Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire HEMINGWAY'S CODE

Hemingway caught Marlin on a boat he couldn't afford. And boxed (drunk) on a pier that he really had no business claiming as his own.

Hemingway did more with his life than most can dream. Ended it on his own terms too.

How many folks can say that when they see the pearly gates?

Haters gonna hate...


Travis

I've known some exceptional and interesting people in my life. It is extremely rare to come across someone that excells in any field and is at the same time well balanced and would make for a good parent, spouse or neighbor. There is generally a whole lot of selfishness involved in achieving excellence. Those that do so in artistic fields and in the public eye, very very rare.

Interesting people are generally intersting in small doses or at a distance. It helps to be able to appreciate them for who they are and realize to gain strength in one area they completely neglected another area of their life or social skills.

No disagreement here Jorge; the tone was not lost on me and I "know" you well enough not to assume otherwise even if reading on a tone deaf day .

You know, I'm glad to hear that. We have something in common; well, probably quite a bit more than "something".

That's right Christian of ya, Rick...

Hell, I've had boats--and RV's--I couldn't afford, and boxed drunks, too.

Does that give me a pass at the pearly gates?

Ne'mind. Rhetorical question. Gnight. Doc's out.

Wanna' watch a good movie?

Wrestling Ernest Hemingway!

Great flick with an even greater cast.

Umm, no. Not my list: hemingwaysfoyer.com

That said, I think that list was meant to make a statement, and not nesssarily as a factual list of Hemingway's pecadillos...

Mule Deer/Richard,

You guys are both right of course, we are generalising about a man's entire life.

But to be specific, he wrote to his father at one stage at the age of 24 or thereabouts (memory) saying that he had given up smoking cigarettes two years earlier. I don't believe he was considered a smoker by those around him for the rest of his life. This was unusual in those days qhwn nearly everybody smoked.
There are no photo's and even more telling I suppose, he doesnt mention smoking in his books about himself, Green Hill sof Africa, True at First Light.
Drinking, yes. Druggies can't help mentioning their vice I think, look at poor Alistair McLean, every single page of some of his books has someone either opening a bottle of spirits, or finishing one. Every single page.

I know about smoking and Hemingway because I deliberately had gone and found out about it because when I was quitting smoking myself, I held him up as a shining example, a non smoking role model. One could not smoke and still be a real man, type thing.
You can't do that with the drinking and the marriages obviously. But I rarely drink anyway and I have got used to the wife. I find myself suspiciously without vices nowadays. Hemingway would have disapproved.

Gents, I just spent the weekend in Miami picking my dad and brother in law's brain in Hemingway anectdotes. To be sure, and my dad knew him as a boy (he was born in 1921 but his older brothers did hang with Hemingway and as I've posted, he also visited my grandparents house frequently at Cojimar), they could not ascertain his smoking/non smoking habits.
Back then everybody smoked so they just assumed. Anyhow, my BIL goes every year to the run of the bulls in Pamplona, but this year he and a bunch of friends are going to do the full Hemingway circuit. First Madrid hitting all the bars there (like "El Chicote" for example which roughly translates to "stinky feet"), then onto Pamplona and to a series of small town in the north where he did a lot of trout fishing, then onto Paris, doing the bar scenes there and they have managed to hook up to go and fish some private preserves there where Hemingway fished as well. Lastly I'll leave you with this photgraph-for what it's worth- but my dad, who was (is) a writer by profession has this typewriter my grandmother told him it was given to him by Hemingway back in the 30s because my dad wanted to be a writer. He became one, but interestingly enough in a new medium; television. I don't know how I can substantiate this but keep in mind folks when we left Cuba in 1960 we left EVERYTHING including some things of considerable value, yet my dad figured he needed a typewriter and this came along. I can remember all through my life going to be with the sounds of THAT machine echoing through the house at all hours. About all I can say is that I remember it always at our house and it is period correct:

what brand is the typewriter? Looks very much like the old Remington I learned to type on.

Royal

The Black Forest?

Royal typewriter - a blast from the past! Mom had one from journalism school. Built like a tank and very precise. Obviously had major sentimental value to have made the journey.

Any Dezi Arnez stuff written on that?

No, no Desi stuff. My dad's friendship with Desi was a childhood one and when he left for he states the friendship waned. Still, his mother Amparo was my dad's Godmother. When we got here in 1960, Desi offered my dad job opportunities in California, but my MOTHER's family, with all the characteristics of the Corleone's, pressure him into staying in Miami. Can you imagine? I could have been a breast inspector for Desilu or something!

Quote of the day from Hemingway:

�The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.�

There is that. Anyway, I think ya got to move to Key West before doing anything rash. Maybe it works, maybe not, but it's not a bad place to work on perspective.

All that debate to the side, his "code" made me smile. I could have gotten along with him well, but never would have succeeded in out drinking him. His appetite for the sauce is legend.

If you guys go up a few posts and find Hatari's his perspective is spot on I think.

These two old Hemingway quotes come up out of my deep memory most often, most readily �

� "About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after."

� As a war correspondent during the Forties war, he referred to himself as "Ernie Hemorrhoid, the poor man's Pyle."

Every now 'n' then, something reminds me of one or the other.

I remember reading one of his short stories about about a day spent trout fishing... Short pithy sentence structure..... I bought a Kindle anthology of his short stories a few years ago. I still liked the trout fishing one.... When I tried to read the others..... I discovered they sucked.