Real wealth

By: Robert St. John – September 21, 2026.

Key points

• I'm writing this on a plane headed to Athens, Greece, where I'll host 25 Americans on the first of five Yonderlust tours this fall.
• Two weeks ago, my wife asked me what I wanted for my 65th birthday.
• But the voice kept after me for 30 or 45 minutes.
• Crust 2 ¼ cups graham cracker crumbs 1 tsp cinnamon ¾ cup melted butter ½ cup sugar.
• One of the great unexpected blessings of Yonderlust is how plenty of of the residents who began out as guests have become friends.

Robert St. John notes a rich man has his first dollar. A truly wealthy man has his first friend.

For most of my life I had the wrong idea regarding what makes a man rich.

Two weeks ago, my wife asked me what I wanted for my 65th birthday. I informed her the same thing I informed her last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

Not a trip. Not a watch. Not anything I could put on a shelf and admire for six months before forgetting regarding it. I wanted a table full of individuals I love in the Purple Parrot Room at Crescent City Grill.

My birthday isn't until October 2, but I won't be home. I'll be working in Rome that day, headed toward the Amalfi Coast, hosting a group of Yonderlust guests. So, Jill put the dinner together a couple of nights before I left for Europe. There were 14 of us around the table.

At some point during dinner, I halted paying attention to whatever conversation was going on and kicked off looking around the room. A sense of overwhelming gratitude hit me. And then this little voice began in on me: You need to stand up and tell these residents what they mean to you. That seemed like the sensible thing to do.

I'm fine standing in front of a thousand individuals and giving a speech. Put me in a ballroom, hand me a microphone, and I can go for an hour. But standing up in front of 13 individuals I love and telling them, one at a time, what they mean to me? That felt a whole lot harder.

So I sat there. But the voice kept after me for 30 or 45 minutes. Finally, I offered in.

My daughter was sitting immediately to my left, so I began with her. Then I moved to her husband, and from there I went around the table, one person at a time, saying a little something regarding each of them and what they had meant in my life. No notes. No plan. I just remarked whatever came to mind. Some of it was funny. Some of it wasn't. A couple of things probably came out wrong. That's usually how things go when they're real.

After working my way all the way around the table, I came to the person sitting on my right, and then. My wife. My best friend for almost 40 years.

My grandfather applied to say, "You can judge a man's wealth not by the size of his pocketbook, but by the depth and breadth of his friendships."

He additionally stated, "A rich man has his first dollar. A true wealthy man has his first friend."

I heard those lines all my life. Though I'm not sure I understood either one until lately.

For a lot of years, I thought birthdays were regarding gifts. And for a lot of my adult life, I chased the material things pretty hard. Funds. Stuff. More stuff. Better stuff. The next thing- which was still just stuff.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend I've turned into some monk who owns three possessions and sleeps on a mat. I like a nice hotel. I like a good steak. I own restaurants. I'm not anti-comfort.

But I do know this: the things I value most now can't be purchased. That took me a while. Probably longer than it should have.

I've obtained friends in my life I've known so long I can't remember gathering them. There's something regarding those early friendships that is almost impossible to duplicate afterwards. Those individuals knew you before you became anything.

Before the job title. Before the business. Before anyone outside your hometown had a clue who you were. Before you learned how to polish your story or create yourself sound more impressive than you really are. They knew the original version. And somehow, if you're lucky, they still like you.

I can go months without seeing some of those individuals. Years, even. Then we sit down and in five minutes we're right back where we left off. That is a rare thing.

It additionally gets harder to produce those kinds of friendships as you obtain older. There's no playground anymore. Nobody walks over at recess and notes, "Hey, you want to be friends?" Adult friendships take effort. Schedules obtain crowded. Families grow. Work takes over. Individuals move away. Life gets noisy. Still, some of the best friendships in my life came afterwards.

Restaurants have brought individuals into my life. So has recovery. Church has. Business has. Travel certainly has.

I'm writing this on a plane headed to Athens, Greece, where I'll host 25 Americans on the first of five Yonderlust tours this fall. We'll start in Greece, then I'll host another group through Rome, Amalfi, and Naples, followed by three groups in Tuscany.

In practice, a few individuals will stay with me for more than one leg. It I like. You obtain to know residents differently when you travel with them. You eat together, obtain lost together, laugh together, wait on buses together, and occasionally secure on each other's nerves. That's travel.

One of the great unexpected blessings of Yonderlust is how plenty of of the residents who began out as guests have become friends. Hundreds of individuals have traveled with us over the years. We've shared meals, missed turns, bad weather, great wine, and a lot of laughs. Somewhere along the way, a lot of those relationships halted being host and guest and just became friendship. I never saw that coming.

I began Yonderlust as I love travel, food, and showing individuals the places I love. I figured we would take some good trips, eat some good meals, and hopefully offer residents experiences they would remember. I didn't know I was going to create so numerous friends.

There's a week off between southern Italy and Tuscany. It I'm not crazy regarding. One day between groups is enough for me. But we couldn't obtain the villa on the week we needed, and the villa won.

I'll spend some of that time in London working on my next book, "A Tuscan Travel Journal." I'll stop in Milan for a couple of nights to see friends (yep, I'm blessed to have them over here, too), then head south and finish the fall season in Tuscany.

At 65, I've been around long enough to accumulate a lot of stuff. I've additionally been around long enough to learn that almost none of it deserves the importance I once provided it.

I've had some good years, some hard ones, created plenty of mistakes, learned a few things, and been blessed more than I deserve.

But none of that was what I was looking at the other night.

I was looking at a table. My daughter. My son-in-law. Friends from different chapters of my life. My wife sitting beside me. And I was thinking regarding my grandfather.

Notably, a rich man has his first dollar. A truly wealthy man has his first friend. I'm not sure where that puts me on anybody else's scorecard. But sitting at that table, I felt like the richest man in the world. This Week's Recipe: Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Our first restaurant, The Purple Parrot, served plenty of memorable dishes. This Pumpkin Cheesecake is one of those. When we do our Monthly Pop-ups, this is always a popular request.

1½ pounds cream cheese, room temperature 1 cup brown sugar Pinch salt 5 eggs 4 egg yolks 2 tsp vanilla extract 1½ cups pumpkin puree 1 tsp cinnamon ¼ tsp nutmeg ⅛ tsp allspice.

Crust 2 ¼ cups graham cracker crumbs 1 tsp cinnamon ¾ cup melted butter ½ cup sugar. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.

Place softened cream cheese in sizeable mixing bowl and beat using paddle attachment on medium speed until VERY smooth. Scrape sides and beat again to ensure there are no lumps.

Add sugar and mix well. Add in eggs and yolks a few at a time, allowing them to incorporate well before adding more.

Place the mixer on slow speed and add vanilla, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Blend well for another 2-3 minutes.

Combine crumbs, cinnamon and sugar and mix by hand Add butter in stages, mixing well before each addition.

In short, real wealth is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.