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JEFFREY ROBINSON: Jazz and Model Cars

 

Jeffrey Robinson was a soft-spoken "everyday guy," said his wife, Millicent, but he had a well- developed ear and a passion for jazz. His wife said that the people who worked with him quickly learned that he was the fellow to call if you needed a new tweeter.

He also had a "guy" hobby that amused his wife: racing miniature model cars. "They were like big kids," Ms. Robinson said of her husband and his racing buddies. "It was like they didn't get train sets when they were little."

But Mr. Robinson, a systems analyst, had four children of his own and wanted easy commuting. When he started working at Marsh & McLennan, his office was in Princeton, N.J., only 10 minutes from his home in South Brunswick. In February, however, his group was transferred to the World Trade Center, lengthening his travel time to an hour and a half or more.

On Sept. 11, Mr. Robinson told his wife he had stayed up until 1 a.m. listening to a Billie Holliday anthology and overslept. Skipping his morning jog, he raced for the train station. "He was running out of the house like a madman," she said.

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times