Greg / Gregg

Greg in 1972.

Greg present day.

Gregg (left) with captain Blair Brooks.

Gregg in 2021

What’s in a name? A world of confusion, potentially. Long before the internet made stolen identity a thing, classmates Greg Stone and Gregg Stone knew what it was like to have “a double lurking on campus.” After years of having to explain, “No, I’m not that Greg(g) Stone,” the two finally met at a reunion. And not with pistols at dawn. Instead, the two became instant friends. 

In this installment of PasstheMic, the two Greg(g)s consider how Harvard brings people with different family histories together. Gregg’s family came over in the “Great Migration” of dissenters from England who sailed with Jonathan Winthrop in the 17th century. Greg’s family emigrated from Albania in the late 1800s. Reflecting on his father and brothers encountering “a tremendous amount of bigotry back in the ‘30s,” Greg tells the story of how they settled on what is now the family name that he shares with Gregg.

They also share stories of the winding roads they’ve traveled since graduation, captured in this aphorism Greg offers in Italian: ‘‘He who hammers for himself, hammers well.” That entrepreneurial spirit has reconnected both Stones to passions that were not their first career choice at graduation. Gregg transitioned from practicing law to coaching crew, including his own daughter for the Olympic team; Greg went from print and broadcast journalism to media consulting to penning mystery novels, a natural for a boy who devoured the Hardy Boys as a kid.

So, the rolling Stones found each other at last and the road continues to unwind, another thread in the tapestry that is the Harvard Class of 1975.