My Greek Odyssey

Children

Diary of a Yorkville Street Urchin

Mama always liked to dress me up in ridiculous outfits. The kind that no self respecting street urchin on East 91st in the Yorkville section of Mahattan would be caught dead in. Like the suit that looked like it was made of aluminum foil. She had seen something like it in a magazine and promptly went out and found some of the offensive fabric. She had stayed up late into the night sewing. When it was done you could tell she was very proud of her work, stroking it lovingly while it was on a hanger.  I was appalled, she had to threaten me with bodily harm because I balked at wearing it. After all what would my friends say? My God, this was the neighborhood of Lou Gehrig and James Cagney; could you see them wearing a get up like this? All I wanted was to be one of the neighborhood gang. I wanted to wear Keds high top sneakers and blue jeans and a T-shirt. I wanted to blend in. It was bad enough that I looked like a visitor from Spanish Harlem in a sea of blonde and red-haired freckled Celtic children. How was I going to be one of the boys, someone that you couldn't mess with or take for granted? The only time anyone wore a suit in our neck of the woods was on their confirmation day. I wasn't sure what took place exactly, not being Catholic, but I knew that no one could make fun of you for wearing a suit on that particular day. As I pictured myself walking in tow down the street wearing my aluminum suit, all those beady little eyes upon me, ready to pounce, I imagined telling everyone it was my confirmation day.  As good an alibi as any. I schemed of ways to destroy the aluminum suit, maybe I could catch the fabric on a nail and rip it to shreds or maybe I could spill my mother's lentil soup on it and kill two birds with one stone. Alas, my courage failed me. I was a defeated man, the victim of two different worlds that would both hold me hostage in their own inimitable ways.

No matter how hard I tried, and I tried mightily to be a good little American, my Greek immigrant parents would often make the wrong fashion choices for me. Like making me wear shorts. That was OK if you lived in Greece but not if you lived on East 91st Street where shorts were considered less than manly. It was hard enough to survive in the street urchin society that we spent so much of our free time in, identifying yourself as different made you a target. Back then kids lived outside in all types of weather, we yearned for the open expanses of the street where we could dodge traffic and play with trash can lids.  There was not much to do at home in the cramped apartments we lived in and parents expected you to play, get this...outside. They were less paranoid and neurotic in those days about all the terrible things that could befall us, even in the middle of Manhattan. And we too wanted to be where the action was even if it thrust us into a milieu where children governed themselves for the most part, with occasional benign interventions by adults. A society where you could be teased or bullied, though one where justice was always meted out in the end.  We looked like well fed, healthy Dickensian waifs, our clothes and bodies dirtied by the grime of the streets.  By the time you got home you were immediately ushered into a bath tub, where your Mother took particular delight in rubbing you raw to remove the offending dirt in order to rediscover the child who had left home that morning. "Mama stop rubbing so hard, you're hurting me," I protested, while she just kept scrubbing the crevices of my ears until they were clean, unrepentent, mumbling in Greek under her breath.

Our block was one big playgound overrun by noisy, busy children. Jumping rope, rollerskating, playing stoop ball, stickball, immersed in a game of marbles or using bottle tops to play "scullsey."  We saved our pennies to buy tops and yo-yos. We organized our own games and everyone played even if you had no talent.  I returned to the same street fifty years later only to find it bereft of children, populated instead with latte-drinking, childless thirty somethings whose major preoccupation was postponing the onset of adulthood. They were the products of organized sports where over achieving adults made all their decisions and parents who dressed them from head to toe in protective gear in order to go roller skating. Now they are finally reveling in independence at long last.

I look back on those days in the late 50s and early 60s with nostalgic fondness as some of the happiest years of my life. They were indeed carefree and full of childish games and wonder. Still there were moments of abject terror that even now send a chill down my spine. There were always the kids that delighted in establishing their rightful place in the pecking order at someone's expense or willing to fight at the drop of a hat to avenge some perceived slight. Of all the terrors that we had to face however none was greater in my mind that the two most frightful adults that haunted our territory. Back then adults were accorded respect, they were not to be trifled with. These two were different. They were downright scary. One was a stern Catholic nun named Sister Brigid, a member of the Sisters of Charity order, who taught at Our Lady of Good Counsel School. Her fearsome reputation preceded her wherever she went, fed by the blood curdling stories of her students, past and present, many of whom were friends of mine. They regaled me with horrific stories of painful tortures inflicted on the unsuspecting innocents who happened to have had the bad luck to end up in her classroom. I prayed that nothing would ever happen to Public School 151 or that I would never be sent to Catholic school where they crossed themselves the wrong way and prayed to statues.

The other scary adult in my life was a junkyard dealer who worked out of a storefront adjacent to the local bus stop.  His attire consisited of a filthy white flannel shirt and dungaree overalls with one shoulder strap always dangling. He had few teeth and the ones he did have were a sickly yellowish-green. He was a huge man who reminded me of a professional wrestler named Haystack Calhoun who ate a dozen eggs for breakfast and pounded nails in with his bare fist.  He was nicknamed "Baldy Joe," an appelation earned by his appearance but never uttered in his presence except by suicidal teenagers who would shout it from the back of the bus when it stopped in front of his shop.

Little did I realize that destiny would bring the three of us together one fateful day. My mother had  sent me to the barber for a haircut. This particular barber was a Hungarian immigrant who cut hair out of a one chair storefront establishment. His family lived in the back room, the aroma of food cooking in your nostrils while he cut your hair. His son, a college student studying engineering often sat at a small cash register with books full of mathematical formulas piled around it which he read intently as if they were comic books. Mama liked the way this barber cut my hair and she insisted that I go to him for my haircuts even though it required a bus trip. 

After my haircut I took the bus home that day as I customarily did.  Halfway home it picked up a familiar passenger, a nun dressed in a floor length black habit and wearing a black pioneer bonnet. I immediately recognized her and I slowly began sliding down my seat in an attempt to lower my profile and become as inconspicuous as possible. I stared at her, drawn by a combination of curiosity and trepidation.  As we approached the bus stop I was to get off, three teenagers in the very rear of the bus starting yelling "BALDY JOE" in unison through the window bringing an enraged ogre out of his cave as if awakened by some kind of primal instinct. It was like waving a red flag at a bull. I moved to the rear exit so as not to miss my stop rather amused as were the teenagers laughing hysterically from their protected position.  When the doors opened however, there he was, looking crazy and rushing towards me thinking I was one of his many tormenters. I almost urinated on myself from the fear, frozen on the stairs of the bus exit, waiting to die. Unbeknowst to me however, Sister Brigid came up behind me, grabbing my arm while she pulled me back, getting between Baldy and myself. She looked at him, ever so composed and said sternly, "Get out of my way, Sean O'Casey."  It was as if Moses had spoken and the seas parted. Baldy said meekly, "Yes, sister." and held her hand as she stepped off the bus. "Thank you," she turned looking at me, "Come with me young man."  I followed her obediently all the way to her school. "Why don't I see you at mass?" she asked in an accent that betrayed her Irish origin. "I'm not Catholic sister, I'm Greek Orthodox and go to another church." She smiled, "That's nice, now run along home lad, your mother will be worried about you." as we parted company.

Neither Sister Brigid nor Baldy Joe seemed so frightening after our paths crossed by chance that fateful day. I was in my own way on the road to maturity and had gained a better understanding of the adult world. From then on,  I would wave to both when I saw them in the neighborhood as if we had some unspoken bond. Baldy would give me a toothy grin. Sister would nod in my direction without smiling, something that left my pals in utter awe, winning me a grudging respect from my peers. She must have thought waving was a tad unseemly. 

West Side Story _America 2 

Resilience in Adversity

"Do not be surprised that you fall every day; do not give up, but stand your ground courageously. And assuredly, the angel who guards you will honor your patience." -- St. John of the Ladder

Open a newspaper these days and you will be sickened by what you read. Our world seems to be careening downhill out of control. In many respects we have been taking a vacation from history. We having been living large, as they say, trying to ignore what is going on around us.  We often forget that life is difficult, and it has a nasty habit of reminding us now and then. Our world can be turned upside down overnight. No matter how hard we try to avoid them, adversity and suffering find us. When they do, they invariably have much to teach us. The disasters, large and small, in our lives create the ability to bear them and have the ability to make us stronger.

Our eyes weaken as we grow older, but we begin to discern many things more clearly as we age. What was seen as a devastating blow in our youth, later appears as a less threatening but worrisome obstacle. As we grow in experience and wisdom, obstacles become less fearful and are reduced to difficult challenges. Later, difficult challenges are viewed as valuable lessons. And valuable lessons become learning experiences that change us forever. 

My mother-in-law, Maria, the closest thing I have to a mother these days, has taught me about the importance of facing adversity with a good attitude.  The importance of trusting God. The crucible of hard times can make us more callous, even cynical.Sometimes it can destroy us. Yet, those who willingly allow themselves to be forged, hammered, and shaped by adversity, grow as a result.

Maria lost her father and lived through the German occupation and the Civil War as a child. She has known hunger and extreme poverty. She spent most of her adult life hunched over a sewing machine or raising her family. Plagued by health problems, weakened by old age and watching her husband, lifelong relatives and friends die, I am amazed by the nobility and compassion that have become hallmarks of her life. The greatest lesson her life of suffering has taught me is that we are measured in the end not by what we achieve but rather by how we face up to the trials God bestows upon us. 

One of the Desert Fathers, Abba Isaiah said that "When God wishes to take pity on a soul and it rebels, not bearing anything and doing its own will, he then allows it to suffer that which it does not want, in order that it may seek him again." 

By seeking him again, we live with hope, for to live without God, is to live with despair. 

Aspri Mera Ki Ya Mas

Kukla: The Life of a Greek Stray

 

When I lived in Greece in the 80s, strays were part of the landscape. They were ever present, sleeping in the shade where they could find it or sitting while watching you patiently with big sad eyes as you ate at a sidewalk taverna. Occasionally someone would toss them a tidbit, they would wag their tails in thanks and slink off somewhere to enjoy it far from prying eyes.  Back then Greeks looked upon dogs as serving a purpose. They were guards dogs and hunting dogs, living on the food their masters discarded. During the famine in World War II dogs were a coveted source of food, disappearing for a time from the Athenian landscape. Even in the best of times Greeks didn't keep dogs indoors and they certainly didn't sleep on their sofas or beds.  Keeping dogs as pets was just coming into vogue yet even those kept as pets weren't dressed up in cute costumes nor did they receive healthcare services on a par with humans. If they were lucky they had a courtyard as their kingdom, sometimes they lived on high Athenian balconies, spending their time pacing back and forth or barking at some percieved intuder. A few were chained up on invariably short chains, often in the blazing Mediterranean sun with an empty water bowl to keep them company.

Needless to say, many escaped. Who could blame them? Some were turned loose to fend for themselves when their owners tired of them.  They were forced to wander aimlessly the streets and neighborhoods of Athens.  Survival hinged to a great extent on intelligence, those that didn't make the cut ended up dead on the side of a road, the victim of some speeding motorist in a hurry to get to his next destination.  More than once I watched marveling as a stray waited patiently at a busy corner, until the humans there decided it was safe to cross the throughfare and the stray crossing safely with them. These strays, despite being the victims of man's cruelty or at best indifference, had a gentleness about them.  They were wary of humans but never held a grudge against them it seemed to me. They realized that survival was dependednt on these strange two legged creatures with whom their wild ancestors had forged an unbreakable contract thousands of years ago around some campfire surrounded by the forbidding darkness beyond. If man broke that contract now and then, there was always hope that another one would come around the next corner and make things right once again.  

They wandered all over the city of Athens, from the fashionable districts, a stones throw from the center of the city, to the ever expanding suburbs dotted with apartments in various stages of constructions and dirt roads still waiting to be paved.  I lived in one of those suburbs called Anovoula in a little first floor apartment which I found when I arrived in Greece.  The apartment building was owned by a Greek gentleman who had spent his youth making his fortune in South Africa and had only recently returned to Greece. He had a teenage son and daughter, so like all good Greeks he had built an apartment building with three floors, one for himself and his spouse and one each for his children when they married. And like any good Greek he thumbed his nose at the law that prohibited first floor aparatments. He proceeded to build one under the very noses of the municipal authorities which he promptly rented to the first American serviceman, pockets bulging with American dollars, he could find.

It was there in Anovoula that I began my first experience of life in Greece, being the first person in my "Greek" family to actually live within the borders of the modern Greek state. I worked in an office building near Syntagma Square across from the stately Grande Bretagne. Heady times.  Every afternoon I would arrive home, change and go out for a run. It was my way to blow off steam, more importantly it was essential to staying in shape since I would eventually return to the real Marine Corps with its emphasis on physical fitness.  Running up and down the surrounding hills of my neighborhood, I received more than my share of surprised looks.  Greeks didn't go jogging and certainly not in the afternoon heat, that was only something some crazy amerikanaki did. 

It was on one of those runs that I first met a yellow female mutt which I named Kukla, in memory of a beloved family dog that I grew up with. Kukla means "doll, " and so she was, on the inside and out. I had seen her more than a few times meandering through the neighborhood during my daily jaunt through Anovoula. I started carrying a treat or two with me and when I would see her I would motion to her and call her new name. At first she would approach warily and sit about 20 feet or so from me, watching me intently.  I'd throw her a morsel and she would smell it and lick it a few times then gobble it up. For weeks, each time I'd throw something to her the distance between us became shorter until eventually she trusted me enough to let me feed her from my hand.  She would follow me home at a distance and I would get her a bowl of water and feed her. Then we would sit for a while and enjoy the sun dipping slowly into the sea below.  I would pat her on the head, that was her signal to leave and off she would go into the night.

So it went. We became dependent on one another. We both satisfied an important need in the other, the need to be wanted and loved by another creature. I was far away from home, living alone and Kukla was without an owner, someone to feed and pet her. She became a regualr visitor to the street I lived on, I could always depend on her being nearby when I pulled up in my car. I'd whistle and she would come running at full speed to jump on me repeatedly as if she had found a long lost friend.  We had become inseparable, a common sight together. She had begun to put some meat on her bones and was no longer covered by engorged ticks. She would sit quietly and allow me to pick each tick off with tweezers depositing them in a can.  Kukla had become a neighborhood fixture, so much so that the locals were calling her Kukla as well.

Kukla began following me on my daily runs, sticking dutifully at my side, even when it appeared she was having difficulty keeping up, falling further and further behind.  I'd slow down a bit and she would catch up, not to be out done. Once a ferocious looking German Sheperd came out of a walled garden barking furiously at me, baring its teeth, the terrified owner running after him trying to get to him before he got to me. I looked around for a rock to throw when Kukla came out of nowhere lunging at that hulk of a dog. She latched on to his ear biting down hard. It was obviously not the first time she had been involved in a dogfight, quickly gaining the upper hand. The German Sheperd yelped in pain and it was over. She let him go and he scurried away tail between his legs but not before his owner put a well placed kick in his hind quarters to add insult to injury. That night we shared souvlakia together until we could eat no more, their aroma like the sweet smell of victory. 

Despite our friendship Kukla was always a free spirit. She would spend time with me but I think she instinctively sensed that our time together would come to an end. Eventually I realized Kukla was carrying puppies and her time was nigh at hand. For the first time she came to my door scratching at it, something she had never done before. When I opened the door, she walked right in, found a corner and plopped herself down. She was going to give birth in my apartment, as if she knew this would be the safest place to do so. All I could think of was a brood of yelping little puppies running all over my apartment and my landlord screaming bloody murder.  I set to work building a makeshift whelping box, setting it up in a corner of an empty lot. I put a blanket in it, laid a water bowl next to it then went back to my apartment where I put a makeshift leash on Kukla to take her away. I will never forget the way she looked at me with her accusing eyes while I put the rope around her neck.

I stayed by her side that night until she gave birth to three puppies who sucked eagerly at her tit. Two eventually died and I buried them side by side together, wrapped in a cloth.  The remaining white and yellow puppy thrived.  One of the neighbors, a Greek-Australian came over to pay Kukla a visit and see the new puppy with his seven  year old son, who immediately fell in love with the little ball of fur. Eventually they took the puppy away from Kukla and it was saved from a life on the street. A few weeks later I came home one night and whistled for Kukla. It went unanswered, again the next day and every day thereafter. I searched for her everywhere however, I never found out what happened to her. She had left my life as suddenly and without warning as she had enetered it.

Kukla is just a memory now, like many of the other animals that have graced my life. Sometimes I wonder if they go to heaven. Could there be a better place for God's own creatures that love us unconditionally even when we are less than kind to them? Shall we meet all our loved ones in the afterlife? If so, I hope it includes all the four legged companions that I have loved and who have loved me. May they all come running when I whistle, once again.

01 La Luna 

Fathers and Sons

The first light of a new day flowed through the small window I was sitting next to on my transatlantic flight to Athens.  Eight months had passed since I last spoke to my son Nick. Behind me I left a grieving family still trying to make sense of their loss. Ahead of me was a son who despite his human failings and weaknesses, loved God more than anyone or anything in the world--more than the life we helped shape him for, more than his automobile, more than the school he attended, more than his family.  What was I going to say when I got to the monastery?   How would he receive me?  What would I find there? The questions swirled around in my head.

Since our trip to Mt. Athos I had wrestled with my son's decision, trying to reconcile my faith with my doubts.  Was I, even now, still endevearing to replace God with myself in his affections.  Immersed in my worldliness, had I forgotten that the Lord Jesus Christ calls all of His followers to separate themselves from the world?

ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ· Εἴ τις θέλει ὀπίσω μου ἐλθεῖν, ἀπαρνησάσθω ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι. (Then said Jesus to his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.)  

This is the clarion call of Monasticism. 

Eight long months had passed and except for a visit from his yiayia and uncle to the monastery, there had been no contact with Niko.  He had spent an entire winter at the monastery high up in the mountains under arduous and austere conditions.  If he was having second thoughts, now would be the time to find out.  If  I succeeded in bringing him home, would I be making my child unhappy or if I failed, would my family be able to heal the hurt they felt at losing him? We felt estranged from Niko's life and my wife Anna, deeply mourned the son she had been so close to and the grandchildren she would not have. As parents we had spent a good portion of our lives supporting our two precious sons, emotionally and financially, and preparing them to be successful in the world. Now after all these years of effort and anxiety, one of them wanted no part of it.  He had left the seminary one year short of earning his bachelor's degree. In so doing, rejecting the world and the life that we envisioned for him. Every member of his extended family lived with the gnawing feeling that he was rejecting us as well. Had we failed him?

The lack of communication in particular had a devastating effect on all of us. We blamed everyone for our predicament, especially ourselves.  Niko had become the main topic of conversation.  We all wanted to understand, why did he do this? We said he was avoiding responsibility, his spiritual father was making all his decisions,  he was running away instead of working to improve society, he was egocentric and selfish, he was dividing and ruining our family, not to mention condemning himself to a life of misery and insecurity. It ate away at us. His brother Chris, especially felt unloved and cast aside by his brother though he kept his disappointment well hidden.
We wanted him to conform to the world, to do what everybody else does, yet he had chosen another path. The path he had chosen however, brought into sharp focus our own attachment to the world.  An attachment that, in fact, runs contrary to our Orthodox faith.  It is a faith that requires us to surrender our ego, to become other-wordly.  Even those who live in the world, who have children and hold jobs, are required to keep themselves in some sense apart from the world. There can be no compromise. God was confronting us with this uncomfortable truth. The world is not and cannot be our home.  Whether we choose to marry Christ or an earthly spouse, we can in no sense marry the world. Orthodoxy teaches that children are not the possession of their mothers and fathers: they are not playthings of their parents' imaginations. Children are given by God for a time that they may be raised up in the knowledge of Him, and after that He summons them as He will. The duty of parents is not to prepare children to settle comfortably in the world, but to shepherd their souls, to prepare them to battle against the fallen anti-Christian world we live in. 

As my plane touched down at Eleftherios Venizelos airport I was thinking about the journey my grandfather had started over a hundred years ago when he arrived in America. We had come full circle as a family now that his great grandson had returned to live in Greece.  Now a new generation was to experience the loss and separation of children living far away.  Greece was in the throes of economic crisis.   The heady days of  unbridled spending and easy living had collapsed like a house of cards.  Athens now reflected the difficult times Greeks were living in;  it was somber, decaying, cold and gray.  My brother-in-law Thano picked me up at the airport and drove me to the humble little walk up apartment my mother-in-law Maria had spent her entire adult life in. She was visibly happy to see me and we hugged each other.  Maria was the only parent I had left in the world and I valued her wise counsel.  Always one to take care of her children, the table was laid out with food to welcome us.  The photos of her family are ever present and surround her. Her youngest brother of had died of cancer two months ago, his photo joining those of her older brother and husband on a small table. She had aged, dressed as she was in the black clothing of mourning.  No stranger to adversity, a child of the German occupation and subsequent civil war, she had known poverty and starvation.  I could sense that she deeply felt her daughter's pain but was stoic, even in the face of another family crisis.  

The next day, I walked to Thano's new apartment a few blocks from his mother's home to see his family.  It was a sunny day and we decided to take his two year old son to the park.  For a short period, I was able to experience once again the happiness of a young child at play. We laughed at his antics with the other children there.  He reminded me of my own children at that age in what was now a very distant time and place that I could only return to in my fading memory. Thano and I left early the following morning for the monastery, a three hour trip north.  Along the way we bantered back and forth, sometimes talking about Nick but mostly about other subjects.  It was apparent that the things were bleak in Greece and bound to get worse. Thano considered himself one of the lucky ones, he still had a good paying job in the private sector.  Listening to him, however, I could tell that he was uneasy about his job, his wife's job and the future his son was heir to.  The snow capped peaks on our route up were in sharp contrast with the greenery in the valleys beginning to sprout up everywhere. It was the middle of Lent, a time of spiritual renewal and rebirth, as was the beginning of Spring, now upon us, the tumultuous times notwithstanding.

As we began to veer off the main highway toward the winding road that made its way through the mountains, the talking stopped.  The butterflies in my stomach fluttered uncontrollably as I said a silent prayer.  The morning Orthos service was still going on when we pulled up. Thano lit a cigarette and stretched his legs while I walked into the four hundred year old Church through the short front doorway, bending over as I entered in humility.  I lit a candle, kissed the icons and entered a packed church. Only a few rays of light coming through the small narrow windows lit its dark interior. There were a number of pilgrims and I strained to get a glimpse of my son. Our eyes finally met. I could tell that he was surprised as well as apprehensive. He smiled.

When the service was over he came up to me and after hesitating for a moment we embraced. We walked out together into the sunlight. Niko had been tonsured as a novice three days previously, his hair had been cut short. The pony tail was gone and the beard was only now just starting to grow again. "Dad I can't believe you are really here. You missed my tonsure by only three days." He looked gaunt, though energetic and happy.  He wore the black cossack known as rassa and a black hat. His boots were caked with the mud created by the melting snow that survived here and there.  We spent some time with Thano before his departure for Athens.  "Your yiayia sends you her love, let us know if you need anything, Nikolaki" he said as he got into his car. We watched until his car disappeared down the hill.

The acting Abbott gave his blessing for me to stay at the monastery with Father Panteleimon, formerly known as Niko to his friends and family, in his cell. It was heated by a stone fireplace which we fed with wood at night to ward off the night-time chill.  For the next five days I adjusted myself to the monastery routine, helping my son with his duties when I could, like lighting the oil lamps in the Katholikon in the early morning hours.  We went to services three times a day and the two communal meals at 10 AM and 6 PM.  The rest of the day was devoted to the many chores that must be performed to keep things going like cooking and cleaning including manual labor.  It had been many years since I had led such a Spartan existence and it reminded a little of my days as a young Marine when life seemed so carefree and adventure was a daily occurrence.   The monastery dogs, Teratoula (the little beast) and Blackie, became my companions when they realized that I was good for the occasional treat. They soon guarded our doorway  lest anyone infringe on their access to such an easy mark.

Living in such close proximity with my son I think both of us began to see each other differently. Father Panteleimon had changed in fundamental ways.  He had matured, seemed more relaxed and always had a gleem in his eyes. He was truly happy and comfortable with who he was.  There was no regret. He was no longer the young man chaffing at his father's frequent advice nor worried about the future.  Then again, Nick had never been a kid afraid to venture out into the cold, cruel world beyond. His first day of school was instructive. My wife, Anna, the quintessential Greek mommy dressed him in new school clothes, cute little shoes, with a backpack and a lunch box  filled with a nutritious balanced meal for three kids.  She planned to chauffeur him to school and help him negotiate his first uncertain moments at school. Unbeknownst to her, the big yellow school bus unexpectedly pulled up right in front of our home. Nick took one look, immediately grabbed his trash, kicked the door open, and ran directly to the waiting bus. He looked back, waved and yelled:  "Bye Momma, Bye  Daddy,"  just as the door of the school bus closed shut behind him. All we could do was wave and smile bravely as the bus drove away, the tears streaming down Anna's face.

Perhaps I had changed too and he sensed this. I had been chastened and humbled by the events of the last year. Having understood my sadness he went out of his way to look after the lost old man in his midst.  He would heap extra wool blankets on me at night and wake up early before the crack of dawn to stoke the fire so the room was not cold when I woke up. At night he would make me a cup of tea and worry when I skipped a meal.  "Have something to nibble on Baba, tsimbise kati," he'd say with a smile. It was enough to make my heart break.  We talked about his Mom, his brother and everyone we knew and he read the pile of letters I delivered.

The days passed quickly. It was the little things that I will remember about this time, like being in a cold, darkened church as we went from oil lamp to oil lamp, filling them with oil and lighting each one.  The illumined faces of Christ, the Theotokos and the Saints that surrounded and looked down on us. The church was a time capsule of sorts, hardly changed over the centuries. In the silence, one felt the presence of all the sinners like me who had worshiped there.  You could almost hear their whispered prayers in the midst of the turmoil of their own lives of hardship, poverty and war. The evening meal was a simple soup made of tahini with crusty bread and olives.  As we listened to the reading I watched him eat as if he was some alien being I was observing for the first time, trying to memorize the details of his features.  

On my last morning I decided to get up early to take a walk.  It was quiet except for the chirping of the birds heralding the arrival of Spring.  I surveyed the surrounding mountains dressed in a distant mist, the meadows decked out in sprouting wild flowers while the tree branches budding new leaves swayed back and forth in the gentle breeze. The monastery began to stir and the light brightened.   At Orthos I listened to my son chant with the other monks and felt strangely at peace, the peace that comes with acceptance.  At one point he left briefly to take care of something, as he brushed past me he must have noticed that I was lost in my thoughts and playfully but unobtrusively nudged me. He did the same upon his return, assuming his previous position where he looked so very much at ease. He was a man now, yet the little boy peeked out smiling, to reassure me.   Before I left I prostrated myself three times before the wonder-working icon of the Panagia tenderly holding the Christ Child while praying that she look after my son, knowing that she well understood how a parent feels.

He drove me to the bus station down the winding mountain road into the bustling town, where we waited together. "I am going to miss you," I said after a palpable silence.  He gave me a forlorn look, "Baba, I already miss you and you haven't even left yet."  We talked about his mother and brother. "I'll give them your letters," I promised.  The bus driver had opened the door of the bus now while passengers were lining up with their tickets to board.  I finally gave him my blessing and asked him to pray for his family, living and dead.  We embraced each other.  "I love you, son,"  holding him close.  "I love you too, Dad."  Wiping a tear away, I got on the bus without looking back.

07 Talanto

12 What shall we render unto the Lord

Returning to Ithaka

Always keep Ithaka in your mind.

To arrive there is your ultimate goal.

But do not hurry the voyage at all.

It is better to let it last for many years;

and to anchor at the island when you are old,

rich with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting that Ithaka will offer you riches.

Ithaka has given you the beautiful voyage.

Without her you would have never set out on the road.

She has nothing more to give you.

       From the poem "Ithaka" by Constantine Cavafy

 
Fifty four years have passed since the ship carrying my parents and I sailed down the Bosporus toward a new life in America. My birthplace, like some distant Ithaka has always been a constant companion in the recesses of my mind. My parents' memories became mine and now the ghosts of the past beckoned me back. I was accompanied by my sister and older son, both born in America, though raised on a steady diet of names, places, and tragedies lost in the mist of time. Like swallows we flew instinctively back to a long forgotten nesting ground armed with only a few clues that we were to put together like a puzzle with so many missing pieces. 

Even now upon my return home it is difficult to make sense of all the bittersweet emotions that the city on the Bosporus evokes. My great grandfather, Foti came to Constatinople at the turn of the century to establish a thriving business. He was a grocer who turned over the family business to his oldest and most talented son, my papou Panayioti. My mother and her two siblings grew up in the town of Neohori or Yenikoy, a small fishing village on the Bosporus. My father, the son of a poor cobbler, came to the city to study at the Patriachal Seminary on the island of Halki, now called Heybeliada.  After graduating he served as secretary of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the Taksim district. He eventually met and married my mother. I was their first child.    

We left the city in the aftermath of the terrible events of September 1955. Events which would decimate the city's once thriving Greek community and end forever the memory of a more tolerant multi-cultural city. Istanbul today is much changed from the city we left in 1956. It is one of the most densely populated cities in the world with a population of over twelve million. During our stay in the midst of a hot humid summer, one of my lasting impressions will be the crowds of people walking the streets  of the city, of families sitting on grassy areas and picnicing, of children laughing and eating ice cream, of couples holding hands. It is of course a place of contrasts, a modern bustling city teeming with unceasing autombile traffic and high rise buildings against a backdrop of Byzantine and Ottoman antiquities that are a constant reminder of its past.

Long forgotten memories, dusty and covered in cobwebs, suddenly began to awaken from their long slumber as I walked its streets on our first night in the city.  The narrow cobblestoned streets, the laundry hung to dry on clotheslines suspended between buildings above the street, the call to prayer emanating from loudspeakers on distant minarets. It all came rushing back.

The next day we made our way to Taksim square and the statute of Kemal Ataturk. In modern Turkey his likeness is ever-present, a constant reminder of his secular legacy. Yet, he looked smaller to me now, less threatening, overshadowed by the buidings that circled the square. He now looks down on the increasing number of Turkish women who defiantly wear headscarfs and veils, something he outlawed by decree in an attempt to drag Turkey into modernity. My yiayia would often bring me to Taksim which was near our apartment in Chihangir.   I bought and shared a sesame covered bun just like the one she used to buy me and as I bit into it the memory hidden in my taste buds came to life again. There beyond the statue was the dome of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the church where I was baptized and reborn. The church was closed to visitors we were informed by the Turkish caretaker. I noticed two nuns in the courtyard and asked them in Greek if it would be possible to gain access. They smiled and one of them spoke with the caretaker who grudgingly allowed us in. As I entered I lit some candles in the narthex then walked into the breathtaking cavernous marble interior with tears streaming down my face. The church was well maintained but empty.   It seldom hears the cries of babies being baptized anymore, the only worshipers who enter are the few old people still left, too old to change or flee. All the churches we visited were quiet, sad and similarly empty. A Potemkin village of sorts to make the outside world think that religious freedom actually exists in Turkey. We continued our walk through my old neighborhood, ate kebabs at a sidewalk stand, while I tried hard to remember where I   had lived the early part of my life. My sister, like my mother, always on the lookout for a bargain and game to negotiate some hapless business owner to his knees, spied a small antique shop.  The shop was stuffed with the customary debris of past lives and while I waited patiently outside, I struck up a conversation with the shop owner who spoke English. I asked him about the area which he pointed out was rarely frequented by tourists. "What brings you here?" he inquired politely. "Memories," I answered, explaining that my family once lived in his neighborhood. "Welcome back" he replied. As we began to leave, he ducked into his shop and came out holding an old rusty key. "I found this in Anatolia, it is very old. A gift to you. May it open doors that have been closed too long." he said smiling. I cleared my throat, visibly moved, "Insh' Allah (God willing)," I nodded, shaking his hand and whispered "Thank you."

Our hotel was a stone's throw from the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia where tourists and Turks alike in large numbers line up to see its interior. We ate our breakfast on the roof top of the hotel, enjoying the gentle breezes from the Bosporus and staring up at Hagia Sophia.  As we crossed the threshold of its narthex through the massive main doors I crossed myself and bowed three times. Surprised tourists stared at me. The church is visually stunning, its scale overwhelming and awe inspiring.  It has been desecrated twice and washed in blood, once by Catholic Crusaders in the 13th century and then by the victorious troops of Sultan Mehmet, the conqueror of Constantinople.  It is a museum now, in disrepair, its bells, altar and iconostasis were removed and its mosaics plastered over long ago.  In their place huge disks with the names of Allah, Mohammed and the first four caliphs were installed on interior columns and minarets built to stand guard over her.  One can only marvel at her proud beauty and mourn her present condition.  Walking through what was once a shining jewel of Christendom I could not help but think of the present controversy back home on the United States where a 100 million dollar mosque will be built near the site of the World Trade Center atrocity commited by Islamic extremists. The only church destroyed in the collapse of the Towers was a small one hundred year old Greek Orthodox church named for Saint Nicholas which the same planning board that approved the mosque has seen fit to deny requests to rebuild.

The ride out to Neohori, now called Yenikoy, took us along the coast of the Bosporus, past the two impressive looking suspension bridges connecting the Eurpean and Asian sides. I bantered back and forth with the driver who spoke even less English than I spoke Turkish.  I told him my mother was from Yenikoy. He looked at me and asked me if she was Turkish,  "Yok, Rum," I replied. He understood.  He tried as best he could to point out places of interest along the way. Where he was taking us I had no idea. Eventually, he stopped the taxi at the gated entrance to a walled compound. The sign in Greek and Turkish informed us that it was the Greek Orthodox cemetery. I smiled broadly, shook his hand and tipped generously saying thank you in my broken Turkish: "tesekkur ederimhe."  He smiled, proud of a job well done.  The gate was open and we let ourselves in. 

We walked down a tree lined gravel path that ran the length of the cemetery. The place was serene, bursting in color, with the wind blowing gently through the trees. I wandered down the path as if in a dream, while my sister and son tarried to read names on the marble tombs.  I was drawn inexpilcably elsewhere eventually walking right up to my grandfather tomb with his faded photo on the base of cross above it.  I read the dates and realized that we shared the same birthday, something I never knew. We lingered there for awhile, praying for his soul and those of my great grandparents. 

Yenikoy is now a fashionable suburb, dotted with the gated homes of the rich and famous, guarded by the ever present security cameras. A Mercedes dealership with shiny sportcars in its showroom is conveniently located on the main drag, a few short blocks from my grandfather's old corner grocery store, now a pharmacy. Armed with my Uncle Elias' directions we made our way to a traditional old wooden three story building where my mother grew up and the nearby church of the Panagia, which unfortunately was closed.  We sat for a bit in the church courtyard in the heat of mid-day, among the ghosts of days gone by.  I tried to picture things as they had been in happier times, the church overflowing with worshipers on Pascha, my mother and her siblings walking home holding their candles so they might burn the sign of the cross over the threshold of their home. The years pass so quickly; it's been two years since my mother passed away joining my father who had died less than a year before her own untimely death. Retracing their steps brought us closer to them even though the moment was fleeting.

That evening we went to dinner at a local restaurant. The owner, a young man named Abdul, realizing that we were Americans, struck up a conversation. He lived in the United States and came home every summer to manage the family restaurant.  Turks, like Greeks, are a curious lot and it wasn't long before we had sized each other up. He sat down with us, treated us to a delicious dessert and we talked about our adopted home. Abdul was a likeable guy, warm and friendly, a gracious host. "What do you think of Istanbul?" he inquired.  "We love it like it is our own," I said with a wink and a smile. He smiled back. "You know Greeks and Turks are very much alike, whether we admit it or not, only our religion separates us."

                                  

There was a lengthy pause, "Perhaps," I replied uncovincingly,"some day we can learn to live side by side again."  I knew that the signs for the future were not auspicious. Turkey, a country that continues to flex its muscles at the expense of Greeks is spurred by a renewed Islamism and a deep seated robust nationalism. It is no secret that its leadership desires to renew the Ottoman legacy.  No matter what many well meaning and Western oriented Turks think, the pashas will inevitably over-reach. "Peace in the world and peace at home" the dictum of Ataturk will inevitably be set aside to the detriment of all in the region. We chose to ignore politics and religion that night, the four of us preferring to talk and laugh about other things until we finally left to get ready for our last day in Turkey.

The nine Princes' Islands are a one hour boat ride from the Katabas ferry terminal in Istanbul. They are a quiet sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the city.  Cars are prohibited, the horse and carraige still being the preferred mode of transportation. A place of exile for Byzantine and Ottoman princes, they are now a highly prized getaway for well heeled Turks.  

The Greeks who once inhabited the islands are now virtually extinct, their presence expunged save for a few vestiges of the island's Greek past. My father had often reminisced about the seven years he spent there from 1938 to 1945. He remembered the island of Halki or Heybeliada as the most beautiful place he had ever seen. The school sits at the top of the highest hill on the island.   

Built in 1844. Its grounds and facilities are kept in pristine condition waiting someday for future patriarchs to fill it once more with their youthful enthusiasm. As I walked in the main entrance, I lit a candle and kissed the icon of the Panagia holding the Savior.  It was an eerie feeling to walk through the classrooms that my father  knew so well and to worship in the main chapel where my Dad chanted in the school choir. It is a place frozen in time. The future of the school is in doubt and with it the fate of the Ecumenical Patrarchate. A portrait of Kemal Ataturk looks down on empty classrooms as if to remind us that "they" are watching lest seminarians plot the destruction of seventy million Turks. The Patriarch must be a Turkish citizen and since a training ground for priests in Turkey no longer exists it is only a matter of time before the potential candidates dry up completely. As the ferry pulled away from the island I could not take my eyes off the building on the hill nor stop thinking of Baba. I regret never having had the opportunity to make the trip with him.

At the airport going through passport control, the Customs official looked at my passport and noticing my birthplace looked up and spoke to me in Turkish, I looked him in the eye: "I'm sorry, I don't speak Turkish, my family had to leave Turkey before I could learn."  He waved me through.

Thus, ended my return to Ithaka, like Odysseus I was a stranger in a familiar land. I'm not ready to end my journey, there is still too much to see and do. Ithaka made the journey possible, it helped form the person I have become, now it has nothing else to give except the fading shadows of my past.

Why - Ömer Faruk Tekbilek

Politiki Kouzina - Sta limania anapsane foties

A Father's Story by Ares Demertzis

It was an arranged marriage. His father having died when he was three, a solicitous uncle performed the obligatory function of proposing for his nephew to the father of a singularly attractive young woman; her complexion was as unblemished alabaster, her hair black as a raven´s wing, and her eyes, her eyes, the pale, ethereal softness of a vaporous, illusory gray. Surprisingly, notwithstanding her exceptional beauty she was unwed, the direct consequence of what was referred to by her relatives as a “spirited personality.” She had consistently elected to reject all previous suitors as trivial, and appeared undaunted by that approaching statistical age after which matrimony was considered unattainable within the steadfastly hermetic society to which she belonged. The uncle´s choice was motivated not so much by the young woman´s comeliness, but by a financial consideration: the prospect of a lucrative dowry for his nephew; the solicited bride was the daughter of an affluent family in that small, isolated mountain village where the probable future groom had also been born thirty eight years ago.

When he was seven, his mother, dressed in the traditional black garments of mourning that she had worn these last four years, and would continue to wear perpetually, took her only son by the hand for a stroll down the unpaved main street. As they walked over the hard packed, uneven ground, she informed him that their purpose that day was for him to choose into which one of the assorted trades there represented he wanted to be indentured as an apprentice in order to learn the occupation that he would pursue for the rest of his life. They walked by the butcher shop, the shoemaker, the blacksmith and greengrocer; as they passed the tailor shop, the owner looked up from his task and smiled pleasantly in greeting. The youngster turned to his mother and whispered, “here.”

For thirteen years he worked for the tailor every day, at night sleeping on a bed of accumulated rags under the worktable, seeing his mother and two sisters only sporadically. When he was twenty, at last regarded as a master tailor, he exiled himself voluntarily to the United States where he could find sufficient work, better compensated work, to support his mother and two sisters, and also provide the funds for their indispensable dowry. Finally, now at thirty eight, he was free to consider selecting a wife and raising a family of his own.

The strong willed young woman unpredictably accepted his uncle´s proposal. The future groom appeared in her judgment to be a temperate, dependable man who, she had been informed, selflessly abandoned family and friends to seek employment in America in order to provide economically for his mother and sisters. She surmised that he must have been more than reasonably successful, having additionally furnished the substantial resources for two dowries, considered indispensable in order to interest an appropriate suitor; furthermore, she concluded that he was observably prosperous, being always impeccably attired. It never occurred to her that the elegantly tailored garments were economically fashioned creations of his own manufacture; all his earnings having been surrendered for the benefit of his mother and siblings. Their appalling economic situation became unquestionably apparent shortly after the wedding; a distraught, albeit resolute spouse consequently proclaimed in no uncertain terms to her husband: “My children will not grow up to graze sheep in the mountains. The only thing of any value you have is an American passport. We will go there, where no one can witness my humiliation and mock my pride.”

And there they went. To America. Cleveland, Ohio. In 1929.

Read the whole thing at the New English Review

Καζαντζίδης - Ο πατέρας

Stella

Stella is a long time friend of my mother-in-law, Maria.  Now they share an even more significant bond, their widowhood. Together they often make the trip to the cemetery in Kesariani to pay their respects to their dead husbands and tend the oil lamps that flicker at their graves. It is a quiet place, insulated from the cacophony of the neighborhood that surrounds it and shaded by large trees. Photos of the dead stare at you from their marble homes. Occasionally one sees a token reminder of the previous earthly lives of the dead such as the team scarf of a beloved football team or a favorite toy that once belonged to a child. The black clad figures of the two women is a regular sight at the cemetery. Their visits have become a fixture in the daily routine of life that fills their remaining years. 

The first time I met Stella, she impressed me with her quiet dignity. Her youthful beauty shone through despite the ravages that time and a hard life had inflicted upon her. Maria had asked me to accompany her to Stella's small apartment for coffee. Realizing her friend was in dire straights and feeling overwhelmed, she hoped that I could help her in some way. Stella's husband had been bedridden for a number of years, and they were unable to afford professional nursing care on the meager pension they lived on. Stella had become his full time caregiver.  They had two grown sons who did little to help. Despite her daily ministrations her husband had developed pressure ulcers. He had been admitted to the hospital more than once, treated with antibiotics, the wounds debrided but there was not much more that could be done for him and he was sent home to die.

When we arrived our senses were bombarded in the tidy apartment with the smell of Betadine, rotting flesh and incense. It took some getting used to. We sat down and Stella did her best to politely entertain us pouring strong dark demitasse cups of Turkish coffee and plying us with sesame covered koulourakia.  Eventually we went into the bedroom to meet her husband who smiled and greeted Maria and I. A tarnished icon of the Theotokos  with the Christ child and a small wooden box containing the couple's matrimonial crowns hung over the head of the large bed. Maria bent over, smiled and asked him how he was doing while patting his hand gently.  The large ulcers, one on his hip and one over his tailbone were very deep, necrotic, foul smelling, painted with brown Betadine and a salve of some type.  There were sores on his legs and torso, a secondary staph infection that was spreading. Despite all that he was shaven, clean, and obviously well taken care of. "I'm sorry you had to see me in this state, my boy," he said, smiling apologetically as I repositioned him trying to make him more comfortable. We all talked for a bit; I tried to offer Stella some suggestions, a few clumsy words of encouragement and then we left.

He died a few months later. Two years passed before I saw Stella again.  She came to see us while we stayed with Maria in Loutsa. She and Maria still wore the obligatory black. I sat there listening to their small talk about the weather  and the price of tomatoes while my mind wandered back to that forlorn scene in her apartment.  Love is a double edged sword that cuts both ways as it says in the Hadjidakis song so unforgettably sung by Melina Mercouri.  So it was for Stella, who spent most of her life with the same man, through the good and the bad times.  She stood by his side right up to his final Golgotha. Before she left, she thanked me for coming that day which now seemed so long ago.

Next year Stella will oversee the exhumation of her husband's body from its temporary marble tomb to make way for another occupant. She will wash the bones in wine and they will be placed lovingly in a wooden box which she will take to its final resting place in a village on the island of Mytilene. The same village where those white matrimonial crowns were first placed on their young heads filled with dreams and where the future seemed so bright.

 

 

AGAPI POU GINES DIKOPO MAXAIRI------- MELINA MERKOURI--(XATZIDAKIS)

Yiayia

                           She was an enduring presence in my life that hovered over me like a protecting angel. Evdoxia, which means Grace in Greek, was my maternal grandmother and the only one of my grandparents whom I knew personally.  I was her first born grandchild and she came to live with us when I was born. She helped raise me until I was five and then went on to help raise two more of her six grandchildren. Constantinople was my birthplace; otherwise known as Istanbul to everyone but the Greeks who still refer to her simply as "the city."  They consider the Tuesday in 1453 when she fell to the Turks as one of the darkest in our long and turbulent history.  My family was among the city's "Greek minority" that numbered over 100,000 at the time of my birth and was supposedly protected by the treaty that ended the Greek-Turkish War of 1921-22. That minority was the last vestige of a mighty Hellenic presence that had spanned thousands of years. "Never start anything important on Tuesday, my boy," yiayia once told me.  "It's an unlucky day for us." 

Yiayia had grown up in a remote mountain village named Politsani in Northern Epirus, married the son of a well-to-do merchant, eventually giving birth to three children.  The family moved to the "city" where my grandfather inherited his father's successful and thriving business.  Yiayia was beautiful, uneducated and had an independent streak that chafed under my grandfather's attempts to tame her spirit.  It was not a happy marriage, strained further by yiayia being suddenly thrust into the unfamiliar requirements of a  bourgeoisie life.  Despite all the comfortable trappings, the short, well coiffed hair and the stylish clothes, my grandmother would always be the product of her village upbringing.    She preferred the simple pleasures of working in her garden, spending endless hours in her aromatic kitchen or reading someone's fortune from the sediment at the bottom of their coffee cup.  I would ask Yiayia what her coffee cup told her.  She would smile and look carefully at it proclaiming that I would be lucky and happy in my life, even though I sensed that she had not been lucky or happy in hers.  I used to love watching her meticulously rolling dough into paper thin sheets with which she fashioned meat filled braids of pastry while she regaled me with stories of her childhood.  She always seemed busy with something at hand, digging up dandelion leaves with a knife, baking bread in an outdoor brick oven, planting flowers, tending her vegetable garden, cooking balls of fried dough which she would dip in honey and offer her guests or brewing another strong cup of Turkish coffee in her copper pot with the long handle.  To me she was soft and smelled of lemon cologne, on the inside however, she was as hard as a walnut, very much in the mold of the Epirotan women who carried ammunition boxes on their backs up narrow mountain trails to resupply the Greek soldiers fighting the Italian invaders in 1940.  

In her later years yiayia always wore her hair like the women of her village, pulled back, braided and coiled in a bun which she would loosen at night to comb while we talked. "Tell the Panagia about what bothers you, agoraki mou and she will always listen and pray for you," pointing to the icon on her dresser lit by a small oil lamp. When we lived in Turkey, she would often take me for a walk on sunny days down to Taksim square where the statute of a stern Kemal Ataturk looked down on us from his lofty perch. She  would invariably buy me a sweet roll sprinkled with sesame which I shared with the pigeons that congregated there, then she would swear me to secrecy, lest I divulge the fact to my mother.  And, of course, it was the first thing I blurted out when I came home running up the stairs. It was a game we played. 

Yiayia possessed her share of human frailties to which I was always totally oblivious.  To me she embodied all that one could want in another human being because she loved me unconditionally. Nothing else mattered, and I returned her love in kind. She was larger than life. An eagle who could swoop down and save me from harm.  Events later in my life would only confirm this image I had of her. Yiayia lived out her days in a small Maine town with my Aunt and her family after we emigrated from Turkey.  In what was one of the saddest days of my life, we had to leave yiayia with my aunt and uncle.  My father was unable to find work in Maine so we had to move on to New York City while she stayed behind. One less mouth to feed.  Luckily we were frequent visitors to Maine, taking the train north to spend holidays with our relatives there.  I was to share many happy days in her huge garden and the adjoining apple orchard.  Maine agreed with her and she took great pride in watching her grandchildren playing in her garden. Once a long slithering garter snake emerged from a woodpile to our horror and screams. Yiayia bounded out of her kitchen picked up a rock and with one throw crushed the poor things head. It was a harmless serpent though in my child's mind she had saved me once again from certain death as she has previously done on that fateful night of September 6, 1955.  

It was the year before we left for America, although at the time, as far as my parents were concerned, America might just as well have been on the moon.  My grandmother, mother and I were spending the last weekend of the summer outside of Istanbul in a small town along the Bosporus. We were staying in an old country house that my parents had rented for the summer to escape the heat of the city. The two story structure was dated, without indoor plumbing but solidly built with bars on the ground floor windows and a heavy wooden oak door. Baba had returned to work earlier that week and was awaiting our return in a few days. I was only five years old at the time, the trauma of that day however was imprinted indelibly in my memory. 

It began after dark on a Tuesday night, at a time when howling wolves roam in their packs and evil flourishes unencumbered by the light of day. I remember playing with a toy car on the carpeted floor that night while my mother read and yiayia knitted. Suddenly we heard the sound of church bells in the distance. My grandmother stood up, she had sensed immediately that something was wrong but she had no idea what it was. Little did she realize that anti-Greek riots had erupted on signal from the Turkish government of Adnan Menderes. In the midst of the turmoil in Cyprus, with the Greeks there pushing for enosis (union) with Greece, the Turks decided to send a message. As the police and the army stood passively on the sidelines, hired thugs transported to the city from dirt poor Anatolian villages began attacking pre-arranged targets from the center of the city at Taksim Square, out to its suburbs. The destruction was systematic, thorough and would have made any barbarian horde proud. Nothing Greek was spared, not even the dead in the cemeteries. Our home, along with many others belonging to ethnic Greek Turkish citizens had been marked.  At that moment, those two Greek women had no idea what was in store for them.

Yiayia immediately barred the door with a heavy iron bar and told my mother and I to go upstairs. I still remember hearing shouting and the sound of breaking glass as cobblestones were dug up and hurled at our windows. My grandmother rushed upstairs and ordered my mother to hide herself and me in a closet. My mother balked at the idea of leaving yiayia to face her fate alone and grabbing me, shoved me under a bed and told me not to move or make a sound. An angry crowd of Turks was loitering outside, shouting epithets and throwing the occasional cobblestone at the house. Years later yiayia described it as the sound of a pack of wolves. Loud banging at that door began in earnest but the mob was unable to dislodge the wrought iron crossbar though it was bent in the process nor crack the heavy oak door despite splitting the brass door knob in half. I can only imagine what must of been going through the minds of those two lonely women at the time. It was yiayia who decided to sew. They grabbed a red blanket on the bed, cut a white star and crescent from a bedsheet and began sewing it onto the blanket. In what must have seemed an eternity to them, they were finally able to hang the makeshift Turkish flag from the window. The effect was dramatic, the angry, milling crowd soon dispersed into the night. We had survived a pogrom thanks to my grandmother's instincts and presence of mind. 

I have often wondered why that handmade flag had saved our lives. Others were not as lucky that night. It wasn't until recently that I gained an understanding of its power.  It was during a photo op after a meeting between the respective prime ministers of the various NATO nations. The spots where they would stand to pose for a group picture were marked by a flag of their respective countries. Constantine Karamanlis  of Greece, like others, unwittingly stood on the symbol of his country. The prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Edrogan however, reached down, picked up the flag and kissed it. The symbolism was unmistakable. For the rioters that day in 1955, it was unthinkable that they could continue to attack a building draped with that flag.  The next morning my my mother warily left the house to fetch water from a local fountain. A teenage boy strutted up to her and spoke in Turkish: "Yesterday you were lucky, next time we will cut your throats, giaour (infidel)." 

After the fall of the Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed allowed his forces to enter and plunder the city. For three terrible days its inhabitants were terrorized and the city's homes and churches were looted or destroyed. In 1955, the Turks finally finished the job started so long ago.

A year later my family left for America, a country where you didn't have to be afraid of church bells ringing in the night and where we now display the flag out of pride rather than necessity.

11 Track 11

Walking Down the Road

For hundreds of years Greek life has been centered around village (horio) culture. During the postwar era, a gradual migration from remote villages to a handful of cities, primarily Athens and Thessaloniki, took place. Even when Greeks moved to a large city like Athens they congregated in neighborhoods that took on almost a village like culture that emphasized sociability and the maintenance of village ties.  

Village life is often the subject of much nostalgia, especially for those that were raised there as children.  To be sure, rural poverty, the lack of opportunities and the periodic upheavals brought by war and occupation, forced many villagers to leave, either migrating to Greek cities or emigrating to foreign lands to find work. Life in the horio or village was characterized to some extent by a lack of cooperation, superstition and competition between families.  It was also marked by a sense of solidarity in the face of outside dangers and a common religious and cultural context. Attributes that are very much in evidence on a wider scale in Greece, even today.  

Most Greeks share a lifelong ambition to build a house in the village of their parents. Many put a great deal of time, effort and money in restoring their ancestral homes. Like migrating birds they return on holidays like Easter, Christmas, the village patron Saint's day, or for weddings, baptisms and funerals. The populations of villages that are normally inhabited by sparse numbers of elderly residents during most of the year, swell instantly to many times their size on these occasions.  The quiet rural landscape is filled with people and cars, the air vibrates with the sound of Church services, singing, dancing and feasting.

The first thing most Greeks do when the first meet each other is to determine whether they come from the same village or province. Even more importantly whether they have a familial connection, which they often do, if they come from the same place, thus establishing a positive link with each other. Village culture and the inordinately strong sense of family bonds have been cornerstones of Greek life.  Unfortunately both are on the wane. 

There has always been an underlying sense that Greek villagers were a bunch of ignorant country bumpkins that were in urgent need of the strong guidance of the well educated, not to mention cultured, Athenian "elite."  Lost in all of this is the fact that Greeks, since preclassical times, have been travelers spurred on by curiosity and the need to find new sources of wealth in a country that is resource poor.  Greek villagers are a neither isolated nor ignorant of the outside world and one only needs to spend an hour or so in the local kafenion to determine this truth. The Greek villager despite being victimized and ignored by successive central governments of the Right and Left has always been not only the foundation of the Greek nation but also its chief defender. The receipts sent to Greece by its far flung sons were for many years one of the country's major sources of income. In addition, the village provided the bulk of the military manpower for the nation's frequent military adventures since the establishment of modern Greece.  Small wonder that the rural villages eventually became the breeding ground for the insurgency that rocked Greece after World War II. 

My grandparents and particularly my father were products of the horio. They're lives reflected their humble beginnings as the photograph above can attest to, in addition to some of the finer attributes of village culture such as piety, philotimo and patriotism.  Recently I came across an old Greek television video, circa 1970, of some musicians from the village of Pongoniani located in the Pogoni region in the northwest part of Greece. This region straddles the Albanian border. The musicians are interviewed by a journalist who asks them to play a song indigenous to this area called "Pigaina sto Dromo (I was walking down the road)." Both of my parents were born in villages in Pogoni and this particular song was one that I remember hearing my father and his hometown friends singing. It is about a young man walking down a road who stops to eat an apple and admire a beautiful black eyed girl.

The lyrics go something like this:

I was going down the road, my little girl, haidemono (caressable)

I found an apple tree by the road

I cut an apple

and gave her my handkerchief, Haide (Come along)

Funny,  when I first heard it sung many years ago, it sounded like the catterwhauling of  some old guys who had nothing better to do than dredge up questionable music from a bygone era.  Now it hits me in the pit of my stomach and brings a tear to my eye.

My Greek Father

This post appears in the latest issue of the Hellenic Voice.  Happy Father's Day to all the Fathers out there.

When I was a kid and television was still the kind of entertainment suitable for a family, one of my favorite shows was "Father Knows Best."  The actor who played the father in the series smoked a pipe, wore a smoking jacket and spoke flawless English.  He had a study where he sat in a big leather chair and solved everyone's problem with unparalleled wisdom.  Let's just say my Greek father did not fit this particular mold.

My Dad spoke English with a heavy accent, he never smoked, didn't own a smoking jacket or a leather chair, and his study consisted of  the kitchen table.  Dad owned tons of books, all in Greek, Euripides, Plato, Homer, Herodotus, the Church Fathers, and on and on. He read the Greek newspaper, carrying it home every night folded in his jacket pocket.  He would cut out articles he liked for future reference. Dad had a rule: speak Greek. This was a guy who also spoke Albanian, Turkish and Italian fluently. I had no idea though how he was ever going to improve his English,  so I wouldn't be embarrassed at parent-teacher meetings.  If that wasn't bad enough, I had to go along to translate. Sometimes he didn't need translation, as in the case of one particular grade school teacher who insisted on calling me "Steve" instead of Stavros. She made me erase the name Stavros from my notebook. When Dad noticed it, he went to school with me the next day, marched up to my teacher and announced:  "Please hees name is Stavros NOT Steve. Thees was hees papou's name. OK. It cannot be chan-ged." At that exact moment  I was hoping the earth would just open up and swallow me whole.

Dad was not the kind of guy that spent lots of time playing with us. I really don't think he knew how, since he was never really given much of an opportunity to learn during his hard scrabble youth in the horio (village). Other kids played catch with their Dads, mine fixed my Greek homework. Other kids went fishing with their Dad, mine helped me memorize the poem of the month at Greek School. Despite all this, there was never any doubt that Dad loved me. There was never a shortage of hugs and kisses, interspersed with a rare attention gaining whack.

When I wanted to join the Marines at the ripe old age of nineteen, Dad tried to talk me out of it. The Vietnam War was killing American boys on a daily basis and he was scared. When he realized that I had made my mind up and for the first time in my life I was digging my heels in refusing to do what he told me to do. He put on his best suit and accompanied me to the recruiting office, to stand by my side. Years later, he came to visit me  when I was a twenty-nine year old Captain stationed at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, South Carolina.  During his visit I bought him a wrist watch at the base exchange. As I handed him the one I chose for him, despite his protestations, he admired it,  putting it on his wrist.  Teary eyed, he gave me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. The saleslady behind the counter was startled.  She quickly recovered her composure and said in a quiet southern drawl, "Down here men don't do that sort of thing," she smiled uncomfortably, "but honey, I think its sweet that yo daddy ain't afraid to show such affection to his son." That was one of the best days of my life.

My Dad was always there to gives us a nudge in the right direction. Once that was done, he would back off and quit nit picking.  He understood that God is not finished with any of us yet and that each of us is still a work in progress. When it came to the Orthodox faith, which he loved, Dad always led by example. On more than one occasion I would wake up from a sound sleep to fetch myself a glass of water and catch my father in front of the family icons praying while  the oil lamp flickered in the evening darkness. On Sundays and feast days he was at Church without fail, always on time to serve as a psalter. Dad understood that he could not give  the gift of faith or God's grace to his children.  All he could do was prepare us within the Church to receive it. And so he did.

My daily contact with him during my youth disappeared during my military career when we only saw each other a few times a year. When I finally moved my family to Maine, I was able to spend more time with him after a long absence.  As luck would have it, his health began failing; first a heart attack and then a stroke a few years later.  Dad lived at home with my mother until his mental and physical condition deteriorated to the point where it was impossible for us to take care of him properly. We watched him progressively weaken, from walking unassisted to using a walker to having to use a wheelchair, to being bedridden. Eventually we made a difficult, agonizing choice which many people have to make nowadays.   Medical science can prolong life, however, it can't ensure a good quality of life.  Dad spent the last year of his life in a nursing home. It was to be our longest and most difficult journey together.

Watching what had been a once vibrant and strong man waste away is always difficult. What was harder was not being able to carry on a conversation and ask him the important questions that I never had the time or smarts to pose when he could have answered them. You never get a second chance. It was the little things that gave us both pleasure toward the end: physical contact, feeding him my mother's homemade yogurt  or listening to the hymns he loved so much as a psalter.   His room in the nursing home was sparse, his belongings few. His icons, photographs of his parents, wife, children and grandchildren were next to him.  Sometimes in the evening if I was working late and arrived after he had fallen asleep, I would sit next to his bed, watching him sleep while his slow respirations move his chest every so slightly up and down.  I’d often wonder what he was dreaming about.  I used to imagine that in his dream world he was a boy again back in Epirus. In this dream he was walking down a dirt road herding the family goats and sheep, the bells around their necks ringing as they moved toward his home. In the fading light he sees the smoke of a cooking fire wafting up from the chimney of a simple stone house.  His mother, a black shawl covering her head, stands at the doorway waving to him.  He waves back. He is happy, he picks up his step, all is right with the world.  Along the way he picks a succulent fig from a tree, peels it and savors it in his mouth, smiling. 

My father never made the cover of Time magazine nor did he ever have his fifteen minutes of fame. In a hundred years will anyone even remember that he had walked the earth?  Will his memory and the story of his life be just a collection of distant, fading shadows? Dad was a faithful husband, a loving father, a good Christian, and he lived his life as best he could. Can any of us ask for anything more?

Happy Father’s Day, Baba. May the soil that covers your grave, rest lightly upon you.

The Cure

 This month marks what would have been my father's ninety-fourth birthday. He died two years ago and I think of him often.  The last few years of his life were difficult. His body and mind wasted away slowly.  I still wonder if the mind and the soul are one in the same because even as his mind became hazy or would crawl into a world deep within its inner recesses, his humanity showed through. What I mean by that is that even as he approached his last days he would still smile, grasp your hand and squeeze it. His eyes would still light up when he saw my mother or sister enter his room. I think the soul is the last thing to leave our body and his soul loved us as only a father could even as his mind no longer worked like it once did.

Baba worked the late shift when I was growing up. One of the lasting memories of my youth was hearing him come home around one o'clock in the morning as the Rembetiko song says, with the sound of his tired and dragging steps.

I would wake up and peer at him through the crack in the door of the room where I slept, careful not to reveal that I was awake. He would take off his jacket, wash his hands and face and sit at the kitchen table and read his copy of the Greek newspaper that was always folded in his pocket. He would eat an apple, peeling it carefully and then cutting it into bite size wedges. When he was finished he would stand there in the kitchen in front of the icons and pray with his hands outstretched. Then he would turn the kitchen light off and walk over to where I slept and open the door a bit to peak in on me while I feigned being fast asleep.  Sometimes he would come in to tuck me in or pull the covers up over my shoulders.

As a little boy my father held a special fascination for me, especially his strong large hands and muscular arms which seemed like they could hold the weight of the world in them. I only remember him being sick once as I was growing up. As far as I was concerned he was as indestructible as the super heroes in my comic books. Baba was laid low only once that I recall. He had a terrible cough and fever. As he was laying in bed visibly uncomfortable, mama and yiayia huddled over him trying to figure out what to do. I could tell they were worried. Yiayia, who was never a woman to stand by wringing her hands helplessly, took charge, deciding that only "Venduzzes," a traditional folk remedy from her native Epirus could cure what was ailing him.  She gave my mother a few quick orders and she of course immediately set to work getting the requisite items yiayia requested. As I watched in abject horror, yiayia proceeded to dip a small ball of cotton in alcohol, light it and place it on my fathers back quickly covering it with a small glass. The cotton ball was immediately extinguished sucking up all the remaining air under the glass which turned into a vacuum adhering tightly. It was supposed to draw out all the bad vapors from Baba's lungs. As she placed one after another on his back, all I could see was the flaming cotton ball as it was placed on bare skin. She repeated the process again and again until there were about five or six glasses stuck to his back. It was painless but to my young eyes it looked like excruciating torture which my father endured stoicly. I bawled through the whole thing, to my father's and yiayia's amusement, while mama did her best to comfort and rassure me. The next day Baba dragged himself out of his sickbed and went to work, albeit with curious circular bruises under his shirt.

After that ordeal,  Yiayia assumed an even more exalted position than the one she already held in my boyhood imagination, as the purveyor of strange medical cures that were beyond the skill of mere mortal physicians. Baba, who seemed no worse for all the wear and tear, took on the mythic proportions of the Greek heroes depicted in my Greek school textbook. Although I questioned his judgment at times as an adolescent in subsequent years, he would always remain a heroic figure in my eyes, even on his deathbed.

KESARIANI

ΣΑΒΒΑΤΟΒΡΑΔΟ ΣΤΗΝ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΙΑΝΗ
Μουσική: Σταύρος Ξαρχάκος
Στίχοι: Λευτέρης Παπαδόπουλος

Το απομεσήμερο έμοιαζε να στέκει
σαν αμάξι γέρικο στην ανηφοριά
κάθε απομεσήμερο στο παλιό μας στέκι
πίσω απ' το μαγέρικο του Ντελη-βοριά

Κι όλα μοιάζαν ουρανός και ψωμί σπιτίσιο
κι όλα μοιάζαν ουρανός και γλυκό γλυκό ψωμί

Τάχα τι να ζήλεψαν τα χλωμά σου μάτια
που γιομάτ' απόβραδο γλύκα πρωινή
ήρθαν και βασίλεψαν τα βαθιά σου μάτια
κάποιο Σαββατόβραδο στην Καισαριανή

Κι όλα γίναν κεραυνός πελαγίσια αρμύρα
κι όλα γίναν κεραυνός και πικρό πικρό ψωμί

A WEEKEND IN KESARIANI

Music: Stavros Xarhakos
Lyrics: Lefteris Papadopoulos

Today's afternoon appears to be stuck

like an old car on a steep hill

every afternoon in our old place

behind the kitchen of Deli-Voria

And everything appears like heaven and homemade bread

and everything is sky and sweet, sweet bread

As if  your pale eyes jealously

see the full night as a sweet morning

which comes as the dawn rises in your deep eyes,

some weekend in Kesariani

And everything becomes a thunderous, salty sea

And everything becomes a bitter, bitter bread

The first time I laid eyes on the Athenian neighborhood where my wife Anna was born and grew up, I was singularly unimpressed.  The walls of her apartment block, known affectionately as the "prosfigika" or  "home of the refugees" were tastefully decorated with red hammer and sickles, the letters "KKE (Communist Party of Greece)" and assorted pockmarks.  Those holes were stark evidence of the savage fighting during the Decemberist (Dekemvriana) uprising when Kesariani, an ELAS stronghold, was attacked by British and Rightist forces. A widespread fire had razed the collection of  huts that constituted much of the neighborhood, to the ground. The conflagration took with it the hovel that served as the home of Anna's widowed grandmother and her three children, which included my mother-in-law, Maria.  

I was uneasy to say the least, having grown up in a family that was well aware of the realities of life in the worker's paradise of Albania. As a young Marine infantry officer I had served in Indochina and my first hand experience had given me good cause for my ingrained anti-Communist attitudes. When I was transferred to Athens to serve in the Embassy's Joint US Military Aid Group, it came on the heels of that organization being targeted by the terrorist group "17 November." Three of its members had been shot, two killed, in the six months prior to my arrival.  JUSMAGG had always had a reputation as a "nest of spies" and now I was a potential victim in the midst of a civil war I thought had ended in 1950. I felt uncomfortable, like I had a big target on my back, even though I was able to blend in to a degree because I looked Greek and spoke the language fairly well.  There  in Kesariani I was literally as the Rebetiko song says "Apokliros tis Koinonias or Wandering through Society."  As luck would have it, I found myself  becoming part of a family, very much like my own,  who had been victims of an ideology and an unrelenting past. A family that reflected, I was to discover over time, the prevailing attitude in this working class piece of Athens, that is, live and let live.  The common people of Kesariani had a quiet dignity, the kind that cannot be bought,  They jealously guarded and kept their honor intact, since they owned little else of any significant value.

After that first trip to Kesariani, fate would bring me back many more times during my life.  The apartment block Anna's family lived in was an extended family with people moving from apartment to apartment to talk, laugh, maybe cry, smoke a cigarette and drink endless cups of coffee. No one locked their doors, there was nothing to steal. On one side was the incessant noisy traffic on the thoroughfare known as Leoforos Vassileos Alexandrou (King Alexander Avenue) and on the other side there was a courtyard with trees and balconies crammed with greenery of every type. The place smelled of sweet basil and lemons and of fish frying in olive oil.  The sound of music on a radio drifted through the air and people waved or shouted greetings to others on adjacent balconies while the local dogs and cats slept in the shade.

Kesariani became a refuge of sorts for me; its draw was powerful.  It wasn't because it was trendy or  beautiful. It was because I had grown to love the people who lived there, not the least of which was my Anoula. We began to go on long walks together to explore every nook and cranny of  the area. We would attend services at Saint Nicholas Church across the street. We walked to the mountain called Hymettos that overshadowed the neighborhood, resting along the way at the Monastery situated near its base. At night we would walk to the plateia (town square) and sit at one of the outdoor cafes sipping frothy frappes and talking for hours.

Kesariani has an interesting though tragic history reflective of the upheavals of Greek history during the last one hundred years. At the turn of the century, the area was well watered and heavily wooded with abundant wildlife.  A short story, "The Miracle of Kesariani", by Alexandros Papadiamantis, published in 1901, is particularly illuminating. In this short story, Papadiamantis refers to the folklore surrounding the miraculous water of the Hymettos mountain springs: "There was a beautiful cave in a huge rock,  its color was ashen grey and it dripped dew all over. The land smelled full of thyme and wild mint. A crowd of people, many women, men and a swarm of children, some standing, others seated, some ill with various diseases, misshapen and crippled, were there, praying. The water was cool, sweet water, holy water."

In late 1922, a few dispossessed refugee families from Asia Minor settled, under extremely difficult conditions, in this area and set up their tents near the "Sigrou" Hospital (near the location of the present day Hotel "Caravel").  The hospital specialized in the treatment of venereal diseases and many of these families wanted to be close to their relatives, mostly women, who had been raped, victims of Turkish brutality. By early 1923, the Greek government gradually settled about 8000 refugees, mostly from the coast of Asia Minor. Several months after the first settlement of the refugees, a more organized effort commenced which included the construction of 500 wooden huts and 1000 adobe rooms. This construction adapted a gridlike system of urban blocks. Ten to twelve houses per block. At the center of every block, there was a kind of a courtyard space, the communal lavatory. Two important women of Kesariani, the " high priestess" of Greek traditional music, Domna Samiou and the writer Despina Fotinou, describe the squalid conditions, as each experienced it, at a different time and from a different point of view. 

An illustrative example of the conditions in pre-war Kesriaani is an article, published in the "Acropolis" paper on September 14th 1929. The newspaper, on the occasion of the visit of the Mayor of Athens, Mr. Merkouris, to the area, noted: "The Mayor confirmed for himself that the standard of living of this neighborhood's dwellers is altogether tragic. The water, which is being handed out, barely comes to 10 cubic meters.  Lately it is being consumed by the builders of the new structures. But the most tragic matter is of the colony's toilets, wooden shanties with wooden floors, beneath which there are open cesspools. These breeding grounds for disease not only defile the whole area with their fumes, but there is also a potential danger of people falling through the poorly constructed flooring.  Moreover the sewage, having no other outlet, is disgorged into the streets".

The poverty made Kesariani fertile ground for the Communists but it wasn't until the German occupation when the party seized the opportunity to mobilize the population to resist but also to position itself to replace the government in exile when the Germans left.  It was here that the notorious Aris Velouchiotis allegedly organized the first meeting that launched the Resistance. Throughout the occupation Kesariani became a hotbed of resistance and paid the price for that resistance.  A shooting range on the outskirts of Kesariani became the execution ground. It was used extensively by the Nazis. The executions were almost a daily affair.  Hundreds of captured members of the Resistance and ordinary civilians rounded up on the streets as hostages were executed in keeping with the German policy of reprisals that demanded ten Greek deaths for every death of a German soldier.

Today, Kesariani's past is not easily expunged. It has been the scene of renewed violence. The headquarters of the Greek Riot police located there was attacked.  Six police officers were slightly injured and ten police and private vehicles were damaged by an attack that occurred on December 16, 2008. The attackers, who wore hoods and came from a University campus had split into two teams.  One team attacked the parking lot and the other hit the entrance of the building. They threw rocks and wood in order to break the windows of the building and proceeded to use Molotov cocktails. The cops inside the building responded with "stun grenades" and tear gas in order to repel the attackers. The attack was perpetrated by a new generation of disgruntled young terrorists who no longer see themselves as knights in shining armor but as avenging angels. And so it continues.

Kesariani has changed in major ways, it is the way of the world.  The old structures giving way to large multi-storied apartments and storefronts.  The construction  and the passing of a generation of inhabitants who remember Kesariani differently, has fundamentally altered the character of the area. Maria still lives in the apartment where she raised her family.  My father in law, Christos and many others now rest at the cemetery in their beloved Kesariani. We went there last summer to pay our respects and hear a priest chant the Trisagion service. The cemetery is very peaceful, shielded from the din of automobile traffic outside by large trees that embrace it. Waking through the rows of silent white marble tombs, one is acutely aware of the eyes of the dead looking at you from their fading photos and seemingly oblivious to what happens in the world beyond their home. Outside the cemetery walls, life goes on, as it must.

A Journey to Manhood

Last week we traveled down to the Church of the Holy Cross to attend vespers. This particular Church is located on the campus of Hellenic College/Holy Cross in Brookline, Massachusetts.  The service had a double meaning for me. It was the eve of my name day, the feast day of the Holy Cross and it was the day that my son, a sophomore majoring in religious studies officially became a seminarian.  It was say the least, an emotional day for my wife Anna and myself, watching our twenty year old son begin his journey into adulthood.  As I sat there listening to a hymn that begins with the words, "Lord save your people and bless your inheritance," I was swept away by so many feelings. A sense of loss. The little boy becomes a man. Pride in the man he is becoming. A feeling of the presence of my parents and father-in-law, standing next to me watching and smiling at their grandson. My wife stood by my side, watching misty eyed and lost in thought. I think both of us were going over in our minds the memories of the child who was slipping from our grasp, moving on to create a life of his own. I am reminded once again of the haunting poetry of Kahlil Gibran:

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

It all came flowing back to me, the images and sounds of Niko's childhood. Watching him being born, his baptism in Greece, the little toddler running to the door to greet me, school plays, graduations, Boy Scout camping trips, piano lessons, soccer games, the altar boy, all the bits and pieces that make up a boyhood. During that time, Nick has been blessed with the role models and guidance of three spiritual fathers: Father George who brought him into the altar to serve at age six, Father Basil, our parish priest, neighbor, family friend in Maine, and Father Ted who has been a great influence on Nick in his latter years as a camp counselor and seminarian.  Nick also had the example of his late grandfather and namesake, Nicholas. His humility and deep love of God and the Church has been a beacon to our entire family.

Congratulations Nick, your family loves you and prays that God gives you the strength, wisdom, humility, and above all, compassion for others. Remember these words from St. Macarius and let them guide you in your future life with all its certain trials and tribulations:

"Whenever you have the intention of doing something good, expect temptations from the opposing forces who hate this. You already understand this sufficiently and you know what is needed to repulse them and defeat them: the acknowledgment of your own infirmities, self-reproach, humility and seeking God's help."

One Man's Dream

Dreams are the stuff that gives us hope for tomorrow. My brother-in-law Thano is a man with a dream. It is a living, breathing dream, one that occupies a piece of each day's thoughts. That dream is to own a home away from the hustle and bustle of the cement jungle that has become modern day Athens.  A refuge if you will from the unforgiving urban landscape. Thano lives in Athens by necessity. It's where he and most of the Greek population work. His apartment is actually quite nice. It's spacious, tastefully decorated, with a balcony overlooking an adjacent park.  After seventeen years with the same firm, Thanos, a young man cast adrift without connections or a university education has by dint of his strong work ethic and innate intelligence risen from a position as a mail clerk  to that of a logistician responsible for equipping and provisioning a fleet of tankers and cargo ships owned by a well known, profitable Greek shipping company.  One might think that anyone so well ensconced should be happy to live in a city like Athens. A city that pulsates with an active nightlife and lacks nothing. Except perhaps clean air, tranquility and most importantly, some sense of man's place in the natural world.

Big cities can be incredibly exciting places to live, however, they have gradually become quite inhospitable to their residents. No matter where they happen to be they all appear to suffer from the same problems: congestion, crime, pollution, high prices, and endless traffic jams. I blame the automobile and the people, like most of us, who love them; even if they don't love us. Over time these cities of ours, choked by cars in the millions, begin to wear you down and they dehumanize those that live in them, creating anger and apathy in abundance. For a small country like Greece (it has, by the way, more cars than people), where so much of the population and industry is concentrated in one city, the rest of the country has been sapped of its vitality but has at least maintained some of its charm in the process.

Thanos has been on a quest during the last few years looking for an affordable piece of real estate that is close enough to Athens to allow for a weekend getaway yet rural and beautiful enough to feel the void he feels in his life. I wasn't surprised when Thano broached the subject with me soon after my arrival. Like an excited kid he went on and on about a  five acre parcel of land he had found on the island of Evia, the second largest Greek island, which is situated adjacent to the Greek peninsula's eastern coastline. This particular property was a little more than an  hour by car from Athens, in an idyllic valley surrounded by majestic mountains and well supplied with water, an increasingly rare commodity in this parched land.  "This is the place I have been dreaming about for so long," he proclaimed. "There is only one problem," he twisted his cigarette butt in the ashtray, "They are asking more money than it is worth."  I smiled at him. "Sounds like you really have your heart set on it. Do you think you will find anything quite as right as this?"  Thano thought for awhile looking into the distance. "Maybe not."   I realized that he wanted me to see it and I was, of course, curious about seeing it for myself. Our Greek home in Loutsa, located near the new airport,  has changed a great deal since my father-in-law brought his family here over thirty years ago.  Anna and Thano had grown up playing in the surrounding neighborhood which consisted of  a few modest homes  between vast tracts of vineyards, cultivated fields and a deserted rocky shoreline. The place teemed with children. Even my sons, Nick and Chris, who had spent summers here since they were toddlers, remember a different place. Loutsa has been transformed into an unplanned hodge podge of rather humble though well cared for dwellings belonging to working class Athenians, interspersed with islands of beautiful new expensive homes owned by the nouveau riche of a country light years removed from the poverty of the immediate postwar era. I'm not sure if Loutsa is a harbinger of the future, however, its vistas are constant reminders of the many glaring failures of local government and the absence of a community ethos.  It is not unusual to see truly impressive homes surrounded by imposing walls containing immaculate green lawns and even swimming pools situated on unpaved garbage strewn streets with pathetic looking strays dogs sleeping in the shade.  It is as if  citizens have resigned themselves to their fate and have given up on improving the state of things beyond their own little kingdoms. The neighborhood we loved so well has changed, for the worse. The children have mostly grown up now, they have lives of their own and they return on an occasional weekend.  They seldom stay. Many of the original residents have passed away. New people have moved in, tearing down old homes and building new ones. They are less connected, less concerned about life beyond their walls. Few things remain the same in life and Loutsa is no exception.

The drive up to Evia in the morning took us up the national highway that goes north to Thessaloniki. It was a typical summer day in Attica, sunny, cloudless and hot but dry.  Thano had invited a long time friend. Manoli worked at some nondescript government job which apparently he was not very fond of. During the drive up he called in sick.  "I won't be missed," he mused. "Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow," which I gathered was the motto of his office mates as well. Why worry? A secure job with the nanny state means a life on easy street for those lucky enough to obtain one. 

The drive to Evia was expedited by the new bridge that connects the mainland to the island. As we crossed the bridge we arrived and continued driving through the busy town of Halkida.  Emerging from the town we began driving through the rolling green hills of the island passing a few small tidy villages. Eventually we drove over a small bridge spanning a running stream into a small picturesque little village, appropriately named St. Athanasios, Thanos' patron Saint.  It had a small town square or plateia and  a white-washed church surrounded by a small cemetery. As we emerged from the town, Thano announced: "It's just up the road.  Manoli leaned over Thano's shoulder from the backseat where he had been sitting quietly enjoying the views of the countryside and said: "Where are you going to get your frappe with the 49 packets of sugar around here?"  All of a sudden Thano turned right off the paved road onto a gravel road. At the end of the road he stopped in front of a row of tall Cypress tress.. "We're here."  As we got out Thano began to describe the boundaries of the lot. I was too stunned by the views to pay attention. All I could get out was: "WOW!"  Thano smiled.  We walked around for a bit, imagining the possibilities, when Manoli finally chimed in. "I think all this fresh air is getting to me, excuse me while I smoke a cigarette. Is anyone hungry yet? All this sightseeing is making me hungry."  Thano looked sideways at me, "We'll cross that small mountain, a twenty minute ride and eat at a taverna on a very nice beach called Hiliadou."  I was skeptical.  Mt. Dirfis was not small, in fact, it was 1743 meters above sea level. Over an hour later, after experiencing a pleasant twenty degree drop in the temperature while traversing the scary winding roads through the mountains we arrived at this beautiful beach.  We marched immediately to a nearby taverna where we devoured some delicious fried kalamari, a peasant salad made up of tomatoes, cucumbers and onions and the indispensable crusty bread.  All washed down with beer. As we sat there, enjoying each others' parea or company and looking out across the deep blue Aegean in front of us, I began concocting some dreams of my own.

An Offering of Figs

This is the first in a series of posts about my trip to Greece.

Every journey must have a beginning and an end. Mine is no exception. Like all good journeys, one seeks out new sights,  experiences new things, packing them away as precious memories to share with others. As exciting and hopeful as the start of a journey can be, the end can be tinged with sadness, with a sense of loss, yet through it all the prospect of returning home, to familiar surroundings, is like salve on a burn. My trip to Greece this year was bittersweet. A time of long awaited reunions, overshadowed with a sense of shared grief and empty chairs. My wife Anna had left four months ago to be at her father and mother's side during her father's illness and long hospitalization. In the interim both of us lost a parent, my mother in April and then her father a month later.  Both of us had to mourn without the others' strength to sustain us. Returning to Greece meant not only seeing family again but making our family whole once more.

As we waited our turn at passport control upon arrival in Athens, I could sense my son's Chris rising sense of excitement. Chris had been especially hard hit. He seemed suddenly so much older as I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He was well past my shoulders now. The little kid who always wanted to jump into Daddy's arms, suddenly didn't strike me as a kid anymore. Waiting for our our bags was an interminable process. When they finally arrived, Chris darted out through the exit doors into the waiting arms of his mother. Trying to maintain my composure I lingered a bit and walked out into my wife's waiting arms. The wife of career Marine is used to long separations, they were a way of life during the early years of our marriage. After twenty two years together however, a couple can become quite dependent on each other. The longer a couple is together, the harder separations are to take.  A spouse becomes part of your DNA. We stood there in the crowd wrapped in each others arms trying to make up for all the things that had been left unsaid with a hug and a kiss. Chris broke the spell by saying: "OK you two, I want to see yiayia." We left the airport terminal and emerged into the light. That light which is like no other, the light which bathes you in its warmth and clarity. The sky was cloudless, as blue as any sky I have ever seen. Hellas. I was back. My home away from home.

The ride to Loutsa was filled with excited chatter and the fleeting scenes of a country that is changing. Yet in the midst of that change, the new buildings going up everywhere, the new highways with their billboards, are the remnants of the past, ever present and always exerting their pull on me. When we arrived home, the horn honking, we parked along the narrow dirt road in front of our cottage, Chris once again jumped out and ran into his yiayia's waiting arms.  I followed hugging my mother-in-law Maria and kissing her on both wet cheeks as the custom in Greece requires. We didn't say much, that would have to wait for a less intense moment when we could think and commiserate with each other. Maria wore black as did Anna, visibly aged though eager as ever to shower affection in her own unique way. For Maria, food is love and she had been cooking all day so we could all sit down together, share each others company and her delicious food. Maria grew up during the famine years of the Nazi occupation of Greece. When the shack she was living in was burned to the ground during the Greek Civil war, she along with her widowed mother and two brothers lived under the shade of a pine tree on the outskirts of Kesariani, taking turns eating what little food they had from a solitary communal plate. It was one of the few family possessions that survived the fire. 

For all of us, that moment surrounded by each other was truly sublime. It spoke to the essence of what is important in this fleeting existence of ours. We are buffeted by life's trials and tribulations, and very often overtaken by our selfish focus on momentary pleasures and possessions. Nothing comes close to the satisfaction we derive from friends and family.  The person with neither is indeed poor in every sense of the word.  As the afternoon wore on, everyone slowly disappeared from the table. Anna went to the kitchen to finish cleaning up the debris of our meal, Chris went off to see his friends and my brother in law, Thanos, dozed on a couch. I sat with Maria as she smoked her cigarette while I ate some watermelon. We talked about my mother and her husband. "I thought he would cheat old Charon, he wasn't ready for death," she said pensively. As we were talking an old man came to the gate leading into our courtyard. Neither of us could see who it was. He walked slowly and deliberately.  The gate began to open slowly and I could see the uneasy expression on Maria's face. For a moment the blood drained from her countenance. The little bell that dangled from the gate rang.  The gate creaked open, revealing our visitor. It was Mitsos, my father in law's friend and neighbor. Mitsos suffered a stroke last year and still moves around with difficulty.  He slurs his words, often unable to express his thoughts, eventually nodding with a smile that reveals his few remaining teeth. As he walked up the steps Maria said "Kalos ton Mitso, ela, (welcome, come in)" while whispering: "He almost scared me out of my wits, for a moment, I thought it was your father in law come back from the dead."  She crossed herself  as she went inside to prepare a cup of thick black coffee for him while I lit his solitary cigarette of the day.

My last day in Greece ended as it had started, with an offering of food. I woke up very early, unable to sleep. As usual Maria was up and about already. The coffee was brewing. "I have a surprise for you," she exclaimed. She had plucked the first ripe figs from the huge fig tree in her garden.  She placed them gingerly on a plate in front of me, peeling one open as she smiled from ear to ear. They seemed so utterly perfect. My eyes welled up. "I didn't want you to leave without tasting the first fruits of your fig tree."  As I sat there eating those succulent, sweet figs we talked about her coming to America for awhile. "We'll see, I can't  promise anything. It's too soon. Who knows what the future will bring. I still have matters I must attend to."  We sat there sipping our coffee afterward waiting for the others to wake up. The morning was quiet except for the crowing of Giorgos' rooster next door and the chirping of the sparrows.  I surveyed the surrounding hills trying to etch them indelibly in my memory.  A warm breeze blew in from the sea.  Only the remains of Maria's offering were left on my plate, withering slowly as the neighborhood began to stir and the light brightened.

Of Festivals and Journeys

It has been a long hectic week and it is not over yet. This weekend our church, St. Demetrios in Saco, Maine is having its three day annual Greek festival.  The place is veritable beehive of activity with people doing all the things that need to be done in order to make what is a challenging undertaking for a religious community of our size a success. After years of experience behind us and thanks to the multi-talented members of our community, the entire event has taken on the semblance  of a clockwork operation that seems to go off if not smoothly and effortlessly, at least efficiently. The women have been baking for months, every type of Greek pastry.  Thousands of pieces of Lamb have been skewered on sticks waiting to soak in an olive oil, lemon and wine marinade and eventually to be barbecued slowly over a gas grill. Large Tents are going up, the church youth group is practicing Greek folk dances and on and on. Both of my sons are at the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston Summer Camp camp at Coontocook, New Hampshire, Nick in his second year as a counselor and Chris as a camper. For those Orthodox Christians living in New England with children, I highly recommend you give your children an opportunity to participate in this very enjoyable and spiritually uplifting experience. The kids are literally crying when they leave.  More information available here. With the boys spending their time with the friends they have made over the years, both from our parish and others around New England, I have been able to spend some of my free time painting the outside trim of the Church, along with others. Coincidently our medical practice has moved to a new office space with all that entails.  Chris  and  most of our other children will be back in time to help at the festival and dance the Greek folk dances for the visitors.

Watching the men and women, young and old, of our community work so harmoniously with such love for their community and heritage, is a very motivating experience for me. The spirit of volunteerism and the involvement of entire families is on display for our neighbors in Saco and Biddeford including visitors from as far away as Canada.  It is a cause of great pride. Even those who seldom come to church, show up this weekend to donate their time and effort, not wanting to miss being part of the overall effort. 

Now that Nick is back from Greece, Chris and I will be leaving next week to join our family there. It will be a bittersweet reunion.  It will be good to be an almost complete family again and to relax for awhile.  As usual I have packed a few good books to read during those lazy hot Greek afternoons when everything seems to grind to a halt, while we are serenaded by the Cicadas. I've packed away The Collected Poems of Cavafy, a book about the 20th Maine Regiment at Gettysburg entitled "Stand firm Ye Boys of Maine," " The Persian Expedition" by Xenophon, "Sheperd of Souls: The Life and Teaching of Elder Cleopas of Romania" and The Strong Man by James Rosen.  That will keep me busy for a little while and maybe provide some grist for the blogging mill.

I  will publish some photos of the Greek festival when I return from Greece in two weeks.. Unless I have the opportunity to write a short post from Greece while there at some Internet cafe, I intend to keep a diary of impressions and stories about my trip and post them when I get back. Best wishes to all for a happy and enjoyable summer.

The Internet Agora

Needless to say the comments in the last few days have been wide ranging, thought-provoking and a challenge in terms of addressing the issues raised. My problem is that I spend an inordinate amount of time in the agora and way too litle time contemplating appropriate answers to all your vexing questions in the solitude of my keli (cell).  How do I bring it all together in a post that perhaps will generate more dialogue?

Reading everyone's comments I would say there are two overarching issues here. The first is the struggle between the secular world of the agora and living a God-centered life. The other issue is centered around the the conflict between creating multi-ethnic super states versus the survival of the traditional, homogeous ethnos (nation).  These two critical issues transcend boundries. I would argue that in every country, East and West, North and South, these same issues are being played out to varying degrees.

In modern Greece these partciular issues have particular resonance.  The attempt to create Greeks in the image of rational, enlightened Westerners began during the struggle for independence. It was led by those diasporan Greeks who were heavily influenced by Western thought and sought to recast the image of the Greek peasant as the heir of ancient Hellenic civilization. Unfortunately the Europeans and Europeanized Greeks looked down upon the peasants and klephts who had fought for independence as products of a "barbaric" past. They saw them as creations of a Turkish occupation during which Turks and Greeks lived side by side. During this time of "togetherness" they reasoned that the Greeks had taken on "oriental qualities." They became corrupt, ignorant, superstitious, lazy, and uncivilized. If Greeks were to become true Greeks they had to get rid of the "Turk" within, even if it meant getting rid of the religion and historical legacy that preserved their Greekness spanning almost two milenia of intermittent foreign occupation. In so doing the West and their Greek accomplices proceeded to completely ignore the Romaic Christian side of our civilization. Greeks such as Costes Plamas, John Romanides and Photios Kontoglou have been fighting a holding action ever since.

While Greece was sealed hermetically for centuries under Turkish occupation, the West underwent a Renaissance, rediscovering ancient Greek thought preserved in large part by Constantinople and brought to Europe by those escaping the Turkish onslaught. The Enlightenment further ensconced the role of reason in Western civilization and made it pre-eminent. Fast forward to the present. The West now finds itself having thrown out the baby with the bath water. Faith is considered useless and capable of providing only "icons and churches."  The secular rationalists have taken over our schools, our governments and are proceeding to systematically push out religion in its every form and vestige. In many respects Christians are living in a hostile environment reminiscent of the early days of Christianity, including persecution in places like Kosovo, Darfur, China and the Middle East.

I am heartened by what NOCTOC writes about Greeks in Greece rediscovering their Orthodox roots and the renewed popularity of Kontoglou's writings. The term, Neo-Orthodoxy, sounds a bit out of place. The Orthodox faith does not change, only people do. The Church whether it is in the United States, Greece, Russia or Cyprus,  is in crisis. It is not the first time and it won't be the last. It has withstood much worse. It does so because there have always been a core of believers in the far flung parishes but especially in the monasteries that refuse to compromise sacred tradition and the faith handed down to them. Within the body of the Church there is always the never ending encroachment of the world and its priorities over those of God. The lot of the believing Christian is I think to live as best he or she can as a citizen of the polis, not forsaking the agora without compromising their faith.

The hour is late and I need some rest. I'm going to tackle the second part of my two themes in a subsequent post.

The Letter

I am not quite sure why my father used to drag me with him to the Adult English language course he was taking at the 92nd street YMCA. I was nine years old at the time. Maybe he wanted to give Mama a bit of a break since she had her hands full with my three year old sister.  Perhaps he wanted to show off his son who spoke English without a trace of an accent or avail himself of my already impressive abilities as the family translator. I think he really just wanted to spend some time with his son. It wasn't easy sitting still for an hour but if I managed to do so I was rewarded with an ice cream sandwich from the machine in the lobby.  It was all pretty exciting this brief journey into the uncharted land of adulthood.

Dad's English often made me wince. Boy, could he mangle the language and he had an accent you could cut with a knife. Sure he could speak Greek, Albanian, Turkish, and Italian fluently, he even dabbled in French. His command of the English language on the other hand was tenuous. Baba loved being a student. I watched him sitting with rapt attention, carefully writing the words in his notebook and trying to pronounce them correctly. On the walk home we had to practice the words he had learned that evening, again and again. They never seemed to come out the way a real American would say things. Dad marveled at the way I had learned to speak English. When we came to America, I was five and the only language I had ever spoken was Greek. In Kindergarten I was the only Greek kid and I learned by total immersion. Sink or swim. Within six months my nerve synapses were firing in a staccato English that amazed my parents and their immigrant friends.

Dad's education in America was short-lived. He had to work two jobs and there was no time left for the classroom. I still have his Greek-English dictionary and the textbook he continued to study, even well into retirement. Those dog eared books contained all his hopes and dreams for a future in which he could communicate in English with the same alacrity and facility that he had in the Greek language. Baba loved to write and he never missed an opportunity to do so. He never sent a Christmas card without sending a beautiful lengthy personalized messge to accompany it. He wrote for the Church bulletin, essays on the Church Fathers or the meaning of this or that feast day in the life of the Church. They were always handwritten in beautiful calligraphy reminescent of the Declaration of Independence.

Dad, like most Greeks, irregardless of educational level, looked up to teachers no matter who they happened to be. In traditional, rural Greece, the teacher was accorded the same respect as the local priest or doctor. When the immigrants came to America they instilled this respect for education and educators in their children, many of whom entered the teaching profession. One of them, a friend of mine who retired recently after many years of teaching, told me of an incident that took place years ago, while he was waiting on line at the bank. A recently arrived Greek immigrant who knew him from Church entered the bank and seeing my friend waiting patiently on line was appalled that a man of such stature in the community would deign to waste his time waiting like a common citizen. He begged him to go to the head of the line. The world of this illiterate peasant had been turned upside down at such an affront to a man of letters, such was the respect accorded to the scholar.  My father was cut from the same cloth. Although Dad was by no means illiterate, he showed the same respect for my teachers and this was borne out by a letter he wrote to the principal of my junior high school.

Dad received a form letter from the principal informing him that his son had earned "honors." This shoddy, fill-in-the-blank letter with my name misspelled, as usual, was received as if President Johnson himself, had written it. Dad sat at the kitchen table to read and reread it. He then went to work immediately crafting an appropriate response, his trusty dictionary at his side. The letter went through numerous iterations and the crumpled pieces of paper started to build up on the table. Finally, the finished product was ready and he read it to my mother, who nodded appreciatively, although I suspect she did not quite understand all the words. When he was finished Dad summoned me and placing the envelope carefully in my hand, asked me to deliver it personally to the principal.  I was appalled. What if word leaked out and my friends found out?  Even worse what if someone saw me in the principal's office? Social suicide. I would be a pariah, shunned by my peers.

I weighed my options. I could refuse or I could sneak in clandestinely, deliver the letter and low crawl out of there with none of my buddies being the wiser. The first option was a non-starter, so I resigned myself to my fate. I made my move during lunch after reconnoitering to ensure a secretary would be there. I looked up and down the hall, slipped through the door, put my happy face on, handed the letter over and left before anyone could ask too many questions. Swiftly and silently.

I found a copy of that letter recently going through my father's papers and books. As I sat their reading his letter and appreciating the effort he put into his reply, the memories came flowing back. Baba was genuinely proud of my accomplishment, yet he did not forget to acknowledge and thank the teachers who had made it possible.  Schools can teach us a great deal, but they can't teach us the kind of thing that my father taught me that day, long ago, by the dint of his own example.

On Parents and Children

Thank you all for your kind and gracious condolences. I'm sorry I haven't had much of anything else to write about lately. All of you have lives and problems of your own, the last thing you need is some wayward blogger  piling his problems on you as well. Actually writing about these losses is my not so private way of coping and I appreciate your comments and messages very much. More than you know.

Our parents lived good, full lives. Their reflections are with us in the faces of their grandchildren and in the things they taught us. They were imperfect people to be sure, but they loved us with every fiber of their being. Could we ask for anything more of any parent? As I write this I am munching on a piece of Vasilopita. Mama  baked an extra one for me and was saving it in her freezer for the appropriate moment. I loved her Vasilopita with its fragrant aroma, created by the spices she added to the sweet dough, mahlepi and mastica. The Vasilopita is prepared for New Year's Eve when it is our custom to cut a piece for every member of our family starting with Christ and the blessed Theotokos. A coin is hidden in each pita and the piece that contains that lucky coin assures the recipient of a blessed and happy new year. The Vasilopita honors the great Saint Basil who gave alms to the poor. He hid coins in the bread given to the poor to preserve not only their self-respect but his anonymity.

Our parents leave a Vasilopita of sorts for each of us. In it they bake parts of themselves. Fear, joy, strength, weakness, pride, humility. Above all it contains their love for us. As a young man I remember reading a collection of poems, entitled "The Prophet" by a Lebanese poet named Kahlil Gibran. One in particular, about parents and children, struck a chord:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

---

In Memory

My father-in-law Christos, died on Thursday after a valiant and heart wrenching three month struggle. He was surrounded by his immediate family who have been at his bedside throughout the long hospitalization. Christos embraced me as a son from the first day we met, and his loss is especially difficult coming  so soon after the loss of my parents. I will miss sitting with him under the fig tree we both loved, trading stories and jokes. I will miss the way he beamed with pride when he looked at his grandsons, the way he savored his wife's cooking, the way he sat in front of his home and beckoned all his passing neighbors to share a cup of coffee with him. Christos was a teenager during the occupation of Greece, he lost his parents during the war years and he was the sole supporter of his blind sister. He was victimized by both sides in the Greek Civil War. Almost beaten to death by a right wing death squad and held hostage for months by communist guerrillas who force marched him from one hideout to another on meager rations. He was for me the epitome of the Greek everyman, still standing proudly and smiling despite, as Shakespeare's Hamlet once proclaimed, the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."  Christos will be mourned by many, not the least of which will be my wife, Anna and her dear brother. Perhaps my father-in-law's greatest accomplishment will have been to father two such devoted children, who did their very best when their father needed them most. May his memory be eternal.

Mother's Day

Mama, when the Angels took you home, I was not there with you.

You died alone in your sleep.

By the time I held you in my arms, your soul had left.

We started this journey, so many years ago, together,

You held me in your arms for the first time.

So much to remember.

You left us all suddenly and without warning.

The week  before  you died, I dropped by unexpectedly.

We talked a bit. I was in a hurry to leave.

So much to do.

Stay awhile, Katse ligo, agoraki mou, my little boy

Next time, Mama.

We'll go to church and eat the lenten meal together.

Tomorrow's another day.

It was to be our last supper.

So much left unsaid between us.

Going through your things,  collected over a lifetime.

A small box with a baby's curls and tiny booties.

A frayed picture of you as a young girl.

A yellowed copy of "Gone with the Wind,"

in Greek.

An unfinished dress.

Your parakeet flies to and fro, searching for you.

He lands on my shoulder and chirps, "I love you."

The green grass is sprouting up over their graves now.

The early morning dew covers the headstone.

Beloved Parents,

Nicholas and Evelini.

A few flowers and a Mother's Day Card.

It's springtime, the trees are in bloom, life renews itself.

The birds celebrate a new day.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to ALL MOTHERS

Praying For the Living and the Dead

I am mentally and physically exhausted after the events of the last few days, yet I sit at my computer compelled to write and pour out my feelings to people I have never met nor probably ever will. It is late evening. My sons are asleep, my dog lying on the floor next to my chair and the house is dark except for the flickering oil lamp in front of the family icons and the light emanating from my computer screen.

Death is not something new for me. I've seen its face many times, up close and personal. It is familiar, it is mysterious and yes it is frightening, because someday it will be my turn. Nothing reminds us of the inevitability of our own death as the death of the parents that gave you life. When I lost my father ten months ago after a long illness I was able to ease myself into the inevitable end of his long life. I was able to accept it and process its meaning. I watched him waste away, his mind slip slowly into a hazy world of its own. When he died I grieved even though deep down I felt a strange satisfaction that he was better off as I looked down at his emaciated body, his mouth gaping open, frozen after his last dying breath and his eyes half closed, staring at us.

Funny it was Mama who was the strong one when Baba died. She comforted and put her arm around me. She was the one who whispered into my ear to tell me how much my father had loved me and wiped away my tears. Life for Mama after  my father's death was lonely though she was surrounded by family and friends. It was the loneliness of sleeping in an empty bed and not being able to confide in your life's partner your fears and joys. She finally moved out of the house they had shared after his passing. She had lingered there as if  he might someday return to sit in the garden that he loved, even for a short time.

My wife Anna and I begged her to come live with us. We had plenty of room. "Two women cannot cook in the same kitchen, " she said wisely. She moved into a nearby apartment building for retirees and she proceeded to make her small apartment her own. She sewed curtains, hung pictures of her family throughout and placed her icons above her solitary bed.  Mama was no wallflower. Within a few weeks she had made plenty of new friends. She played cards, invited neighbors over for coffee and food, talked with a steady stream of people on the phone. She would invite her friends from church over for formal dinners when she would break out her best china and her embroidered tablecloths. She was, as one resident put it: "the happiest person here."   

Mama's constant companion during her last year was "Cloudy" the parakeet. My son had given him that particular name because he was blue and white, resembling a cloud. I bought him for her thinking she might enjoy him as much as her brother Elias enjoyed his parakeet "Budgie."  It was a match made in heaven. I have never seen a bird so enamored with a human being. His cage was next to her bed. In the morning he would emerge and wake her by flying onto her head, then walking down her nose and pecking at her lips. After a full day together, he would allow her to gently caress him in her hand, kiss him and then place him in his cage.

A month ago my father-in-law suffered a debilitating heart attack. Anna rushed to his side in Greece. As a result, my younger son would walk from school at the end of the school day and spend time with yiayia until I could pick him up on the way home. Yiayia would pamper him and of course, in the tradition of all yiayias everywhere, she would feed him. She concocted some kind of vegetable soup that was part of every meal because " he doesn't eat enough vegetables." Chris didn't have the heart to tell her he didn't want to have soup every day, realizing that such an admission might hurt her feelings.  Mama loved having Chris, her youngest grandchild, all to herself.   Perhaps this time was a little gift from God to both of them.   

Mama was always working on something.  Lately she confessed that she was more tired than usual. Assuming the parental role, I admonished her for doing too much.  On Wednesday we all went to Church in the evening and stayed for the Lenten meal afterwards.  We talked about her coming and staying with us through Holy Week. I kissed her and gave her a hug after dropping her off. Little did I realize it would be the last time I would see her alive. We spoke on the phone and she told me she was cooking for the luncheon after my father's upcoming memorial service  and she was building two window boxes in which she could plant tomato vines.

On Friday night she played cards with her friends and retired early saying that she didn't feel well and was going to get some sleep. The next day her next door neighbor went to check on her and she didn't answer her door. Her blinds were still down at midday even though she always awakened at 5 AM for her morning coffee. The neighbor called the police and they in turn called me to inform me that she had died. Chris and I had been out shopping and we were driving home when we got the call. Chris could sense something was wrong from the look on my face as I spoke with the police officer.  I was stunned. Chris began crying when he heard the news and I am not exactly sure how I managed to drive us to her home. I don't remember the trip there. One of Mama's friends comforted Chris while I walked up to her apartment, my heart beating out of my chest. I entered and found her lying on her bed. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully, her icons and oil lamp above her. I reached out to touch her face. It was cold as ice. It was Saturday, the day when our Lord resurrected Lazarus from the dead. I broke down and cried like a baby. It would not be the last time. She had left me suddenly, without any warning. So much left unsaid, and no time to say our good byes.

The hardest part was trying to comfort my inconsolable son, then breaking the news to my sister, wife and older son. Anna was in tears, she wanted to fly home to be with us and attend Mama's funeral. With her father in the hospital, fighting for his own life, I insisted that she stay put. The living had more need of her than the dead.  My sister drove up from New York. She sent an email before leaving:

My dear brother,

I know you will appreciate this quote from John Quincy Adams who spoke about Abigail, his mother upon her death.  "She... has been more to me than a mother.  She has been a spirit from above watching over me for good, contributing by my mere consciousness of her existence, to the comfort of my life... Never have I known another human being, the perpetual object of whose life, was so unremittingly to do good." 

Those are my feelings exactly, and I am sure yours. If we are anything, it is because of her. Whatever successes our families' have had,  it is a direct result of her goodness. Let us pray that we can continue her good works and pass on her strength and love to our children and to our children's children, from one generation to another. That is our parents' legacy. This is our purpose in life.

Somewhere I read that an act of love is like a pebble that falls in a pond.   The rings, which represent love, spread out infinitely and touches all in its path.  It is an never ending pattern of goodness and love. Our mother has bestowed this gift on us. May she rest in peace. Until we are all together again, in God's glory, forever and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Your sister. Katina

The wake at the funeral home was a celebration of her life surrounded by her children and grandchildren. The mourners just kept on coming, everyone touched in some way by her life. For our small community she was the uber yiayia, handing out food, hugs and love, unstintingly to all who crossed her path. During the last years of her life she had distributed most of her worldly possessions, planned and paid for her funeral and that of her husband. She counseled her children to feed the multitudes well. "Make sure you give them more than those little sandwiches and some potato chips" she insisted.  And so we did, with the help of many others who loved her.

The last time  I saw my mother in her casket it was positioned in front of the entrance to the altar. As I was staring through my tears at the woman who had suffered the pains of childbirth to bring me into this world, who had suckled me at her breast and who had hidden me under a bed to save me rather than herself from an avenging mob, I could not help but listen to the words which reminded me that within a few short days the an empty cross would be standing in her place, signifying the victory of our Lord over death.

(I Thess. 4 13-18.) Brethren: I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

In forty days we will celebrate my mother's memorial and coincidentally my father's one year memorial service on the same day. Mama had been cooking and freezing pastries to serve them after the memorial service for days. On the night before she died she had just pulled out a fresh pan of  golden brown spanokopita and left it to cool on the counter of her kitchen. Mama and Baba always did everything together during their fifty nine years of marriage, and they would continue that tradition in death. I think Mama would have smiled at the thought that we would be eating the food she had prepared with her hands at her own memorial.

MAY THEIR MEMORIES BE ETERNAL.

Heavenly Father, physician of our souls and bodies, Who have sent Your only-begotten Son and our Lord Jesus Christ to heal every sickness and infirmity, visit and heal also Your servant Christos from all physical and spiritual ailments through the grace of Your Christ. Grant him patience in this sickness, strength of body and spirit, and recovery of health. Lord, You have taught us through Your word to pray for each other that we may be healed. I pray, heal Your servant and grant to him the gift of complete health. For You are the source of healing and to You we give glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Many thanks to each and every one for your heartfelt condolences. We are humbled and inspired by the simple kindness and love our family has been the recipient of during this difficult time, not only from the small community we live in but also from strangers we have never met.  Truly God works in mysterious ways.

Kalo Pascha and Kali Anastasi

A Death in the Family

My mother died quietly in her sleep yesterday, on the Saturday of Lazarus. She was eighty-eight years old. Needless to say this has been a shock to our family because we had no warning whatsoever. Her death comes only ten months after my father's death at the end of long illness last June. Mama's  passing has left another gaping hole in our family and comes at a particularly difficult time with my wife Anna in Greece tending to her seriously ill father. I feel like an orphan now with both my parents gone but find comfort in the knowledge of the Resurrection we are about to celebrate. For those of you observing Holy Week, I wish you all a blessed Pascha and ask everyone to keep us in your prayers. May her memory be eternal.

Elias

Uncle Elias is the closest thing I have to a father these days. My mother's ninety-three year old brother is one of the few remaining links I have to our shared past. He is also teaching me, whether he realizes it or not, how to grow old gracefully. I don't think Uncle Elias knows how old he is. He sure doesn't act his age. He refuses to regale those around him with a constant litany of his physical maladies. Instead he would rather talk about a life well lived and the lessons derived from that life. Elias lives with his younger son and his family. His room is simple, filled with old books and pictures. A small, neatly made bed in the corner near the window. His constant companion is "Budgie,  the tiny blue  and white parakeet who he has trained to repeat little Greek phrases. Every evening he eats supper and retires to his room where he is joined by his eight year old grandson to watch cartoons or a TV game show called, Wheel of Fortune.  He reads his copy of the local Greek-American newspaper, The National Herald, which he writes to often, eloquently yet tactfully  expressing his many and varied opinions. Uncle Elias lives a life full of activity. He visits friends by taking the bus to their homes. He bounds up and down stairs. He tinkers in his garage and cultivates the small garden behind the house he lives in.  This year he has volunteered to take on the additional work of getting his neighbor's garden looking right.

He lives in his comfortable, tidy room, surrounded by his holy icons and the countenance of family members, living  or dead, who seem to hover over him protectingly. Uncle Elias lost his wife two years ago. He woke one morning to find that she had died peacefully in her sleep. Elias had met Sophia through a mutual friend. They were introduced with the intention that, if both were in agreement, they would be betrothed to be married. Arrangements for their first meeting were made. It was decided that they would meet at a nearby taverna.  Elias was preceded by a co-worker who had also been invited to the dinner. When he arrived Sophia mistook him for Elias. Her heart sank. The man standing before her was bald and middle aged. Luckily, Elias showed up shortly thereafter and his good looks saved the day. Their marriage lasted for sixty years.

I'm not sure why he decided to travel back to Constantinople. Let's just say it was a big surprise to everyone. When Elias makes up his mind there's no use in anyone trying to change it. His sisters marveled. "He's thinks he is still a palikari," they said, shaking their heads and then whispering "masallah" under their breath. I was happy for him, happy that he would retrace the footsteps of his youth, do battle with the demons and face the ghosts of his past. He called me before he left to wish me good bye and promised to return with plenty of pictures.

Last weekend the clan got together to celebrate my sister Katina's birthday. Uncle Elias, true to his word, showed up like a conquering hero holding a box of Turkish Loukomia (delight) and a small shopping bag filled with copies of  photos of his trip for everyone. We sat down and talked about his trip as tears welled up in his eyes. The highlight of his trip involved a group audience with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew himself. The Patriarch immediately recognized him from his trip to America when he was introduced to Elias, the oldest living member of the Society of Constantinople, a fraternal organization of Constantinopolitan Greeks in the United States. The Patriarch singled him out immediately and embraced him and Elias quickly became the man of the hour in his group of fellow pilgrims.

Most importantly, Elias revisited his hometown of Neohori, on the banks of the Bosphorus where he visited the graves of his grandparents and his father, Panagioti. In so doing he brought me a small present back in the form of a bit of family history that had been forgotten over the years. The birth dates of my grandparents' generation are seldom remembered nor celebrated. The exact date of Panagioti's birth date had been forgotten in the mists of time. Looking at the photo of my grandfather's tombstone I noticed the date of his birth.  It turns out that he and I were born on the same day and month, a fact hitherto unknown to all present. This time it was my mother and I who became teary eyed.

If Elias has taught me anything it is that in order to drink from the elusive fountain of youth one must look at the world with the same wonder and awe as a child. To devour life with a hearty appetite and not to allow it to devour you. Perhaps next year, God willing, I will see the city of my birth once again, through his eyes and face the ghosts of the past, together.

My Kid Sister, Katina

My sister just turned the BIG 50 (although I must admit she is extremely well preserved for a woman of her advanced years).   I thought I would reprint this post I wrote about her. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATINAKI.

When I was six years old my parents brought home a little baby girl and introduced me to my new sister. Talk about a shock;  sure my parents had hinted at how nice it would be to have a sister and I couldn't help but notice Mama was putting on some weight, but who knew that my folks would have the temerity to upset our happy home by introducing a stranger into our midst. Let's just say I was less than thrilled.

Things were just fine until my kid sister showed up. Her name was Katina and she spent her whole day carrying on four exclusive activities: crying, eating, pooping and sleeping. Born in the USA, she was the first Amerikanaki in our family of immigrants. Mama let me hold her sometimes, that was OK, but this little bundle of joy wasn't exactly much of a playmate. I had no idea what was in store for me.  When you are an older brother, kid sister's become a major burden. There is no up side. After all,  its like you are a third parent. Growing up, my kid sister was wrapped around my neck like an albatross. If we went out to play my mother would tell me to keep my eyes "glued" on her.  If she had to cross the street,  guess who had to hold her hand?  If someone was picking on her, guess who was supposed to ride to the rescue? Then there was the problem of her borrowing my stuff. Once she ended up riding my bike and it came back in two pieces twisted into the shape of a pretzel.  When I was in Junior High School, I had to drop my sister off at her school a few blocks away, before any of my friends noticed me. To make matters worse, she insisted on clutching my hand. Geez. As hard as I would try to ignore my sister, she returned my disdain with genuine love and affection.

Today my little pigtailed kid sister has a family of her own and is a successful business woman. She is confident, articulate and above all excels at everything she does. I like to think that I had a hand in her development. I was the one that taught her to be brave. You have to be when your brother makes scary sounds while you are sleeping in your bedroom at night. I taught her about being a good loser. You have to be when you brother cheats at all the board games you play together.  I taught her to be independent. You have to be when your brother is off playing with his friends and you have to fend for yourself. I taught her to stick up for herself. You have to when you have a pushy older brother.  Above all, I taught my sister how to deal with the problematic yet indispensable male species:  look 'em in the eye, don't back down, consider yourself their equal in all things and above all, use your superior verbal and intellectual skills to run circles around them. 

I don't really think I began really appreciating my sister until I got older. She was popular, a social butterfly, a talented gymnast, and smart to boot.  She had a knack with people that I envied. I was an introvert and she was the exact opposite, a confirmed extrovert, who had blossomed into a beautiful woman.  Our relationship improved greatly when we got older.  Distance does make the heart grow fonder.  When I came back from my first overseas tour in the Marines, she was a college freshman. Like all young women her age she thought she wasn't as attractive as this or that movie actress. Annoyed I told her she was a lot better looking than all of them put together.  Years later she confided how much that meant to her. Who knew? Then again, I always had a hard time deciphering women, including my sister.

My sister initially taught at a Greek parochial school for a number of years but eventually gravitated toward politics.  She ended up as a troubleshooter on the mayor's staff in a large metropolitan city.  With her gifted people skills she was a natural  and was soon dealing with one community relations crisis after another.  When her children grew up, and having celebrated twenty-five years of marriage to the same wonderful guy,  Katina decided she wanted to be her own boss for a change and being the risk taker she is, struck out on her own to create a successful business from scratch.

The most influential person in my sister's life was our mother.  Katina inherited Mama's shrewdness and ability to read people. More importantly,  she learned the most significant lesson Mama ever taught her. That lesson was to put your family first and foremost, in all your calculations.  My sister has been a devoted, loving wife, mother, daughter, and sister. That devotion and love has been an example to us all and returned in kind.  Bravo, Katinaki.

The Life Within

It is indeed a small world. Here I sit at my desk in Maine tonight and decide to see what Theophilos at Domina Graecia has written about today in Athens. I have never met him, yet feel a certain unexplainable kinship, despite the distance. Like the others, such as Simon, Hermes, Margaret, Kat, Kosta, Demonax, Ismini, or Susan, he comes into my blog life, unexpectedly.  We find things that we have in common, things that unite us despite the miles between us. Fate brings us together and then  fate plays  its tricks. To my surprise I come across a photo he recently took:

In an instant, the memories began flooding back. They carried me back to another time and place. My wife Anna grew up in the prosfigika (refugee), as they are referred to by the locals, in the Kesariani section of Athens (very similar to the one's depicted with accompanying bullet holes). During our courtship and newlywed days I spent my share of time visiting her parent's small apartment.  Those were good times and I remember them with a good deal of nostalgia.

Then I noticed a comment Margaret had written about Theo's post and smiled:

"I think your pink aerosol circles are a great addition to these buildings, and I really like the last two photos. They make the building look like a strong metaphor for life, tattered, battered, scarred, mostly closed up, but with just one window and a door ajar. Surprisingly colourful. Somehow defiant."

M, how utterly and totally on the mark you are. That facade, tattered though it is and reflective of the tragedies its inhabitant's have endured, always represented something special and valuable to me. Inside were people who not only endured life's barbed arrows but also cherished the simple pleasures that life had to offer. Doors were always open and people moved back and forth from one apartment to another. They shared their food, laughter, hope, success and failures. Sometimes they shared their sorrows and tears. No matter how scarred on the outside, on the inside the heartbeat was strong and vital.

My in-laws' tiny apartment faced a very busy thoroughfare named Leoforos Vassilias Alexandrou. The traffic and the noise never stopped, no matter how late. The other side of their apartment faced a courtyard with trees. The turbulence couldn't penetrate the thick fortress-like walls. My mother-in law Maria had created an oasis on her balcony that smelled of fresh basil,flowers, onions, garlic and olive oil.  I remember my father-in-law Christos, smoking his stub of a cigarette while seated on a wooden chair, one leg folded over the other, as he philosophized about life in general and his in particular. I remember sitting there, leaning back in my wooden chair and with my legs propped up on the low cement wall drinking a coffee, ice cold, with a frothy top like a milk shake. I was surrounded by greenery dripping cold water, and an atmosphere inundated with laughter and smiles. Every so often Anna would sneak a peak at me and smile and I would smile back at her.

These buildings will eventually make way for new ones. In Greece nothing happens quickly. They will probably have shops with large showrooms visible at street level and piled high with expensive imported goods. Their inhabitants will live in spacious apartments and spend their time watching their big screens and drinking coffee from their espresso machines. They will have no idea who their next door neighbor is, nor will they care. In the long run, perhaps the outside of a building doesn't tell us as much about what is on the inside of the people in it or then again, maybe it does.

To Dixty (The Net)

Κάθε φορά που ανοίγεις δρόμο στη ζωή
μην περιμένεις να σε βρει το μεσονύχτι
έχε τα μάτια σου ανοιχτά βράδυ-πρωί
γιατί μπροστά σου πάντα απλώνεται ένα δίχτυ

Αν κάποτε στα βρόχια του πιαστείς
κανείς δε θα μπορέσει να σε βγάλει
μονάχος βρες την άκρη της κλωστής
κι αν είσαι τυχερός ξεκίνα πάλι

Αυτό το δίχτυ έχει ονόματα βαριά
που είναι γραμμένα σ' εφτασφράγιστο κιτάπι
άλλοι το λεν του κάτω κόσμου πονηριά
κι άλλοι το λεν της πρώτης άνοιξης αγάπη

Αν κάποτε στα βρόχια του πιαστείς
κανείς δε θα μπορέσει να σε βγάλει
μονάχος βρες την άκρη της κλωστής
κι αν είσαι τυχερός ξεκίνα πάλι


Every time you open a road in life
Don't wait for the dark of night to find you
Keep your eyes open wide, night and day
because in front of you there is always a net spread wide

If ever you get caught in its mesh
nobody will be able to get you out
find the edge of the web by yourself
and if you are lucky, begin once again

That net has heavy names
that are written in a seven sealed book
Some call it the treachery of the nether world
and some call it the love of the first springtime

I've never been able to listen to this sad song without thinking about my grandparents, Panayioti and Evdoxia. They were the center of a family tragedy that is still a source of regret and hurt, even sixty years later. I was their first grandchild. Papou died of lung cancer at the age of 66, shortly after I was born. Yiayia helped raise me for the first five years of my life. Our bond was strong right up until the time of her own death. I owe my life to yiayia. It was her quick thinking and courage in the face of an angry mob of Turks trying to break into our home in 1955, that saved my mother and I.

Papou and Yiayia were the victims of a match made and sealed between their two fathers. No one asked them if they wanted to get married, it was arranged.  It was the custom. Love had nothing to do with it.  Papou came from a well to do family of a Constantinoplitan merchant originally from Politsani in Northern Epirus. Yiayia was the daughter of a proud family of limited means from the same village. She was uneducated, beautiful and smart. She was also the kind of woman who did not submit easily to being consigned to the role of a dutiful, silent wife. Papou was very proud, too proud. A no nonsense disciplinarian, who expected things to be done his way. It was destined to end badly. And so it did.

Papou, the most talented of three brothers was a palikari that was wild and untamed in his youth. He was packed off to America, to tame his spirit or at least to teach him a sense of humility. He returned unrepentant and unchanged. He threw himself immediately into the struggle for Epirotan independence and enosis with Greece. When the struggle failed, he was married off and sent to Constantinople to take over the family business due to his father's failing health. He was shrewd, a natural in business and soon established himself as a merchant to be reckoned with. His customers included most of the foreign dignitaries and local pashas escaping the summer heat of the city in their private villas situated along the Bosporus in the town of Neohori. The family business thrived.

Meanwhile, yiayia was in Politsani raising three small children. The last one, my mother, was born in 1920. In 1921, Papou, an ardent Greek patriot who named his second daughter Fereniki or "bring victory," left for Greek-occupied Smyrni where he enlisted in the Greek Army. The following year brought defeat, disaster and upheaval on a scale that few Greeks had ever envisaged. Papou, like many others deserted and made his way back home, to Politsani. When he finally returned to Constantinople, his absence had attracted attention from the local authorities and he was summoned for interrogation. He took with him a set of forged receipts signed in his name by his father. After bidding farewell to his parents, he made his way to the police station, fearing the worst. Luckily the ruse worked and he was able to evade detection, although he was under surveillance for some time afterward.

Eventually, the Greeks of Constantinople achieved a tenuous foothold. The protection afforded them under the Treaty of Lausanne and the rapprochement between Venizelos and Attaturk gave the community some breathing room. Papou brought his family to Constantinople where they lived a comfortable middle class existence during the twenties and thirties. Panayioti was a leader of the Greek community in Neohori, a successful businessman and he had a beautiful family. He was a man, who seemingly, had it all.

I am not sure what brought about the dissolution of his marriage. Even now my grandparents' children would prefer to take the bitterness and sadness to their grave rather than share it with us. "It is in the past.  Let it be." They were in their late teens and early twenties when things unraveled and Yiayia and Papou separated. In an age when such things were considered shameful, they called it quits. Was it the rumors, or their unyielding pride or was it the fact that there was just not enough love left to keep things going? As in many failed marriages, the children often become the spoils. In this case the spoils went to the victor, yiayia.  That reality broke Papou's proud heart, he was never reconciled with his children and died alone. My Uncle recently confided that he visited his father while he was on his deathbed, to kiss his hand and to ask his forgiveness. As he lay there dying he turned his head and said nothing.

My grandmother always wore black. I always thought it strange that she would mourn Panayioti after so much grief had passed between them. Neither of them remarried. Papou was buried in the Greek cemetery in Neohori. His grave is untended and forgotten. Yiayia died surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Her funeral a celebration of her life; her grave surrounded by blooming flowers.

I often think of them both. It's understandable that Yiayia is still a formidable presence in my life. My memories of her are sweet and vivid. But why does Panayioti have such a claim on me?  Could it be that my mother never stops talking about her father. She'll stop what she is doing, stare at me and say: "You look so much like my father. I can't get over it. He would have been so proud of you."  Could it be the senseless tragedy of his life which became ensnared in a dixty or net of his own making, that he was ultimately unable to escape? This year, my Uncle Elias will travel back to Neohori, at the age of 93, to grapple with his father's ghost, perhaps even to make peace with him.  He will tend to the grave once gain and have a priest say the Trisagion prayer for the soul of his father.

Athens of the Belle Epoch

Anyone visiting modern day Athens today will see a city of three million inhabitants experiencing many of the problems endemic to urban life in the twenty-first century, Traffic, pollution, crime and an ugly urban sprawl that seems to be spreading its tentacles in every direction. The Athens of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, an era fondly referred as the "Belle Epoch,"  heralded the new confidence of a nation that was being Europeanized, expanding economically and dreaming of embracing the millions of unredeemed Greeks beyond the borders of the Greek state.  A dream that eventually was destroyed like a wave crashing against the rocks in faraway Anatolia in 1922. Athens in 1900,  was a city of 167,000, wide avenues adorned with mansions and imposing public buildings, but more importantly it was a city where one could walk down the street and meet acquaintances on every corner. When you returned home to your neighborhood , you were returning to family and friends who knew and loved you. It was a city of the looming Industrial era that was built on a human scale designed for its inhabitants rather than the automobile.

I was introduced to this period in Greek history through the exquisite photographs preserved by the family of Yiannis Spandonis, a journalist /novelist who has made these memories available to all of us in a beautiful, recently published book: Athens of the Belle Epoch. It came to me as a gift and unfortunately I am unable to find a bookseller that offers it although some of Spandonis novels are available at Oceanida Books.

Spandonis writes the following elegy to Athenian evenings:

"There are very few Athenians nowadays who are able to enjoy such moments (as depicted in the print below) with such a terrace, such a view and so  much serenity and beauty.  There are even fewer Athenians who have the courage and pride to dress like the middle figure in this beautiful painting by Jakob Rizos. She is wearing a dress influenced by the Greek national costume.....Modern Athenians would fall in love at first sight with such a woman. As they would again fall in love with their city if they could spend an evening on such a terrace...Perhaps the soldier is reciting some poem to the ladies, apart from the smell of gunpowder and the clang of weapons, he seems to appreciate peace and beauty. Like the ancient residents of this city, which though thousands of years have passed through the Golden Age, can still enchant, teach and cultivate.

All we need is to show this city some love."

I will be posting again on themes presented in this superb book. Stay tuned.

A Perfect Weekend

As one gets older, he or she reaches a point in life where they begin to contemplate the events that constitute the totality of their experiences.  It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of it all, to find meaning in what happens in this world. All we can do is take small bites of the apple and digest the small pieces.  So much of our lives are often filled with the tedious, the routine and the downright boring minutiae of our baneful modern existence. Wasn't it David Thoreau who said "Men live lives of quiet desperation and go to their graves with the song still in them."  I have wondered about that sentence many times and what it meant for my own life.

There have been many wasted opportunities in my life; periods I wish I could revisit and relive. Many things I could have done better, things I could have said, people I could have treated differently.   The disasters, catastrophes, mistakes and embarrassing things I've done.  I wish I could straighten them all out.   So much wasted effort on so many unimportant things, so much wasted time, precious time that is no longer retrievable or salvageable. Unfortunately, there is no rewind button on the eternal march of time. Yet, despite the regrets, there are those bright shining moments. Moments that are inscribed in our minds and played back again and again. This weekend will be one of those sublime and memorable pieces of my life that I will long remember and cherish. It was a weekend when I was able to refocus on the important things in my life. A time to gain further understanding  of myself and how I fit into God's plan.

This beautiful, sunny weekend started when my oldest son, Niko, came home from college. Keep in mind that Nick has been away for a little over a month. To his mother and I it has seemed more like a year.  Nick's return coincided with the return of Geronda (Elder) Christodoulos, a monk-priest who entered our lives and who we befriended.  I humbly consider him my spiritual father.  Father Christodoulos was  spending time with us, talking to and teaching some of the children and adults of our community in our home when Niko arrived. Our home was doubly blessed.

Somehow Nick looked taller, more confident, more mature than the young man who left us what seemed ages ago. Perhaps these are the befuddled ramblings of a proud doting parent. Suddenly I felt older  watching Anna hug him while standing on her toes. Nick had the obligatory basket of dirty laundry and all the accompanying stories about life as a college freshman. I even eyed his  younger brother Chris looking at him approvingly and for the first time in awhile the two siblings had nothing to argue about. I don't know how to explain such a transformation in so short a time nor whether I was the one who had changed more than Nick. Suffice it to say that I've  begun looking at Nick in a different way.

In the evening we went to Church at midnight to celebrate the  Divine Liturgy and to receive communion. Our Church was lighted only with the glow coming from the many lighted candles which gave it an other -worldly aura. As  I sat there watching Nick chanting along with his friend and classmate, Dimitri, I was overcome with the beauty of the moment. Surrounded by friends and relatives, I looked up at the dome to see the Icon of the Pantocrater (Almighty) bathed in the reflected light, watching over us. At that moment I really felt God's presence. Later that night I lay  in my bed  watching the flickering light of the candili in front of the family icons, content in knowing that my family was safe, once again whole, under the same roof. At the same time, I could not forget that there were other sons who do not sleep in their beds and other parents who feel their ever-present loss. I tossed and turned for awhile, trying not to awaken my wife,  Anna, sleeping soundly next to me, until sleep, in its mercy,  finally embraced me as well.

That Sunday my son Niko became a Godfather and helped baptize the son of close friends of our family. Anna filled in as Godmother.  Nick's  Godson is also named Nicholas. The role of Godfather in the Greek family is one not be taken lightly. It represents a spiritual bonding in which the Godfather takes on the important task of helping raise his Godchild in union with Christ. As I watched my Niko, now a man in his own right, holding little Nicholas in his arms as the priest led them around the baptismal font three times chanting one of my favorite hymns: "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. Alleluia." My mother,who was sitting next to me, leaned over and said: "May you someday watch the baptism of your own grandchildren."  It was all I could do not to start bawling like a baby, something that would ruin my image as a tough former Marine.

I felt a profound sense of joy not only in having my son back, watching him develop into manhood but also having the opportunity once again to be with Geronda.  It is very rarely that we get to be in close proximity to someone who is as close to God as  Father Christodoulos.  Sure many of us try to live our lives in a manner that is God pleasing yet so often we fall short of the mark. We profess our love of God, like many others in the Church, including those wearing cassocks,  even while we continue to let Him down time and time again. Maybe that is why it is a pleasure to see the depth of Geronda's love for God and for his fellow man, his quiet humility, his simplicity. It is also spiritually uplifting to hear him speak in low tones, pausing to think before he speaks, about how we can strive to achieve that special relationship with God in terms that are powerful, in terms we can all understand.

Geronda was born and raised in the United States. One of the kids asked him how old he was. "Why, I am sixteen," he replied to the  surprised youngster. "You see I was reborn again when I was tonsured as a monk." His spiritual quest took him to Mount Athos, and later to Patmos where he met  Fr. Amphilochios (Tsoukos), now Metropolitan of New Zealand, who was a professor at the School for Priests while leading an ascetic life  at the hermitage of Kouvari.  He was the spiritual child of the late Elder Amphilochios (Makris) who has been recognized as one of the leading Elders of Greece (See previous post).  When asked what drew him close to the Metropolitan, Geronda said that it "was his humility and his happiness...in his face I saw all that my unworthy soul desired, and I felt that I had met St. Paul the Apostle, because this was a man of prayer and missionary work."

Geronda stayed in Patmos and eventually helped Fr. Amphilochios restore the Monastery of the Archangel on Mount Thari  in the island of Rhodes, which had been abandoned for many decades. After spending a year in India doing missionary work  Geronda Christodoulos  returned to Thari where he spent ten years as a monastic. Geronda returned to the United States at the behest of Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver to form a monastery in Colorado.  "Greece is our country and the heart of Orthodoxy, but Elder Amphilochios saw that I desired to serve again in the US, the place where I was born and raised and after ten years he discerned that it was time that I returned."

When asked what monasticism means to him, he said: "The Gerontikon says that when a monk falls, we should get back up again, for our life to be a continuous penance, as we travel on the journey through it."   Someone responded that not everyone can be a monk. Geronda said: "Of course not, what would become of us if we all became monks. In both married life and monastic life however, you cut off your will; you demonstrate obedience; and you live responsibly before your spouse, or elder or brothers in the monastery, and thus man is saved when he shows responsibility."

Like all good things, the weekend came to an end. As we all parted, our goodbyes were bittersweet. Despite the difficulty of saying goodbye I felt a certain serenity and satisfaction in having shared the fellowship of so many good friends and families in our community,  of being able to accept the spiritual sustenance that Geronda offered us and spending precious time with a son that has set out on his own personal journey.

My prayer is that all MGO readers experience similar good things in their own lives.

May our time with others be blessed and may all of us find what we seek.

BTW,  for a wonderful explanation of the sacrament of Baptism in the Orthodox Church read  "Baptism: Uniting with Christ"  by Father Anthony Coniaris, here.

Family

For a Greek, it's all about family isn't it?  Not only your immediate family but also your extended family. Greek  families  are  impossible to escape from, in a good sort of way.  They'll track you down,  no matter where you go. You can't disappear into the woodwork and send an occasional Christmas card. Before you know it they will be arriving unannounced on your doorstep and you can bet that they will be loaded down with food. They'll give you sloppy kisses on both cheeks and big bear hugs. They will admonish you for your sins, gently chastise you for your lack of familial attention, then make themselves at home for a few days. I don't want to give anyone the impression that Greek family members don't squabble and fight because they most certainly do. Infighting can last for years, eventually obscuring the thing that set the whole feud off in the first place. Invariably, things get patched up. After all, life is too short and no self respecting Greek could possible endure a life without family.  To a degree, our families define who we are and who we will become. They sustain us. A Greek without family is someone walking around with a gaping whole in his being.

Why is family so important to a Greek?  Perhaps it's because the Greek world, in particular, has always been a cold and cruel place. Read history. So why would anyone, in his right mind, want to face it alone?

My own family is special to me. I've prepared a peak into our shared history through a slide show via OneTrueMedia.Com.

Just click here.

Nicholas 1915-2007

Nicholas, beloved and faithful grandfather, father, husband, son and brother.  A humble Servant of God.

May his memory be eternal.

Kalo Paradiso

Papou

Honor to those who in the life they lead          

define and guard a Thermopylae.        

Never betraying what is right,          

consistent and just in all they do          

but showing pity also, and compassion;            

generous when they're rich, and when they're poor,          

still generous in small ways,          

still helping as much as they can;          

always speaking the truth,          

yet without hating those who lie.          

And even more honor is due to them          

when they foresee (as many do foresee)          

that Ephialtis will turn up in the end,          

that the Medes will break through after all.                      

                                                Thermopylae by C. Cavafy

I never met the man whose name I carry. Papou, (seated second from left) which is the Greek word for granfather, died in Tirana, Albania, far from his native village of Sheperi in Northern Epirus, just a few years after my family arrived in America in 1956. He never got a chance to hold his baby grandson in his arms, never looked into my eyes, never held my hand. Papou drew his last breath without ever being able to embrace and kiss his own son, my father, after enduring the bitterness of a twenty year separation. 

The 22nd of June marks the one hundreth anniversary of Papou's arrival at Ellis Island in 1907.  A few years ago I made the pilgrimage to the island in New York harbor. Millions passed through this way station to the American dream.  I stood in the middle of the cavernous Great Hall retracing my grandfather's first footsteps in America, misty eyed with a lump in my throat. Papou was one of the many young Greek men of his time who came to America to work in its factories, foundaries and mines.  These young men endured horrendous working conditions, the hardship of years apart from their families.  Many suffered injustice, racial epithets and in some cases, violence, yet, they came in the thousands looking to earn a better life for those they left behind. He was 28, 5'6'', with brown hair and eyes and he had 25 dollars in his pocket when he walked down the ramp of the steamer SS Massilia after a long transatlantic voyage in steerage.  Within a week, Papou, who was a cobbler by trade, was working in one of the mills in Biddeford, Maine, mass producing leather shoes. Biddeford was a dingy factory town  on the banks of the Saco river and my grandfather was one of its faceless, expendable minions for three years of his life. He worked long hours, six to seven days a week amidst the deafening cacophony of well-oiled industrial machinary which could chew a careless man up and spit him out in an unrecognizable pulp.  At the end of his shift he would walk home exhausted, his hands raw and impregnated with the smell of leather, to the rooming house that he shared with other bachelors. His only recreation, the occasional demitasse cup of dark, pungent Turkish coffee at the seedy Greek-owned Kafenion on Main Street, where he would sip and talk with his countrymen under the haughty gaze of a portrait of King George of Greece hanging on the wall. 

Papou saw potential in this new land, despite the ever-present hardships. He dreamed of opening up his own cobbler shop, owning his own business. He understood that there was no future living under the domination of the Ottoman Turks who ruled Northern Epirus at the time. After working in Biddeford for  three years,  he returned to the village where he had lived  almost his entire life, just in time to serve dutifully fighting for Greece in the campaigns of the Balkan wars. They were heady times indeed, Northern Epirus was liberated by the Greek Army and even after their negotiated withdrawal the Northern Epirotes managed to earn and declare an independent Republic only to have their hopes dashed by the Greek monarchy and the Great Powers.  Papou was an ardent follower of Eleftherios Venizelos and he never quite gave up the dream of seeing his homeland become part of the Greek State. He was a patriotic Greek right up to his death.  By 1925, Papou realized that the Greeks of Northern Epirus had merely traded a Turkish occupation for an Albanian one. He tried unsuccessfully to convince yiayia that immigrating to America would bring the promise of a better future. Yiayia was skeptical. She had spent her entire life in one place and had never left her native village. She was afraid of the unknown and Papou didn't have the heart to tear her from her family and friends.

Papou was a big believer in education and he scraped enough money together to send my father to Argirokastro, the provincial capital, where he completed his high school education while working as a clerk in a grocery store.  My father was a scholar in every sense of the word,  enamored with learning and someone who held books reverently, as if they contained the instructions for finding some mysterious hidden treasure.  Eventually,  he was one of two young men selected by the Archbishop of Albania to attend the Patriarchal Theological Seminary located on the island of Halki in far off Constantinople.

Papou saw his son off in 1938. That was the last time he would ever see him. Within two short years, World War II came to Northern Epirus.   It was occupied by the Italians who used it to launch an invasion into Greece, however,  it was soon liberated by a  Greek Army driving headlong toward Rome. Papou was elated by the victorious rout of the Italians by the Greek Army and he wrote  my father a tear stained celebrating the victory and his new found freedom. A few months later, German forces invaded from Yugoslavia and the Greek army, its flank threatened by the advancing Germans was forced to give up it hard won gains and retreat south. I can only imagine what my grandfather must have been thinking as he saw the long columns of muddy exhausted Greek soldiers heading south.  The occupiers came in quick succession, the Germans who turned his village into a burning inferno, the Partisans who took what little the Sheperiotes had left, and finally the Albanian Communists.  The Communists were by far the worst of the lot. They closed the border,  making it impossible for him to see his son again,  turned the church where his children were baptized into a stable, uprooted him from his native village and forced Papou to move his family to the city where they were assigned quarters in a gray, dingy apartment block in order to build the "New" Albania.  Papou's life in bondage was punctuated twice by short periods of freedom, only to dissolve as if wakened suddenly from a pleasant dream to find himself living a nightmare that was all too real. He yearned his whole life to live a free man. Fate was to deny him the fulfillment of this dream.

Back in 1985, I traveled to a small town in northern Greece called Drama to spend a few days with my Dad's first cousin. Uncle Kosta was a proud old man with a stubby beard living out his last days as a pensioner, cared for by his widowed daughter.  When I asked him about my grandfather one evening, his eyes lit up and he smiled broadly. "He was like a father to me after my own father died" he said. "Your Papou, my boy, was respected by everyone in our village and I will never forget his kindness to me. "  Papou didn't leave much in the way of worldly goods behind, only some sentimental memories for those whose lives he touched.  All I have to remind me of him is a pair of fragile spectacles, a few faded photographs and a letter he wrote to my father which starts out, "My beloved Nikolaki, I kiss your eyes."

The most precious  gift he left behind, besides the piece of him that lives in us, was the example of his own life. Papou was one of the little people, buffeted by life's ups and downs. Try as he might, many of the events in his life were simply beyond his ability to control. Nevertheless,  as the Cavafy poem suggests he guarded his Thermopylae as best he could. In the end, despite the tragedy of his own life, both his son and grandson escaped to freedom because of his efforts and sacrifice. Papou is never far from my thoughts these days even as my own father slowly slips away from me. Strangely, there is seldom a day that goes by that I don't think of him in some way. He looks at me from his photo and stares into my very soul.  Some day, God willing,  we may finally meet in a place of peace, in a place of repose, in a place of light. Where there is no pain, sadness or fear. We will hug each other the way only a grandfather and grandson can. We will have much to talk about.  Papou,  Kalo Paradiso and Kali Andamosi. 

07_Tzivaeri1

Niko

This past weekend my oldest son, Niko, went through an American rite of passage known as the Senior Prom. On that special day, graduating high school seniors, get dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns to celebrate an important milestone in their lives. As Nick and his date, stood dutifully while we snapped what seemed like a million pictures, I couldn't help but think about the last eighteen years.  Anyone who has spent any time at MGO has probably noticed the angelic looking kid at the top of the right column. That would be little "Stavraki" as my Mama refers to me even today at the tender age of 55.  As a kid I was far from angelic. I was a real piece of work and my parents have the white hairs to prove it.  On quite a few memorable occasions, I had to be patched up in the local hospital emergency room as my parents looked on in anguish.  Needless to say I heard Mama whispering under her breath, more than once, the Greek mother's infamous curse: "Just wait until you have kids." 

Being a parent is the most important job most of us ever have. No matter how well you do it, no matter how much you love them. They grow up,  spread their wings and fly off.  Looking back,  it feels like just yesterday when I watched in awe as my son took his first breath and cried.  I remember holding his pudgy, little hands as he took his first tenuous steps, then hugging him when he fell. I cherish the memory of running besides him as he rode his first two wheel bike or cheering deliriously after he scored his first goal playing soccer. These days the little boy who loved to sit perched on my shoulders is only a memory.  Niko has been accepted to Hellenic College and will be starting classes in the Fall, majoring in Religious Studies.  After high school graduation this June, he and several other Greek Orthodox young adults, sponsored by the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston, will be going on a mission trip to Mexico to build a home for an indigent Mexican family. All of these young people including Nick, will spend the rest of their summer as camp counselors at the Boston Metropolis Camp located in the New Hampshire woods.

Needless to say, Anna and I have mixed feelings about Niko setting out on his own, don't forget, we are Greek parents. On the one hand, we couldn't be prouder of the person he has developed into and what he has accomplished. On the other, we are already beginning to feel a sense of loss as the little boy we nurtured for eighteen years is now transformed into a man setting out on a difficult journey through life. We want to be able to help him when he faces life's challenges. To be there with him when he confronts the happiness and sorrows that inevitably come one's way. Yet, Anna and I know that he must stand on his own two feet and that there will be times when all we can do as parents  is to pray for our children.

Nick is an amazing kid. Maybe that's the proud parent in me talking, however, when I compare, Nick to myself as a teenager, he comes out way ahead. Despite my parents best efforts, I was a bit of a wise guy with a chip on my shoulder as a teenager and it took the entire US Marine Corps to make me come to my senses. Nick, on the other hand, is the kind of person that others are drawn to because they realize that he is humble and is neither judgmental nor critical of others. This is a true gift. Although I am his biological father, Nick's spiritual father has been our parish priest who also happens to be our neighbor.  Thanks to him, and the strong influence of other grown-ups within our community, Nick has grown up with a strong foundation in our Orthodox faith and a true sense of philotimo.  Being a former Marine, my childrearing style can lapse into the authoritarian mode, something I am still working on. Fortunately for Nick, he has had the benefit of one bad cop and lots of good cops including his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and his sainted mother.  Anna has always been his advocate and her unstinting, unconditional love for him is emblematic of a typical Greek mother.

Another element in Nick's life has been the impact of the counselors and staff at the Boston  Metropolis Camp along with the very strong friendships he has developed with other Greek kids there. These friendships have strengthened over time and I am sure will continue to grow throughout their adult years. There is a great deal of gnashing of teeth and wailing about the younger generation these days. If Niko and his friends are indicative of the potential of this up and coming generation. There may still be some hope for our world.

Nick, your Mom and Dad love you, admire the man you've become and want you to know that no matter where you go, you will always be an inseparable part of us.

P.S.  Just wait until you have kids.

Pictures:  Nick's Baptism in Greece,   Nick and his favorite aunt, Katina, Nick and his brother Chris,Nick and his Mom

Eleni

Mother's Day is a time for all of us to reflect on the importance of mother's in the lives of their children. It seems that motherhood is not exactly looked upon, these days,  as the kind of role that young women should aspire to.  The message that modern Western society gives young women is that motherhood and everything it entails is not glamorous or fulfilling. After all, who wants to change diapers, wipe runny noses and perform the myriad menial tasks that it takes to raise a child.  Despite this not too subtle subliminal message in movies, books and magazines, the mothering instinct is still a powerful force and no amount of feminist brainwashing can eliminate the intrinsic woman's need to raise, nurture and protect children.

One of my favorite books was written by a fellow Greek -American named Nicholas Gage. Gage is a former investigative journalist for The New York Times and his book  is the true story of his own mother, Eleni.   Eleni Gatzoyiannis was executed by Greek Communist guerrillas during the Civil War in Greece. She lived her entire life in a remote mountain village named Lia, located on the Greek-Albanian border with her three daughters and young son, Nicholas. Eleni's husband, like many Greek men from rural Greece, was working in the United States when World War II broke out and Eleni was thrust into the role of singlehandedly providing for and safeguarding her family during the difficult tumultuous decade of the 1940s. 

The Greek Civil War is a subject that is still difficult to discuss in Greece without engendering deep seated emotions.  Its history suffers today from substantial Leftist revisionism and those years inflicted psychological scars on the Greek psyche that have yet to heal. From 1939 to 1949, one out of every ten Greeks was killed, 450,000 in World War II and 150,000 in the civil war. Over 100,000 Greeks were exiled to the Soviet Bloc, some willingly, others forcibly. One of the most heinous crimes during the war, and there were many, was the wholesale kidnapping and forcible relocation  of 28,000 Greek children behind the iron curtain.  Eleni refused to give up her children to the "paidomazema" which means literally, gathering of children, and for her efforts to save them she was tortured, tried and eventually executed.

Nicholas Gage spent years researching the events that led to his mother's death and the details of her execution in order to find the men that killed her. In the end, although he finally succeeds in confronting the man who ordered his mother's execution, he is unable to carry out his plan to kill him and exact revenge.

He writes the following at the end of his book: 

Her final cry, before the bullets of the firing squad tore into her, was not a curse on her killers but an invocation of what she died for, a declaration of love:  "My children!"

Unlike Hecuba, my mother did not spend the last of her strength cursing her tormentors but like Antigone she found the courage to face death because she had done her duty to those she loved. Sophocles' Antigone tells the man who has condemned her to death, her uncle and King "It 's not my nature to join in hating, but in loving."

That was Eleni's nature as well and Katis had not been able to destroy it by killing her. Like the mulberry tree in our yard which still stands after the house has fallen to ruins that love has taken root in us, her children, and spread to her grandchildren as well.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there and thank you for all you do on behalf of your children

The Heroes Among Us

 

Growing up Greek in America usually entailed long hours in Greek School. Most kids like me didn't exactly fully appreciate spending a few extra hours in school so we could acquire a basic knowledge of the Greek language. It didn't stop there. Greek history and holidays were an important part of the curriculum. My favorite holiday was OXI day on 28 October. This was the day that celebrates Greek refusal to submit to an ultimatum by the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, and thus Greek entry into World War II on the side of the Allies. Oxi is the Greek word for "No." For Greek School students celebrating meant memorizing by heart the obligatory "epic" poem that would have to be recited in front of what seemed thousands of people including parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, clergy and worst of all, the Greek School teacher. During one particular recital, now seared into my fading memory, I got half way through only to go completely blank for an interminable period. My Greek school teacher, Kiria (Mrs.) Liapaki, was usually close by to give your memory a gentle nudge if you ran into trouble. This time she was caught flat-footed. As I stood looking into the abyss, with my entire short life flashing before my eyes, my parents were trying to figure out how they could slink out without being noticed.  Our parish priest, with his white beard and uncanny resemblance to God himself, put his arm around me and gently whispered encouragement.  All of a sudden the light bulb went on and I was saved from certain extinction. I always wondered if the heroes of 1940 ever had to go through anything that hair raising.

In fact, the heroes of 1940 lived in our very midst. One of them, George Tsamouranis was married to my second cousin, Katherine. Uncle George, as I often referred to him, was a larger than life character who was a medically retired Colonel in the Hellenic Air Force. The scion of an aristocratic Athenian family, he joined the Hellenic Air Force before the war becoming a fighter pilot. His fighter plane, a Polish made PZL, was shot down over the Greek-Albanian border. He managed to crash land his aircraft, suffering terrible burns over a major portion of his body in the process. He was saved by the valiant efforts of some local Greek villagers who wrapped him up in freshly skinned goat hides. He underwent numerous surgeries and skin grafts over many years, most in the United States. Uncle George always wore sunglasses to hide the fact that he had neither eyelashes nor eyebrows. His face had practically been erased. I remember looking at the picture of a proud handsome Air Force officer in his dress whites that my cousin Katherine kept on her desk. It didn't look anything like the person I knew.  Uncle George was someone who epitomized the sacrifices that Greeks, from all walks of life, had made in World War II; he was a walking bit of history.  He never talked about the war or his experiences, yet proudly wore his uniform and pilot wings on special occasions.  I remember once, as a little boy, reverently running my fingers over the pilot's wings and ribbons on his tunic, while picturing him in the cockpit of his fighter. The last time I saw Uncle George, we had dinner together when I was stationed in Athens. Visibly aged and tired, he and I talked for a long time about Greece and its future. He was proud of his country and optimistic about its ability to sort itself out after overcoming so many national upheavals during his lifetime. Uncle George died suddenly, a few years later.  His wife passed away recently.  She was well aware of my hero worship of her late husband and left me something to remember him by, a photograph of a proud young officer taken before the war that changed his life so dramatically, in uniform, and an autographed copy of "The First and the Last" by German Luftwaffe fighter ace, Adolf Galland, whom he had met and befriended on a visit to Germany after the war. In accordance with his wishes, Uncle George was laid to rest in the land that he had sacrificed so much for, in his uniform. The Greek heroes of 1940 who survived the war are now slowly dying off, their sacrifices and exploits largely forgotten, even by their fellow Greeks. All that remains for me, of one of those heroes, is a fading photograph, a book yellowed with age, and a few precious memories. Here's hoping that Colonel George Tsamouranis is once again roaring through the bright blue Greek skies, with a good tailwind at his back, watching over the mountains and islands below, as the sound of freedom reverberates again over his homeland.

 

    Technorati : Adolf Galland, Colonel George Tsamouranis, Greek School, Greek-Itaklian War of 1940, Hellenic Air Force, World War II

Sons

    " To become a father is not difficult, to be a father is."

                                                                     
My oldest son, Nick, will be turning eighteen in two months. Seems like just yesterday when I stood in the delivery room, my heart pounding out of my heart, as I watched him being born and gulping his first lungfuls of air. He had a full head of black hair and the face of a wise old man. Nick was born in an Army hospital, and he spent the first five years of his life seeing his Dad come in and out of his little world. He was always interested in the big guy with the crew cut who wore the funny clothes, and it was fun rough-housing with him, but he  always seemed to be packing his bags and then leaving unexpectedly. Mommy was a lot more reliable and she smelled much better to boot. When I came home after the First Gulf War to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina,  Nick was three years old at the time. I remember peeking through the window of the bus at him standing in the parking lot patiently next to my wife, Anna.  Nick was a little tentative at first as he watched me kiss his mother and then decided it was OK to jump into my arms. He followed me for the next three days from room to room, never allowing me out of his sight.  Like a cuddly  little puppy, he'd crawl into my lap at the first available opportunity.  Nick's first word was not mama or dada. It was "Manga."  Manga, or "tough guy" in Greek,  was a big, gentle, giant of a Labrador Retriever who Nick  used as a personal  cushion. I can see the two of them now, walking side by side as Nick yelled, " Manga, Manga."  Every so often the dog would wag his big thick tail hitting Nick, pushing him off balance and sending him tumbling to the floor, laughing, whereupon Manga would lick the best smelling face in the family, clean.

When Nick was four, he was presented with a baby brother named Chris. Chris wasn't  exactly the sister he had been promised, then again he looked like he might be fun anyway. Chris and his brother Nick were polar opposites. Nick was a whirling dervish who loved people. Chris was pensive, lay back, and only loved his mother and the girl next door, Victoria.  Chris  and Victoria, who were almost the same age, were inseparable. On Saturday mornings Chris would often  sound reveille by bellowing, "VEETTORIA" at regular intervals. They were quite a couple and I still remember Chris eating his birthday cake during his third birthday and swiping a piece of Victoria's as well whenever she wasn't looking. After all, love is no substitute for cake and ice cream.

Back in the days when Nick and Chris were little guys I really looked forward to the reception I used to get when I came home from work. No matter how bad things might have gotten that day it would all melt away when they would come running down the driveway and climb all over me. That was back in the days of hugs and kisses. Dad was all knowing, faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound and bend steel with his bare hands. Nowadays things are a little different. When I come home I usually get a lukewarm "Hi, Dad"  if I'm lucky, unless of course there is an important issue to discuss which invariably involves a financial matter or automobiles. Father and son discussions are also a little different now, the boys don't hang on my every word and they tend to roll their eyes when I say something particularly erudite.

Nick has never been a young man that was afraid to venture out into the cold, cruel world beyond. His first day of school was instructive. My wife, Anna, who is the quintessential Greek mommy, had laid everything out, new school clothes, cute little shoes, a backpack and a lunch box  filled with a nutritious balanced meal for three kids.  She planned to chauffeur him to school and help him negotiate his first uncertain moments at school. Unbeknownst to her, the yellow school bus unexpectedly pulled up right in front of our home. Nick took one look, immediately grabbed his trash, kicked the screen door open, and ran directly to the waiting bus. He looked back, waved and said:  "Bye Momma, Bye  Daddy,"  just as the door of the school bus closed shut behind him. All Anna could do was wave, smile bravely and cry on my shoulder as the bus drove away. Sometimes it's the parents who aren't quite ready for the first day of school.

Raising kids is probably the toughest job anyone can have. The challenges are numerous, some tougher on parents than others. When Chris was five he ran a high fever on and off for three days. We finally decided it was time to take him to see our pediatrician. "Just a virus," was the verdict, but two days later the fever still had not abated. They decided to draw blood and do a blood count. When the results came back, the doctor, visibly uncomfortable,  informed us that Chris had to be admitted to the Naval Hospital at Portsmouth, Virginia as soon as possible. His white cell count was dangerously low.  "We need to start him on IV antibiotics,"  she said, "He may have Leukemia."   I cannot describe what I felt when I heard that word.  At that moment I was more afraid than I had ever been in my entire life.  Anna was fighting back the tears as she held Chris. On the way to the hospital Nick, who was nine years old at the time,  could sense our palpable fear and  was asking if everything was going to be OK. The next few days were  torture for us.  For the first time in my life, things were careening out of control.  All I could think of to do was to pray and to call our parish priest, Father George Paulson, who rushed over to pray with us and pray over Chris. The next day his white count started going up. He was finally released from the hospital and went home where he resumed his "regular" activities. After a few months, the doctors chalked it all up to a viral illness which had finally run its course.  I chalked it up to a miracle.

Chris is a teenager now. The little guy who use to run around with ice cream all over his face is just a memory now. Chris is a straight A student who has decided that he wants a career in emergency medicine and live in New York City. A few weeks ago I went to his school to pick him up in my car. Chris came through the front entrance of the school followed by a crowd of other middle schoolers. As I spied him in the crowd I waved and yelled "Hey, Chris over here."  Chris turned white as a sheet, continued moving past me and whispered, "Dad please get in the car now and let's get out of here."   Oops, another parental faux pas.   On the way home Chris explained that next time he would prefer that I not get out of the car and if possible park somewhere inconspicuously. Ahuh. I nodded. "I guess a hug would be out of the question?"  He looked at me smiling, feeling sorry for the old man and replied, "Dad, I still love you, just not in public."

The Life and Times of My Uncle Elias

Every extended family has a  "character." Someone who just stands out, a unique personality, somebody who marches to the beat of a different drummer. That would be my Uncle Elias. Uncle Elias is 93 years old and still going strong. I haven't figured out his secret for longevity but if he eats an apple then I eat one too.  Uncle Elias is my mother's older brother and along with her older sister Fereniki, they spend a lot of time these days reminiscing and reminding each other about this or that event in their youth. All three of them of them were born in Politsani, a Greek village in Northern Epirus or what is now southern Albania. The patriarchal home is now the village schoolhouse. Their village is about 10 kilometers from the Greek border. So close yet so far.

My grandfather Panayotis, the son of a well-to-do  Constantinopolitan merchant moved his family from Politsani, the ancestral home, to "Poli" (The City)  to take over the family business when Elias was 8 years old.  Panayotis returned from service in the Balkan War of 1912 and working in the United States for a few years to assume proprietorship of the family business. Elias and his two sisters grew up in Constantinople during the turbulent twenties. In 1921 Panayotis left suddenly to enlist again in the Greek Army and serve in Asia Minor. A good part of the recruits filling the ranks of the Greek Army at that time were Greek residents of Turkey like my grandfather. All of them knew the stakes involved and the consequences of failure. Many never returned and lie in unmarked graves throughout Asia Minor. Panayotis managed to straggle back to Constantinople. Shortly thereafter he was summoned to the local police station to explain his whereabouts.  He handed his wife the keys to the store and gave her instructions if he did not return. Luckily he was saved by some forged receipts in his pocket attesting to his presence at his business during the period of his absence in Asia Minor. 

Panayotis had a troubled relationship with my Uncle, both were headstrong. Panayotis had dreams of Elias becoming a scholar. Elias was interested in athletics and aspired to became a goalie on a professional soccer team which he eventually did. Elias loves to tell stories and I love to listen to them because they provide a window to a past that is slowly disappearing in our collective memory. Growing up Greek in Turkey after the Asia Minor catastrophe was perilous. My Uncle was hauled in twice before a Turkish Magistrate for "insulting" Kemalism. The first instance was at the age of 14. In both cases he was able to talk his way out of it. During World War II, Elias was drafted into the Turkish Army and served in a Labor Battalion  in the wilds of Anatolia building roads. His unit consisted of Armenians, Jews and Greeks. All deemed less than trustworthy by the Turkish State.He spent his tour of duty doing backbreaking work like digging ditches and hauling gravel in a less than hospitable environment. He returned home as my mother reminisced recently, skinny, tanned and as always in good spirits. 

Elias and his family eventually followed my own family to the United States. He had a thriving business as a wholesaler of pasta and tried to hold on to it as long as he could after the Anti-Greek riots in September of 1955. Seeing the writing on the wall he sold out to his share for a pittance and left Turkey behind. Elias, his wife Sophia and their two young sons found an apartment up on West 49 Street in Manhattan. It was a railroad apartment in one of those old tenement buildings which had housed working class, immigrant families for decades and which I had grown to despise. A "railroad" apartment was a  series of rooms extending from the front of the building  in a straight line to the back of the building. Going to Uncle Elias' house was always special for me.  Perhaps it was  my Aunt Sophia's cooking. I can still taste the warm tiropites (cheese pastry) that were her specialty and her french fries cooked in olive oil were to die for.  Her kitchen  was at the very end of  the building with a large window overlooking the  empty lots behind the tenements. In the distance you could see the large, imposing,  neon  letter M representing the top of the Manhattan Hotel. I used to love watching it flicker on and off on a hot summer night sitting on the fire escape. Directly behind the tenement building was the local precinct house. If you got lucky you could watch the cops administer beatings to the local hoodlums. Needless to say crime  back in those days  was negligible. 

Elias has two sons, Foti and George. George and I became as close as two cousins can get and spent a lot of time together growing up, well into our college years when we parted ways.  George went off to become an engineer, graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and I joined the Marines. Elias, like most typical Greeks, dreamed of owning his own business again and the freedom of self-employment. Eventually he moved his family to the Astoria section of Queens, known as "Greek Town," where he opened up a grocery store. I will never forget the aromas that wafted through that little bakaliko (grocery).  They used to make me salivate like a Pavlovian dog. Cheeses, Pastrouma (salted beef), Bakaliaro (salted fish), Loukanika (sausage),olives, spices, it was crammed with every kind of Greek delicacy. Elias was a consummate businessman. Nowadays everyone decries the loss of small businesses caused by the introduction of larger chain stores. Elias quickly figured out how to compete with the huge A&P supermarket down the road. He decided to build a loyal clientele who preferred one on one attention.  I remember one lady who came into his store with a long list of things she wanted. Elias began to expertly grab things from shelves left and right. If he couldn't find something she wanted he 'd send us  over to the AP to find it while he exchanged friendly gossip with his customer until we returned. Elias always charged his customer a few pennies less than what the A&P charged. He thus built up a large following of locals who did all their shopping at the little Greek Grocery store owned by Mr. Elias.  When he retired he sold the business because his sons went on to bigger and better careers not because A&P ever presented a threat.

My Uncle was a philosopher to boot.  He would often say that little miracles happen in our lives when we least expect them and for him that was proof enough of God's existence. God had personally touched him twice in his life. As a young boy he fell off a pier into the deep water, unable to swim he struggled to gulp air and stay afloat. Some people nearby noticed him but no one would risk jumping in after him because of the high embankment. Out of nowhere a man carrying a long pole arrived, lowered it into the water, so Elias could grab it and  pulled him up onto the pier. As he laid there sputtering and trying to catch his breath, the stranger disappeared around a corner, never to be seen again.  Many years later, a nervous young man came into his store, he pulled out a gun pointing it at my Uncle's face and told him to go down into the basement, which Elias used as a storage area. He was unceremoniously pushed down the stairs  and the door locked behind him. Elias grabbed a 2x4 , let himself out through a back entrance,  snuck up behind the thief exiting the store and commenced to beat him within an inch of his life. Dazed and wiping blood from his eyes he ran away.  A week later, Elias closed the store to attend church. While he was at church the young man returned to exact his revenge. According to a Police detective who later interviewed my uncle, the robber found the store padlocked and decided to move on to another nearby store where he shot and killed the proprietor. He was captured shortly thereafter.

It hasn't dawned on Uncle Elias that he is has been around for almost an entire century. He acts, thinks and goes about his daily life like he is the same guy he was when he returned home from his stint in Anatolia. He has made one concession to old age,  he stopped running.  Ever since my Aunt Sophia passed away leaving Elias a widower after fifty odd years of marriage, his constant companion is his pet parakeet "Budgie."  Elias cultivated  a special relationship with the animal kingdom, starting with a dog named Bella and a cat named Tarzan. Somehow Elias managed to train Tarzan to do tricks on command. As someone who has always loved cats and dogs I envied his ability to train a cat to do anything at all on command. Budgie the parakeet and Elias are marvelous together. Watching the bird perch itself on his glasses while my Uncle reads the Greek newspaper or  eating crumbs out of his palm, one cannot help but think all is right with the world.

Elias and I have spent more time together in the last few months than we have spent in a lifetime and I've been able to get a better appreciation for the man. Maybe God had something to do with it, thinking that I needed a father figure in my life right now that I could discuss things with. There are so many answers to questions that my own father, living out his last days in a nursing home and detached from reality, is no longer able to provide for me. Playing Tavli (Backgammon) with Elias and talking about life and those people we have in common has provided an invaluable window into our shared history. It has been therapeutic. The sad thing is that there are a lot of  unique people out there like my Uncle Elias, with a story to tell and no one willing to listen.

Ode to Forgotten Homelands

ΞΕΧΑΣΜΕΝΕΣ  ΠΑΤΡΙΔΕΣ

ξεχασμενες  πατριδες των Ελληνων,

χαμενες χωρες των ονειρων μας.

Το χωμα τους ποτισμενο με δακρυα και αιμα.

Οι προγονοι μας κοιμουνται στην αγκαλια τους

Δεν ακουνε τις καμπανες, δεν ακουν πια την μουσικη

δεν ακουνε τα παιδια να παιζουν.

Μονο τα βουνα τους κανουν παρεα και ο ανεμος  τους τραγουδαει,

και το χιονι τους σκεπαζει.

ξεχασμενες πατριδες, γιατι κοιμαστε με τους ξενους

αλλα ζητε ακομη στην καρδια μου;

                                                               Σταυρος

Forgotten homelands of the Hellenes,

lost nations of our dreams.

Their soil watered with tears and blood

Our ancestors sleep in their bosom,

They no longer hear the church bells ringing, they no longer

listen to the music, they no longer hear the children playing.

Only the mountains keep them company,

the wind sings to them and the snow is their blanket.

Forgotten homelands, why do you sleep with strangers,

but still live in my heart?

                                                           Stavros

Explaining Greeks

A buddy of mine once asked: "What's with this thing you have about being Greek?" I've asked the same question of myself. It's kind of an obsession. Can't seem to shake it. When I was a kid I was an avid reader, just about everything I could get my hands on including cereal boxes. My Dad bought a complete set of the Britannica Encyclopedia for us and I tried to read it in one night. Guess where I started? The volume with the section on Greece. 

Other kids wanted to be baseball players, I wanted to join the Evzones (kilt wearing elite Greek soldiers skilled in mountain warfare). I talked my mother into sewing an Evzone uniform for me so I could wear it to the Greek Independence Day parade. Boy, did I look good in it. Dad even got me some genuine tsarouhia (traditional shoes). So there I was all decked out, ready to strut down 5th Avenue while adoring crowds of xeni (foreigners) clapped. Only one slight problem, before I could walk down the avenue, I had to walk the ten blocks to church, alone,  since we didn't own a car. It was rather early, so I managed to sneak out at a low crawl from our tenement building and run undetected around the corner before any of my friends saw me. Swift, silent and deadly, just like a real Evzone. Unfortunately I ran right into a buck toothed kid I knew from 4th grade named Joey.  "Hey, why the heck are you wearing a dress and shoes with pom poms on them? he asked smilingly.  "It is not a dress, jackass, it's a foustanella (kilt)  and these are tsarouhia. It's a uniform and only the bravest Greeks wear it" I exclaimed in utter disgust at his complete ignorance.  "Yea well you gotta be brave to wear tights around here."  He definitely had a valid point.  That's when I decided to run like the winged messenger of the Gods, Hermes, all the way to Church without stopping. Any other kid would have been emotionally traumatized by this event. Not me. I spent most of the time contemplating where I could get my hands on an appropriate sword or rifle to match my uniform.  I finally got to march in the parade carrying the blue and white Greek flag. Mamma and Baba (Father) were there with assorted  relatives all clapping like crazy people. 

My Aunt Fereniki is a living example of Greek patriotism. She was born in 1918, about the time that the modern Greek state was at its peak and was expanding exponentially to bring all Greeks back in to the fold.  Greeks had a leader with guts and a vision.  My maternal grandfather, Panagiotis, an ardent Venizelist,  fought as a guerrilla in the  Balkan War of 1912 and  would soon serve in Asia Minor.  He named his second born, "Fere Niki"or Bring Victory. All Greeks are weaned on patriotism while still in the cradle. They are patriotic to a fault. They love the (Patrida) Fatherland and the flag but they generally despise the state: "to kratos."  They show their disdain for its inefficiency and ineffectiveness by breaking as many of its regulations and laws as they can without ending up in jail. When I first arrived in Greece, my cousin came over to the hotel I was staying at to drive me to his home. After getting in, out of habit I reached over and put on my seat belt. Surprised he looked at me and said: "Are you worried about my driving?" Greece has a mandatory seat belt law, but you would never realize it by living in Greece. It's just one of those inconvenient rules that Greeks may or may not obey.   As much as they complain about the "kratos, " every parent wants their kid to work for it.   Becoming one  of those lazy inefficient state bureaucrats means earning  a comfortable salary and pension for minimal expenditure of effort.

Greek patriotism is particularly on display when Greeks are rooting for one of their national sports teams. All internal differences are immediately set aside in a show of unity reserved only for those times when  invaders coming knocking at the door. Patriotism is very much associated with Greek's strong link with the past. My parents used to regularly drum into our heads the glorious events of Greek history. I think Greek patriotism is a defense mechanism learned from childhood that has evolved over the millenia to ensure national survival. It's rather hard to ignore your past when it is constantly reminding you of its presence. I don't think one can travel in Greece for more than a few minutes without running into reminders of past history in the form of ruins. The whole country is a museum. As a matter of fact,  just digging a hole is apt to bring one face to face with the past. Construction projects such as the Athens Metro have uncovered thousands of ancient artifacts. Greek ingenuity just builds around them and has transformed the Metro into part transportation network, part archaeological museum.  This ability to meld the past and the present together into one entity is the essence of Greekness.

Greeks having many endearing qualities. They tend to be exuberant, passionate, enthusiastic, easily offended, loud mouthed and pig headed.  For some people that may take some getting used to. One of Baba's Greek friends was given the option of shaving his mustache or losing his job as a waiter.   His famous last words were: "I 'd rather cut my head off. " And so he did. He got canned but he never shaved it off. When you grow up around as many Greeks as I did,  you come to expect that as the norm.  My first visit to Greece was in 1956.  I was five years old. My parents had just left Turkey with literally nothing but a couple of suitcases of clothes and whatever meager savings they were allowed to leave with. All of a sudden I found myself in a place where everyone spoke the language I spoke.  Nobody was speaking that other funny language I didn't understand. There was something else about this new place. They had icons everywhere. Even the bus drivers had them on their buses.  Just like the icons in our home. It's funny the things that one remembers. Thirty years later I would return to Greece.  I had arrived in a country that I had been studying about  all my life. There was hardly anything strange or new and everyone reminded me of relatives or friends that my parents had spent all their time with. I'd get in a cab and feel like the driver was a distant cousin. It was a very strange yet comforting feeling.

The amazing thing about Greeks is that contrary to what others may try to make us think about ourselves, we have tremendous cultural and linguistic continuity with our past.  Europeans will swear up and down that present day Greeks can't possibly be related in any way shape or form to our ancient ancestors.  In fact, the Greek language has changed and evolved yet retained much of its essential form, alphabet and many of its words. Despite the changes wrought by Christianity, and successive foreign invasions, Greeks have managed to preserve their innate Greekness.  Anyone who reads Greek history cannot help but come away with an appreciation for the continuity of  the Greek spirit and ethnic identity. Greeks are not only inheritors of the past they are also its victims.  The experience of Turkish and German occupation has left deep scars on the Greek psyche and the upheavals foisted upon Greeks have given them a sense of being alone in the world.  This has given rise to the notion of the " Ethnos Anadelfon" or Brother-less Nation concept. Greeks have always been very interested in politics. Not only do they spend a great deal of time arguing about the subject, they love to express their views as they gesticulate wildly. As if just carrying on a normal conversation will fail to adequately get their message across. Greeks are seldom violent unless of course politics is involved. Then it can get quite nasty. The two worse "no holds barred" conflicts in Greek history were not with the Turks. they were between fellow Greeks.  The Greek Civil War and the Peloponnesian Wars  were laboratories where Greeks devoted their considerable  and prodigious intellectual talents to the task of killing Greeks who disagreed with them. Sad but true.

The center of  Greek life is  the family. Greek families are usually very close. In Greece, parents go out of their way to do anything and everything for their children, even well into their thirties.  God forbid Maria and Yiorgaki should have to make their way in the world without the help of the family.  Kicking your little sparrows out of the nest is akin to child abuse.  Greek parents in turn do expect a lot from their kids. Education is highly valued and a ticket for upward mobility in a class conscious society.  The scholar or professional, who unlike the working man, never gets his hands dirty, used to be very important role models for parents who wanted their kids to rise above their station in life.  I remember my mother, who worked in a sweat shop as a seamstress, being absolutely appalled at some of the summer jobs I did: washing dishes in a restaurant, busing tables, driving a taxi. "We didn't come to America so you could wash dishes," was a frequent refrain.  Parents also strive to instill the unique trait of "Filotimo" in their children. Filotimo means friend of honor.  It is the Greek sense of doing the right thing and not bringing shame on the family honor. In some areas of Greece, like the island of Crete, this sense of family honor can result in feuds called vendettas between families that last for generations and sometimes involve gun play.

As far as I am concerned, the glue that keeps the Greek family together is its emphasis on food and the family meal. Greeks look upon food as more than just sustenance.  It's our way of establishing a communal bond. It is the love a woman has for her family. Greeks will go to absurd lengths to find that special cut of meat or the tastiest olives or the creamiest cheese. Processed foods are looked down upon and the Greek woman is expected to shop almost on a daily basis for fresh ingredients for the family table. That along with many other sacred traditions of the Greek family are changing with the encroachment of modern, if not better, ways of doing things. The image  of family members each talking loudly,  laughing happily and gathered around a table laden with delicious foods is one of the enduring memories of  my childhood.

I hope that I haven't given the impression that Greeks are running around shooting each other over slights to the family honor and do nothing except eat all day.  Life in Greece is quite laid back and violence is the exception rather than the rule. Greeks just don't have the same outlook on the work ethic, which is central to the Protestant Anglo-Saxon.  Nor do they look at time in the same way that we do. As a new arrival in Greece I was invited to a dinner party in the home of a well to do Greek. Dinner was at nine. I arrived promptly at nine. I was the first to arrive and a rather embarrassed hostess had to explain that in Greece when they say nine they mean ten.  So that's why my parents were always late. Greeks may not always be prompt but they invariably get things done. After all when honor is involved we don't like to look bad.  That's why the Olympic Games went off without a hitch, even though Greeks were scrambling right down to the wire to complete everything on schedule. They certainly have a capacity for hard work as attested to by the success rate of the average  Greek immigrant. What Greeks are really good at is enjoying life; they love to play hard. Go out any evening during the work week in Greece and you will find restaurants, cafes and nightclubs packed to the gills with frolicking, bleary eyed Greeks intent on living life to the fullest. They love to sit outside, drinking, socializing and talking incessantly.  Many walk together, taking in the night air while the boys and girls flirt. On thing is for sure, Greeks are never boring, life is too short and maybe that's why they fascinate me so much.

Excursion to Kea, Part II

The ferry for Tzia leaves the port of Lavrio, located on the eastern coast of the Attic peninsula. Getting there is rather easy if you take the new highway. It makes getting around the Athens area so much easier. I say thank God for the Olympics. This year the windy weather or "meltemia" which usually arrives in August reared its ugly head in July. Most Greeks complain about it, as far as I was concerned it was a godsend. When you've lived in Maine, it is difficult to adjust to the dry heat in Greece. Greeks on the other hand, have a phobia of the "revma" or draft. They are convinced that they will all catch their death of cold from one. Even a nice warm breeze is a potential menace. The nice thing about the port of Lavrio is that it is much less crowded and busy than the other major port of embarkation for island hopping tourists, Piraeus. Ferries leaving from Lavrio are also less likely to be late unless the weather is inclement. The meltemia whipped up the seas between Lavrio and Tzia, so our voyage was very much a roller coaster ride, so much so that I spent most of it dealing with my wife and younger son as they vomited while hanging over the railing of the ferry. The ferry was filled to capacity with more yiayias then I had ever seen congregating in one location. A veritable yiayia convention, in all shapes and sizes. They were totally oblivious to the high seas and chattered away throughout the trip catching up on the latest gossip about this or that person. When we arrived thankfully in Tzia, the ferry disgorged more buses than I thought it could possibly hold. The horde of yiayias moved as quickly as if the signal had been given to abandon ship. One thing you learn in Greece is never to get in front of a stampeding herd of yiayias, unless of course you have been driven stark raving mad by their incessant caterwauling. Suffice it to say that thanks to my brother-in-law's quick action we were in the car and on our way on our sightseeing tour of Tzia. The first thing that strikes you about Tzia are the mountains that dominate the island. Interspersed are small, picturesque villages, many on the coast. The roads are narrow and tortuous but well maintained. If you stray off the beaten track prepare to run into a dirt road and a bumpy, dusty ride. We soon decided that our day trip to Tzia would become an overnighter, if we could find suitable accommodations. Their are no large hotels on the island (in reality a big plus) and as we inquired in place after place we realized that it would be difficult to find a place to stay. Rather than waste more time we headed for our first destination, a small remote church high up in the mountains overlooking the rocky coast. We began to wind our way around the mountain roads and I have to admit I said more than one prayer as I stared wide-eyed into the abyss below. Occasionally I would be distracted from the story of my life flashing before my eyes as we took in the expansive views of the island. We finally arrived at the monastery known as Panagia Kastriani ("Madonna of the Castle") just in time to see the buses unloading what seemed like hundreds of yiayias. Our friends from the ferry were still with us. We had arrived just in time to attend a Paraklisis service. During this service celebrants give thanks for the blessings of life. The blessing of five loaves of bread known as "Artoklasia" along with wheat, oil and wine, the staples of life, is done in remembrance of Christ feeding the multitudes. I am not sure how to describe the feelings I had as I stood with my family in the middle of these women whose faith in God had brought them to this little far off corner of the island. As they raised their voices in unison, I had no doubt that their prayers would rise up to God, along with the sweet smelling incense that permeated the entire church. The church was built on the same site that a buried icon depicting the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was discovered in 1700. As the story goes, some shepherds tending their flocks noticed a light on the rocky peninsula where the church is located. When they investigated further they uncovered the buried icon which now resides in the original church. This church is underneath a larger, more recently built church. The icon is adorned with hundreds of small silver or gold plates depicting arms, legs, hearts or persons, sometimes even the Greek word for thank you, "evharisto." These are votive offerings known as "tama." In Greece, when prayers are answered, people express their thanks by making such an offering. This custom is very old and has its origin in ancient times. As the service concluded and the celebrants began to re-board their buses, we found out that there were rooms available for pilgrims and that we were welcome to stay. The priest who lives there showed us around and told us about the history of the place. There is also a small communal dining area. The monastery's courtyard is perfumed by the scent of basil growing in large cans. We ended up staying in two clean, simple rooms with hot and cold running water, bathrooms and a shower as well as a delightful balcony overlooking one of the most beautiful views of the sea I have seen. The Panagia had blessed us and I like to think had brought us to this church for a purpose. There was a small library that we immediately began to explore with a treasure trove of books. Thano and I enjoyed it so much we spent time cleaning and dusting the library to return it to its former luster. The serenity I experienced in this place made me think twice about returning to the hectic, foreboding world I left behind. At dusk I sat alone on the wall behind the church and looked over the extension of land that juts out toward the sea with waves crashing on its rocks and the goats and sheep feeding on it sparse vegetation. It looks like the bow of a ship plowing through the sea. After making an offering we left the next day to visit Ioulida, the island's largest town. The locals call it Hora. It is situated on a mountain with a view of the sea below. As you approach you will notice the remains of the ancient fortifications and wall. The town is crisscrossed by narrow streets with tidy shops and tavernas. You really need a few days to explore the town properly. There is even a small archaeological museum. The landscape in Tzia is truly stunning, wild, virgin and sculpted by deep ravines. As you drive past Ioulida you will see a vast forest of oak trees, the largest and most impressive in the entire chain of the Cycladic islands. Tzia has a number of quiet, sec;uded, sandy beaches and as far as I could tell, they are often almost completely empty. We visited two: Ksila and Pisses. We had Ksila all to ourselves. Pisses on the other hand is inhabited and had a nice rustic looking wooden taverna with a view of the beach.  If you don't like jostling crowds you will adore Tzia. Tzia is mainly frequented by Athenians and has yet to be discovered by international tourists. Many middle class Greeks are building beautiful villas on the eastern and northern coast of Tzia, and they all have the obligatory view of the surrounding sea. Some even have swimming pools. This frenzy of building has attracted many Albanian stone masons who are skilled in the use of the abundant stone in the area. The homes being built are somewhat reminiscent of the ones I saw in Epirus in northeastern Greece and the Pelion region, above the city of Volos, in central Greece. After gorging on a scrumptious made to order lunch consisting of a family size omelet made from Kaseri cheese, ham, green peppers and accompanied by plenty of fresh crusty bread, we drove back to Korissia, the port of Tzia to catch the boat back. This time I made sure Anna and Chris took some Dramamine. It worked like a charm. As we sat in one of the local seaside cafes sipping Frappes (cold frothy Nescafe coffee) we were entertained by a rather funny but telling argument between two Greeks truck drivers. These guys went at it for a while, yelling and flailing their arms about some nonsensical problem. Eventually exhausted, they each retired to their respective corners, took a short break and decided to return for more of the same. They never laid a glove on each other. Greeks are rarely violent people, unless of course politics is involved. It was all quite fun to watch. During the return trip we got a closeup view of Makronissos, the infamous prison island that was the home of many political prisoners during the civil war and the reign of the military junta. It is a foreboding, empty silent place full of the ghosts of the past. As we sailed past it I couldn't help but think about the deep scars history has inflicted on the Greek psyche. As we neared home we all agreed that Tzia is a special place for us. After touring a good part of the island we soon realized that a true appreciation of this island's extensive attributes would require weeks, not days. Maybe next time, God willing. Come to think of it, maybe it is not a good idea telling all of you about Tzia, after all, it has been a well kept secret for a long time.

    Technorati : Albanians, Assumption of the Virgin, Attic Peninsula, DramamineFrappe, Epirus, Greece, Greeks, Ioulida, Kaseri cheese, Kea, Korissia, KsilaMakronissos, Lavrio, Olympics, Panagia, Panagia Kastriani, Pelion, Pisses, Yiayia

An Excursion to Kea, Part I

My wife's yiayia, Asimina, grew up on the island of Kea, Greeks call it Tzia. Most of her relatives from Tzia have either died or moved away, so that our connection with the island is tenuous except for the small chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas that Asimina built. Tzia is covered with these little churches, many built on remote hilltops or overlooking the sea. Asimina scrimped, saved and collected the money to build this simple testament to her devout faith in a loving God. It is a whitewashed building with a small bronze bell. It was built near a stream that runs into a green valley from the barren mountains surrounding it. We usually spend some time there cleaning, censing, filling and lighting the oil lamps while saying our prayers. My wife Anna had a deep affection for her yiayia and it rubbed off very quickly on me. Asimina was in her eighties when I met her, her face covered with the deep lines of old age, her gnarled bony hands and tiny frame covered with a thin layer of almost translucent skin. Despite all this she still cooked and puttered around the small Athens apartment where she lived. The apartment building was built to house refugees from Asia Minor; its deteriorating facade was pockmarked with bullet holes sustained in firefights during the Greek civil war. Asimina came from a poor family eking out a living on a rocky barren plot of land in Tzia. At the age of 23, like other young Greek women of her generation, she left her destitute homeland; in her case to work as a cook for a prosperous Greek family in Alexandria, Egypt. After contracting malaria she returned to Greece and was able to marry a young man who had prospects, a job at the German company, Bauer. For a while, life was good. They began raising a family and built a home in the Athens suburb of Maroussi. As the dark clouds of the Depression descended on Greece, her husband lost his job and subsequently the comfortable home that they shared with their three children. The family ended up in a small shack in Kesariani (a working class Athens neighborhood) and her husband's health began to deteriorate. He died suddenly just before the war came to Greece in 1940. With three children under the age of ten, Asimina managed to keep her family intact and survive the famine during the Nazi Occupation. In 1944, after liberation, the small shack where her family lived burned to the ground in fighting between Communist rebels and British forces. Having lost all their worldly possessions except the clothes on their back, the family's only shelter was some pine trees on the outskirts of Kesariani. They shared a solitary plate for their meals. My mother-in-law reminisced recently about waiting her turn to eat the meager portion of soup she received once a day. Asimina's children eventually grew to adulthood and raised families of their own. In 1989 my wife and I returned to Greece with our six month old first born son, Nicholas. Asimina suffering from Leukemia, had recently fallen and fractured her pelvis. Laying in her hospital bed she smiled broadly as we laid our son, her first great grandchild, in her arms. The blessings tumbled from her lips as she made the sign of the cross repeatedly over him and her eyes slowly welled up with tears. She passed away a few months later.

Technorati : Alexandria, Asia Minor, Bauer, Egypt, Greek Civil War, Greeks, Kea, Kesariani, Maroussi, Nazi Occupation of Greece

Raising Good Kids in a Bad World: A Guide for Orthodox Parents

As a nurse practitioner in a Pediatrics practice I see lots of kids every day. While many children are brought in by their parents for the sick visits that are a normal part of growing up, invariably these visits touch on the child's life in school and at home. The sad fact is that many children I see daily are growing up in homes that are unable to prepare them adequately to become competent, well adjusted, law abiding adults. Many parents are ill equipped or unmotivated to raise kids properly. Certainly this does not include all parents or all kids. Many are doing just fine. Unfortunately, there such a growing number of at risk kids produced by a growing number of dysfunctional and broken families that I fear for the future. I won't pretend that I have all the answers either, but I have been around long enough to pass on a few things that I strongly believe will help parents raise good kids in a bad world.

The question we must all ask nowadays is: Who is raising the children? Is it the TV, the movies, pop culture, the daycare provider, their friends or is it the kids themselves? If we look for barometers of crisis, I believe they are everywhere; runaways, suicides, kids committing murder, delinquency, teenage pregnancy, epidemic numbers of sexually transmitted diseases. Parents are frequently so preoccupied with careers, themselves and acquiring stuff that they have precious little time left over to devote to what should be their primary responsibility, raising their kids. Parents are also too inclined to separate at the first sign of trouble in their marriage rather than work things out to preserve it. Kids need  both parents. When parents divorce, kids need to know that both parents can at least respect each other and work together. The red flags are quite obvious to anyone who takes the time to bother looking at what is happening around them.

When I talk to other parents, they often blame society, the Church and the schools for the mess we find ourselves in. Parents rarely think that the problem may emanate in the home. Speaking as a parent, there is no doubt in my mind of the tremendous influence that parents exercise over their children. The Church or school can do nothing unless they have parents who teach kids the really important things they need to know in their home. I am not talking about teaching kids how to read, I am talking about giving kids the "inner braces" to face life outside the home. Giving kids faith in a loving God who will walk with them in life, strengthen and heal them, guide them, give them meaning and peace and lead them to life eternal. As an Orthodox Christian, I believe that it is parents who have the sacred, God given privilege and responsibility to prepare their children within the Church to accept the grace of God.

The Orthodox Church embraces the child from day one. When the child is baptized, he is immersed three times in water and is reborn, "putting on Christ." From that moment on children must be taught to live their faith not only in Church, but more importantly at home. Often parents wait until their children are teenagers to get them involved in matters of faith. Unfortunately by this time it is too late, if not impossible. Children need examples to follow and they need parents to show them the way. What the child does at church, he does at home. Simple things like praying before the family icons, saying grace at meals and crossing themselves, fasting and so many other traditions of our Orthodox faith.

Parents need to turn the TV off. Its violent images and depiction and glorification of consumerism and a bankrupt pop culture can only be a negative influence, especially on young minds. Video games serve a similar purpose. Children who spend hours on such pursuits never learn a very important part of childhood, how to interact and play with their peers. Get your children involved in after school activities: scouting, sports, music, art, Sunday school.. These activities help them to learn and to socialize in a healthy way. Most importantly they offer some protection against substance abuse and delinquent behavior. Families need to spend time together, ideally they should set aside one day a week as a special Family Day at home where they spend time talking, playing games and praying together.

It is essential that parents create a "faith atmosphere" at home so that God becomes real in the lives of their children and they can develop a relationship with him. What the family does at home, something as basic as grace during meals, has a lifelong impact. Parents should set a time at the end of the day for prayer as a family that includes a reading from scripture or bible story or parable for younger children. At the end of this prayer, either Mom or Dad should bless their children by crossing them and saying: "May the spirit of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with John/Jane now and forever. Then kiss them good night.

Talk to your kids about the Saints, the heroes of our Church. They are the true role models for them, ordinary people  who live trule extraordinary lives.  Common folks who fought the same battles that we do in our everyday lives, yet emerged victorious in God's eyes. Emphasize acts of service to others. Kids need to understand that its not all about them and there are disadvantaged people in the world that we need to care about. Just as important is  to teach our children to be stewards of our Church. Stewardship is much more than putting a buck in the tray at the end of the liturgy. It is working and serving in the many capacities that we are afforded to help our communities and churches in a meaningful way by giving of ourselves.

Parents need to understand their role is that of parent and not friend. That means that sometimes parents are unpopular. Don't be afraid to SUPERVISE your children or to say No. Know who their friends are, what they're doing and where they go. Establish standards for your kids in the way they dress, interact with others and how they treat others. Consistently enforce those standards but don't nit pick constantly. Pick three behaviors that drive you up a wall and use the power of positive and negative reinforcement to get them to change those behaviors. Don't forget to praise kids when they do well, to admonish them gently when they fall short, but always send them away feeling good about themselves.

Teenagers are especially difficult to deal with. Try not to lose your cool. They are going through a tough time. They are part adult and part child, striving to be more independent. Be approachable. Your teenager should not be afraid to talk to you about really important things. Probably the best advice I ever got was that teenagers are like young ponies, sometimes you have to know when to pull the reins back and sometimes you need to know when to loosen them.

Finally, don't get discouraged. Kids are resilient;  all of us make mistakes as parents and that doesn't mean that our children will be emotionally scarred for the rest of their lives. The key thing is to learn from our mistakes, love our kids and put God in their lives. For more information read: "Making God Real in the Orthodox Christian Home" by Anthony M. Coniaris.

May our efforts as parents be blessed.

Technorati : Childrearing, Orthodox Christianity, Parenting

The Electronic Kafenion

 

The kafenion (coffee shop) was a major congregating point in the life of a Greek village. It was usually located at the village square. Men often retreated to this male sanctuary to socialize and most importantly to talk. Greeks love to talk, discuss, and argue. Sometimes it is hard for outsiders to figure out whether Greeks are having a discussion or getting ready to come to blows. I remember inviting a Marine buddy from Tennessee to join me at a family gathering in New York City. This guy grew up on a farm and he was a little overwhelmed by the noise and vastness of the city. When we arrived home, my mother and aunts were laying out a vast smorgasbord of Greek delicacies and my Dad and Uncles were in the midst of a debate on some aspect of the always turbulent Greek political scene. Children were running around and it was quite noisy. My friend was visibly uncomfortable and turned to me and whispered: "What are they all fighting about?" I told him not to worry unless everything went completely dead silent.

The early Greek immigrants to America, who were mostly young men, did not have a lot of free time for recreation. The little time they did have was spent in a little piece of home known as the kafenion. Yes, they even brought them to America. A few tables and chairs, a Greek flag and a picture of Venizelos or King Constantine on the wall. They drank the dark, thick Turkish coffee in the little demitasse cups, ate confections known as loukoumia ("Turkish delight") or mezzedakia (appetizers) like tomato slices, meatballs, feta cheese, olives, played backgammon or cards, gossiped and argued endlessly about how to fix the world. Put five Greeks together in a room and you'll invariably end up with six different opinions.

The kafenion was traditionally males only, no self respecting Greek woman would be found in such a place. Now women are just as likely to be there as men. Things are certainly changing; the kafenion is giving way to trendy coffee bars, cyber cafes and patisseries. Lately I've been thinking about the birth of the new "kafenion" on the internet. The internet is a modern marvel, capable of generating both evil and good things. One of the good things it has done, in my humble opinion, is it has become an "electronic kafenion." Now I'm not suggesting that we fore sake human contact with others and communicate soley through electronic means. My point is that the kafenion was a place where Greeks congregated with others in their horio (village) and now the electronic kafenion is a place that Greeks from all walks of life, male, female and all over the world can come together and exchange ideas. They can even carry on "Socratic dialogues." For further explanation, go to: http://www.sfcp.org.uk/socratic_dialogue.htm. Now if we can only figure out how to serve mezze with our discussions.

Personally speaking I have learned a great deal from the exchanges I have had with people on this blog and on Phylax Blog.  If they're not careful, Greeks can easily find themselves in an echo chamber. They need to be exposed to different points of view and they need to get their point of view across to others. They need to think critically and challenge there preconceived ideas. The electronic kafenion is a way to do this. I am always pleasantly shocked when I go to "Site Meter" on my blog and find out how many different countries my readers hail from.  We are just scratching the surface. I truly have come to believe that this is a powerful tool for bringing Greeks and those that aspire to be  "Greek"  together. I do not say that in a strictly ethnically oriented sense. As I have said before, being Greek  as the philosopher Isocrates understood it, was partaking of Greek paidea (education) and thinking and acting in the classically Greek manner. Some of our brothers and sisters in Greece and elsewhere fall short of the mark, whilst some "xeni" (foreigners) aspire to reach it.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Ted Laskaris of Phylax Blog and Epithesis Now for leading the way. For bringing Greeks together and for introducing me to blogging. Bravo Ted and to all who take the time to comment and listen. Hope we will continue to have many kavgathes (arguments) in the future and continue to Hellenize the world.   Semper Fi, Stavros

The Music of Sophia Bilides

Music has always been an essential part of the Greek soul. Although Greeks have been wanderers in many lands, their connection to their home, no matter where it was, included music and food. These two elements have been part of the Greek passion: life lived to its fullest. In 1922, about two million Greeks who had lived in Asia Minor for thousands of years, became refugees. Entire communities were uprooted. They left with the clothes on their back carrying a few precious belongings, their icons and in some cases the bones of their parents. The exodus which ended the Greek-Turkish War, also brought to an end a vibrant culture and was one of the greatest of the many Greek catastrophes of the Twentieth century. More about this forgotten episode in history in future posts. Many skilled musicians, composers, and singers moved with their communities to Greece and beyond. These talented people were able to revitalize the emerging Greek recording industry of the 30s and 40s. They were able to blend old and new musical traditions.

Two of the most prominent styles were the urban cafe songs and music of the common folk known as Rebetika and Smyrneika. This music is thankfully once again enjoying renewed interest and appreciation with the release of old recordings and the effort of a new generation of
musicians. Last year I had the distinct pleasure of hearing the music of Sophia Bilides. She is a nationally renowned Greek American singer and skilled player of the Santuri, an ancient stringed dulcimer. In my opinion she is a living Greek cultural treasure. Her sublime music evokes a nostalgia for a past that although gone, represents the woes and joys of Greeks today. Ms. Bilides has a CD out named GREEK LEGACY. It is worth every cent. Even better visit her website and try to catch her in concert. You won't regret it.

The Greek Language in America: Does it Have a Future?

 

This post written for www.phylaxblog.com

 

MY LANGUAGE by Titos Patrikios

It wasn't easy to preserve my language
amid languages that tried to devour it.
I strove not to lose even a word of it,
for in this language the dead spoke to me.

Recently while trading comments with Hermes regarding my post on Orthodoxy, I was floored by a statement he made to the effect that if the Orthodox Church adopts English as its primary language in America, then Hellenism there is dead. We have often disagreed in the past on a variety of issues. This time he struck a nerve. As usual our dialogue made me really sit down and think. Greek Americans, perhaps more than any other diasporan Greeks are often accused, rightly or wrongly, of not being Greek enough; of forgetting their mother tongue and of assimilating to the extent of losing all contact with their Greek roots. Is it possible that we are about to lose a pillar of Hellenism in America: the Greek Language?

The survival of those who consider themselves Greek throughout the last two thousand years of history has always entailed preservation of two things: the Greek Language and the Orthodox Faith. The reestablishment of the Greek nation state owes much to the educated and wealthy Greeks both within the Ottoman Empire and in the Greek Diaspora throughout Europe at the time. These people were well aware of Greece's classical heritage and its contributions to civilization. It was the illiterate peasants and seafarers however, who did the actual fighting and dying against a vicious enemy. The peasants who grazed their sheep in the shadow of the Acropolis had little idea of what their fore bearers did or said. What sustained them and brought them together as one nation? What was it that imbued in them a spirit capable of defying a mighty empire against all odds in a manner reminiscent of their ancient ancestors. Messolonghi was to take its place alongside Thermopolyae in the saga of Greek history. These peasants spoke a language that although altered over thousands of years still retained much of its original character and meaning. They were also devout Christians who lived their faith every day of their lives and found solace in the body of the Church that Jesus had established.

The story of the Greek American experience is complex. The early Greek immigrants were primarily young men who had no intention of staying permanently in the US. Eventually many married and brought brides to America and established families. Greek was spoken in the home. It was the connection with their ancestral homeland, along with the local Greek Orthodox church. First generation Greek Americans were often sent to afternoon Greek schools to learn the Greek language as well as Greek history and culture. Most of these schools were focused on the primary school grades and seldom offered secondary school level classes. The knowledge that they imparted was in a sense rudimentary. Immigrant parents also insisted their children learn English because they understood that it was essential for success in the New World. Greek immigrants placed a great deal of emphasis on education and the overall advancement of Greek Americans as an ethnic group is only rivaled by the Japanese and American Jews. Unfortunately, they did not create an Greek-based educational system that could compete with the public education that they received gratis. Greek Americans, although rightfully proud of their Greek heritage wanted to be considered Americans and did not feel threatened in a country that put no restrictions on their ability to celebrate their ethnic heritage.

The way I grew up was in stark contrast to my mother's upbringing in Constantinople during the 20s and 30s. Although she spoke fluent Turkish, she attended Greek schools and lived in a world that in many ways was very much segregated from the rest of Turkish society. My own experience was very different growing up in New York City. My parents spoke exclusively Greek at home, sent us to afternoon Greek school and we were very active in the local Greek Orthodox church. The difference was we did not separate ourselves from our neighbors or the rest of American society. In fact, Greek Americans have been active contributors to American society as authors, academics, actors and have excelled in very facet of life here. Greek Americans were not hostages in their own home and as such we embraced America as few other diasporan communities have done. By way of contrast, a second generation Greek in Germany for example will never be considered German and he will never consider himself German, just a temporary visitor. The early Greek immigrants were also subjected to a good deal of racism and discrimination by nativist elements. They wanted to prove they were good Americans, so they worked hard to excel at being American patriots.

First Generation Greeks have done a good job of clinging to the Church and passing on the Orthodox faith and a sense of ethnic pride. They have failed miserably at perpetuating the Greek language. As far as I can tell they have had precious little assistance from their brothers and sisters in the Patrida. In 1999, a commission headed by John Rassias, a noted educator, examined the state of Greek Language education in the US. The commission not only detailed the reasons for decline but also made recommendations for structural reforms. Go to this site for a synopsis of their findings. The report was buried along with the efforts of Archbishop Spyridon to revive the Greek language. In all honesty, some Greek Americans have been less than enthusiastic about fixing the problem.

Unfortunately, I cannot claim that today the Greek Omogeneia in the US remains culturally and intellectually steadfast in relation to its Greek origins. The first generation has NOT been effective in passing on the language we received from our parents. The second generation might understand some aspects of the Greek language, and third and now fourth generation Greeks might have some cultural Greek ties, mainly through the Church. Only a few have managed to learn the language and history of Greece. Despite that fact, it is often surprisingly apparent to me that many young people thirst for a knowledge of their Greek roots and language. Greek Paideia under the auspices of trained and knowledgeable teachers must be made a priority. This requires a concerted effort by the entire community. Does our community have the requisite unity or leadership to carry it out? In Germany and Australia, Greek is being taught in many public schools, and the Greek Education Ministry shares the expenses of providing Greek educators to teach the Greek language. Why is the Greek American community exempt from such efforts? Is it self inflicted or merely a lack of leadership on the part of community leaders? More importantly, Greek Americans need to contribute their own sizable financial resources to build an educational system that will address the educational needs of our young people in the context of Greek paedeia. We have the money, the people and the technological know how to solve the problem.

 

For a long time Greek ethnicity was part and parcel of the Greek Orthodox experience in the US. Now as the Church expands and seeks to bring its word to all Americans, this presents an opportunity for exponential growth and a danger of losing the Hellenic underpinnings of our Orthodox faith. In fact Greek paideia is inextricably woven throughout the Orthodox faith and its importance was recognized by the Church Fathers, as Father Demetrios Constantelos affirms: "The Church Fathers set an example and teach us how to approach and what to do concerning Hellenic paideia and its relationship to religious and theological paideia. A kerygmatic proclamation of the Gospel through the fathers, the doctrines and teachings of ecumenical and local synods, requires that we enter the mind of the Fathers and comprehend the decisions of the Councils.

Thus, the need for our theologians, including priests and teachers, to have a thorough knowledge of historical culture and the intellectual climate in which the Gospel was proclaimed. "Culture is the form of religion and religion is the heart of culture; that is, the two are inseparable," as Paul Tillich, a Protestant theologian and philosopher, has put it. And Christopher Dawson, a Roman Catholic philosopher of history, adds: "The cultural function of religion is both conservative and dynamic; it consecrates the tradition of a culture and it also provides the common aim which unites the different social elements in a culture." Concerning the relationship between Hellenism and Christianity, the Russian Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky writes: "…The cultural process…which has been variously described as a Hellenization of Christianity can be construed rather as a Christianization of Hellenism. Hellenism was…polarized and divided, and a Christian Hellenism was created." The success of early Christianity is attributed not only to the presence of the Holy Spirit and to divine inspiration and religious zeal, but also to Christianity's ability to integrate many Hellenic philosophical and religious ideas, ethical principles, and spiritual elements."

As the Greek Orthodox Church adapts in order to spread His word and unite with other ethnic Orthodox Churches, it is particularly important that it seek to preserve and enhance its Greek origins and language. It is also time for Greek American organizations to band together to put their best efforts into the very noble task of "Hellenizing" the progeny of the original immigrants and as many non-Greeks as possible.

    Technorati : Greek Americans, Greek Diaspora, Greek History

The Future of Hellenism and Orthodoxy in America

Americans of Greek descent are not always looked upon very favorably by our brothers and sisters in the Patrida (ancestral homeland). We are often viewed as too rich, naive, brainwashed, unable to speak Greek properly, out of touch with our Greek heritage and basically unable to rein in our out of control government. Many have a bleak view of the future of Hellenism in America. Greek immigration to the United States which started in earnest around the beginning of the twentieth century, is a complicated story. Many of the immigrants who came in the early years were young men who came to escape the grinding poverty of their rural villages. Sons in Greek families were not allowed to marry until their sisters were properly married off and that could only happen with an appropriate dowry. The lure of America back then is hard to imagine. An account in 1909 describes it thus: "In every village the farmer deserts his plow, the shepherd sells his sheep, the artisan throws away his tools, and all set aside the passage money so that they can take the first possible ship to America and gather up dollars on the street before they are all gone." These early immigrants suffered discrimination, violence and onerous working conditions similar to that experienced by other immigrant groups. As often happened with immigrants however, although their sojurn was always considered temporary, many ended up staying in America and later importing brides from home, in order to raise families in the New World.

Public education in the United States was built around the "melting pot" concept. Many immigrants sought to Americanize their names and blend in to the larger predominantly Anglo-Saxon society. If they were second class citizens in the Patrida because they were poor, they were determined to do whatever it took to succeed in their new home.

In many respects Greeks in America began to over emphasize a shallow view of their ethnicity that was built around Greek festivals, folk dancing, parades, and Greek food. Lost in all of this was the ability of immigrants to pass on many of the important aspects of their culture and heritage. Despite the efforts of many in the community, with each passing generation, more and more of the language, history, literature and the connection to Greece is being lost.

The unifying element in maintaining a sense of Greekness, even a substitute for it, was the Greek Orthodox Church in America. It is central to the community and a very important part of their lives, much more than it is for modern Greeks in the Patrida. In fact, the Church is as vital to the survival of Greek Americans as it was to Greeks that lived under Ottoman domination. Greek immigrants helped establish Orthodoxy in America and they clung fast to their faith and passed it down to succeeding generations. Despite its huge importance, it is currently undergoing a subtle transformation towards a more Americanized version due to the influx of other ethnicity's to Orthodoxy through intermarriage and conversion from other faiths. The Orthodox Church in America is poised to expand exponentially with more and more Evangelicals, Catholics and Episcopalians discovering the rich traditions of Hellenized Christianity. The more the Church reaches out the more it ensures its mission and the survival of some form of Greek ethnicity.

For Hellenism to survive in America and help America itself, it must feed the spiritually hungry and expose them to Greek Christian values. The other side of the coin is that Americans of Greek descent must rediscover their Hellenic heritage in order to help other Americans experience the benefits of Greek paidea as practiced by our Ancient Greek fore bearers. Many Americans do not realize that our country was founded on the principles of Greek democracy and the founding fathers were philhellenes. They were the beneficiaries of and proponents of Greek Paidea. Paidea means education. It was an important Hellenic concept embraced by the Ancients. It embodies all the processes involved in creating a citizen that is able to think, dialog with others, and inquire constantly. More than technology today, we need highly civilized human beings. As the moral philosopher,Isocrates said "Anyone is a Hellene who partakes of our education." In order to do so we first have to find and understand our common Greek roots, no matter who we are. After all, if we study Greek history over the millenia, we invariably come to the conclusion that anyone who feels, thinks and considers himself Greek is Greek. Diasporan Greeks can spearhead a return to the fundamental Western values that were forged by the Ancient Greeks by reacquainting themselves with those values and ideas through paidea. In so doing, Diasporan Greeks may even help their kin in the Patrida reinvigorate not only Greek Orthodoxy in Greece but also the very things that constitute our common Greekness.

Technorati : Greek Americans, Greek Diaspora, Greek Heritage, Greek History, Greek Immigrants, Hellenism, Orthodox Christianity