I guess we all have met someone in those teenage years who had great influence in our lives.

Even though he has been dead for about 60 years, I still can’t get John Saunders off my mind.

I was reminded of that great old man when I made a visit to Strongs, the tiny Upper Peninsula community where I grew up. I went by the location of Mr. Saunders’ old cabin near the East Branch of the Tahquamenon River. That creek was my playground for hunting, trapping and brook trout fishing for about five years of my teenage life.

I guess we all have met someone in those teenage years who had great influence in our lives. For me, it will always be Mr. Saunders.

He was an old man when I met him. He was a kind of hermit that was feared by the townspeople. Us kids were always warned against going near him or his home. I was about 12 when I met Mr. Saunders one day on that river. We struck up a conversation about fishing, hunting and trapping. I was fascinated by him and I listened carefully.

On a couple of occasions later, I met up with him on the river and had more great conversation. But I feared my dad would not want me to see the old man. So I told my dad about it all. Dad said: “I’ll go see him and decide if it is safe for you to talk with him.” Dad made the visit and then gave me the green light to visit Mr. Saunders whenever I wanted to.

In later years, Dad quoted Mr. Saunders as saying: “I like your son, Mr. Hough, because he doesn’t judge me like the others. I hope you will let him visit me and I can teach him a lot about the woods. I don’t have any other friends.”

And so it was for several years. He taught me to trap muskrats and I got 75 cents each for the pelts. That was big money for a kid like me. But that old man taught me so many other things about life.

His favorite thing was his very old Marlin lever-action 30-30 rifle. It had a worn, old stock and he told me of the great shots he made with it in his younger years.

He lived in a small cabin with a wood-burning barrel stove and sat in a homemade chair made of large lumber.

And what a friendship we made there in that little room. We lived about two miles away and on every holiday when mom made a special turkey dinner, she fixed up a big meal with all the trimmings and let me get on my snowshoes to deliver it to Mr. Saunders. Dad always attached a package of pipe tobacco.

But he grew older. I noticed that his legs were swollen and he could hardly walk. I reported it to my dad who tried to get him to a doctor. Mr. Saunders refused treatment. Dad said his pride and lack of money was the problem.

On one of my visits about that time, he gave me all of his traps. I can no longer use them, son, and I want them to be yours.”

I soon lost my appetite for trapping wild animals but I kept those traps for many years until I recently gave them to my son—along with some great memories of a wonderful old man.

I think I was about 15 when I took one of mom’s meals to Mr. Saunders’ cabin. I found him there, lifeless in his old chair. I cried there for a long, long time before going home with the news.

I don’t remember much about him after that. There was no funeral home nearby and I always presumed he was buried by the county.

He had no relatives around and, to this day, I always wondered whatever happened to that old rifle. I really think he would have wanted me to have it.

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