Oak Park is a neighborhood of wide lawns and narrow minds.
The first thing any resident of Oak Park will tell you is that Ernest Hemingway never said this. And whether he did or not, there is no question that Hemingway's relationship to the small town where he was born is infinitely more complex and confusing than the wide lawns would lead you to believe. The school where Hemingway learned to parse a sentence, the river where he went skinny dipping when he was ten, and even the lace and organdy draped bedroom where he was born, all shaped the man that Ernest became. And while Hemingway's name conjures up images of Spanish freedom fighters and African safaris loaded with bravado and macho camaraderie, it's evident that many of Hemingway's values and ideals were not formed in Parisian cafes or an Italian combat zone, but here in suburban Oak Park. Take a tour of Hemingway's birthplace , and get the details on his 1999 centennial.