Hunter S. Thompson
The High Watermark
Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas
Has it been five years?
Six?
It seems like a lifetime
The kind of peak
That never comes again
San Francisco in the middle sixties
Was a very special time and place to be a part of
But no explanation
No mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that
You were there and alive
In that corner of time in the world
Whatever it meant
There was madness in any dirеction
At any hour
You can strike sparks anywhere
Thеre was a fantastic, universal sense that whatever we were doing – was right
That we were winning
And that I think was the handle
That sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil
Not in any mean or military sense
We didn't need that
Our energy would simply prevail
We had all the momentum
We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave
So now – less than five years later
You can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west
And with the right kind of eyes
You can almost see the high watermark
That place where the wave finally broke
And rolled back