Rolex and The Hemingways
Photos: Ryan Blandford of https://www.rbmtmedia.com
I learned the business of Hemingway sitting next to my granddad in his bedroom office. He was quite elderly and the passage of time had, with great irony, turned the lifelong reader almost blind.
We would meet weekly or twice weekly to pay his bills, swap hunting tales, and discuss the family business. He would recite poetry and I would tell dirty jokes. Over time, he began to share more and more of the historical stories of the Hemingway family. He told me all about growing up in Key West and Cuba; and about making a living as a professional hunter in Africa. His recollection of his father, Ernest, was unusually clear. These memories would become invaluable later on.
During one of these sessions where I was to take notes and prepare to assume a position managing the intellectual property Ernest Hemingway- I found a Rolex watch box. It was nestled in the back of a drawer of a campaign chest that served as his nightstand. The box seemed dusty and disregarded. I only found it while retrieving the envelope of cash that he used to tip his dry cleaners.
It contained a Rolex Submariner “No Date,” and it looked like it had never been worn a day in its life.
“Don’t waste your time with that,” he said.
“It will stop working if you don’t put it on a winder every night.”
Ever the pragmatic scientist, my grandfather couldn’t be bothered with a watch that had to be wound.
Eventually, I would take the job- and along with it came the gift of the watch. He included an electric single watch winder, which I choose to believe was part of a joke between us.
I never put it on the winder once. Instead, I made a decision to take it on as many adventures as possible.
In the years that followed, that Rolex Sub has been to four continents. I’ve worn it hunting dangerous game in Africa and diving in the Caribbean. It has been fishing in the mountains of Montana with my dirtbag friends and on driven hunts in the royal fields of Scandinavia. I’ve worn it for martinis at the Ritz Paris, dinner at the White House, and most of our backyard barbecues.
That watch has been present for the birth of two sons. It has been dressed up for black tie events and dressed down for birthday suit activities. The Sub has seen successes and failures, triumphs and defeats. My wife still wonders why people approach me at the airport to compliment my taste in travel accessories.
There was a time I became squeamish about losing it. I was often traveling to areas where people are routinely mugged or even killed for such a luxury item.
On a hunt in southern Africa, my professional hunter teased me about wearing a Rolex because it would almost certainly be covered in mud and blood.
“Actually this is a homage that looks kind of like one,” I told him. “I didn’t want to get shivved for wearing a real Rolex out here.”
“They’ll stick you between the ribs with a sharpened bicycle spoke even for a fake one.” He teased again.
That logic made sense to me, and I never shied away from wearing it again- mud and blood and shivs be damned.
My Rolex now sports a healthy array of scratches and dings. Its steel has become a patina of memories and experiences. It is a constant companion until it moves on to an heir of mine.
Ernest Hemingway owned Rolex watches. Three more generations of Hemingways would wear them after.
“My dad loved his Rolexes.” Granddad would say. “He loved a gadget that could be relied upon.”
In the novel Across the River and into the Trees, Hemingway compared the accuracy of a Rolex watch to the uncertainty of the human heart:
‘ “It’s just a muscle,” the Colonel said. “Only it is the main muscle. It works as perfectly as a Rolex Oyster Perpetual. The trouble is you cannot send it to the Rolex representative when it goes wrong. When it stops, you just do not know the time. You’re dead.”‘
Now, perhaps more than ever, we need things that can be relied on.
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Patrick Hemingway Adams
Executive Vice President, Director
Hemingway, LTD
