"USDA wants Hemingway cats licensed" was a headline making the rounds last month. According to the Agriculture Department, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida is "violating the Animal Welfare Act and subject to a daily fine of $200 per cat, or nearly $10,000 a day." I find this story amusing not because I want to see the cats confined per order of the USDA, but because I question if these cats are truly of the Hemingway line.

Hemingway scholar James Nagel and Patrick Hemingway once visited the Key West museum in disguise and took the tour. Guides informed tourists that the cats they saw roaming the property were direct descendants of a six-toed cat that Hemingway brought over from Cuba. James Nagel, however, had a different story to tell: "The truth is Hemingway didn't have cats when he lived in that house ... Hemingway liked cats but Pauline, to whom he was married, wanted peacocks. So they got peacocks for the yard ... The time when he had so many cats was when he lived in San Francisco de Paula, Cuba."

If any lesson has been learned here, it is that we should never underestimate Ernest Hemingway's lasting appeal. You have left quite a legacy when even your cats make headline news. When cats that were never yours make news, you have achieved legendary status.