They were literally everywhere.  Tall Hemingways and short Hemingways, thin Hemingways and heavy Hemingways.  Hemingways in Khaki and white and one in a heavy cable knit sweater.  This guy should have gotten a prize just for wearing it in this heat! Most of them seemed to be older Hemingways – not sure I saw any younger Hemingways.  All of this to celebrate the 120th birthday of our boy Ernest.

Sloppy Joe’s Bar, a favorite haunt of this famous writer, was packed when we entered – not as packed as it is at night and not as scary.  There have been at least two bouncers there each night we’ve walked by and boy does that place come alive with music and laughter.  Doug especially wanted to go, I think because he kind of looks like the old boy himself, to sit and have some Pilar Dark Rum to honor this writer – and just say he had a glass of rum at Sloppy Joes.  I on the other hand decided upon a Daiquiri, mainly because it was fruity and frozen and it was National Daiquiri Day today.  I had no choice.

The yearly contest to choose the new “Papa” was set to get underway @5:00 p.m. so we were pushing it a little to get our drinks and get out of the way of all of the men there to compete.  Friends and family had signs and t-shirts, hoping to sway the judges I suppose, and everywhere you looked was a slightly different version of Hemingway.  The bar itself is an homage to him, giant sailfish on the wall and pictures of every size and shape depicting Ernest at different stages in his life.  It was big and open to the tropical breezes, raucous and tacky and everyone was loving it.  We watched a young man singing on stage right before the contest and this other young man in the audience began singing every word with him, gesticulating to express each word of the song as though he was having a conversation with the singer.  Hysterical.

The craziest thing about our time at Sloppy Joes was that we ran into two people we know from different parts of the country.  The first was a former band director from Nebraska who was sitting at the bar having a drink and listening to the music.  As we were walking down the sidewalk past the bar after our cruise last night, I looked into the bar and took a double take.  I looked at Doug and he asked, did you see him, and we backpedaled to the window.  Sure enough, there he was, with the same wide-eyed disbelief on his face, all of us laughing and sharing how we got there.  Then today after we got our drinks and were walking to the front door, I noticed that I had lost Doug somewhere along the way.  I go back to see him talking with someone and find out it’s a former student from Loveland High School where he taught 20+ years ago.  She dated and married one of his band kids.  What a crazy small world!  All of us meeting on a tiny tropical island, to go the the place Ernest Hemingway made famous.

So after purchasing a t-shirt and shot glass from this crazy place, we headed back to our home away from home the back way to avoid the Hemingway celebration that had closed the main street of Duval.  Back with my own personal version of Hemingway to share dinner on our last evening on magical Key West.