Alan David Milstone – 50th Reunion Essay

Alan David Milstone

60 Dorrance St.

Hamden, Ct 06518-3307

alan.milstone@sbcglobal.net

203-640-9785

Education: Yale BA in Architecture, ’69

National Service: US Army, ’69–’71

Career: librarian, for 4 years; woodwind & brass repairman for 38 years

Avocations: clarinet playing in community groups including orchestra, woodwind quintet, and bands; golf; bridge; sports fan; following public policy and current events

College: Silliman

Who’s That?

Did you ever think that you wasted your talents, squandered your promise?

Has it also occurred to you that you are among the luckiest people ever to be alive at this time and place?

How is it that, as time passes there are only more questions and fewer answers?

Graduation…now what? Having learned nothing—zero—about my chosen major, architecture (with the notable exception of Vincent Scully’s transcendent History of Modern Architecture course), all I could figure to do was to apply as a “gopher” to a local architectural firm. The very day I got the call offering me a job, I received the dreaded “Greetings” letter. I got drafted.

The right thing to do was to resist and go to prison, but I could not face that. And there was always the cottage industry of draft avoidance, which I surely could tap into. But then my slot would just be filled by someone less privileged, with fewer options. Is that just, is that right?

On the advice of my friend Bill Goglia, cousin of our classmate Kevin Hart, during basic training I asked to audition for the band. Bill had been a radio operator in Vietnam, a brutal experience that he preferred not to talk about, and he wanted to help me avoid a similar fate. By some lucky stroke, I got into the army band system and spent my service in Fort Devens outside of Boston and in Worms, Germany. The other musicians were terrific, and playing music every day is a gas.

One day, as my time got real short, I asked a group of buddies what their plans were after getting out. One of my best friends, Bruce Belo, said he was going to find the best repair school he could and learn to fix horns. That was my quintessential light-bulb moment.

In 1972, I went to my repairman, George Theodos, to ask him if he needed an apprentice. No. So I went to Yale and got a job in the Slide and Photography Library. It was a cozy four-person office and four years there were stimulating and satisfying. Our great boss, Helen Chillman, gave us direction and then let us go! Great clients, mostly art history faculty who I found most interesting and delightful.

Then, in 1976, the woman of my dreams decided I was not the man of her dreams.

Devastation.

My great friend, Kevin Hart, helped me through the next two dark years. Then I found myself in George’s Music to buy a violin E string. There was no one next to George at the bench, so I asked him once more if he wanted an apprentice repairing woodwind and brass instruments. He took me on. The store was a full-line, mom-and-pop operation with two employees. George and his wife, Toni, were terrific. Thorough knowledge, highest integrity, love of music and musicians.

After 17 years with George, I opened my own repair shop in Hamden, Connecticut and have thrived for 21 years since. In all that time there have been only a handful of days I woke up not wanting to go to work. What a gift! The people, from the nine-year-old beginners to the seasoned pros, are most fascinating and the work rewarding.

My life goals were modest—to have a family and to be my own boss. Guess one out of two’s not bad.