The Keys are Calling

I’ve always enjoyed reading books and short stories by Ernest Hemingway. He wrote of far away places, of Paris and Spain after World War I, hunting in Africa, short stories of time spent in my own state of Michigan.

Besides traveling around Michigan I’ve yet to travel to any of those exotic places described by Hemingway. In my younger days I wanted to travel to Spain and enjoy the festival he describes in the book The Sun Also Rises. I have no interest in attending a bull fight but I always thought it would be cool to run with the bulls through the streets trying to stay upright while avoiding the horns of a massive angry bull in some kind of wild delusional test of courage.

Now my 60 year old self is less enthused about the idea of running with out of control animals but that’s probably due to my creaky knees and the fact that I would need at least 20 minutes to warm-up to get my body ready to propel myself forward in anything more than a brisk walk.

I recently fell into a YouTube rabbit hole of watching videos of people exploring places in Paris where Hemingway ate and drank. In fact there’s an entire tour that can take Hemingway enthusiast to his favorite watering holes. The idea of wandering around Paris getting a drink at each little cafe or bar would be a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. Sure the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre are must see attractions but close behind for me at least would be a cafe where Hemingway sat and wrote.

I recently discovered that Hemingway’s house in Cuba has been perfectly preserved and is open to tour. He lived there with his third and fourth wives for many years (he had as many houses as wives). He left suddenly after the revolution that led to Castro’s rise to power. When he left he assumed he would be back someday so he left all his personal affects as if leaving for a vacation. His clothes still hang in the closet, his eyeglasses on the nightstand, his toothbrush in the bathroom. A moment in time perfectly preserved.

As it seems highly unlikely I’ll be jetting off to Europe or visiting Cuba anytime soon, I’ve focused my attention on the place Hemingway lived and wrote for many years….Key West. That tropical set of islands at the southern most tip of the country was barely a tourist destination when Hemingway and his second wife settled there. He wrote in the warm mornings, fished in the afternoons and drank in the evenings. His carefully curated image of himself as the best fisherman, best fighter, best drinker and writer was largely forged during this time in Key West.

I remember being quite small perhaps 8 years old when we went on a family vacation to Florida to visit my uncle. I vaguely remember we took a drive to Key West and stayed for a few days. I don’t have many memories of that entire vacation, in fact it was so long ago I think the only evidence of it is some slides my Mom kept for many years. Once a year we would get out the slide projector and have a family night of looking at old vacation slides. Don Draper was right about the slide projector (if your not sure of that reference go to YouTube).

What I do remember is my Dad wanted to go to the bar where Hemingway hung out, I believe it’s called Sloppy Joe’s. Being quite small and not having read any Hemingway I was more curious about all the chickens that ran free throughout the city. Key West might have been at the forefront of the whole cage free, free range chicken craze and that was back in the 70’s.

Key West has become almost a bucket list place for people to visit, a destination all unto itself for the Instagram generation to snap pictures of sunsets and markers that proclaim your as far south as you can be in the country. I dare say most people who visit aren’t likely to care much about an old writer who drank too much, cheated on all his wives and wrote of long ago time and places, but when I visit I’ll seek out his old haunts as my father did and try to avoid the chickens.

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Peace and Love,

John

Fern

If there was ever the perfect time to do the “Netflix & Chill” thing it would be this weekend. A massive storm barreling its way from Texas to New England is paralyzing the country and consuming large portions of the news. The coverage is so thorough that the storm has already been named, Fern ( which actually sounds like your mother’s kindly slightly confused cousin who they just put into a senior center….Aunt Fern ) and the TV screen has the constant crawl at the bottom with warnings and alerts and possible snowfall amounts.

As a mid-westerner, I’m kinda used to winter storms, it is after all January. And so I’m always a little surprised by the massive amount of oxygen that a winter storm provides the news. Our local news leads with the storm, breathlessly warning of slick roads and dangerous cold, all of which are true and need to be monitored.

The Weather Channel is in full code red, defcon 5 mode. Only a massive hurricane gets more thorough coverage than a winter storm as their army of meteorologists fan out across the country and report on conditions all while wearing enough winter gear to make an Eskimo jealous. It’s always interesting to see how other areas of the country react to weather they don’t normally get. An inch or two of snow in the south will keep tow trucks busy for days meanwhile a foot of snow in New York or New England is greeted with a shrug. Snowblowers and shovels are always at the ready and even if they’re granted a snow day they know they’ll soon be trudging to work and the snow isn’t going anywhere for a long while.

The weekend storms are probably the best. People can stay home, watch The Weather Channel and binge watch a new series as they contemplate their yearly idea of relocating to the Caribbean. Of course then they might have to deal with hurricanes…..but at least they would know The Weather Channel would be all over it….hunker down and be safe

Peace and Love,

John

The Places You Will Go

Daily writing prompt

Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

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At first when I saw this topic I dismissed it thinking there was no possible way I could write anything worthwhile about a pair of shoes. Perhaps it’s just my male DNA but I’ve never understood the obsession and amount of shoes some people have. Generally I think it’s a gender thing but not always as I know of many male acquaintances who have a closet full of shoes seemingly one for each outfit they wear and I know of many male sneaker-heads who collect the latest basketball shoe usually endorsed and worn by a popular player.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that a good looking pair of shoes completes an outfit and a well fitting pair of shoes is invaluable…..if your feet are bothering you no matter how good the rest of your outfit is it doesn’t matter cuz your miserable. I know this because I work on my feet most of the day in all types of weather conditions and my work boots are the most important and valuable piece of apparel I wear each day….but I don’t want to write about work boots…..egads, there’s no romanticizing about work boots and the place they take me to is work and who really wants to be reminded of work. I rarely wear my work boots anywhere else and they get kicked off at the end of the day in the garage and forgotten about until the next workday……invaluable yes, loved, also yes for their durability and comfort, worthy of being written about…..gosh no.

It’s funny the amount of shoes I actually own is I think surprisingly low. A couple of pair of dress shoes, one pair black another brown, for the rare occasions I do dress up and then I have 3 pair of sneakers, each with a distinctive function. My workout shoes are for working out and are rarely used for anything else, my old workout shoes are now my yard shoes and since they have just about used up their usefulness even as yard shoes, they will soon be tossed out or perhaps donated to be recycled and soon my current workout shoes will become my yard shoes this summer and I’ll get a new pair of workout shoes….the circle of life, sneaker style.

The pair of shoes I think about most fondly is a pair I don’t even wear on a weekly basis. They too have a specific function and it’s because of this that they are my most favorite. In the shoe rack in the garage sits a pair of hiking boots and each time I glance at them I’m reminded of the places they have taken me and the people I have journeyed with.

I purchased them before our spring break family vacation a few years ago. Since my son was a high school senior we let him pick out a destination for his senior trip. Not being one of those kids that wanted to go on the official school trip to some exotic beach locale, and to be truthful we were perfectly happy about that, he desired an adventure, an out west hiking trip and so it was decided we should travel to perhaps one of the most stunning natural wonders imaginable….the Grand Canyon.

It was a wonderful experience…..mere words cannot describe the visual beauty, awe and wonder that the Grand Canyon provides and I as a mere blogger can’t properly do it justice. We hired a guide and hiked down into the canyon. I began to realize the further we went the more difficult and arduous the hike out would be but we all wanted to go farther, as far as our guide could take us and still get back before sundown. The farther you go into the canyon the less people there are. The first hour is crowded with family’s…..a single file line fills the trail but you quickly notice that most people are wearing sneakers or some other type of flimsy shoe and most don’t have backpacks with food or water. They don’t last very long before they turn back and begin their hike out ill prepared for the terrain.

We stopped and ate lunch on a ledge, our feet dangling over the edge, the solitude and sheer vastness breathtaking. In the distance we could barely make out the river and we caught a glimpse of a couple of commercial rafts filled with people rafting down the river. Our guide spoke romantically of his hope of one day being a river guide shooting the rapids in an adrenaline fueled experience truly living life on the edge.

The hike back to the top was long, picture yourself slowly climbing stairs for hours and hours. We stopped for breaks many times and our water ran low and when we reached the rim we were exhausted, hungry but exhilarated for what we had accomplished, and although our hiking boots had performed admirably we couldn’t wait to be out of them. Later at dinner we scarfed tacos and burritos, exchanged pictures and relived the high points and low points of the day.

I occasionally put my hiking boots on and hike on some local trails but hiking in Michigan is not the same as the Grand Canyon. Each time I put them on I’m reminded of our family vacation, the adventure, the difficulty and exhilaration of a day spent in the Grand Canyon, a grand experience made better by being properly prepared right down to our hiking boots and although hiking boots may not be visually pleasing and perhaps they don’t complete an outfit they make up for it in the places they will take you.

Peace and Love….

John