David Rempel Smucker – we knew him as Dave Smucker. He was the guy you wanted to sit beside in study hall.
To read is obituary, click here.
He could answer math questions that you had no idea how to solve – while he did his own homework.
He was a very, very smart guy. No, not a geek. Despite the fact that he was the National Honor Society president. Despite the fact that he held a bachelor’s from Oberlin, master’s from Hartford Seminary and doctorate from Boston University.
He had talent all the way around.
As an actor, he performed major roles in high school dramas. He knew how to dribble a basketball, as he played on a squad of eclectic guys… Jim Opperman who played football at Ohio State, Jim Ehrman who went to Harvard, and Gregg Luginbuhl who became Bluffton’s favorite ceramic artist.
He was light years ahead of us guys when talking about current world events. We tried to emulate him. We failed drastically.
Case in point: In junior high, showing him my brother’s Playboy collection, Dave turned to a page and said something like, “Hey, they’ve interviewed Arnold Toynbee.” He then read the article. Toynbee wasn’t on my radar until I was in college. Then, I discovered he wrote a 12-volume history of the world. Dave knew it in eighth grade. Probably earlier.
But, this all makes sense. He came from a family overflowing with intellect and creativity.
His grandfather, B.D. Smucker, joined the Bluffton College faculty and was one-time mayor of Bluffton. His father, a BHS football quarterback, was the first Mennonite to pioneer social work. One uncle was a former college president; another director of C.A.R.E.
One summer evening he and I went to The Little Flower Drive-In to watch One Million Years BC, a memorable movie on anyone’s list.
Dave brought a 3.2 beer six-pack in glass bottles, no less. He consumed all six while watching the show. Being the designated driver and one year younger, as they say in the movies, “I never touch the stuff.”
Unknown to me, Dave methodically dropped each bottle outside the car window. Naturally, I drove over them when backing out of our spot.
I can’t remember what happened next. But, the following day, my dad informed me that I had driven over some beer bottles, causing the front tire to go flat. The unspoken line: “How could this have happened?” made its point.
If I could have strangled Dave right then I would have, but he made it up to me the next summer.
After tramping around Europe with Garth Gerber and maybe Timm Triplett he gave me a small sign he acquired from a European railroad passenger car restroom. In three languages it stated: “Don’t flush the toilet in the station.”
Or, something to that effect.
There’s lots, lots more to Dave. He contributed two excellent essays about his growing up years in “Bluffton Anthology: A creek runs through it.”
And, there’s the Smucker “twitch.” He had a body language nuance like no one else we never met. Subtle, but pronounced. Probably picked up from his grandfather, the college speech and oratory professor, to make a point.
Dave made plenty of points in life, in many disciplines. He will be missed.
