Hemingway's guns

[Steve McCarty]

I am on a quest to own guns like those that Ernest Hemingway owned. I bought the new book about the old boy and his guns and it started me off. It was relatively easy to pick up a old, well worn, Model 12 and the Model 62 Winchester .22. I've got a Superposed like his. The Griffin and Howe 03 Springfield is going to be spendy (as we say in Oregon), but they are available. I've got a Mannlicher Schoenaur (sp?) carbine. The Colt Woodsman will be easy.

I cannot find any data that reports that Hem owned a Parker. Anybody out there know if he did?

I am going to make an exception with the Model 21. For the money I just don't like them, and anyway Hem gave those to his wives.

Not sure what I'm going to do about the 577 double rifle. I've always wanted to own one of those boomers, but I think, if I can find the scratch, I'll buy any double rifle in some kind of caliber that I can shoot comfortably, like a .303 and call it good.

BTW: I am already well over Papa's age when he blew his brains out, so I doubt I'll complete my task, but any reason to buy another gun is worth the effort. He killed himself with a W.C. Scott 12 gauge. I see those from time to time.

Please don't PM me with guns that you have for sale. I'm ammo minus in the $ dept today. I'm saving up.

[Drew Hause]

No record of a Parker
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/20113472

"When you have loved three things all your life, from the earliest you can remember, to fish, to shoot and, later, to read; and when, all your life the necessity to write has been your master, YOU LEARN TO REMEMBER and, when you think back you remember more fishing and shooting and reading than anything else and that is a pleasure."

Sad and prescient words.
Hemingway likely had bipolar disorder, and his father and two siblings committed suicide. In the fall of 1960 he was being treated for alcoholic liver disease and hypertension (some antihypertensives can cause depression) and had his first round of Electroconvulsive Therapy at the Mayo Clinic. Following a suicide attempt in the spring of 1961, he had more treatments at the Menninger Clinic.
With his body destroyed by alcohol, and his memories erased by the ECT, he committed suicide July 2, 1961.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it."

[Steve McCarty]

Slightly off kilter geniuses interest me. (Are they all?) W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, Dorothy Parker, Twain, T.R. and of course Hemingway. I ponder, that if we had met, if I would have liked the guy. Not sure; don't think so. Bob Ruark wrote that he ran into Hem in one of his favorite watering holes in Cuba. Papa was in a secluded rear table, behind some potten plants, working on editing. Ruark said he appeared to be deep in thought and he as so intimidated by the man's presence that he feared to go back and say hello.

Some wag wrote that all real men either want to be like Hemingway, or to be liked by him. He had demons...including demon rum which he imbibed copious like. Biographies of the man are compelling. It would have been exciting to attend a bull fight with him. He considered himself expert on such matters. Today we'd probably fix him up and he would have lived another decade or so.

[Steve McCarty]

Thanks, Drew, for the Hem attachment. During the past year several interesting books have been published about Hemingway: One is a redo of A Moveable Feast, much different from the one edited by Mary Hem after the man's death. Paris Wife a novel based upon Hadley, his first, and as he later said, best wife. There is also a bio of Valeria Hemingway who was Hem's secretary at the end of his life and who eventually married Gregory (Gigi) Hemingway. They met at Ernest's funeral.

Ernest's quixotic personality was inherited by Gigi. He became a relatively successful MD. He was a cross dressor and suffered from that ailment from his earliest days and it got worse. Hem disowned him. He married Valerie, Hem's loyal secretary. They had several children. Then Gigi had a sex changer operation and they divorced. Gigi died in a women's prison and sad, confused and broken man...er women. She went by Gloria. Of course Ernest's beautiful and talented granddaugher was bipolar and she too committed suicide. Many within the Hemingway family, both before Hem and after, have suffered from mental maladies.

I find the man fascinating. It would have been fun searching for errant U-boats with the guy in the Carrib. Might get in some fishing too.

[ed good]

anybody see the recent woody allen flick "midnight in paris"? hemingway and some of his contemporaries are in it...delightful little movie to watch with a lady friend.

[Bill Murphy]

Boss.

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by ed good

anybody see the recent woody allen flick "midnight in paris"? hemingway and some of his contemporaries are in it...delightful little movie to watch with a lady friend.

I watched Midnight in Paris twice. I'm sure that Woody Allen wrote the lines for the HEM character. I wonder what Hem would have thought about how he was portrayed.

A few things however. Gertrude Stein, and Alice B. Toklas lived in a studio apartment. In the movie it looks like a penthouse. I would have liked to hear more dialogue from her about writing other than, "Keep at it", or some such drivel.

Hem and Stein liked eachother for a while and he loved going over to her place. Some interesting people dropped by. Fitzgerald and Zelda, John Dospasos (sp?), Joyce, Picasso, Pissario (?) [sure wish I could spell], several artists of renoun. Even Calder I think. Papa bought one of his paintings and kept it for the rest of his life. Hem considered himself a great art critic. Don't know if he actually was however.

Hem dropped by Stein's apartment and over heard she and Alice doing what comes unnaturally; and they knew and he knew and both were so embarrassed that Hem and Stein never did get along after that.

Stein was a fan of the laconic, and she must have influenced HEM's writing style. I think Stein is/was over rated. Apparently Alice was the more interesting of the two.

[Dean Romig]

Didn't Alice B. Toklas make cookies or somethin'?

[OH Osthaus]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

Didn't Alice B. Toklas make cookies or somethin'?

yeah or sumpthun

[Don Kaas]

Read Paul Hendrickson's "Hemingway's Boat" and Christopher Ondjaate's "Hemingway in Africa-the last safari". EH was a member of my gun club. Some of the older members knew him in the 50's. (He first visited with 3rd wife, Martha G. and son Patrick in 1944 as a guest of his society friend, Winston Guest and became a member in the late 40's. Guest, quite the playboy and "sport", himself also brought the then broke baron, Bror Blixen to the Club) Unfortunately, none of the folks who knew him as young men have much nice to say about our only Nobel winning member. By the time, he reached his mid 50s EH was a very troubled fellow. Even Hotchner's somewhat hagiographic "Papa" show hints of that. I put up a plaque in the entrance hall a few years ago on the 50th Anniverary of "the Fight in the Foyer" when EH fought another member Ed Taws (CEO of Burlington Mills) to a draw one boozy morning after a night of hard drinking. Fame and reputation have their price and EH paid his bill in full.