Tribute to Gerrit de Winnaar, aka ‘Rusty’

“I’m not deaf, I’m not blind and I’m not in a wheelchair – so I’m fine” was the standard answer I got whenever I asked Rusty how he was.

I first met Rusty when he was a car guard in the car park outside Circus Circus. As a good Vaalie I didn’t understand how all the surfers could leave the keys to their fancy cars with this car guard – he always carried this massive bunch around with him. He was at his post not long after 4.30am every morning and I soon understood why it was safe to leave your keys with him. Rusty always had an interesting story, he had an incredible knowledge of world history and I couldn’t quite figure out how come he was so well-informed about current affairs and political science. But then again Rusty was a bit of an enigma and I didn’t want to pry and ask too many questions.

Then one day he was gone. I was told by the new car guards that he had cancer and had gone to stay with his sister. I missed Rusty’s interesting stories and light-hearted chatter. One Sunday we were driving to church. It was a rainy, chilly day in Durban and as we approached a robot, there was Rusty sitting in the rain on the side of the road looking terrible. We stopped and asked about his well-being. “I’m not deaf, I’m not blind and I’m not in a wheelchair – so I’m fine”. The reality was that his cancer had gotten worse and so he had returned to Durban. Due to his physical condition he was no longer able to guard cars and so he had resorted to begging. I certainly wouldn’t have described that as ‘fine’!

Rusty’s incredibly positive attitude however again shone through, though the chips were down – properly down – and I wondered where that came from. He soon established his ‘office’, as he called it, at the corner of Windemere and Argyle on weekdays and in Cowey Road just below Durban Girls’ College on weekends. Many of you will remember him on those street corners, never asking for money, but thankfully accepting any help he could get. I am so grateful to all of you who helped him in so many ways.

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He featured in the newspapers on occasions because he was not just a beggar on the side of the road, he was a real character, who always to put a smile on people’s faces as they greeted him on the way past.If there’s one thing Rusty taught me, it’s tenacity. His intense resolve not to let his circumstances beat him and get him down, was something that I will treasure for the rest of my life. And when the chips are down for me at times, I remember Rusty, his indomitable optimism and I think back to that greeting “I’m not deaf, I’m not blind and I’m not in a wheelchair – so I’m fine”.

There is something Rusty once said that left a lasting impression on me: “You can’t just know about God; you need to know God.” And so, although I will miss my friend terribly, I know that he is now with the God whom he personally knew, and I have a suspicion that when I get to heaven one day, I will hear a slightly different greeting from my friend with that cheeky smile on his face. It will be something along these lines: “I no longer suffer from cancer; I no longer need to beg from my office on the side of the Durban roads to eke out a living and so now I am really fine.”  I look forward to hearing that Rusty – and of course the next story!

RIP my friend – what a champion you were!

Thomas Hagspihl

(Headmaster, St Martin’s School, Johannesburg)

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