Is Hemingway's comment on the mark?

Writing as competition? Been there, done that

When I read this quote from Ernest Hemingway this Sunday morning, I had to smile. Been there, done that. Still doing that?

The author at a book signing at The Bookshelf in Thomasville. Two books since then.

When you grow up playing sports, you understand competition. You’re always trying to win, to prevail. As I’ve written before, maybe my single-greatest athletic achievement didn’t happen in a Brookline Devils, Nashua High, Riccardi-Hartshorn American Legion Baseball uniform or a Fairgrounds Falcon football jersey. It might have been losing just one tennis-ball baseball game to each one of my friends. I just HAD to win.

Once I settled into the sports writing business and found out that there were writing competitions, of course, I took aim at them. Best Game Story. Best Column. Best Feature Story. Best Enterprise Story. And in time, I progressed well enough as a writer to earn a plaque for each one, a few of them, even, in national competition. And when your story is selected out of hundreds, maybe thousands of your peers, sure, it’s exciting, rewarding, makes you feel like you accomplished something. But what does it mean in terms of history? Not much.

The first writing award I ever won was for a difficult story to write. The local Nashua (N.H.) High football team which had gone without a state title for a long time, was home against a team from Rochester, Spaulding High School, was certainly the underdog and once the game commenced on a muddy, slippery field, Spaulding ran up and down the field on the locals — but couldn’t score. Finally, they managed a touchdown but missed the PAT.

Late in the game, Nashua got the ball back and it so happened that they were on one of the few relatively dry spots on the field. Coach Ken Parady, who viewed the forward pass with the same skepticism astronomers in Galileo’s day considered his claim that the earth revolved around the sun instead of vice versa, called a pass play for his son, Jimmy. “Quarterback waggle” I think it was called, although we called it “waddle” having seen Jimmy run.

He rolled right, spotted little wideout Tom Viafora was streaking towards the end zone as the Spaulding defender slipped and fell in the mud. Viafora caught the pass, scored and Nashua converted the PAT. And ultimately won, 7-6.

Statistically, it was Sitting Bull vs. Custer. But Nashua was state champ. So how to write that the local yokels got their butts kicked up and down the field but still won, that was a difficult dance. I knew these kids, I had played for the coach. But I wrote it straight and many months later, found out I was the first writing award winner in Nashua Telegraph history. Cool.

Some years and several newspapers later, I covered a high school team in northern Michigan called Harbor Beach. They had a taciturn coach, a math teacher, who taught his team to run the deceptive Wing-T offense with such precision, he had his running backs wear big forearm pads so there were times you couldn’t tell who had the damn football. And they had a phenomenal season, invited me to their end-of-the-season banquet and told me Coach John Dillon found out that day he had cancer.

Months later, when I found out his final cancer treatment would be the same day as his first football practice for the next season, I spent the day with him, went to his final treatment with him, had lunch — the biggest damn hamburger I’d ever eaten — then walked around his property on Lake Michigan, then to practice.

He was a wonderful coach, we hit it off and as taciturn a guy as he was, he opened up to me on that trip next to Lake Michigan. But when I started to try to write the story, how do you write a positive story about a guy getting cancer after his greatest season? It was — and still is — the hardest story I ever had to write.

After several unsuccessful days, I locked myself in one of the Times-Herald offices, warned everyone to leave me alone until I got this story finished and got it done. Went to lunch with my wife, read the story to her, we both started crying when I read the last line and she said “You’re going to win.” Right, I said. But when I entered it in national competition, she was right. First place.

When I read that Hemingway quote, I thought about these stories. Writing as competition? Is that what it is?

Back in May, when I started this Substack, I really didn’t exactly know WHY I did, other than I’ve always enjoyed writing, seemed to have some ideas I felt like sharing, hoped maybe some folks would like reading them, too. But am I writing for history, like Hemingway suggests? Don’t think so.

Now, I have managed to have 10 columns I’ve written in the Hartford Courant, one of America’s top newspapers, one I would have loved to have worked for back in the day. Another one soon, will be in the paper I think. Very proud of that.

But am I still writing IN competition after all this time? I am noticing which stories get the most views, of course! Thanks, Dylan fans. There were a record 1,666 views for my recent piece about Dylan possibly making the Royal Albert Hall show his final live performance. Amazing. Thanks, Expecting Rain fans.

Is that story six times better than the one I wrote back on June 11 writing about my - and my subject’s response to a column I wrote about a high school wrestler some 42 years earlier? That one drew 273 views? Who am I to say?

As of today, November 24, I have 223 subscribers, have had 11.6 K readers wander through the 214 posts I’ve posted since May. That is just fabulous. I’m grateful, I love hearing from each and every one of you — love those comments! — have tried to find an assortment of topics to share my thoughts, from Tyson to Trump to Dylan to all sorts of stuff. I hope they’ve made you laugh or smile or think.

Ernest Hemingway was one of our greatest all-time writers, certainly. But I’m not so sure he’s right that you’re writing against history. I feel like I’m writing against myself, trying to write a little bit better every time I start a new post. I guess in a way, it’s my history that I’m sharing with all of you, hoping you find it fun, interesting, worthwhile, lively, satisfying.

Thanksgiving is a few days away — already got that turkey smell in my nose. So you bet, I have a lot to be thankful for, readers. Every single one of you.

So far, I’ve tried to bring you moments and thoughts from a life that has been a lot of fun, endlessly fascinating and surprising. With, as Robert Frost once said — twice, in fact — "miles to go before I sleep.”

Happy Thanksgiving, readers!