RIP: Clement Nathaniel "Piccolo Pete" Saunders (1910-2017)

“Papa drank a lot after fishing and had several fistfights with other sportsmen either on the dock or in such high-grade bars as “Bethel's Fountain of Youth.” This led to his putting up a hundred-dollar prize for anyone who could stay in the ring with him for three rounds.

There were some fine boxing matches, but the two best were with a ringer from Gun Cay called the “Rubber Man,” whose specialty was bouncing back up after every knockdown – he didn't make it through the three rounds – and with the older of the two Butler brothers. Papa had a fine match with Louis Butler, but his brother, Hermie, was one big, black dude, and very strong. He had Papa looking pretty well whipped until the latter part of the third round when Papa caught him with a good left hook and then a combination of left hooks and straight rights that put him down. The round ended before the end of the count so Papa paid him the prize money and called a halt to the open challenge. The locals began singing a song about him called, “The big, fat slob's in the harbor, this the night we hab fun!”
[Hemingway, Jack, Misadventures of a Fly Fisherman, 1986, p.27]