Hemingway in KC
Posted on April 28, 2005 by Tito
I just ran across the Hemingway
page at the Kansas City Star. Created in 1999, as part of his 100th birthday
celebration, the site has a variety of Hemingway/KC related thingies such
as KC/Hemingway
landmarks, and articles he
wrote for the Star includging one in which he reports from a KC emergency
room:
One day an aged printer, his hand swollen from blood
poisoning, came in. Lead from the type metal had entered a small scratch. The
surgeon told him they would have to amputate his left thumb.“Why, doc? You don’t mean it do you? Why, that’d be worsen sawing the
periscope off of a submarine! I’ve just gotta have that thumb. I’m an old-time
swift. I could set my six galleys a day in my time — that was before the linotypes
came in. Even now , they need my business, for some of the finest work is done
by hand.And you go and take that finger away from me and — well, it’d mighty
interesting to know how I’d ever hold a `stick’ in my hand again. Why, doc!–”With face drawn, and heard bowed, he limped out the doorway. The French
artist who vowed to commit suicide if he lost his right hand in battle, might have
understood the struggle the old man had alone in the darkness. Later that night
the printer retu rned. He was very drunk.“Just take the damn works, doc, take the whole damn works,” he
wept.
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