From Center Hall

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR GREATEST SPLURGE?

Philip Coons ’67 My greatest splurge was treating my thenrecently retired wife to an Oceana cruise from San Diego to Miami via the Panama Canal in 2019. A highlight was visiting Havana, Cuba.

Roger Bowen ’69 In spring 1967, I decided to take the fall semester in Tokyo at a time when my own savings account was meager and my father’s business was struggling. Living on a shoestring budget, I splurged on a weekend trip up Japan’s coast with a woman from DePauw University, who a year later proposed marriage to me. After 53 years of a loving marriage and glory in seeing our two sweet daughters become exceptional women, it is a self-evident truth that the value of the splurge cannot be measured by yen alone. Chris McQuillin ’82 My wife, Jan, and I are fans of The Beatles and Paul McCartney particularly. A few years ago he was set to appear in concert in Tinley Park, Illinois. We have been amazed at the crazy cost of concert tickets since we both started going in the 1970s when tickets were in the range of $10. After some thought, we decided to splurge and buy tickets for good seats. We were not disappointed. It was probably the best concert we ever attended. We had a great evening jamming to songs from The Beatles, Wings, and Paul as a solo act. He played for about three hours— almost nonstop. It was a great splurge for us and a great memory.

Roger Alig ’63 Attending Wabash!

ROB RUDICEL ’92

My biggest splurge was for my 50th birthday. It was a Pearl

Jam poster from 1998 in East Lansing, James Richard (Dick) Durham III ’64 My biggest splurge was trading in my Yamaha Conservatory for a superexpensive seven-and-a-half-foot Bösendorfer grand piano. It is the most lovely and impressive sound in the world, the best and most expensive piano made next to Fazioli, which no one should try to afford.

Michigan. I went to the show during my I made two CDs on the new pediatric residency in Grand Rapids. I remember Bösendorfer—gorgeous, deep, full not buying the poster for $30 at the time, thinking harmonics, everything a grand that was too much money. I bought stickers for $5 piano should be. Even though it instead. Pearl Jam posters have become collectibles cost more than my second house, over the years, and this was my personal Holy Grail. it is definitely worth it. It was the only one I did not have from the Pearl Thanks, Wabash, for giving me

Jam concerts I attended. This particular poster is such a full, vibrant, enlightened life. rare and highly coveted. It took many years of looking before I was able to purchase it Diane Marino, parent of from eBay—22 years later it cost a lot Benjamin Marino ’23 more than $30. My greatest splurge would be staying in an oceanfront condo at the beach. Bob Kellogg ’55 After graduation, I stayed in touch with a Lambda Chi brother, Cortes Perry ’55, who had gone to work for NASA in Huntsville, Alabama. One summer, in the 1970s, Ellen and I and our four children visited Huntsville. Cortes met us at the NASA facility and took us on a grand tour, some of it beyond the buildings prepared for normal tourist trade. In one large building prepared for viewing, Cortes pointed out the original Earth orbiter, a small cone-shaped unit with the access door open. This was the actual device that NASA had rushed into orbit after the Russian Sputnik had made its orbits. As we gazed at the small interior, Cortes pointed to a small box-like device and said, “That’s a mass spectrometer I designed.” My old friend had designed one of the test instruments used on the first NASA orbiter! Ellen and I returned to Huntsville a few years ago after Cortes had passed, and took the standard tour. It was not nearly as impressive as the tour Cortes gave us many years ago.

Andy Walsh ’14 My biggest splurge was definitely when I emptied my savings account to go to Game

One of the 2016 Major League Baseball World Series featuring the Cubs vs. the Indians. As a die-hard Cubs fan my entire life, it was a dream come true to attend the first World Series game the Cubs played since 1945, and the first game of their first World Series title since 1908. Money comes and goes, but this memory will last forever.

Jeff Torell ’69 Biggest splurge—landscaping and two retaining walls on our sloping yard.