The old man died
And it wasn’t for want of the price of tea and a slice…
Even though the story is from Monday, I just stumbled on it today. Gregorio Fuentes died at the age of 104. He was the inspiration for Ernest Hemingway’s novella The Old Man and the Sea.
The Old Man and the Sea was one of those books that my father made me read before he would talk to me. It was a weird game we played. “Hey, kid you don’t know shit until you’ve read . . .” It set me on a Hemingway binge, and I read a lot of his novels growing up. I just loved the writing style, terse and short. To the point.
It reminds me of a conversation I’ve been having a lot with other teachers. I don’t want to teach “fru-fru” writing. You can probably figure out that I have a severe allergy to flowery description, and inflated emotional rhetoric. There’s nothing wrong with emotions, it’s just that life isn’t a hallmark card. Cut to the chase, damn it. Like Hemingway.
