THE STATE OF ART

Art, whose family name we’d best leave unmentioned under the circumstances, proved to be a solidly-founded upper strata personal friend of ours, beginning with college fraternity brotherhood times and extending long into the afteryears. Regrettably, we lost contact some time ago, which we find unfortunate.

This man’s character ranked right at the top of the heap, and his droll sense of humor remains memorable. However, does this mean that Art stood flawless? No, we’re unhappy to say. He was overly shy, lacking the fundamentals of aggressiveness to a fault. Such deficiency led to the tragedy of Art’s life, in that he never found himself careerwise until the sand had virtually run out.

His choice of major and minor subjects while at college were International Relations and Advanced Statistics respectively, two fairly divergent fields, with the latter study seeming to predominate, as judged by his first post-graduate job.

In 1949, Art joined the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which required this still-single young fellow to travel the country literally from Long Island to Catalina and Sault Ste. Marie to Key West, conducting appropriate local area surveys and related analyses. The frequent Ogden Nashish poems sent our way, written on hotel stationery here and there, never ceased to give this writer a helpful respite from the typical day-to-day drudgeries, and tended to convey occupational contentment on our friend’s part.

When, in due course, he returned briefly to our joint home town, we enjoyed an evening’s visit with him and a girl friend who’d been working as an associate. Applying the rule of “likes repel and opposites attract”, the feeling hit us that Art had indeed found the perfect mate, hoping the pair might soon settle down as one.

For undetermined reasons, though, the affair didn’t last. Art eventually did marry another young lady who, despite her many gracious qualities, had the same reserved personality as he. Likes had attracted, not repelled.

By then he had left his government position, on the obvious premise that endless nationwide travel was hardly consistent for a man with a new wife and nature’s resultant production.

As the years rolled along, Art kept drifting from one job to another, each of them in a direct salesman capacity, a vocation he clearly had never been cut out for. In a series of losing causes, he did his best to peddle aluminum kitchenware, female cosmetics, and other goods no longer recallable, before resorting to insurance, with its numerous disadvantages for a chap already in his mid-forties. The commissions didn’t exactly roll in with the utmost rapidity.

We later learned indirectly that Art, approaching age fifty, had engaged the services of a widely-known personnel consulting agency, which subjected him to enough aptitude tests and interviews to justify advising that he belonged in the market research field, whose tasks are somewhat steeped in statistical analysis. The shameful aspect was his failure to have realized and capitalized on such matter a quarter century earlier.

When our last joint encounter took place a few years afterward, Art proudly informed us that he’d taken a new position with a prominent greeting card company, thanks to assistance from his wife, who’d been employed there as a secretary for quite a while. Still on the rather naïve side, he cited the fact that his middle management job lay just below the executive level, to which he could eventually be moved.

Not wishing to dampen the spirits of an old friend, we merely nodded assent. However, being familiar with that particular organization, we knew the futility of working for a firmly-established Jewish family company (and we state this with no disrespect whatsoever, but in light of worldly experience) and its unavoidable glass ceiling.

We can hardly deem this piece a tribute, albeit to a great fellow, but a tale we view with vicarious remorse for such a highly-talented yet personally misdirected man and unforgettable buddy.

From the consolation standpoint, Art certainly hasn’t been the only person we’ve known over the years who selected a career other than the one actually suited for. Nevertheless, we feel his case proved to be among the most extreme we’ve had the misfortune to witness.