Sloppy Joe's

There would still be the “Running of the Bulls” on Saturday, the final day, where contestants and others dressed in white with red berets and red scarves “ran” behind several plaster bulls on wheels pushed around the block outside Sloppy Joe’s.

This would be the year I would scratch that itch — the 42nd contest, scheduled for July 19-22 at Sloppy Joe’s.

I’d read with curiosity about the Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest held every summer at Sloppy Joe’s bar in Key West, Florida, where the writer lived from 1928 to 1939.

I had a story to tell, and unless a contestant got up on stage at Sloppy Joe’s and told the judges — former winners known as “Papas” — that they had actually met Hemingway, no one was going to have a better tale.

There were three nights of competition on stage at Sloppy Joe’s — two nights where the many contestants were divided into two groups, with finalists selected from each group to compete in the final night.