At Timken Mercy the storeroom was managed by one of the most unique individuals in the history of mankind. His name was Todd Rupert, and to say that Todd was a bubble or two off center would be an extremely conservative assessment of the facts.

Todd was big, loud and outrageous. He was about 5-feet, 8-inches tall and weighed between 245 and 280 pounds depending upon his feeding cycle. As I used to describe him, Todd was 5-foot-8-inches tall no matter how you measured him — height, width or girth. His voice was so loud that he could be heard clearly from blocks away, and it is rumored that the hospital received several complaints from the next door neighbors that Todd was spoiling their rest. The next door neighbors to whom I am referring were the residents of the North Lawn Cemetery.

As for his outrageous nature, one incident should remove any doubt…

Todd knew that I had been a corpsman with the marines in Vietnam. He knew that even 20 years later I could be spooked and easily surprised. Every day Todd would take it upon himself to scare the dickens out of me at least once. One day I happened to run into him around 4:20 in the afternoon and I reminded him that he hadn’t gotten me that day.

"There’s still plenty of time," he replied.

I left the storeroom to take some papers and ten minutes later I returned to my office. I had a large old-fashioned wooden desk, probably 30 inches by 60 inches, but the actual knee room opening was not that large. The desk had a modesty panel around it and just after I had sat down to make a call, something grabbed both of my ankles and yelled, "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

I don’t know what a heart attack feels like, but a lightning bolt of shock and terror went through my body and I tried vainly to free myself.

As I slumped down in my chair — a quivering mass of protoplasm completely lacking in the ability to stand upright — a familiar voice from under the desk boomed, "See, Cransy, I told you there was plenty of time left." The next thing I knew, the half man, half walrus that was Todd Rupert was extricating himself from the confines of the desk.

For days thereafter I never entered my office without looking under the desk. To this day I cannot for the life of me figure out how Rupert got himself under there.

As crazy as he was (he merits a column devoted solely to him), Todd ran the best storeroom in Northeastern Ohio.

Every day at 4:20 he made sure it was cleaned thoroughly. And clean it was — literally clean enough to eat from its floor. And everything was where it was supposed to be — no surprises hidden in strange places and never, never did stock expire. The storeroom held 14.1 days of supplies — a figure verified year after year when inventory was taken. Ask Todd how many we had of any item, he was invariably correct.

Responsible for maintaining the efficiency and effectiveness of this storeroom was Todd’s crew.

There was Karla Radabaugh, the quiet one, whose husband once won $100,000 on a scratch-off lottery ticket because the guy who was ahead of him let him jump to the head of the line, then used the money to buy her brother-in-law a semi.

There was Bobby Rennert, whose colorful use of the language often led to using references about reptiles to describe activities of daily living. Bobby endured the loss of his son, who was killed while attending a Cub Scout meeting, with grace and dignity.

There was Mike Harding, who wanted to be a cop, and who fancied himself a tough guy, but who turned a bright crimson when a female sales rep for whom he bore a magnificent crush gave him a kiss for his birthday.

There was Harold Peffer who may have been the fastest guy I ever knew. He could run like the wind and was one of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet.

There was Kevin Fabinak — another great athlete with a fiery temper. One time I ran in front of him to catch a fly ball and he called me over to his position and said, "If you ever do that again, I’ll kick your @#*!" No fear of authority in the Fab…

And then there was Brian Conklin. Brian came to us from Food Service. Brian was a quiet guy who went about his business with little fanfare. He stood about 6 feet tall, weighed about 160 pounds and had a head of curly hair that would be the envy of anyone. When he wore a baseball hat his hair stuck out like Harpo Marx’s around the edges.

Last year I returned to the now Mercy Medical Center to visit my old friends. Many people I knew from my six years there were still working — people like Jerry Mc Gonnell, Deb Mc Carty, Dave Yapko, Spike Rieger and Judy Mottice.

As for the storeroom boys, well…

• Todd Rupert is working in the service department of a local motorcycle dealer

• Harold Peffer works for the post office

• When last seen, Kevin Fabinak was running a card shop

• Mike Harding is probably a policeman somewhere

• Karla Radabaugh remains at the hospital in the IT department serving as a Lawson analyst

• Nobody knows what happened to Bobby Rennert

As for Brian Conklin… a slightly different-appearing version of him now sits in the front office. Over the years Brian has packed on about 40 pounds and his curly locks have headed south. The quiet guy who came to us from Food Service went to school and got first his Bachelor’s and then his Masters degrees from Malone College, and now Brian Conklin, MBA, is the Director of Materials for Mercy Medical Center in Canton, OH.

He’s a living testament to the old adage, "slow and steady wins the race."

Finally, the floor of the storeroom is still clean enough on which to eat.