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Hiding in a hospital seven or eight months ago, I learned a favorite acquaintance of this corner was there, too. he was 83-year-old James B. Hendryx, tall and skinny as a pencil but tough as a steel rod and one of Michigan's most unconsciously glamorous citizens.
Before leaving I dropped by his room but was told he refused to visit anybody. He loathed staying in bed and being fussed over by sympathetic nurses.
Casually as I knew him, I am sure he thanked God for taking him from the fine, modern hospital and letting him check out in his own rambling house in the middle of a forest, with Lake Michigan spray slapping his windows from a westerly gale at Lee Point. That was his beloved domain - a big stretch of beach and timber 12 miles beyond Traverse City. Until recently there were no neighbors within rifle range.
His death the other day failed to inspire the interesting obituary notices he deserved. I wanted to say goodbye here and describe his vivid personality but didn't know him in sufficient detail. So I trapped Lee Smits, of Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., into giving this corner a detailed profile of the late Jim Hendryx. It read as follows:
"Jim Hendryx was born 100 years too late but made the best of it. He was at heart a mountain man, a fur trader, an outlaw of the plains. He was everlastingly a boy - not a Boy Scout, more a Huckleberry Finn.
"Jim had a grandfather and a great-grandfather who were Presidents of the United States - name of Harrison. His father was editor of a weekly newspaper in Sauk Centre, Minn., and came to be known as Cornell's oldest alumnus.
"Jim endeavored to live down his genealogy, his paternal academic background and the quiet culture of his gifted wife, Hermione. He and I were hunting partners for 10 colorful years.
"All he asked was plenty of space and no competition. He shot ducks at Houghton Lake about when Ford's Model T entered the market, but left there when the gunfire of strangers reached his ears. We had camps hence at various places and it seems incredible now that we managed in Michigan to find hunting grounds frequented by almost nobody else.
"For example, when we hit Potagannissing Bay the only duck hunter who knew about it was a Petoskey doctor who came and went as inconspicuously as possible.
"Governor Chase S. Osborne gave Jim and me Bald Island up St. Mary's River. I think the governor figured he could anchor us. It didn't work.
"Somehow, despite his busy hunting and fishing years, he found time to write 75 novels and numerous short stories of outdoor adventure which the Youth's Companion and outdoor magazines gobbled up. Also he used to chop 100 cords of wood annually for his home.
"It isn't easy to write about him. Hendryx tales are too wildly improbable for print. Not only did he live dangerously, he never lost an opportunity to scare the daylights out of people who had a weakness for safety.
"Those who rode with him over logging roads north of Thessalon, Ontario, kept waking up years later in a cold sweat, reliving the roller coaster experiences. Time after time he brought me close to drowning in autumn gales on Lake Michigan.
"A few years ago he was lured to Hollywood as a star of 'This is Your Life.' The TV staff called me for dope on Jim. I warned them that when or where he was in the least startled, Jim would automatically let go a cuss word.
"Accordingly, as he was stopped on a Hollywood street and notified he was on exhibition, the TV man reached up and placed his hand before Jim's Wild Bill Hickok mustache and smothered the inevitable cuss word.
"Jim was a champion liquor drinker but stopped flatly without a bit of fuss 30 years ago. There was a time when wives shuddered if their husbands went afield with him, not knowing when or ever they would return.
"But about 10 years ago Mrs. Hendryx slipped down a rock near their Basswood Lake camp and broke a leg. Since then Jim was her nurse, cook, housekeeper and constant companion. Husbands in the Grand Traverse area were shamed by their wives, pointing to Jim Hendryx as an example of the perfect mate."