Hawkens and Whalton Farm and Sanctuary

As the 24-year-old Day Manager of Sloppy Joe’s Bar in 1980, I was sitting in our tiny smoke filled office reading a Wall Street Journal article about the Bad Hemingway Writing Contest held at Harry’s Bar in LA. It sparked my interest since Hemingway was so intimately tied to Sloppy Joe’s and Key West, so I did some research and discovered that he was born July 21,1899 and that he did much of his writing during the years he lived on the island.

After thinking about it for awhile, I suggested to our General Manager Jean Klausing and Managing Partner Proal Perry that we might want to consider celebrating Hemingway in our own fashion by creating a festival during the weekend closest to the anniversary of his birth. July was a quiet time of year so they gave me the go ahead and the Hemingway Days Festival was born.

That first year we decided to have the festival run Thursday through Saturday. Sloppy Joe’s entertainment coordinator Perri Halevy and I were brainstorming with the staff and we came up with a schedule of events that included a short story contest, street fair, Papa Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, and a soon to be infamous beer drinking contest.

Early in the summer of 1981, Ernest Hemingway’s brother Leicester visited Sloppy Joes and asked to speak with me. Les was a fascinating man in his own right and he had recently hosted a billfish tournament at the Casa Marina. We discussed Hemingway Days and he half jokingly asked if he could enter the Look-Alike Contest. I suggested instead that he be the judge and he liked that idea.

Through Les, I met his wife Doris and their daughters Anne and Hilary. At the same time, I met Ernest’s granddaughter Lorian who was living in Bernice Dickson’s cottage on Little Torch Key. Bernice owned the Hemingway Home & Museum and Lorian was working on several writing projects. Lorian offered to help judge the Short Story Contest that was being loosely coordinated by one of the English professors at Florida Keys Community College.

Everything was coming together nicely. Artists were signing up and we’d booked entertainment for the Streetfair, a respectable number of short stories had been submitted, and we knew there wouldn’t be a problem finding folks to enter the beer drinking contest. My main concern, as mid-July approached, was a lack of Papa Hemingway Look-Alikes. Even with a modest $10 entry fee, we had few sign up. In order to create buzz (and fill the bar with customers) we had decided to have a preliminary round on Thursday and a second on Friday, with the final round on Saturday so we were really starting to wonder if anyone would show up on any of those days.

The weekend before the festival, Perri and I stapled hundreds of life sized cutouts of Papa Hemingway’s face on wooden paint stirrers from Strunk Lumber. Our plan was to hand these Hemingway Fans out to patrons so that they could hold up Papa’s face in front of theirs so it looked like the bar was filled with look-alikes.

Then on Thursday morning, the day of the first preliminary round I called every bearded guy I knew and asked them to come to Sloppy Joe’s that evening. To my surprise, most of them did, but even more shocking was the fact that nearly two dozen men who actually resembled Hemingway entered the contest, and even more turned out on Friday. We really hadn’t planned how we would crown the winner or if we’d have a runner-up and it was Les who came up with the brilliant idea to name a single winner and let the other finalists believe in their hearts that they were so close to winning.

Tom Feeney, a very nice US Coast Guard officer was our first Papa Hemingway Look-Alike winner and the rest of the finalists all came in second. As for the beer drinking contest, the winner was a big, congenial regular who drank two quarts of beer in the blink of an eye. I don’t recall his name which is just as well since we learned that he was found quite naked the next morning in a neighbor’s yard. We quietly pulled the plug on that event the following year.

Lorian, her daughter Cristen, Doris, Anne, and Hilary played a big part in the success of Hemingway Days that first and successive years. Although Les passed away in 1982, his family continued to contribute their time and talent to the festival for another 15 years. Anne coordinated the Leicester Hemingway Storytelling Competition. Hilary and her husband Jeff Lindsay directed the First Novel Competition with George Plimpton as the judge. Lorian, to this day, remains the director of the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition.

By 1984, Hemingway Days had become a citywide festival and we’d added the Hemingway Billfish Tournament that Les had started, an Arm-Wrestling Contest, a 5K Sunset Run, and a Twilight Party at the Hemingway Home & Museum. The Papa Hemingway Look-Alike Contest was gaining popularity and the winners each of the first few years were happy to come back and judge.

Then in 1985 I was contacted by Jim Plath, a graduate student from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the editor and publisher of Clockwatch Review, a highly respected small press journal that was the official literary magazine for the 1985 Mark Twain Sesquicentennial in Hannibal, Mo. Jim wanted to produce a special edition commemorating Hemingway with a focus on Key West and the festival. We jumped at the opportunity and brought Jim down to be part of the festivities in 1986. The publication, with a Hemingway beer ad centerfold, a Jimmy Buffet interview, the first printing of Buffet’s children’s story Jolly Mon, and so much more, was a great success and Jim’s involvement would spawn a number of wonderful events in subsequent years.

It was also in 1986 that Fred Johnson walked into Sloppy Joe’s Bar. When I saw him I said to Tica Walley, “There’s this year’s Look-Alike winner.” With his salt and pepper beard, Fred was the spitting image of Hemingway in his 50s, . My prediction turned out to be correct and Fred has been an integral part of the success enjoyed by the Hemingway Look-Alike Society.

Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, while earning a PhD in English and raising four children single-handedly, Jim Plath led our Writers Workshop & Conference, Literary Seminar, and the Conch Republic Prize for Literature which, over the years, was awarded to John Updike, James Dickey, Russell Banks, and Peter Matthiessen. While no women were awarded the prize, every year the Writer’s Workshop featured such nationally known women writers as current U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, poets Tess Gallagher and Alicia Ostriker, novelists Carole Maso and Jonis Agee, and Omaha Magic Theater playwright Megan Terry.

In the early 1990s, the Key West Cultural Preservation Society (the group that coordinated the Sunset Celebration nightly at Mallory Square) produced the Hemingway Days Street Fair. The artists pulled out all the stops, creating life size paintings of Hemingway and characters from his books (with holes cut so visitors could place their faces in the tableau for photos).

Another memorable event took place the year Susan Hawkens, who was coordinating the Twilight Party at the Hemingway Home and Museum, decided to bring the first sanctioned boxing match in 30 years to Key West. She hired a group from Miami to bring down and set up a professional boxing ring in Hemingway’s front yard, got the US Navy lightweight champion Louie Antuna to commit to the fight, and found a US Army Special Forces kickboxer who agreed to get in the ring with him. Hemingway’s sparring partner Shine Forbes was asked to referee the seven round match.

The morning of the fight/party the phone rang in the Hemingway Days office at Harris School and I answered. It was Jimmy Buffett calling to see if he could sing the national anthem before the fight that evening. I calmly said, “Please hold and I will ask the event coordinator.” After putting him on hold, I enthusiastically announced, “Jimmy Buffett wants to sing the national anthem tonight!” We were ecstatic to say the least and after the hubbub subsided, I got back on the phone and said, “That would be great, we will set aside a ticket for you at the gate.” It was a magical night with a packed house, great food, Jimmy Buffett singing the national anthem, and a wonderfully competitive fight that Louie Antuna won on a split decision. Shine Forbes did a marvelous job as the fight referee and the Key West Police were incredibly kind, letting neighborhood kids from Bahama Village watch the fight while sitting on the brick wall surrounding Hemingway’s home.

About this same time we began presenting prizes for the Look-Alike Contest and our 1992 program (the year John Updike received the Conch Republic Prize for Literature) says “Finalists will receive a 12-pack of Bud Light and a canvas tote from American Express. The 1993 winner will receive a one week stay at the beautiful Ocean Key House Suite Resort & Marina, a $100 bar tab from Sloppy Joe’s, three cases of Bud Light, a case of Bacardi Rum, a Karsh photo poster from Kennedy Gallery, and an oil change from Boa’s Tire & Auto.”

The Hemingway Aficionado Award was begun in 1993 and continued through 1997. This was a way for Wannabes to gain recognition even if they didn’t look enough like Papa to win the contest. The 1994 program says, “Last year’s Hemingway Aficionado Award went to Paul McPartland who, although quickly eliminated from the Look Alike Contest, participated in more than seven festival events, including the arm-wrestling contest.” McPartland also competed in the storytelling contest and 5K Sunset run. The program lists a checklist of festival events (first novel contest, storytelling competition, short story competition, Hemingway Trivia Contest, Hemingway Look Alike Fish Off, Casting Competition, Hemingway Bell Regatta, 5K Sunset Run, Cayo Hueso Arm Wrestling Championship, and Hemingway Days Golf Tournament).

I had the privilege of working with so many talented people during the sixteen years I coordinated Hemingway Days. Perri Halevy and I co-directed for three years, then Tica Walley, Ann Dickinson, Rae Coates, and Carol Shaughnessy took turns coordinating when Perri moved to New York. In the late 1980s, Ruth Chados became our office manager and she loved the Papa Hemingway Look-Alikes in the way only a tough Jewish grandmother could. Ruth created a set of guidelines, took all the calls about the contest, coordinated registration, worked with Sloppy Joe’s to accommodate the judges, and stood just off stage during the Look-Alike contest to make sure everyone was in place.

Shortly after Doris Hemingway passed in 1996, Papa’s sons decided that they wanted to take control of the festival, and Marla Metzner of their New York City licensing company contacted me with a list of demands. Rather than take on a fight with the family, I decided to hand over the Look-Alike Contest to Sloppy Joe’s and everything else to the Hemingway Home & Museum.

Ultimately, it may have been one of the best decisions ever since the Hemingway Look-Alike Society was officially born in 1997 and the Papas began fundraising for scholarships that year. Although the Hemingway Home & Museum stopped coordinating the festival after 1998, Sloppy Joe’s and other businesses stepped up and created a number of events that continue to complement the Look-Alike Contest.

Special thanks to Hemingway Look Alike Society President David Douglas, Mark Gardner at The Keys Collection, and Donna Edwards at Sloppy Joe’s, who along with Carol Shaughnessy and Andy Newman of Newman PR, have done a tremendous job keeping Hemingway Days alive. I am grateful that a small article about a “Bad Hemingway Writing Contest” that appeared in the Wall Street Journal in 1980 planted the seed that became the Hemingway Days Festival.

Sloppy Joe’s Bar must be commended for continuing the tradition, and all the Papas, the Mamas, and the Wannabes are to be congratulated for raising more than $1 million for the Papa Hemingway Scholarship Funds at the College of the Florida Keys and the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys.

It is because of the generosity of so many people involved with Hemingway Days that I was asked to return to the festival in 2023 and was welcomed as an honorary member the Papa Look Alike Society. During that visit, my first back to Hemingway Days since 1997, I was delighted to be reunited with Jim Plath and our 1986 Papa Look Alike winner Fred Johnson and his wife Jean.

Our dear friend and Key West coworker Ruth Chados passed away on Wednesday, April 20, under the loving care of her youngest daughter Shelley. For nearly a decade, Ruth’s indomitable creative spirit, unbridled enthusiasm, and keen organizational skills played an integral role in the success of Key West Festivals, Inc. Of the many special events we produced, the annual Hemingway Days was her favorite. During the late 1980s and early 90s she helped transform what was a small, local celebration into an internationally acclaimed festival that 40 years later is still going strong.

Ruth especially loved working on the Hemingway Look-Alike Competition and knew every contestant’s name. She wrote the rules, handled all our correspondence, coordinated the judging (no small task), herded the contestants in an incredibly hot Sloppy Joe’s Bar, and kept us heading in the right direction.

Ruth was in charge of the mail and she read virtually every story that was entered in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition; often typing back notes of encouragement to the authors. Thanks to her, our eclectic band of Key West characters became a well-organized team of creative artists. During frequent brainstorming sessions, Ruth was unfazed by the outrageous ideas we’d come up with, and she had the organizational skills to help us pull off even the most challenging ones.

Although she truly loved Hemingway Days, she was equally supportive of our other special events. However, the Conch Republic Celebration presented a special challenge. With her heavy Boston accent, Ruth had a rather difficult time getting people to understand what she was saying when she told callers where they could park their car for The Wreckers Party.

Outside the office Ruth was simply one of our dearest friends. When Susan and I adopted Adina and Alex in 1992, she was a witness to the ceremony and an understanding and valued source of advice for new bewildered parents.

Over the years, when she was back in Boston and we’d moved to West Virginia, Ruth would share stories of her remarkable children Arty, Stacey, and Shelley, of whom she was incredibly proud. When grandchildren came along, we would be privileged to learn of their accomplishments and the special ways they bonded with her. Ruth would always remember our birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays and although she didn’t email or use social media, we stayed in close contact with letters and phone calls.

The past several years have been cruel ones as Ruth’s memory faded and her needs grew. Throughout it all she was surrounded by the loving care of her family. Susan and I are so grateful to have known and loved Ruth and her family. Our deepest sympathies go out to Artie, Stacy, and Shelley, and to their children as well. I hope someday, in another life, to have Ruth walk into an office where I’m working and mentor me in the same way she did in Key West so many years ago.