Just yesterday I was telling my mother that I was going to Namibia to do a photographic workshop. She was very happy for me, and reminded me of how my father loved photography and used to develop his own black and white prints, but he never pursued it. “Photography was not a career in those…
Conversations from the Inside Out
Writing is like photography. When you cannot think of a composition use one of the topics the camera clubs use to make a picture. Or tell a story. Today’s choice is “from the inside out”. I cannot imagine what my father would have thought about this idea. For me sitting at the typewriter (I wish)…
Conversations about Anticipation
My father was a master of anticipation, but would downplay it with a “God willing” or “if things work out at the office”. There were two events he really anticipated with childlike happiness and desire: his trips to Greece and his golf days as the director of Pandenaughty’s Golfing Promotions. His diary was cleared with…
Conversations about Calendars
Greeks live their life mapped out by a calendar that lists the saint’s days and other religious holidays. To this gets added some national holidays in remembrance of independence from the Ottomans or the rebuffing of the invasion by Mussolini’s troops. The calendars dot homes in three shapes. One is a pad the size of…
Conversations about Stray Dogs
Greek dogs, especially village dogs, are essentially neglected and often tied up by chain to a tree or spike in the ground. They grind the sand into a fine dust in concentric rings around the origin of the chain. They are fed scraps whenever the owners remember and are not thought of if the owners…
Conversations on Philosophy
All Greeks think they are great philosophers. After all, the very word is pure Greek, derived from two simple words: philos –friend and sophia – wisdom; this combination makes Greeks friends of wisdom. Let me rather say that it made the Ancient Greeks friends of wisdom and somehow the Modern Greeks seemed to have strayed,…
Conversations on the Threshing Floor
When we first arrived at the village there was a threshing circle alongside the house, just behind the outbuildings which were co-owned by a cohort of cousins, including my father. Eventually he struck a deal, exchanging, I think, most of the land for a small strip which he enclosed to build a fourno, garage and…
Conversations about Syntagma Square
I was reading a book about a garden in Helekion outside Athens and the horticultural intern mentioned a day trip to Athens and Syntagma Square. That brought back a flood of memories, since it has been well over twenty years since that I walked on that marble paving. When we first used to visit Greece…
Conversations about Birthdays
My father only really celebrated one birthday, his seventieth. All I remember from the other birthdays are the odd dinner with the family, but nothing more. I do not remember any gifts that I gave him, except for his seventieth: six bottles of Champagne. I guess it was a good reason to celebrate, and we…
Conversations about Corners
Every Greek household has an iconostasio, a corner in a room to hold icons and burn incense and store memorabilia of the religious year. In the house in Kakouri the iconostasio is in the north east corner of my late grandmother’s room. It is a simple affair; two planks that have become part of the…
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