by Teddy Gross

John Hobbs, 1936-2010

We had a memorial service for John H. Hobbs on Friday at the Harvest Club.  The largest room at the club was filled to capacity.  I was struck by how diverse the crowd was in every dimension, by age, gender, continental lineage.  It was the first hint that, for those who had gathered, this would be a moment to celebrate an extraordinary person.

I was always struck by how extremely dashing and distinguished John could look when the moment called for it.  I remember a meeting that he chaired, and several lunches with distinguished board prospects, where John radiated an intellectual charisma that, I felt, added immeasurably to our humble status.  It was impossible to tell that the insertion into the conversation of certain key words which decidedly elevated the conversation were strategic, because the flow was so natural.  I remember one breakfast John and I took with a famous Major League pitcher who was weighing whether to join our Board.  John did not for a moment pretend to know or be interested in baseball as a sport.  Rather, he engaged our charmed prospect in an analysis of the American urban landscape, and the role that baseball has played in the 19^th and 20^th centuries in shaping the cohesive identity of our evolving industrial infrastructure.  Very subtly baseball and the Penny Harvest were interwoven as examples of two popular ritual activities that bound us together.   By the second cup of coffee the pitcher told us how much he wanted to join us.

But in day to day life John preferred to be as unassuming as possible.  Like many New Englanders he preferred an unlined raincoat even in the bitterest days of January.   He carried cash in a plain money clip in his front pocket, along with scraps of notes, and clippings from the Times all pressed together like a packet of dry leaves under a New England rock.  When John retired with Liz to the country, he seemed to reconnect to a part of himself that he never quite abandoned, all the years that he reigned here in New York as a Captain of Finance and a Major Philanthropist.

I called him on New Year’s Day to wish him well.  This time I prepared myself for the call by reminding myself not to let him sidetrack me into a conversation about Common Cents.  Success was partial.  I learned enough about his new assignment in New York to realize how powerful a hold it had taken of him, and how excited by it he was.   We made plans to have lunch in February since he was going (one of his favorite terms) out of pocket all this month.

John would have died too young at any age, because his heart was young.  It gave him a gentle regard that mellowed and softened every aspect of his life.  I remember once we talked about a certain institution that was rivaling ours on some front, and I was shocked to hear John say, OK, they’re the enemy now.  But as I left that meeting, I remember feeling a surge of camaraderie that I recognized from boyhood.  He was not talking about an enemy in the grown-ups sense of foe, but in the boys’ school sense.  We were teammates, some valued Us, and now we had a hated Them to go after.   That was as rough and tumble as it ever got with John.

Howard Gardner in his beautiful eulogy at the service on Friday ended by telling us that John has changed the language.  The term Hobbsian, coined for the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (with an “e”) is used to describe our most selfish and aggrandizing instincts.  But, he said, John has reshaped the word according to his character.  To be Hobbsian is to be gentle, generous, and deeply insightful.