Lee Geiger

Old days
Good times I remember
Fun days
Filled with simple pleasure
Chicago, “Old Days” (1975)

On a nearly deserted beach hugging the coastline of South Carolina’s tranquil Seabrook Island, Greg McCrickard squares my shoulders so my back is tight against his chest. With nary a cloud in the sky nor a hint of oppressive humidity disturbing this picturesque stretch of sand, the retired T. Rowe Price rock star is recreating the NFL’s historic “Immaculate Reception,” arguing with the passion of Daniel Webster that the football had to have hit Pittsburgh’s French Fuqua in the numbers before ricocheting to Franco Harris, thus making the catch illegal and nullifying the Steeler’s 1972 divisional playoff victory over the then-Oakland Raiders. Listening intently like a juror in the O.J. Simpson trial is Doug Russell, relaxing in a beach chair with something cold after a two-mile stroll on sand firm enough to land a 747, still basking in the victorious glow of winning yesterday’s closest-to-the-pin contest. Nearby is the animated foursome of Michael Cleary, Tony Ehinger, Pam Chandler and John Chandler, locked in the second day of a knock-down, drag-out beach bocce ball contest utilizing more beachfront property than Cuba. Ignoring all the fuss while noshing on chips and Pellegrino are Tuck Class of 1986 spouses Peggy Cleary, Beth McCrickard, Marianne Ehinger and Anne Geiger,reminiscing about heroically supporting stressed-out husbands with low-paying jobs and Hamburger Helper recipes, while in complete agreement that being a grandparent lives up to the hype.

On a warm spring day in May, when the weather scored a twenty on a ten-point scale, life is good. Damn good, in fact.

How did we get here? Forty-plus years ago, Mike and Greg were next-door Sachem Village neighbors, and now each has a Seabrook Island address, a Lowcountry slice of heaven whose bike trails and quiet streets curve beneath long tunnels of moss-draped live oaks. Both families generously opened their comfortable homes to this Tuck mini-reunion, and for three days we played golf, hung out at the beach, and got up close and personal with alligators and dolphins. An ocean of well-aged wine was consumed as we shared memories of Blue Knowledge and Blue Eagles, along with the joys, surprises, travails and challenges of raising 18 kids and being blessed with 28 grandchildren (some born within days of our get together). It doesn’t get much better.

Doug and I are the only ones still grinding out paychecks, but that’s okay since we both enjoy what we do. That being said, Doug’s golf swing is sweeter than Vermont maple syrup, and retirement would quickly lead him to a single-digit handicap. I have always felt a special kinship with Doug since he and I were the only classmates from our sketchy south-central Sachem Village cul-de-sac who didn’t make the cut for Tuck Scholar. But we managed to get out alive.

Mike is happily retired from a career that can best be described as diversified. I’ve never met anyone in my life who worked harder to solve a problem, and Mike still looks like he can strap on the skates and play sixty minutes of ice hockey after spending a full day putting out corporate fires. Mike recently took up golf, and you’d be smart to place a bet on Polymarket that he will be the first person in our class to create an AI agent to help him shoot his age.

Greg’s better half likes to joke that he has lost more pairs of post-retirement shades to keep Sunglass Hut in business. But Greg’s memory is razor sharp when it comes to his time in Hanover. Greg can still recall in vivid detail the first time he met me–September 1984, in a dark corner of the Tuck computer lab surrounded by reams of perforated printing paper. After engineering a pie chart on a pair of floppy disks featuring more colorful slices than a Sicilian-style pizza, Greg looked over at my amateurish 50/50 black and white turkey and asked if I needed any help. Not only does this explain why Greg was a Tuck Scholar and I finished at the bottom end of the class gene pool, but also signified why Greg would go on to successfully manage sophisticated multi-billion-dollar stock portfolios, while I invested the majority of my career trading stocks and shmoozing clients on the fingerpainting side of Wall Street.

The last time I spent any real time with Tony Ehinger was in 2004. A majordomo at Credit Suisse, we met for lunch at his Manhattan office. After explaining that I had recently joined a no-name financial services firm in San Francisco, the former Fuller Brush salesman peeked over his chicken salad and said in that booming New Jersey accent, “Wow. You guys must do a lot of crossword puzzles.” (How I begged our lawyers to have that line inserted in our firm’s prospectus when we went public three years later). Tony hasn’t changed one iota, and his brilliant mind and charismatic wit still command a room. If there’s one person from our class who could make some serious noise with their own podcast, it’s Tony.

The Chandlers are as charming a couple as you’ll ever hope to meet. To this hard-boiled Californian, Pam and John are the textbook example of what a successful and happily retired New England MBA couple should be. They are thoughtful, quick with a story, and possessed of the increasingly rare habit of listening before speaking. It’s no wonder they were both able to retire early. What I wouldn’t give for this intellectually curious pair to move to California and run for governor. Either one of them would win in a landslide.

I threw out one topic for discussion during our three-day tour of Seabrook Island; which four of our esteemed classmates should be featured on a Tuck 1986 Mount Rushmore? Professional and personal considerations ranged from vague to nebulous to subjective. In the end, I simply wondered who in our class has made the biggest impact on the world (so far)? Debi Warner Brooks, CEO and Co-Founder of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, was a no-brainer first-ballot choice. We struggled after that, if for no other reason than our sample size was simply too small, and we didn’t know what all 150+ of our classmates had accomplished since those halcyon days of 1986. But based on what I saw and heard this weekend, I’d have to nominate Pam, John, Greg, Mike, Doug, and Tony for that chiseled wall of granite. And make sure there’s room for Jim Weber, too.

I understand that’s more than four, but what the hell–my blog, my rules. Besides, I never could follow directions. Just ask Professor Shank.