No, it’s not my father’s birthday–it’s Papa Hemingway’s!
Hem and his cat.
There are a lot of old interviews with him floating around the internet–one from The Paris Review has this gem:
HEMINGWAY [asked about the amount of revising he does]: It depends. I rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.
INTERVIEWER : Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?
HEMINGWAY: Getting the words right.
Amen, brother.
I don’t know–I can’t see the kitty’s feet to see if it’s the “Hemingway Polydactyl Cat.”
Good quote and a cool photo of Papa… do you know if this is the cat that still has descendants running around Key West?