(tranquil piano music)
- "His father came back to him
in the fall of the year,
or in the early spring
when there had been jacksnipe on the prairie,
or when he saw shocks of corn,
or when he saw a lake,
or if he ever saw a horse and buggy,
or when he saw or heard wild geese,
or in a duck blind.
His father was with him, suddenly,
in deserted orchards and in new-plowed fields,
in thickets,
on small hills,
or when going through dead grass,
whenever splitting wood or hauling water,
by grist mills,
cider mills,
and dams,
and always with open fires."
- [Narrator] Ernest worshiped his father,
who spent hours teaching him how to hunt and fish and canoe,
inculcating a lifelong fascination with the outdoors
and with learning precisely how things should be done.
- He instilled in this boy,
before the boy almost could walk,
this primal feeling for the beauty of nature.
Just the organic love for the woods, for water.
- [Narrator] But Ed Hemingway was also severe, pious,
opposed to drinking, card playing, and dancing.
And as Ernest grew older,
increasingly anxious, moody, and unpredictable.
One minute he was laughing with his children,
the next he was punishing them with a leather strap.
Twice, Hemingway's father was so crippled by depression
that he had to leave town for several weeks
in order to rest what his wife called,
"The worrying place in your brain."
By the time Ernest was a teenager,
he remembered,
his admiration for his father had begun to turn to pity.
He came to see him as weak and submissive,
and blamed his mother for his father's unhappiness.
(lively music)
Ernest dreamed of one day becoming a naturalist
or an explorer, like his hero, Theodore Roosevelt.
He was also a good student and a fervent reader
who loved O. Henry, Jack London, and Rudyard Kipling.
At his mother's urging,
he sang in her congregational church choir
and played the cello.
He remembered that he especially enjoyed
the repetition and counterpoint,
counterpoint and repetition
that ran through the works of Bach.
- She also taught her kids
what every musician teaches their kids:
to practice.
Don't come to me and say that you love art
if you don't practice your art.
Because practice is love.
Work is love.
And throughout his life
he was a tremendously disciplined writer.
- [Narrator] In his junior year, he began to write,
contributing sports stories and tales of adventure
to the high school paper and its literary magazine.
But he was remembered most by his classmates
as a big, handsome, slightly awkward boy,
fond of boxing, but too nearsighted
and too clumsy to excel at team sports,
who was shy with girls
and preferred to hunt, and hike, and fish
in the woods of Northern Michigan
whenever he got the chance.
His shyness with women would eventually evaporate,
but he would remain eager all his life
for the company of men who shared his love of good times,
and the great outdoors.