Bristol Borough lost another compassionate soul*, a good-hearted man, with creative flair, and a howling laugh as loud as his want to help anyone he could in Bristol Borough, in the form of Jeff Fisher, who was laid to rest on Friday at the Bristol Cemetery.
He was 69 when he passed away on June 11.
Fisher was one of those community leaders you don’t hear too much about outside of the community he lived and served in, because the man lacked what so many “leaders” have in excess; Ego.
On a brutally cold day in February, I met Fisher for the first time. Like so many others at the end of every month, I needed some food to hold me over the weekend, until payday. Fisher, the Executive Director of the Bristol Borough Community Action Group Food Pantry, on Wood Street, saw me walking on Mill Street, about to cross over onto Bath Street, when I dropped one of the bags that had eggs in it in the crosswalk.
He pulled up along the side of me, on the Bath St side, “Looks like you could use a ride, and some more eggs. You live on Buckley St, right?”
Fisher said he had seen me in the pantry a few times before. He looked at the index card info BBCAC had on file and knew I was a reporter guy or something like that.
What I didn’t know at that moment was that Fisher, with a car trunk and back seat filled with bags of groceries, was doing “delivery” to residents in need. These residents could not get to the pantry for various reasons, he said. The second thing I found out was that Jeff could talk up a storm about any subject. That morning, he kind of kidnapped me, saying he would drop me off after this one stop.
Credit: Submitted
90 minutes later, we’re sitting in his car, on Buckley St., when he sees a mutual friend and neighbor and that added another 30 minutes of conversation between the three of us. At the time, Fisher was re-asserting his and wife, Helen’s position at the pantry because of “personal issues,” which I would find out later was code for people stealing food from the nonprofit.
At heart, he was a creator who believed in a creator (God) but never pushed his beliefs on you. He wasn’t that kind of man. Plus I would playfully tell him, we’re (Jewish folk) still waiting for him (Jesus) and with a glint in his eyes, he’d say, “at least you’re waiting” and that huge Fisher’s smile would beam.
After dropping me off on that brutally cold day, anytime we crossed paths he would ask if I was okay with food. We would talk, laugh, or he would tell me about the most recent song or vocal melody he was working on. We would talk about local politics and sometimes, but rarely would we disagree about something in the news or going on in the community.
But I’ll always remember the gesture of offering me a ride, on a freezing cold day in February of 2013. Several motorists passed me by; a dozen eggs on the ground, canned goods rolling around at the intersection of Pond and Bath Sts.
Fisher stopped. He didn’t have to, but he did, because as I learned later, he felt compelled to do so.
“We have to look out for each other” he would say.
Now with his passing, who’s going to be the new unofficial lookout?
Rest peacefully, Sir.
Note: The Bristol Borough Community Action Group Food Pantry will reopen next Tuesday, official said.
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