Goodbye, Flathead!

Mike Blanchard’s “In Memoriam” notice from the Denver Post has gone viral internationally.

It was reported with appropriate admiration by Britain’s Daily Mail.

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Charlie Martin added a bit more at the Daily Caller:

“What’s in the vial?”

“Nitroglycerin.”

According to lifelong friend Ron Remy, those were the first words he heard from Mike Blanchard when they met during high school.

“I was coming up the walk to his parents’ house when he came out, carrying a small vial, very carefully. He said it was nitroglycerin. He’d just cooked it up in his parents’ kitchen. We put it on a fence post and Mike shot it with a pellet gun, and it blew out a whole section of fence,” Remy said. “We all have these fantasies — but Mike would go out and just do it. I spent a year in Viet Nam, and some of the moments of stark terror I had with Mike eclipsed anything I saw there.” …

Collecting stories from Flathead’s life, however, initially presented a small problem. “I’m not sure of the statute of limitations,” one of his friends said. After assuring them we’d protect our sources, the stories flowed like whiskey.

“We had friends who joined these ‘outlaw’ motorcycle clubs. We decided we’d have our own. We called it the ‘Dead Cats MC,’” said one of the attendees who had been worried about misdeeds recent enough to prosecute. …

The stories Blanchard’s family and friends told certainly didn’t paint him as a boy scout. According to his friends, he was astonishingly intelligent and well read, with encyclopedic knowledge of Fords, guns, and explosives, but equally deep knowledge of European history and of prosaic topics like landscaping.

On the other hand, he had real difficulties with authority, and didn’t give in to social pressures — like hygiene.

“You could have drilled for oil in the leg of his jeans,” remembered one friend who wished to remain anonymous. …

As his obituary noted, Blanchard was a life-long Republican and an NRA member. And according to another friend, he had what we might now charitably call “old-fashioned” attitudes about race.

Read the whole thing.

The world is undoubtedly a poorer, wimpier, and more boring place without this old boy.

The Eagles Club at 8160 Rosemary Street in Commerce City, Colorado where Blanchard’s memorial service was held only for those over the age of 18.