Te following columns are archived from "Coffey Grounds" columns by Ron Coffey that appeared in the Highland County Press/Sun newspapers from approximately 2000 to 2005. More recent contributions have simply been posted here by Ron for your reading enjoyment.

Papa Hemingway, Hotch, Chillicothe Chuck and Newman’s Own

I finished reading an interesting book recently about Ernest Hemingway. It’s called “Papa Hemingway” and I acquired it at the GAMC Rummage Sale for a quarter. Many high-falutin’ academic studies have been done of the famed author’s life, and years ago I enjoyed reading the well-researched biography by Carlos Baker. However, “Papa Hemingway” is a memoir by one of his pals, A.E. Hotchner, a younger writer that Hemingway took under his wing in 1948 after the two hit it off well during Hotchner’s visit to Papa’s place in Cuba. Over the next 14 years to two men became fast friends, business associates and frequently traveled together to the exotic places that Hemingway loved and often wrote about. A lot of that joy comes through in Hotchner’s writing.

The book came out in 1966, five years after Hemingway’s death. It was controversial because it deals in detail with Hemingway’s mental illness in his last year or so, but rendered with love and the belief he shared with Hemingway that writing should be true, and “with any luck the reader will find his way to the heart of the thing itself.”

Hemingway lived a fantastic life full of travel, hunting, fishing, war, and a lust for good food, drink, women and storytelling. Hotchner also reveals a softer side of Hemingway, who loved and seemingly could communicate with animals, who was loyal to his friends and quietly supported many of them in various ways.

One of the more humorous parts of the book involves a plot by one of Hemingway’s bullfighter friends in Spain to pass off Hotchner as a matador. Although he could have been arrested for the impersonation, Hotchner allowed the bullfighter Antonio to dress him in the appropriate costume and bill him as “El Pecas” (The Freckled One). The fraud went undiscovered as Hotchner had only to parade around the bull ring, but it’s well told and one of many humorous anecdotes involving Hemingway and his pals.

Of particular interest to me was an unexpected mention of a fellow from Chillicothe who was traveling around Europe and happened to run into Hemingway and his companions in northern Spain. Here are a few excerpts:

In a bar, a girl correctly identified Ernest Hemingway and informed her companion.

A tall, bony young man who had been hunched over the bar, drinking rum on ice and string at himself in the mirror, cocked his head at us. “That Hemingway? Where?” He had a twang straight out of the Corn Belt. The girl quietly disappeared as the young man introduced himself: said his name was Chuck and explained that he was bumming his way around the world to get atmosphere.

“Atmosphere for what?”

“To write.”

“What have you written?”

“Nothing. How could I till I get the atmosphere?”

“How long you been in orbit?”

“Three years.”

“You must have seen just about everything.”

‘”Nope. Just Europe.”

“Russia and Poland?”

“No. That’s Iron Country. I just seen Europe; now I’m headed Far East.”

(Hotchner continues after introducing Chuck to Hemingway):

I introduced him and explained his mission. “Made up my mind back in Chillicothe I was gonna write like you,” Chuck said, unselfconsciously, “so I figgered I better go take a squint at the places you been writin’ about.”

“Good reasoning,” Ernest said.

“Could I see you later on to discuss it?” Chuck asked.

“Well, have some people lined up, but why don’t you show up for dinner?”

“Gee, really? You mean it? I mean, I didn’t seriously think…gosh, I gotta run out and buy a shirt. I had this one on since Antwerp.” He left hurriedly.

“Probably hasn’t eaten solid since Antwerp either,” Ernest said. No matter how they shaped up, Ernest always offered hospitality and encouragement to any young person who was a self-avowed writer. Chuck was a monument to this catholicism.

Later Hotchner continues his account as follows:

At dinner that evening I was seated within earshot of clean-shirted Chuck, who proved conclusively that not one day of his three-year semi-worldwide investment had paid off. When he discovered that the handsome, dark-visaged gentleman to my left was a maharajah, he called over in nice clear Chillicothese, “Say, Maharajah. I’m headin’ Far East. You know any one I can look up in India?”

The maharajah, an Harrovian, did not flicker an eyelid but said that he did and that he would give Chuck a letter to the head of the Indian Deparatment of State. Chuck was delighted. “Gee Maharajah,” he exclaimed, “that’s awfully white of you!”

Mary (Hemingway) immediately announced that coffee and cognac would be served in the bar.

The above has little to do with the life and times of Ernest Hemingway, but I’m a sucker for a local angle. I don’t know if Chuck from Chillicothe ever made his mark on the world of writing, but he certainly left an indelible impression on Mr. Hotchner. 

This same A.E. Hotchner adapted “The Battler” into a one-hour script for television that was to feature James Dean, the star-crossed actor who met an untimely death just before rehearsals were to start. And so the lead role went to a young actor who had been signed for a secondary role – Paul Newman. As Newman went on to superstardom, he and Hotchner also became friends, and the men are partners even today in the Newman’s Own franchise that offers salad dressing and other products for sale, with the profits going to charity. I like the concept of Newman’s Own, which reminds me of the saying that with great wealth comes great responsibility. Kind of reminds me of Edward Lee McClain!

A.E. Hotchner also wrote a memoir about growing up in St. Louis during the Great Depression called “King of the Hill.” A movie of the same name came out in 1993 – I’ll have to put that on my list of flicks to rent. 

For more on A.E. Hotchner check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.E._Hotchner

(posted 1/24/08)

THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE (LITERALLY!)

In July of 2007, for the first time ever, we vacationed with members of the Card Club, so-called because we used to get together for card parties years ago when our kids were little. The host couple would provide the place and the main dish; the others would bring covered dishes and we enjoyed a time of eating, visiting and card-playing. The game is called Bid Euchre and would require a separate chapter to describe.

As the years went by and our kids grew up, we thought we would be playing more cards or at least spending more time together, but for various reasons our get-togethers have been less frequent in recent years, even though our friendship has remained strong.

And so last fall we finally planned that long-talked-about vacation outing, and last week we traveled to Destin , Florida to spend some time in a beach house. Destin is beautiful and the sunny, white beaches are among the best I’ve ever visited.

We explored the beaches and other attractions by day, and each evening ate a lot more than we are accustomed to consuming. In true Card Club fashion, each couple took turns playing host and providing dinner. If I recall correctly, the main dishes were pork chops, chicken tetrazzini, tilapia, shrimp and linguini, and steak. In addition we had a night out at a restaurant to celebrate our 32nd anniversary.

There was one little snag, however.

Weird things sometimes happen to us on or near our anniversary. Without trying to list them all, I think the cruise ship fire of 1996 takes the cake. Another time, Dianna wound up in the emergency room one time and scared me out of my wits. The conversation at 2 or 3 a.m. went something like, “Ron I don’t want to alarm you, but I feel like I could die.” That may have been the fastest I ever got dressed, and we made a quick trip to the emergency room at GAMC where things eventually turned out fine. Then there was the time we were on our way to Chillicothe to get a nice dinner and encountered a couple along Rt. 28 with a disabled vehicle. We ended up taking them to their home in Columbus , which was very interesting. By then all the good restaurants were closed, but we grabbed some fast food and had a nice anniversary anyway.

This year we had the great pleasure of playing at the beach with the daughter of one of my old OU roommates and her young children. Jessica said her sons, ages 3-1/2 and 11 months, are just too much of a handful to take on her own, so we had a sort of grandparents tryout. Aside from young Joshua grabbing a handful of sand and placing it in his mouth, everything went well. I think Jonah tried to drink some salt water from his sand bucket, but one of the other Card Club members was with him at the time so we won’t take the blame.

Things were going so well that I waded out into the Gulf of Mexico and prepared to take a swim. Then I noticed what looked like a colorful fish on the bottom. Closer investigation revealed that it was a fishing lure, and I thought it would be in everyone’s best interest if I picked it up and got it out of the water before someone stepped on it.

Unfortunately the broken fishing line must have been buried in the sand, for when I tried to pick up the lure it suddenly stopped and my hand came out of the water empty, except for a bloody finger. One of the hooks had sliced my hand.

My first thought was, Coffey, you are SO STUPID! Why couldn’t you have just walked on by? Didn’t you stop to think how far you are from home? Etc., etc. I think the language may have been more colorful, but you get the picture. I considered my Mr. Macho routine in which I laugh it off and continue on with the vacation. In fact, I did do this for a little while, but when Jessica suggested the name of a hospital in the area, I made a mental note of Sacred Heart Hospital and its location.

I also thought of a story someone had sent me just before we left. Something about a Texas man contracting flesh-eating bacteria while swimming in the Gulf. “If I’m not mistaken, this is the same Gulf that YOU will be swimming in,” said the note from my friend.

Fast forward to the Sacred Heart Emergency Room. A physician’s assistant dug around in the wound, trimmed off a tiny piece of flesh that was poking out and blood started spurting with each heartbeat. I estimated that it traveled a couple of feet. “That’s unusual,” she said, but she got things under control, looked around inside the wound and said I could leave after a precautionary X-ray and a prescription for antiobiotics.

The X-ray technician appeared, took his pictures, and we prepared to leave. A few minutes later the physician’s assistant returned and said, “You’re not going to believe this, but there’s a piece of a hook in your finger.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe it,” I said. She was a pretty blonde, very personable, and my wife (who was by my side for the whole episode) said she looked just like the blonde on “Scrubs.” I had kidded her a bit and thought she was just returning the favor.

She showed me the X-rays and I stopped laughing. Plain as day was the image of a hook in my right index finger, not too far from the fingertip. “Well, it is our anniversary,” I said.

Surgery the next day seemed to be in order. Fortunately, an orthopedic surgeon stopped by to do a consultation on another case and decided to see me right away. He suggested we try the procedure in the examining room we were in; if things got difficult, we would go to an operating room to finish the task.

My prayers were answered when, soon after starting the surgery, the doctor pulled the piece of fish hook out of my finger and showed it to us.

He cautioned me that the Gulf waters harbor a number of nasty marine organisms, and gave me yet another prescription for fighting anything that may have remained behind in my finger.

Before we left the hospital, I had Dianna snap my photo in front of the Emergency Room sign.

We arrived late to the Card Club dinner at the Lucky Snapper, but just in time to watch the fireworks. Our friends applauded and I flashed my splinted finger in “We’re Number One” fashion. The food was fine (although the Lucky Snapper had run out of red snapper, we enjoyed the grouper) and the fellowship was outstanding.

My fish hook remnant is still in the little plastic “sample bottle” that the hospital provided, an unusual souvenir of another strange anniversary outing.

(posted July 2007)

THE 'YALTA' PHOTO SESSION

Perhaps you’ve heard that the Ohio Chautauqua is coming to Greenfield again in 2007 after a very successful run in 2004 featuring the period of the “Roaring Twenties.” It was quite an achievement for a community the size of Greenfield to host a Chautauqua in the first place, and as one who attended every performance under the big tent at Mitchell Park, I thought it was very entertaining and educational.

With another Chautauqua just around the corner, and the subject matter this time scheduled to be the World War II era, Greenfield Community Development Director came up with the idea of producing a calendar featuring local folks in the role of World War II era icons. It figured to be a fun project and hopefully will help to pay Greenfield’s share of the Chautauqua production costs.

Cindi graciously offered me a role as a photo model if I could figure out who I might resemble from the 1940s. I taxed my brain and searched the Internet looking from a look-alike with WW II connections. Author Ernest Hemingway and lots of famous generals and presidents crossed my mind, but there are others who more closely resemble them. I was burdened by the fact that for the past three years or so I have been wearing a goatee, which is kind of in vogue these days but certainly does not appear to have been popular in the 1940s. I told Cindi I would be willing to shave the chin portion but wanted to keep my mustache, which I have worn most of my adult life.

At last, an opportunity presented itself. There’s a rather famous photograph of three world leaders at the Yalta Conference that took place in February 1945. The conference had a lot to do with the way boundaries and countries were aligned for decades to come. The Big Three participants included British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. Almost immediately, Cindi and I agreed that Bill Collins should play the role of Winston Churchill. Bill not only bears a rather striking resemblance to the English icon but also has been known to enjoy a good cigar from time to time. Another distinguished looking guy was needed to portray FDR, and we soon approached Otis Wagner about handling this role. Noticing that Joseph Stalin wore a mustache, I quickly volunteered to portray him. Besides the mustache issue, sometimes it’s just more fun to play the villain than the hero.

Like most projects I find myself involved in, the time elapsed from idea to implementation took longer than expected. For one thing, I needed some Russian-looking stuff to wear. Thankfully, I was able to rent a heavy wool coat and Russian-style hat at Costumes for All Occasions in Washington C.H.

Which brings me to the photo shoot. Yalta is a coastal city in Crimea, southern Ukraine on the north coast of the Black Sea. The famous photo of the Big Three leaders offers little in the way of background information; in fact it is rather cluttered with other military types milling around in the background. Lacking the budget and manpower for that (it was an achievement just to get the three of us together with Cindi), we went for a Yalta-style building as our background. This was a gut feeling kind of call made after cruising around Greenfield. The clear winner in my mind was the mausoleum at the Greenfield Cemetery. It’s of a style that would look at home in Europe during almost any time period.

And so, on a blustery and cold Sunday afternoon, Bill, Otis, Cindi and I convened at the cemetery for a chance at recapturing a moment in history. We placed some folding chairs in front of the building, briefly studied one of the real photos, and took our positions. Bill placed his hat in his lap and held a cigar in his hand. (He even wore some padding to get the appropriate Churchill look.) Otis wrapped a coat around his shoulders ala FDR, and the two of them looked at each other as the allies that they were during the war. Stalin appeared to be a bit standoffish, in keeping with his different goals and objectives for the conference, and so looks away from the other two leaders. I did my best to look stern and somewhat distant, aided greatly by the freezing temperature.

Cindi took a few photos, then asked me to take a look at her digital camera screen. I put on my glasses so I could actually see, and after a few refinements, she took a few more photos. Then we realized that I still had my glasses on! We took some more pictures, and then someone noticed that although FDR often wore glasses, he did not have them on in the famous Yalta photo. And so Otis (FDR) took his glasses off and we tried again. Meanwhile, Bill Collins cautioned Cindi not to get him in too much of a profile shot or "I'll look like Alfred Hitchcock!" It was hard keeping a straight face during this session.

Finally Cindi declared that she had some winning photos. For one last picture, Cindi did a “funny” shot with Stalin holding up two fingers behind Roosevelt ’s head and all of us sharing a sense of relief that the photo shoot was over.

At least I think we got the weather conditions right! And I’m glad I’m not a bikini model!

The 2007 calendar made a nice Christmas gift. It featured lots of local people and helped defray the cost of Chautauqua.

Nitpickers will no doubt have fun pointing out inaccuracies in our attempts to recapture these historical figures and moments. But I think I speak for Bill Collins, Otis Wagner and Cindi Pearce when I say that our photo shoot was a most interesting experience.

Here’s that goofy photo we took at the end of the session...

(posted 10/22/06 with update 1/30/08)

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING CRASH

JULY 28, 1945

The photos above were taken by William L. Coffey after a plane crashed into the Empire State Building in New York City. The picture on left shows the Empire State Building as it appeared before it was struck by a B-25 bomber on a foggy day. The negatives are marked with the date, July 28, 1945.

About 61 years time ago – July 28, 1945 to be exact – an Army Air Corps B-25 bomber was on its way from Bedford , MA to Newark , NJ in the midst of a thick fog. Lt. Col. William F. Smith Jr., the pilot, was instructed to land the aircraft at Municipal Airport in Queens (now known as LaGuardia), but he insisted on clearance to land at Newark. Normally airplanes are required to fly at least 2,000 feet over Manhattan, but on this rainy, overcast day the plane was considerably lower than that – more like 900 feet.

If you are a student of history you may have heard about the tragic crash of the bomber into the Empire State Building. At 200 miles per hour, the unarmed trainer bomber screamed down 42nd Street and banked south over Fifth Avenue. Too late the pilot saw the Empire State Building looming in front of him and he tried desperately to climb. At 9:40 on a Saturday morning, the plane slammed into the 79th floor, killing Lt. Col. Smith and two other occupants of the plane, along with 11 people who were in the building.

The crash caused an 18-by-20 foot hole in the Empire State Building, and one of the plane’s engines plowed through the building, emerging on the 33rd Street side and crashing to the roof of a neighboring building. The plane’s other engine and part of its landing gear fell down an elevator shaft, unbeknownst to rescue workers.

Numerous people in the building were injured, including Betty Lou Oliver, an elevator operator who was blown out of her post on the 80th floor and badly burned. After she was given first aid, rescue workers put Ms. Oliver in an elevator to take her out of the building. As the doors closed, rescue workers heard what sounded like a gunshot – it was the sound of the elevator cables snapping. From about the 75th floor, researchers estimate, the elevator car plummeted all the way to the sub-basement, a fall of more than 1,000 feet.

Despite this harrowing experience, Ms. Oliver survived the crash. Elevator experts report that compensating cables hanging beneath the car piled up in the pit and acted as a coiled spring, slowing the elevator before it crashed. The buildup of air pressure in the shaft also is credited with slowing the fall and saving Ms. Oliver’s life.

This tragedy took 14 lives and caused $1 million in damages, but it could have been much worse in terms of human life. The crash occurred on a Saturday morning, when only about 1,500 people were in the building. On an average weekday, the occupancy was about 10 times that number. The plane was unarmed or the structural damage may have been much worse.

The reason I mention all this is that my father, William L. Coffey, was in New York City at the time this plane crash occurred. I don’t think he ever mentioned this incident to me. Dad passed away in 2000, prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, or I feel certain he would have mentioned being in NYC for the previous crash. It was only later, while Mom and I were looking at some old pictures, that we came across some smoky shots that Dad had taken in July 1945 which I think can only be the aforementioned crash site. Some of the negatives were filed with the inscription “July 28, 1945, Empire State Bldg.”

Granted, the two-by-three pictures don’t show a lot of detail, but I thought it was fascinating that Dad had been in New York at that time. He had been stationed in the South Seas during World War II and was on the verge of getting of the Army when he returned to New York. My Mom went there to meet him and remembers how much respect the returning soldiers all got. When the soldiers dressed up with their “fruit salad” (medals and ribbons) on their uniforms, people went out of their way to make compliments. It was a different era, and there wasn’t much doubt that the United States had contributed greatly to the cause of freedom in the world.

If you surf around the Internet a bit, there’s a good deal of information about the plane crash into the Empire State Building. Check out the following websites for some interesting information and photos:

http://www.evesmag.com/empirestatecrash.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/9-21-99askeds.html

http://history1900s.about.com/od/1940s/a/empirecrash.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92525&page=1

(posted 7/31/06)

REMEMBERING THE KENTUCKY DERBY

Watching the impressive win by Barbaro in the Kentucky Derby on May 6, 2006 sparked some memories of long ago.

My one and only visit to the Kentucky Derby occurred in 1975, when Dianna and I went to see one of my college buddies in Louisville, Kentucky. I don’t remember now if we had planned ahead on attending the Derby, but it was the first weekend in May and Chet knew how to get tickets.

Mind you, I was a young newspaperman at the time and Dianna hadn’t been teaching too long, so we didn’t have a big travel budget. Chet had a solution that fit our financial means – tickets on the infield at Churchill Downs.

We have all seen the picturesque grandstands at Churchill Downs, occupied by celebrities, folks who come from old money and people with connections. That’s the side of the track I would like to visit someday. The infield was another story.

We reached the infield by walking through a tunnel under the racetrack, and came back into the light amid a bunch of similarly aged folks who couldn’t afford the grandstands either. However, most of the infield types had brought along enough cash to partake freely of the overpriced beer that was sold by vendors. Keep in mind that while the featured race is televised and lasts only two minutes or so, there are several other preliminary races throughout the afternoon. While the jockeys and horses did their thing in the earlier races, we sat on a blanket and passed the time by playing euchre with Chet and his girlfriend.

Many of the other people, who were casual racing fans at best, whiled away the hours by playing cards, taking naps or drinking. Of the available options, drinking won by several lengths! A couple of guys near us were wiped out by mid-afternoon. When one of them had to make a beer or bathroom run, he asked us if we could watch out for his buddy, who was passed out. “Don’t let anybody rip him off,” he requested. We did our best to look after the young man, and fortunately no one tried to steal anything from him.

As for the big race, I’m a little hazy on the particulars after so many years, but I do remember placing a couple of two dollar bets on the favorite, Foolish Pleasure, and another horse named Telly’s Pop. The latter horse was partly owned by the actor Telly Savalas, who made a nice living out of playing villains and weirdos in movies like “The Dirty Dozen” and “Kelly’s Heroes” before starring in a TV series called “Kojak” as a New York police lieutenant with a penchant for lollipops. Knowing nothing about the horses, but having watched a fair amount of Telly’s work on the silver screen and on the tube, I plopped down two bucks on the horse – just in case.

As the big race approached, the thousands of people in the infield came to life and moved toward the edges of the infield to get a good view of the track. To our dismay, we had to look between the heads of many spectators who had better positions. Some of the more creative individuals hosted their wives or girlfriends on their shoulders so they could have an unobstructed view. While it didn’t seem overly polite, I figured what the heck and Dianna climbed on my shoulders as well. One of us should get to see what was going on.

After the playing of “My Old Kentucky Home” and all the other pre-race festivities had ended, the 101st Kentucky Derby finally got under way. I stood stoically, watching between sets of heads in front of me, hoping to catch a glimpse of Foolish Pleasure, Telly’s Pop and the other horses making their way into racing history. Mostly I saw a lot of ears.

“Here they come,” shouted Dianna, who actually got to see much of the race. I squinted hard between the heads and caught a glimpse of moving horses and colorful silks.

In the end I had the last laugh, sort of. My $2 bet on the winner, Foolish Pleasure, paid something like $2.40. Telly’s Pop didn’t place or show. For all I could tell, I wasn’t sure he even raced!

Sunburned and tired from the day’s activities, we trudged back through the tunnel, painfully aware that we resembled a herd of cattle. Some of the folks mooed, lest anyone miss the obvious.

Chet had warned us to look after our valuables, as pickpockets apparently favor the working conditions afforded by such crowded conditions, but we hadn’t really given it much thought.

Suddenly a man screamed, “He’s got my wallet!” He pointed towards a tall man wearing rose-colored glasses and a rose-colored suit. “Somebody stop him!”

It was a helpless feeling as we watched the alleged pickpocket going one way and the angry victim unable to even move in the same direction. It was that crowded. Perhaps out of fear or disbelief, the people in close proximity to the sharp-dressed – and rather large – pickpocket took no action.

All we could do was watch helplessly as we were jostled along with the flow of humanity. To this day Dianna vividly remembers what the guy was wearing. She thinks the victim had his wallet in the breast pocket of his coat for safe-keeping. The pickpocket was a pro…

And thus ended our first Kentucky Derby. We didn’t really see any celebrities, although we heard that Lorne Greene of “Bonanza” and “Ponderosa” fame was among those in attendance. Perhaps we caught a glimpse of him from a distance. Perhaps I should have made some notes. I do remember saying that the name of the winning horse pretty well summed up the whole experience for many on the infield: Foolish Pleasure!

Since that day in 1975, our friend Chet has moved to Cleveland and we’ve done a whole lot of living. But on the first Saturday of May just about every year since, Dianna and I have reflected on our trip to Churchill Downs. I don’t think I would want to spend another long Saturday on the infield of that historic place, but perhaps someday we will return and check out the view from the other side of the track, where the beautiful people relax in the grandstands with their mint juleps and enjoy the spectacle.

Now that might be worth another trip to the track.

(Posted May 2006)