God Bless Bernie Post I have a theory about ignorance. It’s actually a virtue that’s gotten bad press. Show me a man who moves his lips while he signs his name and I’ll show you a man who is welcome anywhere he goes. The first job I got after the military was as an insurance agent specializing in healthcare for small business owners. I was off to a good start too, until I met Bernie Post. Bernie fit my profile then of an ignorant man. He was neither well spoken nor well read. He ate his lunch from a pail and had dirty fingernails. He owned a small engine repair in Elkin, South Carolina. I owned a shiny car and a hundred dollar suit. The agent who had trained me was a Baptist deacon. I was a good student. Within minutes I had Bernie’s undivided attention. I painted a word picture that featured his financial demise preceding his natural one. He gasped as I described his wife being forced to work as a part time hostess at the Pancake House. I told him not to worry about the cost of prolonged care because I was sure that all the little Posts could find employment at the local rock quarry. We sobbed together as I broke the news that the kids college funds would dwindle to nothing if his doctors even whispered the words “lab test”. Bernie and I and the policy burned bright, we were one. Our breathing intensified as I envisioned the new color TV my commission check would provide. “Damn me for a fool!” Bernie cried as I berated him for having blown the family fortune on frivolities like food and house payments. But his salvation was at hand. No longer would he have to wallow in the murky morass of fiscal irresponsibility! The air hung heavy. Neighborhood dogs ran in circles. Birds froze in the trees. It was time to take out.....The Book. Now The Book was a black, leather-covered volume that encased 24 magic pages. Once The Book was opened an agent was NOT free to return to the freewheeling pitch he’d begun with. It was a canned presentation to be read to the client verbatim. Bernie’s jaw gaped as he listened. The words provided the secular affirmations to all the preaching I’d just done. It explained how the policy would provide a paycheck no matter how long Bernie’s catastrophic illness lasted. That he was going to have a catastrophic illness wasn’t at issue, just when. The Book built to a veritable climax of legalese, disclaimers and caveats calculated to ensure that, at a given point, the insured would jump straight into the air and come down clawing for his Papermate screaming “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD—WHERE DO I SIGN?” We were nearly there. Our foreheads were bathed in anticipatory perspiration. Bernie licked his lips. He needed a policy. He had to have a policy. He was going to buy a policy! My voice dropped compassionately before the final thrust. I pierced Bernie with snake-like eye contact. The fever was upon both of us. I watched as beads of perspiration settled on his upper lip. I almost felt sorry for him. Then it happened. I spoke the operative phrase. The one that was supposed to make Bernie leap into the air? Nothing. No response. He just blinked at me. I panicked. No one had been able to embrace silence at this point before! Something had gone terribly wrong. My mind raced. I couldn’t think. The room spun. Maybe he hadn’t heard me. I backpeddled half a page and began again. Again, I hit the crescendo. Again, nothing. Then I made the final, fatal error of my insurance career. I said the one thing the manual had forbidden “Never....but never....ask the client if he has any questions.” It read. “Have you got any questions, Bernie?” I stammered. “Just one.” Bernie said. I nodded encouragement. “What would you do, young feller, if you was forced to earn an honest livin’?” It was my turn to blink for awhile. When I was done I closed my book, shook Bernie’s hand, and drove home to Charlotte to resign from the agency. I had no answer for Bernie’s question and still had none when I arrived home. So it was that in Elkin, South Carolina on a February afternoon in 1973, I learned one of life’s most important lessons compliments of Bernie Post, a man of legendary ignorance.