David Lee Hutchinson
John Leo remembers: “Dave was as open and full of air and light as a gentle wave on a humid Thai beach. He was a Listserv lurker, reached out when I was planning a trip to Thailand spring 2013. He apparently liked my sassy SEG and loopy humor since whenever. (My biggest fault is making a good impression.) We’d never met at Yale.
“But for about a year we had long, detailed discussions on prostate cancer. (His last email was this past fall, a generous farewell. More below.) His details on his systems’ conversions, dis-articulations, were precise observations with the shared knowledge they had a moving direction.
“He and his wife were going to be in CT (fall 2013?), we tried to work in a visit to RI.
He finally had to change course, we’d talked about 24/7 needs and the environment, so I suspect stairs and 3 stories were formidable.
“I’ll try to recover his last post. It was as if he wasn’t so much describing the signs of the end of the trail. Rather he had a lightly, maybe sheepish moment introducing his Buddy, indicating that symptom X was going on along with y. I think he knew exactly that his gentle farewell was a sharing of dis-embodiment, his energies sweeping through his keyboard with a gee whiz I guess it’s time.”
Dennis Mack remembers: “I want to share with you my loss. Perhaps it will help you avoid doing what I did. Because of some of the things that I had posted on this listserv, Dave wrote me, and we started a conversation. He helped me in the search for missing classmates. He also invited me to drop in on him in Connecticut. I assumed that I would do that because a law school roommate lived not far away. But l do not own a car and renting one in the city can be difficult and expensive. I never found the occasion to drop in on him. I knew that his health was deteriorating and wanted to see him. But I did not follow through. He is gone. I know from meetings long ago and our correspondence that I would have enjoyed spending time with him. We might even have developed a deeper respect and friendship. But I failed to act. This is my loss.
“Because of this listserv, I have nurtured old friendships and have been fortunate to make new ones. If there is someone you find engaging on this listserv, I urge you to take the initiative to contact them privately and, if it seems appropriate, to visit them. We have 0-35 more years left on this planet. Use them to nurture new relationships. People with more relationships tend to live longer and fuller lives. We are a very interesting group, a great source for new friendships. Don’t let someone become your Dave Hutchinson.”
Warren Rothman remembers: “Amen to all these sentiments about David.
“In the last few years, he initiated with me offline a very interesting discussion about China. He was especially concerned about a pending purchase near his CT home town by a Communist Chinese entity of an entire public high school and also the embedding of CCP-run, owned, staffed, and financed Confucius Institutes in local schools and colleges.
” I should add that David’s perspective was profoundly informed by his living in Thailand. As some may know, Thailand’s entire economy is owned and run by Chinese-Thai and Thais of mixed heritage. Much of the polity as well. The two most recent prime ministers are examples. In addition, the Thai government has drawn extremely close to Communist China.
“So David was very concerned about this issue. We had planned to meet in CT to discuss it. I will always regret that meeting never took place.
“RIP, David. Proof that it is never too late in life for friendship. A moment in a lifetime, but a lovely one. I will always remember you. For sure, you are reading all of these messages.”