Richard Calvin Fidler

Here Lies the Avidest Man In the World

Back-story: My father, Richard C. Fidler, died at 7 this morning, and it is now 11:45 pm. In the sixteen hours and forty-five minutes since Pop left this earth, I have informed friends and family of his death, taken a nine-hour train ride, and spent the evening talking about conflict resolution over beers in a remote location in Northern New England. Every twenty minutes or so I feel a stab of horrible guilt that I am enjoying myself…and then I remember that for my father, the phrase “enjoy yourself” was not a platitude that preceded a private condemnation of whatever I might be doing. Earlier this evening Mom told me that an obituary was in order, so I decided to try my hand at it:

Richard C. “Rick” Fidler was avid. He developed interests of a specificity and intensity that caused people to find him eccentric, and yet his descriptions of those interests not only captivated his loved ones, but educated generations of Rhode Island youth who continued to recognize him in grocery stores and gas stations for years after they had ceased to be his students at RIC and PC. Though he was no stranger to depression or anger, boredom was to him an expression of intellectual laziness: how could anyone ever lack for something to think about, he used to ask, when there are so many wonderful things that a person might possibly learn?
Most of the people who knew Rick have vivid memories of his storytelling ability, a skill he called “talking story”. They remember his stories of serving in Peace Corps Group One in Northern Borneo during the Kennedy administration, his later graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania and decades of anthropological research in the small river town of Kanowit in Borneo, and of his world travels, which in later years included as supporting cast members his wife Carol and his children Kathy and Ben. Often the backdrop of the stories was so exotic that it masked the parts that excited him most. The people he met throughout the world became more than mere academic subjects for him, they were friends. His talented photography of people in their daily lives, for years his preferred teaching tool, belied a talent for catching people just when they had abandoned their formal expressions in favor of a smile, and his favorite photographs tended to be those that the subjects found slightly embarrassing.
Rick could often be short tempered, and had a sharp sense of humor. He was unfailing in his love for friends and family without ever stooping to sentimentality – we are speaking, after all, of a man who commemorated Father’s Day by dying on it. Rick was a man who lived the life he wanted to live, and the people he leaves behind will have unique memories of him to sustain them in the years to come.


His funeral and burial will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations my be made to Home and Hospice Care of RI, 1085 North Main St.,Providence, RI 02904 or to the Music Department at Rhode Island College, 600 Mt. Pleasant Ave., Providence, RI 02908.