Toby's Arrival

The first time I met Toby he was a college student with an infectious smile and a Triumph sports car painted primer gray; it had a starter motor as temperamental as an opera singer and as stubborn as a Persian cat. On that occasion he was taking me for a row on the Potomac River. His Washington DC Rowing club was as charmingly down market as the Triumph. I felt at home.

Now he was taking me to lunch at the Harvard Club of Boston. Toby knows value. The club is on the top floor of a downtown hirise; we had been thoroughly vetted by the lobby security staff who had issued me a guest name card. Their instincts told them I was a Battalion # 1 no account but protocols demanded a card. Then a nonstop elevator had whisked us to the sky.

The clubs muted tones and sedate atmosphere fit in with my expectations: dark wainscoting, views of the harbor, and Currier and Ives era drawings on the wall gave balance to the wood floors and Oriental carpets. Elderly gentlemen in sports coats passed time drooling in the reading room, they were waiting for the Harvard Crimson to again field a football team as good as De La Salle High.

This was the first official day of our trip, two days in Boston, three in Vermont, and then off to France and points east. We were stopping in Boston to see Toby and his wife Sacchi. Since that row on the Potomac Toby had studied in Japan, lived and worked in Tokyo for 4 years, gone to the Kennedy School for a year, and started a family. Toby knows value.

Time is moving quickly and now Toby is analyzing markets and I am accepting free lunches at the Harvard Club. The Operator knows value.