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An American Cyber-Column
Al Pfister & John Alvis:
A Mullings Plea
Rich Galen
Friday, February 21, 2003
- This is a pitch. Pure and simple. If you are not interested, please hit the delete key. But, you MIGHT be interested, so read on.
- Like many of us, I get dozens of pieces of mail each month asking for money for some cause or another. On this rainy Saturday morning, as I was opening the mail I hadn't gotten to during the week, I got two which - quite literally - touched my heart.
- The first was from a long-time friend from Texas, Beth Sturgeon, who is heading up a fund-raising effort to endow a scholarship at Texas A&M University in the name of John Alvis.
- John worked for the International Republican Institute in Baku, Azerbaijan. He died there, at the age of 35, trying - as hundreds of young people, Republicans AND Democrats are doing even today - to help Democracy take root in places it has never grown before.
- John and Beth were former students of mine when I ran an outfit called the American Campaign Academy which was a school to teach young people who wanted to do politics for a living how to do it correctly.
- Beth was asking for me to sign up as a member of the Host Committee and pledge to raise $1,000.
(Here is a link to the Mullings discussing John's death)
- The second was from the Washington Hospital Center here in Washington inviting me to participate in the formation of a Fellowship for a heart surgeon named Al Pfister who had "died suddenly last November at the age of 51."
- I stood over that letter. Stunned. I hadn't known.
- Al Pfister fixed MY heart. On the morning of April 11, 1998 I was rolled into an operating theater at the Washington Hospital Center and prepped for open heart surgery which was then performed by Dr. Al Pfister.
- Dr. Pfister was the guy my cardiologist, Roy Lieboff, wanted to do the surgery because first, the stents which had been installed over the previous decade of coronary artery disease had to be removed before he could do the grafts.
- On the day prior to the surgery Dr. Pfister told me that he was going to use the artery from my left arm to do this and was asking me to squeeze his hand with my left to check nerve function.
- I told him I was left-handed and he switched to checking my right hand. He asked me what I did for a living and I told him I was a concert violinist.
- The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices gave me THE LOOK and I admitted I was a mere political hack.
- Dr. Pfister thought it was pretty amusing.
- The last thing I did before they rolled me away from a fretting family was to hand The Lad a leather key fob with my initials which he had made for me when he was in grammar school. I had carried it every day since. "Hang onto this for me," I said.
- After the surgery, the first thing The Lad did, was place it on the pillow next to my head. "You can have this back, now," he said.
(Here is the piece of Mullings from April 10, 1998)
- As I was reading this mail, I thought I would pledge the first $1,000 from the Mullings subscription drive to the Pfister Fellowship, and the next $1,000 to the Alvis Scholarship.
- Then I decided that might not be enough. So, here's what I'm going to do:
- I am, today, sending checks for $1,000 to each of the two organizations.
- In addition I will split 10% of everything the Subscription Drive generates over $20,000 between the two.
- If Al Pfister had not been around to operate on me, there would be no subscription drive because there would be no Mullings because, in all probability, there would be no me.
- If John Alvis had not been around to show me what it meant to truly love Democracy, then my repaired heart might not have been used in the same way as it has been.
- You might not have known Al Pfister or John Alvis. But you can share in keeping the spirit of what they each stood for - alive and thriving.
- Much as they did for me.
NOTE: If you've already subscribed, please accept my thanks. You're already part of the agreement.
Thank you,
Rich
Here's the link to the Subscription Page.
Copyright ©2003 Richard A. Galen
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