Hemingway's guns

[Grantham Forester]

Originally Posted by Steve McCarty

Faulkner had a highly developed love/hate relationship with Southerners which is the thrust of his novels. I've read only one, but it has been fifty years and I can't recall which one I read. I recall it not being an easy read.

--IMO, both Faulkner and Hemingway were heavy drinkers, but between the two, Hemingway had a solid work ethic and did not drink while working. His usual working routine both at Key West and later in Cuba at the Finca was to awake at 6 AM, swim, have two glasses of grapefruit juice, maybe a poached egg and toast, and to be at work by 6:45, work solidly until 12:30, and if the work went well, lunch was a glass of red wine or a small scotch with lime juice on the rocks, and his favorite sandwich- toasted wheat bread spread with peanut butter and with a big slice of raw onion on top of the spread. Then-- fishing, shooting live pigeons, or drinking at Sloppy Joe's in Key West, or at the Floridita in Havana. The later spot is where the Margarita was rumored to have been first created, suggested to the barman by Hemingway, who was divorced from Pauline and with (but not yet married to) Martha Gellhorn.

[Stepmac]

Originally Posted by Grantham Forester

-- Then-- fishing, shooting live pigeons, or drinking at Sloppy Joe's in Key West, or at the Floridita in Havana.

In the summer of '71 I flew a TA4J Skyhawk on my last dual cross country before my wings and landed at NAS Key West. My instructor had been there many times and he ushered me to Sloppy Joe's which was still pretty sloppy and was just as Hem left it. Today it is not.

The bartender showed us Ernie's favorite bar stool, which was left of the pass through. He also described the Hemingway Daiquiri. It carried three double shots of Bacardi rum. Hem would show up around noon and stay until closing and drink over a dozen of them. At the time I was there the place had a green (or was it red?) lanoleum bar, rickety bar stools, concrete floors and floor to ceiling shutters usually left open to the elements, often wind driven rain.

I've never been back, but I understand the place has had a makeover. How sad, because when I was there it was a very pleasant place to get bombed.