Remarks I Wrote for My Fathere’s Memorial Service
June 14, 2011, Chapel of the Pines, Placerville California

We backed up to the loading dock of a San Diego produce warehouse owned by J.L. Sleeper. It was dark. Maybe 4:30 a.m. I was 12 or 13 at the time. Daddy set the brake to the truck and exited. The door closed with a click. That was my cue to follow him. I opened my door and heard a chant – loud singing.

“Gee whiz. Oh, no. Daddy, are you singing?”

I heard his voice echo around the warehouse walls. I was so embarrassed. I wanted to back step toward the truck.

“Sleeper sells it cheaper. Sleeper sells it cheaper.”

But his singing that morning has become one of my most treasured memories today. The “Sleeper-sells it-cheaper” jingle has become an iconic lyric. It symbolizes the character and personality of my dad. He was happy, friendly, and social — outgoing at his place of work. He was wholly a part of the wholesale produce culture, and I saw another side of him: comfortable, expert, and proud.

I learned, by lifting produce with him summer after summer, if you want to make friends there is a formula – the “Neil Witt Formula.” You turn a cantaloupe crate on its end, sit down with coffee, and talk. There was always time to talk and enjoy a cup of coffee – weak coffee. “Do you have any hot water?” he’d ask. And he would be happy with some tepid water from the tap. I learned — by example, from my Dad – that business was as much about selling things as it is about relationships – like the relationship he had with the people at J.L. Sleeper.

My dad was the middle man responsible for getting that baked potato on your plate, the color in your salad, the lemon in your tea. I perceived him as a member of the Produce Hall of Fame: Whenever we went out to eat, at restaurants like Milan’s, Mr. Steak, or Los Amigos, the owner or manager would come out to greet my dad. I was proud – felt important. I would go to school and say, “My dad knows the owner.”

There were four phases to his work day. The first was his trip to San Diego to buy produce. That was followed by the morning and early afternoon delivery of produce around North County. The later afternoon involved a trek to local farms to buy tomatoes, parsley, lemons and strawberries which he would, in turn, take to the San Diego market. ( After all, a truck should never be empty when it could be used to haul fruit one way or the other.) And finally, there was the evening order-taking process.

He woke at 3:30 or 4 in the morning. In the evening, I often saw him nodding off by 10 p.m. at his desk assembling orders and planning routes for the next day. Once again, by his example, I learned that hard work and long hours are often necessary to get a job done. A job needs to get done. You just show up and do it. And you don’t complain. It’s required.
He was a depression-era kid, and I perceived him as being thrifty with nickels and dimes every day of his life.

“Teddy, quit flicking those lights. It costs a nickel every time you turn ‘em off and on.”

One time he turned a corner and a lug of plums fell off the bed of his truck, scattering fruit all across a busy intersection. He stopped. We had to dodge cars and pick up as many plums as we could, then polish them and if they had just been plucked from the tree. Then we would eat a few that were split or bruised. That was lunch.

Talk about thrifty! Who else in the United States of America bought their first color TV from a taco stand rather than a place like Best Buy?

But he’d gladly and generously give a dime away to us kids — if we could answer a Bible question. He would read the Bible after evening meals and offer ten cents if we could recall an answer from the reading. Jim and Jan always won.

It was common for us to attend as many as five different church services each week: Sunday school, a worship service, a Young People’s meeting at 6 p.m. Sunday, followed another regular service at 7 p.m. Don’t forget Wednesday night church. Then my Dad piled on. When we worked together those many summers, Daddy always tuned the radio to a Christian station. Many people don’t know that he and I got degrees in doctrine and theology listening to J. Vernon McGee teach — every single day . . .after day . . . after day . . .

We make much of my dad’s military service – because it influenced his life, his marriage, his demeanor, and his outlook on life. And it was such important service. Today we feel so comfortable in our nice suburban homes. But we forget – or we have not learned — how great the evil was that beset us in 1941. That’s “Evil” with a capital E. My father’s generation faced racist, populist masses, godless despots with big guns who, in fact, had no regard for the sanctity of life, let alone liberty. My father was just one of 16 million who served honorably. He did not die in battle – four hundred fifty thousand did — but he saw the savagery of war and lost buddies and became introspective.

The Army, in box 33 of its Discharge From, reserved space for a list of Neil’s decorations and citations. Among the list of several medals presented to my dad is a rather pedestrian award identified as a “Good Conduct Medal.”
I am confident that most of the 16 million men and women who served in the Armed Services through World War II exhibited good conduct and received such an award. But I am also rather certain that the Good Conduct Medal for Neil Witt was the harbinger of his way-of- life to come. In the seven decades that followed, Neil was a good man of impeccable conduct. I know we all say that about people who have died: “He was a good man.” But really, I have searched every my memory from front to back, up and down, and can recall no instance — ever — of my dad speaking ill of another person. Maybe he just never said such things in front of me. And if that’s the case, wasn’t he the better, discerning, excellent parent?

If you ever hear me – on a dark street or in a quiet room — singing “Sleeper sells it cheaper,” I am not crazy. Nor am I drunk. I am just paying tribute to a man I love, a man of honorable character, who led an honorable life.
We don’t gauge lives by how many sacks of potatoes we sell. At memorial services, we tell stories of our good times together and how we valued the relationships.

Here today, we testify to our treasured relationship with Neil and celebrate the end of a beautiful earthly life – 91 years of sacred honor.

What is the measure of a man, but that he knew God, called Him his friend, and walked in His ways? By these measures, Neil Lawrence Witt lived a life overflowing. Would that I –would that we – be able to claim such a victory.