I got to meet Christopher Hitchens once and recalling the encounter always makes me smile.
In September 2007 I attended the Atheist Alliance International conference in Washington DC. On the first night I managed to talk to Hitch for a bit. I had wanted to share with him an amusing anecdote that involved one of his books.
The previous week I had been reading his biography of Thomas Paine on the bus on the way to work. There was a passage that quoted the ancient Greek poet Archilochus “the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”. Well that very morning, when I got to work and sat down at my desk, I looked out the window and ten feet in front of me there was a fox fighting a groundhog. I’d never even seen a fox in the wild before let alone one fighting another animal. Having read the quote from Hitch’s book just forty minutes earlier made the whole situation even more surreal.
I was expecting a brief discussion about the meaning of the quote but after telling him the story Hitch simply exclaimed, “My God man! Where do you work?” A second later he was called to the podium to speak. We didn’t get to finish the conversation and even today I sometimes find myself reflecting on the meaning of the metaphor. Incidentally, the groundhog won the fight (or more accurately – didn’t lose).
He wasn’t always right, but I always learned something from reading his stuff. I will miss Christopher Hitchens.
Die Hard Three 
Cool.
You never saw a fox before that?? I find that hard to believe.
He’s a city kid who grew up in the wilds of Queenswood Heights.