Consider yourself one of the family

I recently attended Hemingway Days 2025 as part of the Hemingway family presence. I had never attended before but this year was different.

 

A centerpiece of weeklong celebration of Ernest Hemingway's birthday is the Hemingway Look-Alike Society's Look-Alike Contest. When I was younger, this was an amusing oddity. Gradually, as my image in the mirror became more and more reminiscent of someone else, the contest seemed like an amusing insanity. A celebration of looking like Ernest Hemingway? It seemed a bit bizarre. I was 19 when the first one was held and I was trying to escape the shadow, not wallow in it. Over the years the shadow got a little shorter but my genes betrayed me and I began to have to admit that I was really starting to look like popular image of Ernest Hemingway.

 

The family wants to put the Hemingway back into Hemingway Days and asked me to be part of that. So it was with trepidation that I headed down to Key West this year. Friends and family were amused by my concerns; the consensus was that I should shave my beard or get over myself and not worry about whatever small attention would come my way. They were right about getting over myself and wrong about the attention.

 

(I am not shaving off my beard for a week a year. I hate shaving and I like my beard. MY beard. I have had it for decades and I am going to keep it.)

 

The attention was way more than I expected, but way less of a problem. I generally do not seek or want attention from strangers. Walking down a crowded city street without a trace of recognition from any passerby is just what I want. But here I was in a small town with literally hundreds of people who looked like me (and who thought that it was I who looked like them).

 

This was a surreal experience, but it turned out to be the opposite of unpleasant. Instead of interrupting whatever was going on in my head, it was a pleasant and repeated bit of recognition from the endless stream of similar men. It was like being in a not-so-secret society.

 

From the Ernest-like men I got nods of recognition in the street, in restaurants, wherever I happened to be. There was a manly non-verbal quality that made the women in our group roll their eyes but which suited me just fine.

 

From the women who in town to support men who were competing there were words, but uniformly encouraging words. I felt like I was in a Disney movie with all the encouragement. Good Luck! they said in passing. Are you competing? No? You should! You might even win! (I might win, but imagine my chagrin if I entered and did not win.)

 

The people in town for the contest are not the only people in town. In the days before the contest proper, I was also struck by the generally genial attitude of the locals. I went to college in a town that has an uneasy relationship to the students and I expected something similar here. But I was wrong. The locals seemed to have nothing against the flood of ravishingly beautiful stout grey men with a taste for white shirts and red bandanas. In fact, being constantly mistaken for one of them gives me the confidence to say that the reception was usually  pleasant and bemused at worst.

 

I was lucky enough to be part of the family delegation which attended an HLAS board meeting which meant that we got a peek behind the scenes. The camaraderie of the group was touching. The scope of their philanthropy was a surprise to me, because I had no idea of all that they do. Looking like Ernest Hemingway is actually only a part of the gig.

 

When the contest itself rolled around I realized that my look alone would not have been enough after all. If I were to compete  I would need to work up a series of pitches as to why I should be selected, pitches which ranged from the absolutely brutally short 15 second initial rounds to the actually-longer-than-you-think 2 minutes in the finals. In addition to the amusingly shameless politicking during the contest, successful candidates usually have done more than their fare share of fundraising because the group values community service. So there is another way in which I would have to get cracking if I ever wanted to win.

 

(Those trying to win the contest are called "Wannabe Papas" and their wives are called Momas. Hey, you do something for 44 years and there is a name for everything.)

 

Between the politicking and the fundraising it often takes years and years of dedication to win the coveted "Papa" title. Tim Stockwell's journey to becoming the 44th Papa, Papa 2025, was definitely more of a marathon than a sprint. But having met the man and shaken his hand, I would say that they made a great choice.

 

I am not a contestant, I only look like one. But if membership in the society provides even half the fellowship and philanthropy that I saw, then I may just have to consider joining.

 

Brendan Hemingway

Executive Vice President & Secretary

Hemingway, LTD

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