Hanging On, Dying In One's Traces - The Saga Of A One Track Mind, An Indefatigable Idealist, And Yale Man To Boot

Arnold Fisher had worked for The Development Council for over three decades, and he was as committed now as he was when he began as an intern. The Council was an organization whose mission statement made its philosophy, purpose, and ethos perfectly clear. 

The Development Council is committed to a participatory, community-based, inclusive approach to international economic investment.  We are a people-first organization, an organization that listens, heeds, and acts on the collective wisdom of its community partners.  The means to progress are as important as the ends

The Council had been active throughout the many changes in American government policy regarding international development.  Some administrations gave it full speed ahead, others were more circumspect and conservative, shifting resources and initiatives to the private sector but there was never no lack of funds for the developing countries of Africa, and despite the continent's downward spiral since independence from Western colonial powers, governments in America and Europe kept up the financing to little or no effect. 

 

This lack of outcome on investment never bothered Arnold who was convinced that the right formula simply had not yet been found.  There was the algorithm, the approach, the calculus which would be the perfect fit for Africa, and he would stay on and work towards that goal until the end of his days. 

Most people after so long in the same job, working within the same context, the same regulations, and the same expectations might lose some interest and enthusiasm, and might even have a tendency to let things slide.  After all, if nothing they did, no matter how radical or reconstructive the approach, had any effect whatsoever, there might be a tendency to enjoy the perks of foreign travel, kick back at the five-star hotels built by the African Presidents-for-Life, their hosts and counterparts. 

Not Arnold who took his work seriously, never missed a day at the office, was first off the plane, the first in the pestilential airports and the last out because of principle. Unlike his colleagues who arrived at African airports with 50's and 100's in their pockets ready to bribe their way through immigration and customs, Arnold relied on documentation, persistence, and a sense of respect.  This approach did not always work and many were the times he was locked in a malarial back room until he paid up; but in general, principle was not a thing to be so easily discarded. 

He chose to stay at more modest hotels, eat simply, and work hard.  For that he got no recompense either from local regimes or his front office, but it all mattered to him; so nearing retirement, he felt he could simply not give up the good fight. 

This assiduousness carried over into his non-professional life.  He was a committed progressive who worked behind the scenes for the election of those who would pursue the interests of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed in America just as he had overseas, a frequent speaker at colloquies and conferences, and was often seen with up-and-coming men and women whom he helped in their quest for positive influence and social reform. 

He was also very active in the Yale Alumni Association and was invited every five years to either chair an event or participate actively as a speaker or facilitator.

 

As the years went on, he never changed his approach.  A Reunion, especially at this university which educated the best and the brightest, was the ideal place to restate the conviction that he and most Americans had - progress towards a better, more verdant, more peaceful, and more generous world. 

He vied with his classmates for an opportunity to speak about climate change, immigration, AI, and other persistent problems facing America.  The Class Secretary was overwhelmed by the number of requests to speak.  There were only so many time slots, and far too many men who wanted to speak. 'A lottery', suggested an associate, but those in the queue were insulted.  Surely some lesser event on the schedule could 'discouraged' to make room for what were some of the country's most renowned men in their fields. 

Gustave Spiers, for example - who, just as an aside was as an undergraduate a complete jerk, a prick, and an arrogant asshole - had made a name for himself as an associate of Al Gore when the former Vice President was in the process of writing his book on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. Spiers badgered and hectored the Vice President to give space to the Kalahari Bushmen with whom he had shared a meal of desert scorpion and camel grass. They were a protected species at the brink of extinction accelerated by a warming climate and needed Gore's public endorsement. Spiers also cared about the Ubangi and the mud men of East Timor. 

There was Bob Muzelle who had harped and harangued about the black man ever since he left the Old Campus, so much so that he thought he spoke more for the African Americans than he could for himself.  Muzelle always went out of his way to mention his ancestors the Putnams who had a hand in both the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the New Haven plantations, but was careful to avoid reference to the Potter side of the family who had made millions from the Three-Cornered slave trade of early America. 

And finally Phillips Bromley who had lived with the Lakota at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, one of the most miserable, penitential places on earth let alone the United States.  No one county was as drug- and alcohol-addicted, unemployed, lung cancer-ridden, and completely destitute as Pine Ridge, and yet Bromley chose to make a living off his 'Indian Chronicles', a hagiography of Chief One Calf, a seditious womanizer, and infamous gambler. 

Catty, yes, unfair perhaps, but true.  These poseurs were elbowing him out for a slot on the Reunion program and he complained mightily. 

Now, looked at objectively and from afar, this whole Yale reunion affair might seem rather puerile.  Here were a hundred old men (the Alumni Notes for Fisher's class were now way back in the magazine) acting as though the event actually had import apart from themselves.  They were seemingly unconcerned that this could be their last reunion in what would likely be their last decade on earth. 

These men might have given a thought to eternity once or twice in the morning, but never let it intrude on their purpose in life, their vocation and avocation, their very being.  

Arnold Fisher might not have been a jerk like Gustave Spiers but he was no less than Spiers anxious to do the right thing and convince others to get on board. 

If there was ever a closed circuit of ideas more than this one - men who believed in social justice who were speaking to men who believed the very same thing, iota for iota - it has never been recorded. Yet each and every alumnus who clambered for a spot on the program thought he was irreplaceable, that the event was noteworthy if not essential, and that the ideas presented were primordial. 

In the end Arnold was given barely ten minutes to speak, and he spent far more time editing, trimming, and reorganizing his paper than presenting it. 

He shook hands all around, went to Mory's for a beer with his fellow presenters, and took the train back to Washington the next day. 

In a kind of penumbra - he was elated by the Reunion and depressed by it - he found it hard to reenter his work environment, especially because he was about to retire - unwillingly it should be said because he felt there was so much more to do, but obliged.  To the firm's credit they acknowledged his long tenure and contributions and gave him an Emeritus position and a small, unfortunately windowless room near the elevators where he could ponder, write, and continue to share his ideas. 

Fisher took this Emeritus position seriously - not the convenient low-rent sinecure intended by senior management - and he turned out policy paper after policy paper in a frenzy of inspired production. He was often the first to arrive at the office and the last to leave. 

One day the cleaning lady found him slumped over his desk as dead as a doornail.  He had died in his traces as he had always wanted. 

The eulogies of his colleagues were moving, although impersonal - what a great proposal-writer he was...always on the top of his game...indefatigable African traveler...inspirational...etc.

When the ceremony was over, the cleaning lady went back into his office, cleaned up, adjusted the window shades, turned off he lights, and went home.