hunter… i wouldn’t want to be alive in a world where you weren’t born…

Robert Hunter

i was lucky enough to sit down at a bar in Aspen Colorado with Mr. Hunter back in ‘98. i was there in an attempt to meet Hunter S. Thompson, who was in the bar but had an aura around him that i found impenetrable. Robert sat down next to me & we chatted for about 30 minutes. The man is an incredible story teller and an all around pleasant, friendly man. I’ll never forget our conversation, or his story about how he was

“sitting in a hotel room in Denver, overlooking Larimer Street, back when it was still the legendary Larimer Street. I had hidden a bottle of Thunderbird under my mattress, & when i went to retrieve it I found a pint of Jack Daniel’s that had never been opened. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, i drank the whiskey. Afterwards, i was looking out my window into the rain & thought ‘There’s got to be more in life than this’ so i hitchhiked to San Francisco & joined the Grateful Dead.”    

man, i could’ve died happy right there, listening to that man tell that story… 

(Source: frostedambassador)