A friend and I were discussing which version of the movie, A Star Is Born, was our favorite.

Remade four times – each one terrific – it was based on the original, 1932 film, What Price Hollywood? Hands down, we both chose the Kris Kristofferson/Barbra Streisand version because of Kristofferson. I thought of this when he died recently.

He was quite a man: served in the military, Golden Gloves boxer, and was brilliant enough to be a Rhodes Scholar so he read intricate poetry that turned him into one of the greatest songwriters in history. I firmly believe that to be a good writer, you have to be a dedicated reader. Kristofferson was both.

He deplored anyone who took license with his lyrics. To him, a finished song was a perfected song. For instance, in the classic “Me and Bobby McGee” (extremely clever because the name Bobby could be sung by a man or woman), he wrote the line “With those windshield wipers slapping time and Bobby clappin’ hands” only to have rocker Janis Joplin change the line slightly to “With the windshield wipers slapping time, I’s holding Bobby’s hand in mine.”

Though Joplin’s version went to number one shortly before she died, Kristofferson was never happy with the liberty she had taken.

“Why?” an interviewer asked him.

He grimaced then explained, “Because that’s not the way I wrote the song.  It made more sense that Bobby was clapping time to the rhythm of the windshield wipers than watching the wipers while holding hands.”

The songs he wrote are too many to name and most are poetry set to a melody. My favorite Kristofferson was, most likely, his simplest. So untypical of a Kristofferson song, that few realize he wrote it.

Waylon Jennings had a hit with “The Taker.”  It has a unique cadence to the rhyme and is one of the few he wrote in collaboration (with the incredible Shel Silverstein).

And, let’s admit it: Kris Kristofferson, name and all, was cool. His hair was cut in a messy shag while Conway and Porter wore pompadours. He sported faded jeans and tight tee shirts while Buck Owens wore $10,000 rhinestone-covered suits made by Nudie in California. And wherever Kris was, on tour, he ran a few miles daily and worked out. Always. Johnny Cash played an acoustic guitar placed in the center of his gut while Kristofferson was made even cooler with an electric guitar hung past his belt buckle.

“One day,” I had often thought, “I’m gonna meet him.” I was drawn by his uniqueness and creativity but I also wondered how a simple country girl could find the words to speak to a Rhodes Scholar. I certainly knew that I would mispronounce words as he properly knew them.

Several years ago, my friend, Stevie Waltrip, and I were on a Delta flight to Rome. Stevie had flown to Atlanta on their private jet, then Delta officials picked us up and took us straight to the wide-body jet, bypassing the usual check-in. Stevie’s husband, Darrell, had sweetly arranged it all. Not because he was worried about us but about his two young daughters.

We flew to Rome in first class, landing after hours of food and movies. Standing at our seats, waiting to deplane, I kept looking back to the first man in business class, with a small boy in front of him.

Stevie discretely glanced over from the corner of her eye. “What are you looking at?” she whispered.

“That guy back there looks like an old Kris Kristofferson.”

This time she didn’t look. “It is,” she replied.

My eyes widened. “How do you know that?”

“Our Delta escort said, ‘We have y’all and Kris Kristofferson on this plane.’”

I couldn’t believe it. “You mean to tell me that we’ve been on the same plane with him for 11 hours and you didn’t tell me?!?”

She smiled slightly. “I didn’t want you bothering him.”

And, just like that, there went my best chance to ever meet Kristofferson.

Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of the Stella Bankwell mystery series. Stella’s new adventure is called “Sapelo Island.”