from norberto fuentes's book, in _hemingway in cuba_
(paraphrased):
hemingway and fuentes met in the dry tortugas, weathering out
rough seas. fuentes invited hemingway aboard for wine and raw
onions, and several years later became the "pillar of the
pilar." of their first meeting, fuentes described hemingway
as always willing and smiling, very talkative, dark-haired,
and honest. hemingway was around 28 years old.
at first meeting, gregorio loaded his sailboat with ballast
and took hemingway on a dangerous 3-mile trip to a lighthouse
to use a telephone.
fuentes, the author, interviewed gregorio in his cojimar
house, barefoot with a drink, with his wife there.
gregorio knew adriana ivancich, the young italian girl that
hemingway had the hots for and wrote about in _across the
river and into the tree_. gregorio liked her too.
miker
Jose Latour said:
>
> Gregorio Fuentes, Hemingway¹s boat captain in Cuba,
dead at 104
> AP Photos HAV101,103; NY184,185
> HAVANA (AP) Gregorio Fuentes, who was Ernest
Hemingway¹s boat captain
> when
> the late writer lived in Cuba, died Sunday at age
104, his family said.
> Fuentes had suffered from cancer. For nearly 30
years, Fuentes was
captain,
> cook and friend to the American writer. Many say he
was the inspiration
for
> the protagonist in Hemingway¹s classic "The Old Man
and the Sea." "He died
> in the house he had always lived in," his grandson
Rafael Fuentes, 48,
told
> The Associated Press. He was buried Sunday
afternoon. Fuentes had lived in
> Cojimar, a coastal city about 10 miles east of
Havana since arriving in
> Cuba
> as an orphan at age 6. Born on July 11, 1897 in
Lanzarote, in the Canary
> Islands, Fuentes was traveling to Cuba when his
father, the ship¹s cook,
> died on board. The young orphan was taken in by
other Canary Island
> immigrants who cared for him until he reached
adolescence. Hemingway and
> Fuentes met in 1928, and in the 1930s the writer
hired the mariner for
$250
> a month to care for his boat, El Pilar. Before
returning to the United
> States in 1960, Hemingway stopped by Fuentes¹
Cojimar home to say goodbye.
> "Take care of yourself has you have known how,"
Fuentes once remembered
> Hemingway as telling him. Fuentes later inherited El
Pilar and donated it
> to
> the Cuban government, which displays it outside
Hemingway¹s former home,
> now
> a museum on the outskirts of Havana. Fuentes is
survived by four
daughters,
> seven grandchildren and eight
great-grandchildren.
>
>
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