THE WEEKENDER :) HANGIN' OUT WITH PAPA

THE CUBA FILE
THE AUTHOR'S PAD

     Finca Vigia, Ernest Hemingway's home in Cuba.  Our latest
post in the Cuba File series takes us inside what few have seen.

        The author lived here with his third wife Martha Gellhorn.
He left here to cover WWII and returned to live and write until he left in 1960 after the Cuban Revolution.
     The previous posts in The Cuba File are linked here:
     A visit with Hemingway's boat Captain and the Pilar
         Cuban Street Scenes
          The healing shrine of St. Lazaro

     Inside tours of the home are rarely permitted.  Most often tourists and groups are kept outside the home.  Below is
a collection of Hemingway artifacts on one of his desks.

    Hemingway often wrote standing up, because of a back injury sustained in an African plane crash.  He wrote in both longhand and on this Royal typewriter.

     I was told he often stood at this book shelf to create his
prized literature.  

     His bedroom was a light and airy place.

PROBABLY HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE

This is a weigh in log he kept on his bathroom wall.  

     The scale, bidet and partial log of Hemingway.  

This blogger's self portrait in Hemingway's mirror.

   One of the beautiful views near San Francisco De Paula,
the small village near his home.

     One of my concerns, and that of other Hemingway fans and
the serious scholars is the condition of his own book collection.  Many of the bound volumes are beginning to 
deteriorate. 

     Hemingway's private china and silver.

      One of his famous trophies. 

   Photographer and friend Jon Christopher Hughes, on the left, was my ticket for the exclusive look inside.  Jon is an 
old Cuba hand.  He's been shooting there since the '70s.
He presides over the journalism school at the University of Cincinnati and remains one of the most talented active 
photographers in the US.

MORE HEMINGWAY FUN AND LINKS
RARE FILM OF HEMINGWAY

A SHORT SPANISH LANGUAGE CLIP WITH GOOD IMAGES

HEMINGWAY AND OTHER CORRESPONDENTS,
INCLUDING EDWARD G. ROBINSON AT
MT. SAINT MICHEL

By the way-this location figures
prominently in my first novel
THE SANIBEL ARCANUM.

A HEMINGWAY SPOOF, FROM MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

MY OWN HEMINGWAY COLLECTION

The first photograph is by Jon of Gregirio Fuentes
the captain of Hemingway's Pilar.  He was 101 the
day Jon and I visited with him.  The second
photo, intentionally over exposed in this clip,
is of Hemingway and Fidel Castro, the day Hemingway left
the island.  The signed and numbered copy was 
taken by the late Oswaldo Salas. Salas was a
remarkable photographer and the father of one of the famous Roberto Salas.
Someday I'll post about how we got the 
picture out of Cuba.




HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND. MAYBE READ A LITTLE
HEMINGWAY.
See you down the trail.

CUBA FILE-ST. LAZARO

 A PLACE OF FAITH-

A UNIQUE MIX

       (Rincon Cuba) Twenty miles from Havana, cultures cross
in a unique Cuban practice of faith and healing.

      Tens of thousands of Cubans make pilgrimages to St. 

 Lazarus for healing and acts of devotion.  The church is 

 named for Saint Lazarus (Lazaro in Spanish), a Catholic Bishop.

      The ill, lame and blind, walk, crawl, come by car or buggy.

       Here at Rincon, Cuban folklore has morphed the traditional St. Lazaro.  Babalu Aye, an Afro-Cuban deity in Santeria and St. Lazaro have been blended.  According to Santeria Babalu assumes all the sickness of his people, thus the crutches of the blended St. Lazo/Babalu Aye. 

      Icons of other Santeria and blended Catholic-Santeria saints  are sold in the plaza.  Pilgrims bring them gifts including cigars.  Several of the icons are depitcted with cigars.

     The poor, some of whom have sacrificed to make the pilgrimage beg so they may buy flowers or other gifts to leave for Babalu Aye/St. Lazaro. Others seek healing in a
grotto called the Living Waters.

      Many accounts abound of miraculous healings provided by the water.  Some of the pilgrims bring empty bottles and casks.  Others pray and then anoint or drink.

      The church conducts normal Roman Catholic masses and services.  The Cuban government has never banned the services nor the pilgrimages to St. Lazaro.

      See you down the trail.

THE CUBA FILE-- THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

HEMINGWAY'S FIRST MATE

        The young man is the old man.  He is Gregorio Fuentes, Ernest Hemingway's first mate, bar tender, confidant and life long friend. Some think he was the model for the old man in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.

       "The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the

back of his neck," 

Hemingway described his central figure.

"The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had 

the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none 

of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless 

desert.

``Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same 

color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated."

Gregorio was 101 when we met.  It was 3 years before he died in his home in Cojimar, a fishing village east of Havana.

     He lived modestly, but comfortably.  He was hailed as a man who had mastered the sea and who "was a symbol of Cuban fishing and of human brotherhood, thanks to all of his 
years of friendship with Hemingway,'' Reuters quoted Jose Miguel Diaz Escrich, who runs 
Havana's Hemingway International Nautical Club. 

     A school of Hemingway scholars discount the idea that Fuentes was the model for the 

old fisherman in the 1952 Nobel Prize winning novel. He was only 55 the year the book was published. There are those who say, however, that Hemingway used Fuentes' hands as the inspiration for his character.

      Fuentes became Captain of the Pilar, in 1939 when Hemingway began his life in Cuba living in the Hotel Ambos Mundos. They fished the Gulf Stream together.  During World War II Hemingway outfitted the Pilar with special gear so he and Fuentes could hunt German U-boats in the Caribbean.

When not patrolling the Caribbean, Hemingway covered the war. He accompanied Martha Gellhorn, a photo journalist and his love at the time, to China.  He returned to the Pilar and Cuba but later went to Europe to work as a war correspondent.  

After the war the writer and his captain spent extensive time in the Caribbean waters where Hemingway was said to have a special sense or enhanced vision that enabled him to spot deep Marlin which he battled from this chair.

The pier in Cojimar where the Pilar was docked was all but abandoned. 

The La Terazza was a favorite Hemingway hang out.  It was still a vibrant tavern and favorite of the locals. Many of them had Hemingway stories.

Cojimar has memorialized the famous American, not far from where he and the Captain launched their many adventures.

Gregorio Fuentes had a unique knowledge and relationship with one of the 20th Century's most influential writers.  He outlived his old friend and fishing mate by many decades.
He was there, in the moments, when Ernest Hemingway drew from life, from practical experiences to create literary images that live on, as Gregorio did for 104 years.
An old man of the sea.
See you down the trail. 

GRASSES-ON THE COAST AND IN CUBA

WAVES OF A RATTLING SEA

       Locals call it "rattle grass."  It is true to its name in sight and sound.

       It is the time of season when the "rattlers" mature, catch the breeze coming off the coast and create a symphony.

        The rattles are vaguely reminiscent of a rattle snakes rattle.  Those other rattlers are not uncommon in this area.

        It will grow to chest height.  The sound it makes is a crisp rattle click.

        The Chumash Tribe that inhabited this area milled the seeds of grasses into a food.

        You will also spot other vegetation cohabiting with the grasses that seem to rule the upper bluffs.

       Other variety of grass also flourish and provide their brand of beauty.

        The stubborn thistle provides a bright spot in the golden brown.

       The grasses posses an elegance.

     GRASS COMING TO CUBA

       I read with amusement the Cuban government has given preliminary approval to foreign developers to construct golf courses.  50 years ago, when Fidel Castro took power he got rid of golf courses, calling them the epitome of bourgeois excess. 

       When I was in Cuba, noticing the European tourists, I wondered if the government would ever come around and bring courses back.  Looks like they are on the path.

      In the weeks ahead I'll provide glimpses of Cuba.  It is an exotic venue.

      See you down the trail.