HEMINGWAY, HIPPOS AND EATING OUR FEELINGS
In this issue of the Reader, your wary correspondent takes note of relics from a bygone era found in a cave, hippos on the loose in Colombia, cake when only cake will do, and another tasteless yet funny Stemp story.
This week: a 5-minute read
FAREWELL TO OLD STUFF
Fans and followers of Ernest Hemingway will be familiar with his book A Farewell to Arms. First published in 1929, the book relates the experiences of a young American, Frederic Henry, who is serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army during the First World War.
The book is a textbook example of writing what you know, as Hemingway served as an, er, ambulance driver … in the Italian Army … during the First World War. But we digress. The novel chronicles how Hemingway/Henry coped with the ongoing fighting between the Italians and the Austrian army in the Italian Alps—all of which brings us to this latest tidbit of news.
For more than 100 years, a mountain in the Italian Alps has preserved a piece of that fight, frozen in time. Literally.
Since the day Austrian soldiers abandoned their cave hideout on Mount Scorluzzo on Nov. 3, 1918, the stuff they left behind has been blocked to human access by a glacier. Well, much of the glacier has now melted, and since 2017, historians and archaeologists have been able to get inside for a looky-look.
What have they found? Dinner plates, food—I’m not sure, but the chips I had last night could have come from there—leather jackets, straw mattresses, even newspapers and postcards. These sorts of objects are an exciting discovery for history buffs and help shed light on what life was like for soldiers fighting in the mountains.
The 20 or so Austrians who lived in this cave, uncovered at an altitude of 3,000 meters, had to fight not only the Italians, but also the adverse weather conditions. Winter temperatures could drop to -40 C. It’s likely that more soldiers died from avalanches or hypothermia than from the actual fighting.
HOW DO YOU STERILIZE A HIPPO?
On this date in history, Nov. 10, the Dutch in 1664 formally surrendered their American colony of New Amsterdam to the English—without a shot being fired. In 1989, the Germans began demolishing the Berlin Wall. And in 2023, the Colombian government began a campaign to sterilize the bloat of hippos that live in the Magdalena River and its tributaries surrounding the 7,000-acre estate that once belonged to drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Hippos? Yup, and I’m not making this up. Escobar, who died in a shootout with the law back in 1993, built his palatial digs outside of Medellin, Colombia, at a reported cost of $63 million US. His spread featured a soccer field, dinosaur statues, artificial lakes, a bullfighting arena, an airstrip, a tennis court, and a zoo that housed giraffes, camels, rhinos, elephants and … hippopotamuses.
There were only four hippos originally, which Escobar used a deterrence by threatening to toss rivals and miscreants into the water. A hippo can bite a human in half. After Escobar died, most of the animals were recovered but not so the hippos, which can weigh up to 3,000 pounds. They’re just too ornery. Hippos are responsible for more deaths in Africa than any other large animal.
According to CBS News, there are as many as 200 of the critters in Colombia today, trampling farmland, attacking cattle, menacing fishing boats, and injuring people as they’ve been known to stroll the streets of local neighbourhoods.
The sterilization program seemed like a good plan. Alas, it’s very expensive and, as you can imagine, very dangerous. Sterilizing a hippo is not an easy thing to do.
This is a problem that’s not going away anytime soon.
FROM THE MAILBAG
Re ‘This Week’s Shameless Plug,’ Nov. 3. Hi Terry. I ordered your book Lethbridge and read it all in one night. I then donated it to the Chatham-Kent Library as they did not have a copy. I sure will recommend it to our book club. Keep up the good work! I also enjoy your newsletter every week. I taught your kids and they were all smart and nice. Then I taught your grandkids and they were great, too. I have great memories of our early Terry Fox Runs in Tilbury, too. Joy Pearson Davis, Tilbury, Ontario
Ed. Note: As do I, Joy. And I thank you.
Great read, Terry. Robert White, Tilbury, Ontario
If you want to drop me a note (and risk me publishing it here), just reply to this email or, if you prefer send it to mysundayreader@gmail.com.
FROM HIPPOS TO BEARS
Is it time for another extraordinarily naughty tale from my late friend Harry Stemp? That’s what I thought.
A homeowner in Saskatchewan wakes up one morning to find a big male bear sitting on her roof. She sits down with her laptop to do a search and finds an ad for the “Saskatoon Bear Remover.”
So she calls the number and a man tells her he’ll be over in 30 minutes.
The bear remover arrives and gets out of his van. With him, he has a large cage in the back of the van, a ladder, a baseball bat, a 12-gauge shotgun and a mean-looking pit bull. “What are you going to do?” the homeowner asks.
“I’m going to put this ladder up against the roof. Then I’m going to climb up and knock the bear off the roof with this baseball bat. When the bear hits the ground, the pit bull is trained to grab his testicles and not let go. The bear will then be sufficiently subdued for me to put him in the cage in the back of the van.”
Then the bear remover hands the shotgun to the homeowner.
“What’s the shotgun for?” she asks.
“If the bear knocks me off the roof, shoot the dog.”
THIS WEEK’S SHAMELESS PLUG
It’s Remembrance Day tomorrow, so please let this serve as a reminder you can still order your copy of Lethbridge: A Tale of Love in a Time of War at special sale prices: $12.95 for the paperback, $8.75 for the audiobook, $4.25 for the ebook. Also, we take PayPal.
While you’re pondering that, here’s another review: “It usually takes me some time to get through a book. But with Lethbridge, I couldn't put it down.”
See ya next Sunday. / T.
