When browsing the sport pages of the New York Post, a tabloid hard to find nowadays at even harder to locate newsstands, I always read up on the tail end of some sport hero’s interview. I said the tail end because the rest is too embarrassingly banal even for my 7-year-old grandson. The last question is always with whom the star would like to have a dream dinner. It is not the fault of the sporty ones, but their choices—no-names—sound more like a divine punishment of eternal hell than a dream dinner.
So, in order to amuse you, dear readers, I thought about whom I would name had I been asked by some newspaper or magazine, as if such things still exist. My list is simple and contains three male names: Robert E. Lee, Charles Lindbergh, and Ernest Hemingway. None of the three need an introduction, but Papa Hemingway and Charles Lindbergh, I am guessing, would not have agreed about the Second World War. The greatest American soldier, General Lee, would have most likely tried to cool Papa down, but Lindbergh was no slouch, and could defend himself just fine. Today Lindbergh’s name has been sullied by know-nothings who have slandered and libeled him as an antisemite, purely because he warned Americans that Germany’s air force was powerful and tried to keep Uncle Sam from a European war. He was, of course, right on both counts, and only gave his opinion when Congress asked for it. His unpopularity among the jealous ones increased when it was revealed by some Judas that the great aviator had great success in the skies as well as in the boudoir of some beautiful women.
Papa was also a great ladies’ man, whose answer to a ghastly New Yorker female reporter has to go down as the greatest ever: “Have you had many affairs with women other than your wives, Mr. Hemingway?” “I’ve had every woman I’ve ever wanted, and a hell of a lot that I didn’t want.” Now that’s telling it like it is, Papa, and it also shut the ghastly female reporter up. She left in a shocked state. Papa was married at the time, as in fact he was most of his life.
And now we come to the great Robert E. Lee. His fellow cadets at West Point called him “The Marble Man” for his dedication to honor, his physical beauty and grace, and blameless life. Photos of him remind one of the dignified heads of Roman emperors. Lee owned slaves but thought slavery a great evil that damaged whites more than blacks. Offered to head the Union armies by Lincoln, he declined as a point of honor, as his state Virginia came first.
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I believe that Lee might have won that tragic conflict early but for the fact that Lincoln was able to run a centralized government that amounted to a virtual dictatorship, whereas the South remained a confederacy, with each state retaining elements of sovereignty over its armed forces. Jefferson Davis insisted on defending the borders of all Confederate states, thus depriving Lee of his sole chance to engage and destroy the bulk of the Northern armies in one great battle. And let us not forget that Lee was not appointed general-in-chief until 1865, with the war almost over.
I will not replay the great battle of Gettysburg between two heroic armies, except to mention the fact that had Longstreet provided more artillery support for Pickett’s famous charge the outcome might have been different. Do we bring up such matters during our dream dinner? I’m certain Papa Hemingway would have tried to rile the general by praising the northern defense, but I would have opened my mouth for the first time and changed the subject.
And for our post-prandial pleasure, while drinking a very old port, I would have my old buddy Norman Mailer drop by, a bit high and throwing left hooks inches away from Papa’s jaw line. The latter would instantly raise his dukes and then the two would laughingly embrace each other. Now you may guess what I would give for such a dinner, but, alas, it’s only a dream. It cannot even take place On High, where my four guests already are, due to my unlikely invitation to join them. But it certainly beats dream dinners that some of our sporting heroes have chosen, the ones with Jay Zee, Puff Daddy, Beyonce, Barbra Streisand—oh, to hell with this. I must stop this name-dropping once and for always.
