ARCHALA

by Norman Reisman

Artie Gaffin was the most wonderful person and friend that Sandy and I have had over the years. He passed away in September, 2019, and they actually dimmed the lights on Broadway for our much beloved Stage Manager friend. Sandy met him after college when they both worked at Saks Fifth Avenue and I met him in 1974 shortly after I met Sandy. (It was a package deal.)

This is another one of those “is it a coincidence or did Artie arrange this little visit from beyond” stories. Way back in 1976, the US Treasury decided to change the design of the quarter in honor of the US Bicentennial. The new design for the tails side was a colonial drummer which replaced the traditional eagle. Sandy correctly concluded that it would have value in the years to come and that we should collect them. (They do. Today they’re still worth 25 cents each.)

One day Artie noticed us pulling out ’76 quarters from our change and asked what we were doing. So we explained it to him. The next thing we knew, he started to do it, too and he’d hand them over when we saw him.

His stage management career was now progressing rapidly and the AIDs epidemic hit in the mid eighties. The charity, Broadway Cares came into existence and after each show performance, the actors and stage managers, etc. would stand by the exits holding those ubiquitous red buckets for people to donate. After each show, Artie would go through the buckets and remove the ’76 quarters. (By the way, he always paid the buckets back.). He would then give us the quarters when we would see him. Our collection was well on it’s way.

Other stage manages also noticed his unusual habit and asked him about it. Pretty soon they also started separating out the ’76 quarters. They would pass them along to Artie and eventually the quarters would work their way to us.

Artie never forgot a birthday either, especially Sandy’s. It was not unusual for him to be traveling on Sandy’s birthday, or be on vacation or whatever, but she would always get a note from Artie usually written on a plain white piece of paper. He would tell her (or me, too) how much he loved her and always would tape ’76 quarters to the note and send it so that it would arrive on May 12, her birthday.

On Sandy’s birthday in 2021, a year and a half after Artie passed away, we happened to be in the city for Sandy’s big day. That morning I went to the mail room and there was a single card for Sandy and I could see from the return address that it came from an old stage manager friend of Artie named David who we knew and liked, but we weren’t friendly with him. Sure enough, when Sandy opened the card it turned out to be a plain white piece of paper with a 1976 quarter taped to it and it simply said that he hopes we’re well and that he’s been holding onto this for the longest time and wanted to get it to us. He had no idea it was Sandy’s birthday. It also was written in that same elementary school print that was very close to Artie’s handwriting.

So thank you again, David, for getting us that coin. And thank you, Archala (the name his closest friends and family knew him by) for inspiring it. We miss you every day.