From Luciano Ristori, August 13, 2020.
I came to Fermilab for the first time in Jan 1980 from Italy, with a small group led by Giorgio Bellettini. I was 31. Alvin told me about this fantastic machine they were going to build here, all superconducting magnets. It sounded like an impossible dream to many people at that time, but I did not need to think much, I was fascinated. So I joined CDF and then moved to Fermilab with my family for a four-month stay in the Fermilab Village at the end of the same year. And here comes Thanksgiving and he invites us to his home for dinner. Some of my relatives from Italy were visiting us and he invites them too. I appreciated that a lot, of course, although I didn’t know much about Thanksgiving at that time. We do not celebrate Thanksgiving in Italy. After all these years, now that I think I understand more about the meaning of this holiday for the American culture, I appreciate that even more. He made us unexpectedly feel like family. I will never forget.
Much later, when I came up with an idea for the CDF Trigger that most people considered a pipe dream, Alvin was very supportive. I do not think I could have succeeded in convincing the CDF Collaboration that it could work and that it was worth trying without Alvin’s support. That happened to be the most important milestone in my whole career and I could not have done it without Alvin.
Recently I looked for him because I had been invited to give a talk about the history of CDF, so I though a chat with Alvin was in order. I entered his office at the Hi-Rise. He was sitting in front of his computer working on some plots about axion search, his new passion. I greeted him “Hi Alvin, how are you?” and he goes “I am alive”. That’s what he used to reply every time I met him in the last few years and, every time, he made me smile. We went on chatting for more than one hour about the history of the Tevatron and CDF, remembering the good old times and friends who are no longer with us. That conversation gave me all the information that I needed for my talk and, at the same time, was very heart-warming.
Dear Alvin, I owe you an enormous amount of gratitude. I hope I managed to let it come across to you when I had the opportunity. I will sorely miss you.