A Warrior-Spirit Without Apology

Special To The Union-News

 Brian F. Gilchrist, M.D

Theilhard Chardin articulated the concept that we are all spiritual beings immersed in a human experience.  Our spirit at death, as taught by the great Jesuit theologian, lives on at a different plane of consciousness.  A warrior-spirit departed Springfield last week and while having that human experience his name was Rupprecht Scherff.  He owned and ran the Student Prince Restaurant, but that was not his essence. Rather, his essence and his importance to us come from the indisputable fact that he was a man, a man’s man with a warrior’s spirit.

Rupprecht was a man in the genre of Hemingway, but bigger and more defined because he was so real, so human and even flawed, as are real men. Rupprecht acted like a man. He became a man when men took long drags of cigarettes and drank tumblers of whiskey and looked and spoke to a woman as a woman wants to be handled: as a woman. And he did everything without apology and without neurosis and with panache.

Rupprecht drew men to his place, a place more than a mere restaurant, a gathering place – a Valhalla, where men of magnitude broke bread with friends, family and even with foes. Bob Moriarty was there with his uncanny Irish wit and John McDonagha with his insightful perceptions was ever visible at the end of the bar, and Henry Downey brought his family and defined integrity in Springfield and the elegant Dr. Eugene Beauchamp Sr. spent many a Friday night within the confines of Rupprecht’s dwelling place. All of these men and so many more graced the Student Prince because the owner knew them as men and welcomed them with a knowing nod.  Men like Rupprecht maintained the loyalty of the elegant Grete and the wonderful women who worked his every shift.  He drew good people and high calibre men because he embodied what it is to be a patriot, a family man, and most especially, what it is to be a man without apology.

His life and now his death say much about our world. He made it in America, as did so many of our parents who came off of boats, and he incorporated integrity, loyalty, and decency in ways that can never fail. The world is full of little scheming men who whimper and whine about lack of opportunity or a new competitor coming to town, or who obsess about how many grams of fat there are in a particular meal, but in the midst of all these Lilliputians there are still some true men who validate xy genotypy.  Rupprecht had the true spirit of the warrior:   he fought for everything he accomplished, he was very protective of those he loved and he created an ambience that bespoke magic, contentment and warmth.

I remember him well when I was a little boy, as he lit the Christmas tree and brought the Christmas carolers into the main dining area and all the world seemed to center its Christmas on Fort Street.  He lit the candles, he orchestrated the waitresses and the carolers and he ordered the lights down as the entire restaurant, Jew and Gentile, Muslim and Hindu, sang Silent Night in German led by Margaret Hill. If there was more magic in the world than those Christmas nights when Rupprecht celebrated Christmas then I have not found them.  There are many nights when I lie on gurneys outside of operating rooms preparing to operate from O.R.s as far away and diverse as a tent hospital in Saudi Arabia to the University Hospital here in New York and I conjure up thoughts of nights spent in the Student Prince and I can smell the smells and feel the warmth of the world and the magic that Rupprecht created for all of us in Springfield. I believe that Marc Anthony could have easily been talking about Rupprecht when on the field of Philipi he came across the body of Brutus and said “Here lies the noblest Roman of them all. All the elements were so mixed in him that all the world might stand up and say this was a man”.  A warrior-spirit that lived in our midst and brought us so much has moved on. Yet he remains a very real part of our lives and our Springfield folklore. He will be missed as a man but remain a part of our spirit.