Ernest Hemingway

July 21, 1899 –
Ernest Hemingway was born on this date. He was young at the time of his birth. It was fine to be young.

He drove an ambulance in World War I. It wasn’t called World War I then. It was just called the war. It was one of those times when people shot at each other. When people were shooting at each other, they didn’t have time to worry about what to call it. It was only afterward that they needed to call it something.

“What should we call that time when we were shooting at each other?“

“Let’s call it the Great War.”

“Good.”

It was a good ambulance. It was long with a red and white sign. It had flashing lights and a siren that went “wee-ooo, wee-ooo.” He liked that.

After the war he lived in Paris. A lot of Americans lived in Paris after the war, but only a few of them had ever driven an ambulance. In the 30s he went to Spain. He was a journalist. They were having a war.

They called it the Spanish Civil War. It was started by an Evil Stooge named General Franco on July 18, 1936. It was a test drive to see whether or not they should have World War II. They had fascists and socialists and anarchists. They even drank sangria. People shot at each other.

(General Franco finally gave up power on July 19, 1974, because he was sick. Maybe he had always been sick. It’s sometimes hard to understand sickness. Maybe we’re not meant to understand it.)

Later Hemingway lived in Cuba. He liked to fish. He liked to drink. He thought all men should fish. He wrote stories about fishing. Finally he blew his brains out at his home in Idaho. It was July 2, 1961.

He had written a lot of books, but now he was dead.

And so it goes