Hemingway and me

When my sophomore English teacher, Ms. Messier, said I wrote with the narrative style of Ernest Hemingway as she was reviewing a piece I wrote that she was submitting to a literary magazine, I vowed never to read another Hemingway after Old Man and the Sea.

Tonight, I’m breaking my vow after that Michael Palin travelogue I just finished.

I don’t know why I was offended. Honestly, what 15 year old would really know the significance of being likened to the writing style of some prick from the Chicago burbs, who didn’t follow standard English grammatical rules, who survived a bunch of mishaps and battles and angry women—and a toilet falling on his head—only to get doffed with a W. and C. Scott pigeon gun at his own hands in the middle of podunk, Idaho?

So here I go.

I’ll start with one of Palin’s favorites.