A remembrance by Jim O’Brien
John and I were roommates on Third Davis freshman year, and we hit it off very well (except that I hated it when he would worry out loud about an upcoming exam, since he always ended up doing great).
He had a terrific sense of humor, and I’ve probably quoted him more often than anyone else I’ve known. I loved his imitations of authority figures from his old high school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, especially the raspy-voiced basketball coach (“Aw right, you guys, line up in a circle”).
He was borderline clueless. Once on a hot day in the late spring I had an exam that was administered (along with exams for one or more other classes) in an air-conditioned auditorium. When I came in, there was John wearing shorts and a t-shirt, sitting in an auditorium seat reading a magazine. He said afterward, “I don’t understand it, O’Brien—people kept giving me dirty looks. I wasn’t bothering anybody.”
We stayed in touch over the years, including four reunions that we both attended. My favorite reunion memory is of standing on a bridge over the Cannon River on a beautiful afternoon at the end of one reunion, talking with John and with Doug Benson while looking at white clouds flitting overhead and swallows flying low over the water, with a young saxophonist practicing on the river bank by way of background music.
Both Doug and I tried to recruit him for the last reunion, in 2008, but could never get a message returned. Soon afterward I got a letter from John’s wife saying that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. For a couple of years after that, John and I talked on the phone every couple of months. The first few times, it felt like the old days, with his long-term memory and his sense of humor still sharp. But there was a steep slide downhill. I stopped calling at the point when it wasn’t clear that he knew who I was. A year later, he was gone—a sad loss.
A remembrance by Bob Lee
John Boyd was a fellow Iowan, whose father, like mine, was a newspaper publisher. He was very interested in ideas, the big ideas, even in freshman or sophomore year. He always seemed to be musing, weighing concepts, considering various possibilities, indecisive in a very intellectual way, thoughtful in a way I was probably not. He often seemed lost in his own world.
A remembrance by Carolyn Williamson Nelson
When I met John Boyd I was still a member of the Class of ’64, and I knew only a very few members of the class that was one year ahead of mine. But at the start of what was then my junior year, I decided (partly because my father had died), to try to graduate in three years instead of four, I suddenly became a senior and a part of John’s class of `63.
Having John as a friend my senior year was a godsend. He introduced me to his own friends, a loose-knit group who, like him, were full of intellectual curiosity and esoteric interests. And all had the most important prerequisite: a highly-developed sense of humor.
Many of John’s friends were history majors, but John, like me, was an English major. We, and more than a few others, were members of Owen Jenkins’s informal fan club, and hoped to follow his career and become college teachers. (I remember John puzzling over what salary a college teacher could expect to make—not much in those days.)
John was remarkable in many respects. He was a walking database of information on topics like classical music. He constantly posed intellectual problems for himself, entertaining both himself and his friends by discussion—for example, was certain modern poetry impenetrable because we were too dimwitted to understand it, or because the poets provided insufficient clues for anyone to understand it? It was difficult sometimes to know whether he was genuinely unsure of the answer, or was just pretending, for the sake of amusing his audience. In either case, our friendship exposed me to a brilliant mind at work.
As we approached graduation and were making decisions about graduate school, John claimed to be having trouble deciding among three possibilities. He’d had an excellent education in the Cedar Rapids public schools and at Carleton, and couldn’t decide (or so he said) whether he should go to Chicago, Cornell, or Columbia. All three had readily admitted him, and a Woodrow Wilson fellowship offered him adequate money.
Disappointingly for me, he chose Cornell, while I went off to the University of Chicago. We stayed in touch for over forty years, with occasional visits as well as class reunions. Every Christmas he’d send a long typewritten letter—using the same distinctive typewriter he’d had at Carleton, with a small capital E in place of the normal small e. But there was no letter in 2007, and he didn’t attend our 45th class reunion in 2008. Later we learned of his encroaching Alzheimer’s disease, and eventually, of his death. He has been, and is, sorely missed.
Comments
John, my uncle, never seemed happier than when engaged in an analytical discussion of culture: literature, movies, politics, language. Though he was erudite and by nature highbrow in his tastes, he wasn't a cultural snob; he'd just as eagerly discuss a TV show or light rom-com or the year's movies' relative Oscar chances. Whatever the topic, he always seemed to give his entire attention to the conversation (which made for some exciting car rides when he was behind the wheel!).
By the time I was about old enough to read, he engaged me in lively conversation about books without lecturing or talking down. He just seemed thrilled to recommend books he thought I'd like.
He was such an extrovert, so genuinely interested in other people. Once I at a large party, while my other older relatives sat and talked among themselves, John spent time helping me try to get two friends together -- unsuccessfully, it turned out, though he seemed thoroughly invested in the behind-scenes drama of the matchmaking maneuvers.
And I always loved my mother's fond anecdote about going to a movie with John. He began roaming among the strangers in line, asking who had seen the "New Yorker" review of the film they were waiting to see.
And I also remember the long, typewritten letters with the capital Es -- he used to write them to my mother, mostly analyzing various family dynamics, and recommending books.
I miss John's intellectual agility and generosity, as well as his unrestrained enthusiasm for exchanging ideas.