Milo Hofstetter's GPA went to hell his 2nd year at Harvard, grades bad enough to get him tossed out of school and left to the mercy of his county draft board back home in Mekinock, North Dakota. It was a long, hard fall for the one-time, "smartest boy in the Red River Valley"!
Milo spent the spring helping on the family farm. When his draft notice arrived, Milo enlisted in the Army for three years. Off he went to basic training, then advanced training. His training finished, Milo ended up a cannon cocker in the 4th Batallion of the 4th Artillery Regiment in the Republic of South Vietnam.
After his government-sponsored 12-month field trip to Asia, Milo was assigned as an artillery instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He soon realized a couple of things; the Army was no life for him, and the "wind sweeping down the plains" in "Oak-Lah-Ho-ma" was a breeze compared to the wind back home in the valley.
One day after giving six classes on the 105 mm M101A1 howitzer to sleepy young artillerymen, Milo made his decision. He was going back to Harvard. He applied for an early out for educational reasons, got his GI Bill money arranged. His send-off from Fort Sill included these words from Major Dumbrowski, "Good luck, Specialist, you're too damn smart for this man's Army anyway."
Milo found himself back in Cambridge for the start of school in the fall of 1971, reinstated as a sophomore. Milo was determined not to make the same mistake twice. He got a room in a triple-decker in Somerville, no partying, no blacking out on Saturday nights, no more chasing preppy girls who considered him an alien from another planet. Girls who asked him things like, "Where exactly are you from anyway?"
Milo was walking across the yard on his first day back. By the time he'd walked 150 yards, six people called him Oliver or Barrett, one of them, a sad-looking girl dressed in black with black-framed glasses said, "Too bad about Jenny, it must have broken your heart." She smiled a sad smile and walked on.
Milo was so focused on school, he didn't think much about it. Weeks went by, and every day, it was the same thing, 'Hey Barrett, Sorry about Jenny or How you doin' Oliver?"
Milo often ate dinner at The Cottage in Harvard Square, he'd gotten to know Gina, the gum-chewing waitress. One night when business was slow, Milo told her about the Oliver business. Gina's answer, 'Jeez Milo, yoah such a dumb bastid, don't you know yah look like Ryan O'Neil's twin brotha fah chrissakes?"
"What?" Milo said.
"The movie stah, he was in 'Love Story" yah silly shit, he was the Olivah guy, and Ali Macgraw played the Jenny chick, where you bin anyway, hidin' undah a rock?"
"No, I was in the Army."
"There yah go then, want yah cheeseburgah like usual?"
"Uh-huh."
When he finished eating, Milo went to a used book store and bought a paperback of "Love Story' for 75 cents. By ten after ten that night, he understood what was going on. Within a few months, things settled down.
School went well. he did have great luck with women who wanted a little Ryan O'Neil to rub off on them. he didn't have any complaints.
Milo graduated summa cum laude in the spring of 1974, he went on to Harvard Business School and got his MBA in 1976.
Tired of the cold weather, Milo took a job with Pacific Partners Investment Bank in Los Angeles. He loved his job and did well.
Milo met a woman at Jumbo's Clown Room one night, she stared, then remarked, "Hey you look like Ryan O'Neil!" Milo looked her over and said, "Hey you look like Ali Macgraw."
'I know." she kissed him, and they both immediately fell in love.
A year later, they drove up PCH and had a fine dinner in Malibu to celebrate Milo's promotion to partner at the investment bank. Milo asked his "Ali" to marry him. She said 'Yes." They kissed over dessert.
On the drive back to Santa Monica on PCH, Steve McQueen ran Milo's new Porsche off the road with his Ferarri. Steve was pissed because he thought Ali was fooling around with her former co-star. Steve was screaming something about "I left my god damned wife for you, bitch."
Milo calmly listened while he examined his car. Then he walked over, kicked Steve McQueen's ass, took the keys to the Ferarri, threw them across the highway onto the beach. Milo wiped his hands on the unconscious McQueen's jacket, turned to his fiancee, and said, "Let's go home Honey", he sighed, "you know I'm getting tired of this shit."
As they drove away, Milo looked in the rearview mirror, he could see Steve McQueen trying to stand up, stop his nosebleed, and look for his keys all at the same time.
After their intimate wedding ceremony at Los Angeles City Hall, Milo and Margaret drove their shiny, black Porsche 911 SC to North Dakota on their honeymoon. Milo hadn't seen his parent's new home, a stately colonial built on what remained of the original farmstead. Milo's parents had sold the balance of the land to the city of Grand Forks for construction of the new sewage lagoon and treatment plant. His parents loved the new house except when the wind blew from the south.
On their second night in the Red River Valley, they took Milo's parents, Myron and Ethel, to dinner at the Bronze Boot. They signed 27 menus for other diners that night. Myron Hoffstedder, said, "The hells going on, then." Milo smiled, "Just roll with it dad."
Their evening at the Boot was written up the next day by a young Herald reporter named Marilyn Hagerty. The headline on her story read, "Ryan O'Neil and Ali Mcgraw enjoyed the Bronze Boot's always delightful Surf and Turf last night. They were in the company of a farm couple from Mekinock. No further details are available, but Alice Johanson, their waitress said, "They were very nice for such famous people, not snotty like some I've met."
