Rudy Nassar’s funeral at Sacred Heart Catholic Church this morning probably gathered the most diverse crowd in the history of Salisbury.

He was the beloved friend of Salisbury’s street people for years.

And an old and close friend of Food Lion cofounder Ralph Ketner.

And virtually a godfather to Jeff Julian of Belmont, says his mother, Edith Julian, who worked in Salisbury’s public services department for years.

And the friend of ...

Oh, he was a friend of everybody.

If Rudy Nassar had been a list-making man, he could have compiled an endless list of friends that told a story of a good man, a changing world and long relationships that transcended time and status and wealth.

“He was just a great big loveable teddy bear,” says Paul Bernhardt, owner of Bernhardt’s Hardware around the corner from Nassar’s Fruit Stand on East Innes Street, where he held court most of his life until his location was sold and he had to move.

His father, Tom, a native of Syria, opened the business in 1932, the year Roosevelt offered hope to a nation gripped by depression. Tom Nassar hung the new president’s picture on a wall, and it was still there when he died in 1947, when Rudy and his mother, Edna, took over. The picture remained there, even as the fruit stand became an institution, attracting all kinds of people, until it closed.

Many remembered the day when Nassar’s fruit stand showcased oranges, pears, bananas and all kinds of fruit in his front windows.

“We used to have a beautiful fruit stand,” he told former Post employee Bill Moss for an interview in the early ’80s. In those days, before supermarkets, business was brisk, and at Christmas time, the Nassars could scarcely keep up with the demand for baskets overflowing with fruit — or the 5-pound candy canes that were a favorite from Santa Claus.

But supermarkets came and wiped out independent grocers and independent fruit stands, and Rudy turned to snacks and beer and wine.

And the once upon a time fruit stand kept plugging away.

Some said its real stock-in- trade was baseball tickets, tip boards and the like, but Rudy said it wasn’t. Not after Wayne Whitman took care of all that when he was chief of detectives for Salisbury.

Rudy said the cops kept busting him for having tip boards, and he had to go to Raleigh to plead his case to keep his license.

But he went straight, and the store sold its snacks and drinks and became a haven for street people.

“He was the first homeless shelter in Salisbury,” Bernhardt says.

“He was very kind to the street people. In the winter he let them all sit up there in his fruit store, on chairs and around in circles, all around the stove.

“He never said anything about anybody except good things. He was real laid back and enjoyed running the fruit store and going to Las Vegas and playing cards; and when he was in good health, he went to Las Vegas often.”

One of his card buddies was Ralph Ketner, and once he and other old friends were guests of Ralph and his wife, Anne, on a Las Vegas trip.

The other men took their wives. Rudy wasn’t married.

“Can I take Uncle Shady?” Rudy asked Ralph. Uncle Shady Saba worked with him at the fruit stand.

Of course, Ralph told him he could, “and we always remembered that trip to Las Vegas.”

Rudy and Ralph became friends when his father ran the fruit stand.

“And my sister, Dot, went to school with him,” Ralph says, “ and my wife, Anne, knows his sister, Agnes, real well, and it all goes back to the time that my brother, Glenn, ran the Ketner store on the corner of that block.

“I always admired him for what he did. He was a good-hearted person, one of the biggest-hearted I’ve ever known.”And the friendship never waned.

Neither did Edith and Don Julian ever lose touch.

“I got out of high school in 1959,” Edith says, “and went to work for a finance company one door down from the fruit stand, and Rudy and the manager of the finance company were good friends, so we all got to know him so well. Don was working on the railroad and got to know Rudy through me.”

And Rudy really loved children.

When Jeff was born, she says, “I guess he loved Jeff more than anybody. He visited him and brought him presents, and if we needed someone to pick Jeff up and take him to ball practice or do something, Rudy did it.

“He was such a kind-hearted person. He would do so much for anybody.”

Carry people home in his big Cadillac, chitchat with everybody, do whatever he could for whover needed it.

And all of that left people who knew Rudy Nassar a lot to talk about today. And a lot to remember about a kind-hearted man.