I enjoyed visiting my uncle and his books. What inspired me most about the collection of books my uncle had. Well,
was the sheer number of the first editions or binders of unpublished works.
Were the binders that seemed to be filled with actual handwritten and typed manuscripts.
Specifically, I found one written on what, World War I was. I was lucked by Hemingway.
According to marginal notes, my uncle's story on how he got it.
I had just experienced an auction of sorts.
I had gotten off a train in Paris, France. There was a long line of people peering into a room.
So I thought I would see what was in the room as well. They were auctioning off old luggage.
Why, a day. People were bidding small prices on some of what looked like old suitcases and items and evidently got lost at a train station.
The prices were ridiculously low.
Seemed absurd how low the people would bid. Since I was there and had some change.
I threw my bid in for a weather beaten suitcase. My bid of five dollars American did the trick.
I got the bid paying the five dollars. However, was just the beginning of the process.
Seemed. Let alone did I have to pay fine for the bid.
I had to pay a pound of weight for the weight of the suitcase. It total it cost me one dollar twenty three cents.
King of Wild.
Choosing only three cents in US currency took forever to exchange.
However, evidently the charges of this are this. And that is that in France is uniquely bureaucratic.
Upon getting the suitcase to the hostel, I was staying at next to a bookstore that allowed writers to sleep on the floor as they were writing.
I got to opening the case. When my first attempts did not work.
I went next door to see if I could bomb a screwdriver from the English speaking bookstore. Shakespeare and Company.
I had taken the tag off the suitcase. Replaced it was my own.
Getting permission from the bookstore owner to use their screwdriver took some time.
So I just wanted to get to my bed and open the thing right away. I opened it to find no books filled with writing.
A man's suit and a few personal items from a woman. I read that note books. All hundreds and the cursive was hard for me to sort of translate.
The letter about being an ambulance driver is driving the soldier to safety against the Austrians. The tale is about an American ambulance driver working with a red cross into vivid details serving in the American Red Cross during 1918.
How the driver handed out chocolate and cigarettes to soldiers and children.
That the driver, wounded by mortar fire, ascribed to Austrians then there was a flash. As when a blast furnace door swung open and a rover that started white and went red. His most sorrel to read the handwritten account.
The driver while wounded carried some wounded soldier to safety and injured again. Trying to go back by machine gun fire. The handwritten story describes how the driver received a medal of valor from the Italian government.
Then the handwriting. Like a short story. Went into some detail about how hard war was on a Persian soul. Going into minor details of how gory and inspiring speeches seemed to contradict one another in war and that inspiration one should find not in war but in writing or peace or something outside the horrors of war. The handwriting was wet.
And after a moment of realization I could smell whiskey or rumor someone had spilled some sort of leco on the paper. It had dried now. But the words inspiring by not being a warmanger was something to understand from the short story.
What got me as the reader more into the story was the detail noting who was in charge of all the American wars of mass murder. Democrats are woman years seemed to be the end tell written about how President Wilsen had lied about rational forgetting into the great war.
There were several pages rewritten with similar thoughts. Austrians then there was a flash. As when a blast furnace door swung open. And a war that started white and went red.
Am I in were dying everywhere to watch artillery shells explode and destroy people is evil that all this war was a lie that my injuries of my leg scared me to death.
The hospitals instead of saving lives at times just cut away for the sheer attempt to save time.
Trenches were filled with dead. The Italians would cover from the Austrian machine gun fire and mortar fire. Trench were enormous numbers of deaths because people hiding got it.
The no man's land hell on earth artillery failed pieces fired at the mounting attacks rats and dizzies were able to know on the living while the dead were mounting up. People trapped in trenches for long periods of time death the smell of death.
The suitcase of notes also had several drawings and stories. The dates ranging from 1917 to 1920 to some more interesting than others.
One about Ernest and Louis or Lowe going to a bullfight getting drunk with the matador and then well. Seems no tea from that point on anyway.
Lowe, Ernest, some guy named Montwell Rodriguez, met after some fight in 1922. The date was smeared. Seems that Ernest bet Lowe a bottle of some wine that Rod or Manelite could get the bull within a certain time.
Anyway, seems that the bet won. More beating occurred and both wanting to have fun. Ended up in some showroom with Rodriguez. They got him involved in their game.
Seems they were all enjoying whatever the stakes were.
She was lovely. I decided to make her a muse in my next short story. I wonder at times if people will ever raid any of what I write. She will be the loveliest muse. A dream to dance with.
Wars, bullfighting, fascism, communism, high thoughts about 1922s and the Great World War along with other ideas. The letter seemed rather long, the long of it.
Seeing Lou drew a girl while this conversation went on her would drink and Hemingway wrote. The whole risque part seemed the girls were bored, did other things risque.
Dear Louis, I was writing on a piece of paper about a hunt I was on in 1916, right from the Great World War, and I think I left it in your notebook. Dear Ernest, your hunting story.
Laughter. I thought it was more of a kinky venture we had with those lovely dancing holidays. By and by Rodriguez is making a name for himself. You should come and watch him fight the bull. Let's make it for spring of 1920.
Should be interesting time of the year. My brother, father, and I were out hunting. That was what I was thinking about in 1916 or 1917 as I pursued an exotic bed called the snipe.
That it will be called a joke in later realities, that no one remembers the snipe as being extinct is worried. However, that is how hunting is at times. To bag the one and only animal, to claim you have seen the unsayable.
A few years later I had gotten lost and found a bookstore that was selling old books and lost and found items, which seemed similar to Ernest's handwriting.
So, I had gotten home with all of Ernest's writings from Idaho. Made a call to my cousin about Ernest's suitcase. And I thought it was best to start organizing his stories. Now, this was interesting.
Those in those in the suitcase seemed to show him married to a Hadley, and they were obviously thoughts of his experience in the Great War World War. The few photos of an ambulance, a man on crutches, and well.
Pertre was about his experience in life up to that point. The box on the other hand seemed to indicate a variety of other women. He seemed also to let them edit some of his works, which was interesting to see.
That some of them wrote even better than he did, or at least edited his work better than he did. Why? They crossed some of his ideas on war and life out. And the finer handwriting you could tell was female. The question I could not decide was which was better. His ideas crossed out or the lady or lady's ideas.
The writing was similar throughout. My ideas were changed so little, but so refined that at times I did not are. I think I spent like three days, just ray reading and organizing the papers.
Diaries, John Knowles, and the box held some newspaper clippings of the Great World War along with World War II. And a more letter from Castro.
The mystery was still to me what to do with these letters, etc. The stories involved in the suitcase.
I knew what my great uncle had wanted to do and found out Ernest was dead. Well, if Ernest was murdered by the CIA.
I might as well read them and enjoy them. And I did. I think that is the nicest thing that happened after losing my leg. I had time to read. And to think.
And realize that war was not what I wanted in reality. That war like the offer OF the notes and stories was a crime against humanity. The dramatic question I could not decide was which was better.
His ideas crossed out or the lady or ladies ideas, combining the two portions of the notes and papers I came up with a rather small collection of short stories, 102 pages of fishing stories alone. The others on war.
He was hunting a German submarine off the coast of Cuba. To him fighting stories in the Great World War.