When I was a young man, I became intensely bored with drinking beer in a fraternity at the University of Alabama. I wanted to quit school for a while and work. Thinking, perhaps, that I would be more stimulated in a cosmopolitan setting, my misguided but well-intended parents talked me into going to the University of Geneva in Switzerland. (Due to lack of maturity and the fact that my French was bad, my time at the University of Geneva was not a success, but that is another story.) I was shipped out first class on the Isle de France.
There was a hometown socialite and big wheel in the Demo-cratic Party on the boat whom I will call “Dorothy.” She had spotted me on the passenger list as someone else from Birmingham. She tracked me down and introduced herself to me. We chatted together for several minutes, and she asked me what I wanted to do when I got out of college. I told her I thought I wanted to be a writer. I forgot about Dorothy after this and proceeded to enjoy myself.
One of the fun things about that crossing was the fact that Ernest Hemingway was on board. He was traveling with his wife, Mary, and several of his friends. There was a small bar that overlooked the bow of the boat where Hemingway used to sit in the afternoons drinking with his friends. I started going to this bar where I would nurse a beer and eavesdrop. I have never liked to bother celebrities and I didn’t intrude. I just listened to the stories he was telling his friends. One afternoon, when I was enjoying this harmless eavesdropping, I looked up to see Dorothy approaching the bar. She came right up and started talking to Hemingway, whom she evidently knew. For some reason, I had an intuition that I was in trouble. Sure enough, she said,
“Oooo, Papa, I want you to meet a nice young man who wants to be a writer.” Hemingway shook my hand and turned to his friends and said in a gravelly falsetto,
“Boys, ‘I want you to meet a nice young man who wants to be a writer.’” I was looking around for something to crawl under.
Later that afternoon I was sitting in the lounge when Hemingway walked by. He grinned at me and whacked me on the back. I felt he was telling me that he had been making fun of Dorothy and not me. It made me feel a whole lot better. I have always appreciated the fact that he made that gesture.