Bernie De Wit

I was in the YMCA, Minnesota Avenue, Sioux Falls, SD only once, and that was 58 years ago; but the memory sticks because that's where I climbed to the pinnacle of my college basketball career: I scored 20+ points when our freshman team beat Nettleton Business College. Walking out of that front door, for just a moment I felt like a star. 

The coach was a tall, skinny drink-of-water named Bernie DeWit, a bushy-haired employee of the college whose office was nowhere near the gym. Bernie was recruited to coach but employed in the Business Office. Back then, most everyone did more than whatever it was that he or she was contracted to do. Bernie, the comptroller, was also a basketball coach--freshman team.   

Nice guy. Good guy. We all liked him. A lot, too.  Immensely agreeable personality. Never got hot that I remember, which likely means he didn't think he was all that good because the really good coaches were intense, fiery, just a hair short of insane, the Bobby Knights. 

Not Bernie. But then Bernie didn't have much to work with either. Back then, there were no scholarships. The guys he could put on the floor were there only because they enjoyed it. If they didn't, they'd walk. 

Bernie liked basketball. He played in faculty pick-up games well into his sixties. Even when he didn't move with the quickness he must have once had, if Bernie was wearing your colors, you could always figure on a handful of medium-range jumpers. 

Bernie played golf for years after his retirement. Playing ball, shooting golf--things you could do with a ball were in his blood. It killed him not to be able to swing a club any more. His once-athletic body slowly but relentlessly wore down, but I don't think he ever stopped smiling.

I worked in the dining hall that freshman year, washed dishes with the big hose that made the job a blast. Breakfasts meant early mornings, but I didn't care, even liked being up earlier than the rest of the guys in the apartment. Breakfasts meant checking and changing the milk boxes. There were times when what was left in those boxes didn't amount to much, so I'd toss 'em, even if there was a little left in the bottom. It was easier to replace them before breakfast than have to do it when the dining hall was hopping. 

One dark morning, I stepped outside with one of those almost empty milk boxes--big things!--and stuck it in the back seat of my car. No big deal, really. We'd finish it off at the apartment. When I carried it in, my sin was officially spotted by the wicked witch of the dining hall, Mrs. Wassenaar, who lived in an apartment two floors above ours. Yet that morning, she made work of telling her boss, Bernie DeWit, that this Schaap boy who lived beneath her had--she'd seen it with her own eyes from that upstairs window!--had stolen--that's right stolen-- a box of milk from the Commons. She just knew I was trouble.

Bernie DeWit left a note for me or called me or did something to let me know that he wanted to see me--I had no idea why. I don't know that I had a real reason to be afraid, but I was--not because I felt sinful about any one thing, but back then authorities were entrusted by God to root out iniquity with flint-honed righteousness.

When I walked into his office, he pointed to a chair, and then said, smilingly, "Schaap, you potlikker--"

I had no idea where he got that word from, had really never heard it before. It's origins are in soul food from the enslaved South, but I had no idea of that when I was nailed with the word. What I knew, because I knew him, was that with that word, whatever sin I could have committed, would not lead to my being tossed out by the ears. No charges would be filed against this--dang it!--potlikker. 

Bernie died a day or so ago, all that slim athleticism gone. He needed help to breathe. Attended by his children in a scene our pastor described almost lovingly, Bernie DeWit passed away. 

I don't know that I'd call him a close friend--he had those and they were many. But I have known him for 58 years, liked him, admired him, chatted with him a thousand times, played ball with him--and against him. And once upon a time, he was my coach. Once upon a time, he called me a potlikker and relieved my soul.

He was quiet, reserved, but not shy, and he wore, for all his days, a ready smile. I didn't have to know the definition nor the origins of the word to know that facing the perturbation of the dining hall Fuhrer was a curse he didn't want to live through again. Therefore, it would be a blessing for him to know that that Schaap boy wouldn't be heisting any more milk boxes. 

In the early days of the college, there was BJ, the Pres, the original dreamer, a man whose big personality filled the room, even, at times, before he did. Then there was Dean Ribbens, who could turn people to ice in his presence. And then there was Bernie--tall, slim Bernie, the one with the smile.

He was a wonderful, caring man, a good, good, good-hearted guy. If we had more Bernies in the world, mornings would be even more inviting.