Through the trees and broken clouds I could see the stars twinkling brightly against the black November sky, and thought to myself, “How beautiful, this is the last thing I will ever see.”

I was slipping into unconsciousness as I made this somewhat peculiar observation, lying flat on my back on the driveway in front of my house, clad in only my underwear.

This unplanned predicament came as the result of my neighbor going on a meth and booze binge of epic enough proportions that, unbeknownst to us, his wife had left him earlier in the evening, and with my spouse and I being the next closest people to share his displeasure with he did just that – by bombarding our home deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains with rocks at 3:30 in the morning.

Though I wasn’t looking for a fight when I confronted him I wasn’t ruling out kicking some ass if I had to, as I had fought him once before and quickly subdued him even though he had the size and weight advantage.

He was shouting all sorts of bizarre things and was obviously drug-impaired, and it alarmed me that his wife hadn’t come out to quiet him down, as I knew this was a very bad sign and feared for her safety.

When our yelling match took an ugly turn I soon realized my cocky assumptions were no longer valid, as this time my opponent had strength that was unimaginable, and the fight was going badly fast.

I had been in probably more than my share of brawls but this one was different, it quickly became clear to me that this wasn’t someone just trying to teach me a lesson – this was serious.

I had known this man for well over a decade and we had been friends, but this wasn’t the neighbor I knew, it was a raging madman with superhuman strength of a kind I had never encountered before-or since.

The beating intensified, and I was tossed like a rag doll first against a car and then to the ground, where the back of my neck came down on the edge of the pavement.

The thought of killing another human being never had crossed my mind before, but I now came to the terrible conclusion that my only chance was to try with every ounce of strength I had to kill this man.

But it was no use, it seemed like five men against one and it was then, with him sitting on my chest beating my face to a pulp, that I realized I was done.

Suddenly my assailant leaned back and his eyes rolled-up in his head, and out of the corner of my eye I could see my wife holding something and hear her screaming at him, then just as suddenly they were both gone.

As my head began to clear I slowly rolled on my side and drug myself into the bushes next to the house, the only thing I knew at that point was I couldn’t take any more fighting.

The next sounds I heard were those of furniture being smashed, and my thoughts were instantly focused on whether or not my wife had retreated back inside the house. The destruction continued for another minute or so until I heard a sort of cracking noise – then it was suddenly dead quiet again.

After a minute, I managed to get myself upright and hobble to the front door and looked in to see the entire living room trashed, but to my great relief my wife emerged from the bedroom, and though terrified and shaking she was intact except for a nasty gash to her hand.

On the other hand I had not fared nearly so well, as I realized when the volunteer fire department I belonged to showed up a few minutes later.

It was a considerable shock to me when the friends I had lived next to and worked with for years with walked up to me and asked me who I was, it was only then that I realized how bad I looked.

When I checked a mirror to confirm my suspicions my first thought was, “WHERE THE HELL IS MY MUSTACHE?,” as the area between my eyes and mouth was nothing but ripped meat, my upper lip was in shreds.

The list of damage I had suffered was long, virtually every inch of my entire body was bruised, scraped or bleeding. All of my lower front teeth were damaged, all of my upper front teeth were gone, my nose was badly broken, my hip bone was visible through a hole in my side, and later I found out the terrible pain in my neck was because my fifth cervical vertebrae was broken clean in two.

That was over 25 years ago but the reminders are still there every time I look in the mirror – the bent nose, the different shaped nostrils, the chipped teeth and the faint series of diagonal scars between my mouth and nose. I have limited ability to turn my head, the vertebrae is still broken and sometimes my neck makes awful sounds when I move it.

Our attacker was never punished. He was involved in a solo vehicle drunk driving crash two weeks before his trial and eventually died of his injuries, meaning no restitution was ever paid.

It turned out the object my wife had struck him with was, of all things, a waffle maker, her gash to the hand was from smacking him in the head with it.

But the waffle maker was not enough to permanently deter him, as the cracking sound I had heard was that of my pistol being fired inside the house, after which he beat a hasty retreat.

My four-and-a-half month pregnant wife had once again saved the day when she fired a warning shot in the general direction of the intruder, it was the only thing that could have possibly ended the attack and it’s quite possible that three people’s lives were saved by that one gunshot.

I don’t want to live in an armed camp where everyone walks around with guns strapped to them, but do get rather annoyed with people who think we’d all be safer with no guns in civilian hands, as with me it’s not a hypothetical question.

It’s also annoying and saddening to see a quarter century later right here in Lake County meth is still doing tremendous damage, with a whole new generation of young soon-to-be-old faces on the booking sheets at the county jail.

This is why I love guns and hate meth, and always will.

Philip Murphy lives in Finley, Calif.