ARNIE
I met Arnie in 1969. We were both students at the University of Colorado at the time, and Arnie was the de facto leader of the local Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) group. Our friendship evolved over a period of months, and by the time Arnie was expelled from C.U. in early 1970 for holding an "illegal" SDS meeting on campus, we were very close.
A couple of years passed -- I graduated from C.U. in December, 1970 -- and by late 1971 I was being treated for suicidal depression and had just about hit rock bottom. Still, Arnie made the effort to keep up our friendship, calling me at my parents' home and picking me up to join him and his brothers for picnics in the mountains west of Denver. In 1972, I saw him for the last time. It was a party at his house, held to celebrate the nomination of George McGovern as the Democratic Party's candidate for President that year.
Arnie was without question one of the most charismatic persons I had ever known. He seemed to be able to make friends at the drop of a hat. Even the campus cops at C.U., who were charged with keeping an eye on him, seemed to like him. He was that kind of guy.
I will always remember and cherish the memory of those times when Arnie reached out to me and included me in little outings that meant a great deal to me, as I had nearly given up on life and lived in a world of paranoid terrors. I lost contact with Arnie, as I said in 1972, but about three years ago I chanced upon a website for his business in Denver, "Zaler's Kosher Meats." I called him and we made vague plans to rendezvous for a reunion, but it never came to pass. I came close to looking him up again, several times, but after the passage of all those years, it was a bit frightening.
I received an E-mail from an old mutual friend this morning. No, Arnie did not die. He was picked up by the FBI in Atlanta, where he was returning to the U.S. on a flight from Israel. He's been a fugitive for a couple of years, living openly in Jerusalem. He had run a number of scams and Ponzi schemes over the years, swindling his Jewish friends out of millions of dollars. According to people who know him in Israel, he's pretty well papered the country with bad checks over the past two years. He's being called "Denver's Bernie Madoff" by the Denver Business Journal.
Arnie sits behind bars in Atlanta this morning, awaiting extradition back to Colorado, where he faces 30 years in prison.
Somehow, I'd rather he'd died.
A couple of years passed -- I graduated from C.U. in December, 1970 -- and by late 1971 I was being treated for suicidal depression and had just about hit rock bottom. Still, Arnie made the effort to keep up our friendship, calling me at my parents' home and picking me up to join him and his brothers for picnics in the mountains west of Denver. In 1972, I saw him for the last time. It was a party at his house, held to celebrate the nomination of George McGovern as the Democratic Party's candidate for President that year.
Arnie was without question one of the most charismatic persons I had ever known. He seemed to be able to make friends at the drop of a hat. Even the campus cops at C.U., who were charged with keeping an eye on him, seemed to like him. He was that kind of guy.
I will always remember and cherish the memory of those times when Arnie reached out to me and included me in little outings that meant a great deal to me, as I had nearly given up on life and lived in a world of paranoid terrors. I lost contact with Arnie, as I said in 1972, but about three years ago I chanced upon a website for his business in Denver, "Zaler's Kosher Meats." I called him and we made vague plans to rendezvous for a reunion, but it never came to pass. I came close to looking him up again, several times, but after the passage of all those years, it was a bit frightening.
I received an E-mail from an old mutual friend this morning. No, Arnie did not die. He was picked up by the FBI in Atlanta, where he was returning to the U.S. on a flight from Israel. He's been a fugitive for a couple of years, living openly in Jerusalem. He had run a number of scams and Ponzi schemes over the years, swindling his Jewish friends out of millions of dollars. According to people who know him in Israel, he's pretty well papered the country with bad checks over the past two years. He's being called "Denver's Bernie Madoff" by the Denver Business Journal.
Arnie sits behind bars in Atlanta this morning, awaiting extradition back to Colorado, where he faces 30 years in prison.
Somehow, I'd rather he'd died.