Champagne with Hemingway: My trip from Seattle to Havanna and back on my thumb to visit Ernest Hemingway (PB) (2019)

In the summer of 1950, I was in college and had to write a term paper about Ernest Hemingway. I went to my professor and told him that maybe I should go visit Ernest Hemingway and hear his side...

"Are you crazy? You'll never get within a mile of him. Why would he see you, a nobody?"

I was surprised. I thought they would really find it interesting.

In a nutshell, the next day, I was out on the highway, thumbing rides to New York. I stayed three days down at Key West, over to Havana for the visit, and back home.

Thank you, Mr. Hemingway, for the champagne, for all the grades, for a memory of a lifetime. I wanted to be a friend.

When you get a lemon, you gotta make lemonade.

William R. Demastus

1