Joe and the Indian
Way back in 1995, I owned a large ranch house in the Snyderville Basin in Utah on the high desert plateau east of Salt Lake City and near Park City. This was a classic “Big hat, no cattle” ranch that was set on four acres in the middle of a basin that was about 7,000 acres in size. It had that “Big Sky” feel of the wide open spaces of the west and you could look across several miles of prairie to see eighteen-wheelers rumbling east on Rt. 80 like itty bitty ants. There were hills around three sides of the basin and the Eastern Wasatch to the west. It was the closest I would ever own to a real ranch and it certainly had that big log western look about it. While the house was fully and nicely furnished when I bought it, the house needed some personalization. Among the things I went out and bought was a Jerry Anderson bronze that had that Frederic Remington look. Nothing says Wild West like a Remington bronze.
The problem with Remington bronzes is that they tend to depict the struggles of man against nature or man against man. There are a few like Off the Range that are less aggressive, but even they depict the cowboy in all of his debauchery rather than anything noble. And then I saw this particular Jerry Anderson, called Quicksand. I have seen extremely large Remington bronzes like those at the White House and this one is not that large, but it is large and heavy enough that it takes a robust person to lift and move it. The scene it depicts is of a Native American (yes, an Indian) who is on horseback but caught irretrievably in quicksand. As he is falling, there is a cowboy, whose horse is on higher ground, reaching out to help the Indian. The piece has a certain Michelangelo quality to it with a sense of wild-eyed motion by both figures and yet a calmness and apprehensiveness in the near-but-not-quite-touching hands that look like God and Man in the center of the Sistine Chapel.
I loved the sentiment of the piece the moment I saw it. The Indian looks like rugged Indian of the plains. Who knows if he was a good or a bad man at heart and more importantly, who knows by which cultural standard he should be judged. But this cowboy holds no judgement of the kind. He is just a working man of the plains himself, a fierce American individualist who was born and bred to fend for himself. And here he is in the Indian’s moment of need, extending the helping hand of friendship to one different from himself and yet equally human in his need to defend himself against the harshness of nature. This statue by Jerry Anderson is the ultimate example of grace persevering and overcoming nature. Like all good stories, it doesn’t need to reach full resolution to leave its full impact. We know that good prevails and that all men, even those who toil on their own have the ability and maybe even the dormant desire to be of service to their fellow man.
When I sold my fifth and last house in Utah in 2007, and before I bought my hilltop in San Diego, I moved all of my Utah pieces worth saving to Ithaca. I moved my favorite western sculptures, paintings and furniture pieces and found ways to integrate them into our house here at Homeward Bound. Somewhere around 2010 I decided that the Jerry Anderson was too important to me and too valuable to leave it untended for long periods in Ithaca, so I asked my friend Joe Thomas, at the time the Dean of the Johnson Graduate School of Management, to hang onto it. He had extended his hand to me a few years earlier in my moment of need. I had just left Bear Stearns and needed a place to land to contemplate my options and he convinced me to join the faculty and teach part-time. That’s why I asked Joe to place the Quicksand statue in the Dean’s office for a few years. I thought Joe would appreciate its sentiment and the statue would remain safe.
What I hadn’t consciously realized was how much the cowboy looks like Joe. Joe was my first business professor in 1975. In those days he sported a large mustache, not unlike Jerry Anderson’s cowboy. Joe is tall and lanky like the cowboy. But mostly, Joe thinks and act like I imagine the cowboy thinks and acts. He is quiet but authoritative about what he knows. He is sensible and practical while being compassionate.
Joe was a Professor of Operations Management. He’s the professor who showed me that the study of business could be interesting. Along the way he became an Associate Dean for Academic Programs. Then, he stepped up by popular demand to be the Dean for a five year term. When that ended in the hiring of a new Dean, Joe stepped back into the Associate Dean role rather than retire. Again, an act of selflessness for the greater good. Then, after three years of retirement, Cornell did what it seems to do all too often, it called Joe back to service. Much as Hunter Rawlings was called back twice to interim lead the University until a proper search could be completed, Joe once again stepped in, this time to replace his successor, except in the new role as Dean of the College of Business. Just to make it extra weird, the College was also endowed by the Johnson Family so he became the Dean of the Johnson College of Business, which has as its central unit, the Johnson Graduate School of Management, which still has its own Dean. Strange, but true.
One thing I planned to do on this visit to Ithaca, was to reclaim my Jerry Anderson statue and return it to a western hillside. We have a perfect natural tree trunk coffee table in our living room. It is one of the few pieces of furniture from the prior owner of our hilltop that we have chosen to keep. We feel it will be a right-sized and lovely conversation piece in our main room. I will forever think of the piece as symbolizing the best of mankind. Joe is certainly, in my opinion, the best of Cornell. We will be over with him and his wife Marney for dinner at their place on the bluff overlooking the lake tomorrow evening. I will always keep Joe and his Indian on its pedestal.