LIVING LIFE AT FULL THROTTLE

Mae Marsh, Hemingway's Crush in K.C. 1918

Ernest, you are in the thick of it!

You wrote to your family, in your November 19th, 1917 letter, "This last week I have been handling a murder story, a lot of Police dope and the Y.W.C.A. fund stuff a couple of times so am mixint em up." You also wrote about riding in the Ambulance several times and that there is an epidemic of small pox. I get a kick out of the way you write about your fellow workers at the Star, "There are a bunch of dandy fellows down here at the Star and we have all kinds of fun in the office."

When you write the family in general, or your parents in particular you are much more reserved in what you share and how you share it. It's your letters to your sister Marcelline that are much more revealing. Those letters bespeak a sibling relationship that is much more connected an honest. What you share with Marcelline is much more open than what you share in letters to your parents or the family in general.

In your January 1918 letter to Marcelline you tease her about possible beaus that she might have and you share that you are about to pull the trigger of joining the war effort, "It may be the Navy blue, or the snappy O. D. and officers belt of an American ambulance man in the Italian service which it may." After sharing such a life changing possibility you immediately lapse into discourse on the Cub Reporter's life you're leading, "I scooped the world on a big, roarer of a story and nearly got bumped off doing it." You go on to instruct your sister not to share the dangerous details but you're OK with her sharing the news paper clipping of the event.

You speak to the fact that, "The old Carl and I are living in our dump and having the jazzy time," and that you're living a speedy existence - throttle full out. You share how much you love the gang your with in your letter to Marcelline, dated 30 January, 1918, "Most of them call me The Great Hemingstien of Hospital Hill. That being one of my hang outs. There are a swell bunch of buds here Ivory. Almost as good as the old gang. They are a bit to the wild but a peach of a gang."

If your passion for and immersion in your life and job isn't enough, You share with Marcelline that you are head-over-heals in love with a Mae Marsh - an actress that you met at the Muehlebach hotel - site of your news paper satellite office. Again, you caution your sister not to tell the family anything about it, and you close your letter with, "I don't see what anybody can see in the brutal Steinway but I hope she keeps on seeing it." 

To be so young, so passionate, so immersed and involved, and to have so much going on in the world - it's a powder keg and once it's lit there's no turning back.

Hugs to you and the gang - when next I lift a pint I'll be sure and toast you and the richness of your life that you embrace so wholeheartedly. Bravo Hemingstien!

ERNEST HEMINGWAY, CUB REPORTER

Ernest Hemingway, cub reporter

Ernest, I am thrilled, as the copy of Ernest Hemingway, Cub Reporter arrived in the mail just yesterday! 

As I'm reading the first bits of the book I feel that I need to dialogue with you about the preface that you wrote in 1931 to A Bibliography of the Works of Ernest Hemingway (and which is quoted in this small volume), where you shared: 

" It is the height of silliness to go into newspaper stuff I have written, which has nothing to do with the other writing which is entirely apart and starts with the first In our Times. Have written thousands of columns in newspapers. Also sent much in condensed cable-ese to be rewritten in U.S. and Canada. This has nothing to do with signed and published writing in books or magazines and it is a hell of a trick on a man to dig it up and confuse the matter of judging the work he has published. If anyone wants to do that after a man is dead, he can't defend himself, but while he is alive, he can, at least, take no part in it and oppose it as far as possible. The first right that a man writing has is the choice of what he will publish. If you have made your living as a newspaperman, learning your trade, writing against deadlines, writing to make stuff timely rather than permanent, no one has the right to dig this stuff up and use it against the stuff you have written to write the best you can." Ernest Hemingway to Louis Henry Cohn

Of course, Ernest, I agree. However, I am not interested in your works as literary objects, although you have garnered a flood of recognition and acceptance in that world. In truth, who am I to comment on that? No, I would NEVER venture to be so presumptive as to step into that arena. It would be like a child stepping into the ring with one of your favorite fighters like Jack Dempsey - no that would certainly result in carnage. 

Our time together this summer is about you, and your life - your humanity. That's what I want to explore. Putting the writing aside, it's the stuff of your life as it played out in the world at large. As Shakespeare so aptly put it:

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts..."

It is the parts that you played and how they shaped who you were and what you became that I am interested in. 

"Damned invasive?"

Yes, I agree. When you have worked as hard as you have to create a series of vignettes around your life that build an image that is "bigger than life", I can understand that looking at the threads woven through that same life that may reveal the soft underbelly of humanity that we all posses can leave you feeling naked and exposed - vulnerable. 

I'm going to be honest with you Hem (if I may call you that?), I'm taking this journey with you because it allows me to explore that level of vulnerability in myself vicariously. If I were to write this of my own life - well, I couldn't write it. Like you, there are private, wounded, and scarred parts of my psyche that I just can't face head-on, so yeah, in shadowing you I have the opportunity to work through some of the things maybe you didn't. 

Hem, it's never to late to help yourself or help others, at least that's the way I see it. So I'm hoping you'll bear with me as we walk awhile together this summer, and allow me to befriend you for at least this brief period of time. There is so much of your story that resonates with me.

I love what you said of your time at the Star, "On the Star you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. That's useful to anyone." 

Yes, it is. So, it's time to explore your time at the Star and take a look at what you were focused on and what was going on in the world. It's fascinating to think that this single twelve month time period in your life was so densely packed with experiences and change. 

'Till next time!