Grandpa and the Sea, 1949

It was the 85th day of his fishing expedition. Somewhere south of the tip of Florida, a determined Grandpa baited his hooks and set the lines into the water. Though the boy - who would grow up to father Ferguson (G0d rest his soul), one of Grandpa's favorites - had been helping him for weeks, Grandpa was determined to set his final sail alone. (Grandpa always liked taking young boys, particularly Gusterford, Ferguson's father, fishing with him; and even brought them to his oceanside shack to talk baseball.)

Come the 84th day, he had not caught a single fish. Today would be different, he proclaimed.

He felt a tugging, hard and fast to the side of his boat. A marlin - must have been several hundred pounds began circling the boat, caught on the line.

Ernest Hemingway, a close friend of Grandpa from his younger days, when the two would spend summers in New York City watching Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees, attempted to tell the tale in a more appreciable manner in his ficitonalized telling of the Grandpa story: Old Man and the Sea. However, there are some small differences.

Hemingway: the giant fish is to bring great amounts of money and feed all sorts of people, so the old man spears it with a harpoon and drags it along for days until he reaches home.

Grandpa: the giant fish, out of love, generosity and respect for Grandpa Uno pulled Grandpa's boat northwest for days, leading him home. The two would share the burden of pushing the boat along - the marlin when Grandpa was asleep, and Grandpa when the marlin grew tired.

Hemingway: the fish was eaten little by little by sharks the entire trek home, and when the old man returned, it was nothing more than a skeleton, driving him to sadness.

Grandpa: the fish made it to shore and upon reaching, sacrificed itself for a summer special at the Miami Pizzeria Uno.

Scrutinized for having fictionalized an otherwise compelling tale of bestial friendship and camaraderie, Hemingway is known to have stated: "No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in...I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea, and a real fish and real sharks. If I made them real enough, they would mean many things." Most view this as poppycock, given that the story was so clearly unreal.

RIP Ferguson