Hemingway and Me

                 
      More Letters From Paradise
         Hemingway and Me

I baited my hook with the name "Hemingway," and you dear reader bit. It seems that almost everyone is interested in the life and writings of this author.

I confess that I never met the man, but I feel a special bond with him. Let me explain why.

First, the family of Dr. Hemingway, Ernest's father, was not unlike other wealthy Chicagoans, who fled  hot summers, to vacation in the coolness of Northern Michigan. My grandfather built a number of those cottages. My grandmother always referred to these visitors as "summer people."

One cottage being built by my grandfather came to an end with the crash of 1929. He was paid with stacks of china, silverware and furniture. These were kept stored in his apple storage house for years, and were reduced in size over the passing years.

The Hemingway cottage is on Waloon Lake, and  my grandparent's house was on Portage Point road. And, Hemingway lived for a time in Petosky, Michigan.

Readers will remember that Hemingway enjoyed  trout fishing in Northern Michigan. So did I.  But the fish that he and I caught were native trout, not those that were later introduced from fish hatcheries. The flesh of native trout is pink in color, not white as seen in planted varieties. Both Hemingway and I fished Lake Michigan long before the introduction of salmon.

Hemingway and I agree that the best way to cook a trout is to first, roll the cleaned fish in corn meal, and then fry it in a pan in which bacon has just been cooked.

Years ago when I was teaching an American literature class in Michigan,  I baited my hook with the fact that Hemingway's early stories were not about Italy or the Spanish Civil War, but about Michigan. I read them a small portion of "A Moveable Feast," which shows him writing about "Up in Michigan," and "The Big Two-Hearted River." Some of my students took the bait and became readers of his many books.

It's like I said, I feel that I have a kinship with Hemingway.

        Aloha
        Grant