Wishing Makes It So at Auction

It wasn’t your standard auction. “It was classy. It was style. It was generous,” auctioneer Evelyn Hayes said of the fund-raising event at Mount Holyoke College, which began Friday night and continued most of Saturday. About 1,500 people attended the bidding on 600 items, which brought in $225,000 to endow two scholarships at the western Massachusetts campus. Cellist Yo Yo Ma, husband of alumna Allison Horner, donated a concert for an audience of 50 ($8,000). Dinner with former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance at the New York apartment of his daughter Amy, a member of the Class of 1971, was snapped up for $125. Cartoons by “Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau went for about $100 each. Monty Python comedian John Cleese, husband of alumna Barbara Schilling, donated signed albums that brought $100 each. A champagne breakfast at Tiffany’s for 100 people took in $750. A quilt by the school’s mid-Hudson Valley alumnae went for $3,950. And a commemorative ring containing a lock of college founder Mary Lyon’s hair was picked up for $250. But the top bid was $13,000 for a three-carat antique diamond ring donated by alumnae president Kathryn Rabinow of Houston. “We made a wish list of everything everybody ever wanted,” said Rabinow, who wished for but did not get a weekend with Paul Newman.

--A Japanese inventor, Kotaro Sakai, says he has developed that most elusive of commodities, flavorful garlic that does not leave bad breath. The odor-free garlic, which a Japanese salesman has dubbed “high-tech,” is made by soaking the cloves in Phytin, a calcium supplement, and other, unspecified, food additives. Sakai said in a recent interview that he has signed a contract to sell his product in the United States starting in November. “It’s really delicious,” he said, unlike other odorless garlic that has come up tasteless, to boot. “And with my garlic it’s OK to kiss,” he added.

--Leonard Hayes Chace, who died last Wednesday at the age of 80, began his career as a country garage mechanic, bought a high-volume Chevrolet dealership in 1955 and moved it to Middleboro, Mass., in 1965. “He had automobiles in his blood,” said Bruce LaFleur, general manager of L&H; Chace & Sons. When the family deliberated about where to hold the wake, they figured it would be a good idea to move the new cars aside and hold it in his showroom. “We felt he was at home in the dealership, and this was where he would’ve like to have been,” said Len Chace Jr.