So when I heard that we had to do a blog about Ernest Hemingway's life I got pretty excited. Ernest Hemingway is one of my big hero's, spirit guides, gurus, whatever you want to call someone who had beliefs and goals similar to yours. Most of my heroes tend to be these larger than life, worldly sort of men, like James Bond, Jacques Cousteau, and especially Ernest Hemingway. Like any young man, I chose them as role models because they loosely emulated the vision I had always had for myself since I could remember, specifically, an adventurous, well traveled person, living life passionately to the fullest. Anyhow, backing up from that personal tirade, I just have to say Ernest Hemingway was a badass. Sorry for the expression Mr. McCarthy, but that's the only way I can describe him. The dude practically comes out of nowhere from a little Oak Park family and then carves this amazing path across the world, pretty much by himself. My grade school was in Oak Park, and it was literally right across the street from Ernest Hemingway's house. I could look at the window of my class and say "yep, Hemingway was born right about there". As we all know he had a pretty rough childhood, and he hated Oak Park for being so close-minded, but he still managed to pursue his future in writing, first in Chicago, but the he ships off to Italy to support the war effort. We know he was injured, but from the very somber tone and all the disillusionment, I'm thinking he saw some pretty grisly stuff out there, which is understandable for WW1. Anyhow we know in his mid-life he spent a lot of time in places like Paris, Spain, Venice, Key West, and Havana and he was awesome. He was a record-holder in both deep-sea fishing and daiquiri drinking, as well as a avid boxer. He was bros with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein. Aside form Stein, who was annoying (my opinion, not fact) these people made up the Lost Generation, titled by Gertrude Stein, a label none of it's members subscribed to. Ernest Hemingway really hit his stride around his forties, his boxing, fishing and drinking where still going well, and he was now a big-game hunter, patron of bull-fighting, and a sub hunter during WWII. That's right, you read that correctly. He was a mercenary Nazi submarine hunter. He never caught a sub, but it's the thought that counts. He was a alcoholic, albeit a functioning one, and perhaps his lifestyle started catching up with him, because he had some serious health issues, and his decline form their sent him into a deep depression from which he never emerged. He killed himself by shooting himself with his favorite shotgun, and those who found him reported that he managed to get to get both barrel's off. A somber end to a glorious life.