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OUT OF THE BALKANS
(PART TWO)
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
©2002 Jason C. Mavrovitis
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations.
This is Part Two of two parts available on this site as a PDF file.
A complete PDF file of the book, including Parts One and Two,
Appendices A and B, and the Bibliography may be obtained on a CD
from the author by contacting him at:
http://www.pahh.com/mavrovitis/cd.html
i
CON TEN TS
PART TWO
Recollections and Celebrations
CH APTER ON E
Lily
104
CH APTER TWO
N itsa
107
CH APTER TH REE
The War
110
CH APTER FOUR
Rem em brances
113
CH APTER FIVE
Arm y Days
192
CH APTER SIX
Maced onian Easter
210
CH APTER SEVEN
H om e Again
235
EPILOGUE
237
APPEN DIX A
The Mystery of Lily’s Father
239
APPEN DIX B
Third Class Travel (Steerage)
242
BIBLIOGRAPH Y
244
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Lily was a life force. From her commanding voice to her assertive, high-heeled
walk, she dominated her environment until she suffered her first heart attack.
Even after that, when she felt well she was Lily. Only when angina pain reminded
her of her illness and she sensed her mortality was she vulnerable. At these times,
everyone feared for her yet denied the possibility of her death.
I remember my mother as a human dynamo. Her energy was boundless, and her
ability to organize her activities astounding: shopping, cooking, cleaning,
spending time with friends on the phone and in person, writing two hundred or
more Christmas cards, preparing holiday banquets for fifteen or twenty, meeting
with her bridge club, sewing dresses and blouses for herself and for Nitsa, and
being the guiding force that made and kept together family marriages.
Mom was a demanding and firm mother. We knew that we were loved, but we
also knew that under most circumstances we were “to be seen and not heard,”
“speak only when spoken to,” and obey. I do not know where my mother, the
little immigrant girl, learned manners, but I was taught everything from elevator
behavior to how to use a finger bowl by the time I was six. My lessons included
opening doors for ladies, walking on the street side, taking off my hat in the
presence of women, reply with “sir” and “madam,” standing when a woman came
to or left a table, or entered a room, and so forth.
Lily’s nails were long and red – she had them and her hair “done” every Thursday
morning at a beauty parlor on Third Avenue. Her hair turned salt and pepper
when she was in her early forties, and she put on a few pounds, but remained a
handsome woman.
Lily laughed. She laughed loudly, deeply – without restraint. She had a wonderful
sense of humor and loved good times.
Lily was earthy. She delighted in naughty jokes and spicy stories.
Lily loved to dance. If she heard Greek music she would be on her feet, and to the
embarrassment of my father, she sometimes performed solo dances usually
reserved for men [the Zeibekiko (Zembekiko) for example]. She and Dad danced
an amazing tango together.
104
Lily adored men of every age. Her attraction to men was innocent. She wanted
“ to do” for men: to cook for them, serve them, and cherish them. And, men
idolized her for it.
Lily was generous. She gave at every opportunity, of herself and of her resources.
At Christmas, she would send me out anonymously with packages of food and
gifts for poor Greek families. When I was seven and eight, she loaded me with
two huge shopping bags every two or three weeks and sent me out to walk a mile
or more to the Staten Island Ferry, travel across the bay, take a train, and deliver
food to an old couple who were half-blind and lived on a small farm in the middle
of the island.
Lily had an open heart and home. She welcomed all the friends that Nitsa and I
brought home. She fed them, entertained them, counseled them, and comforted
them. There was never a time that my friends were not welcome – friends from
Christ Church, from school, girlfriends who were from outside of New York and
in school or in show business, and army buddies and their wives, even if I were
not home. She treated them as her own children.
As much of a disciplinarian as Mom was when I was a child, she let go of me
when I reached twelve, and I began my journey to manhood under the guidance of
my father, godfather, and Uncle Louie. The transition was almost magical: one
day I was a child, the next a young man.
Lily was a leader. At Carelas’ farm, she served the role of nurse, counselor, party
organizer, trip director, and child psychologist. Women came to her with their
problems, and she felt perfectly at ease cornering their husbands to give them
forceful advice about being better spouses. When my cousin Diamond
Papadiskos’ wife, Clara, suffered terrible injuries in an automobile accident, Lily
watched over her during her recovery. Diamond took Mom’s directions about
everything.
The day that my cousin Helen Psaltis arrived in the United States with her two
young children, Aliki and Deno, Mom went into action. After looking at the
children, who had suffered great hardships in Greece, she immediately had them
in the car and on the way to Dr. De Tata, who prescribed vitamins and food.
Our home was full of male cousins on holidays: Nick and Thanasi Mavrovitis,
Gus Mavrovitis, Tom Papanas, Elias Dimitriades, and on. At first, they did not
know quite what to make of this outgoing, commanding, and unfettered woman.
She was unlike anyone they had known among the women in their Greek
experience. But, once past the initial shock of her extrovert personality, they
quickly took to her and loved her. She became their second mother.
105
Between 1945 and 1950, my mother suffered three heart attacks. She had regular,
frightening episodes of angina pectoralis1 that mimicked the onset of an attack.
To relieve these attacks she took countless tablets of nitroglycerin, a therapeutic
that improved oxygen supply to her coronary artery and relieved the pain. And,
she came to rely on Teacher’ s Scotch Whiskey as her emotional crutch.
Nitroglycerin tablets and drinks of Scotch became co-therapeutics.
Her heart condition was the result of years of extremely high blood pressure, often
240/140. Somehow, her body overcame the initial onslaught of heart attacks.
From the early 1950s through the early 1960s, her health seemed improved.
She never gave in to her illness and continued to live actively doing virtually
everything she had ever done. My fear of inducing a heart attack by causing her
emotional or physical stress was constant and influenced how I conducted myself
and led my life.
I remember that often when I looked at Mom I saw sad eyes, eyes that had a
longing in them. Perhaps I saw something that was not there. I do not think so. I
wish I knew, and if she did have this sadness, I wish she had shared it with me.
1
Angina pectoralis, pain in the chest, occurs when a weak heart is stressed under
certain circumstances including emotional situations. The pain is due to an
insufficient blood supply to the heart muscle during times of increased activity.
106
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My sister, Eleni, was born on 13 September 1931. Her namesake grandmother
still lived, so little Eleni was called Elenitsa, -nitsa being a diminutive suffix. We
called her Nitsa. Her “ American” name was Helene.
Nitsa was two-and-one-half years older than I. While I have warm feelings about
our early childhood together, I have only vague recollections of our daily
relationship. One memory results from the fact that we shared a room until I was
five or six. When we were sent to bed, we would climb halfway up the stairs to
the second floor, lean over the banister, and say in unison: “ Kali nichta sas, kai
avrio mai aegia,” to Mom and Dad and whoever was in the kitchen with them.
[Translated: “ Good night and good health tomorrow.” ]
A few minutes after we were in bed, Mom would come upstairs to tuck us in. The
second Mom was out of hearing, Nitsa would turn on the radio that sat on the
table between our beds and tune at very low volume to “ I Love a Mystery” or
some other scary show. Sometimes, to my relief, she found a comedy hour.
Unfortunately for me, Mom’ s hearing was excellent. When she arrived on the
scene to scold us, she ended up scolding me and slapping my behind. I could not
pretend sleep and giggled, while Nitsa was the consummate actress, not moving a
finger and breathing deeply. I never told on her.
After our Papou1 remarried in 1940 and left 260 Ovington Avenue, Nitsa moved
into his bedroom and gained her privacy.
Nitsa and I spent many hours at the kitchen table with Mom while she taught us to
mark a pattern on material and to cut, baste, and sew both by hand and using the
professional Singer sewing machine. Making dresses, skirts, and blouses was a
game for us, one that filled many rainy Saturday afternoons.
Nitsa was gifted. She earned “ A” grades from her first school year through
college, except for a “ C” in fencing. She was “ skipped” twice in elementary
school, leapfrogging two full years and graduating at twelve. She was barely
thirteen when she entered the prestigious Hunter College High School on Park
Avenue in Manhattan, and just seventeen when she crossed the street to enter
Hunter College for Women [now coed].
When our mother had her first heart attack, Nitsa took over management of the
home. In fact, it was her determination to keep the family together that prevented
1
“ Grandfather,” in Greek. [Leonardo (Louie) Perna.]
107
Dad from moving us to live with relatives and putting Mom into a convalescent
home until she was better.
I was a willing subordinate and followed Nitsa’ s orders about my assignments
each day. She prepared and I served Mom her breakfast before seven o’ clock in
the morning. Then, Nitsa left for her one hour trip to Hunter College High School.
I was still at the local K-8, P.S. 102, so I was home until eight o’ clock when our
Thea Anastasia arrived to take care of her koumbara, Lily. I was home at lunch
and performed whatever chores Thea Anastasia assigned. After school, I shopped
for the items Nitsa had on the list for me. By 4:30 or so, Nitsa was home, cooking
dinner for us all.
As busy as her life was, Nitsa was socially active with her high school classmates
and at Christ Church. I never understood how she earned all those “ A” grades.
She rarely seemed to crack a book.
By the time she graduated high school I was calling my sister “ Helene.” She had
grown out of her childhood “ Nitsa.” Helene wanted very much to attend Smith
College, a prestigious women’ s liberal arts school in Northampton,
Massachusetts, or one like it. Her commitment to helping Mom and Dad kept her
at home. I do not think that Dad could have managed the tuition, room, and board
at Smith. Helene had been offered a scholarship at Juilliard (she played the piano
brilliantly) and probably would have received financial aid at Smith.
Helene attended Hunter College where she made many friends among her sorority
sisters. Her major was linguistics. She studied several languages including Latin,
Spanish, French, and Greek.
In her senior year, Helene attended the national convention of her sorority,
representing her chapter as its president. The convention was in Banff, Canada.
Nitsa (we still called her that from time to time) was the first in the family to
travel by air, making the trip in a sequence of hops in DC-3s. I was in awe of her
courage.
Helene’ s college graduation photograph shows her wearing her Phi Beta Kappa
key, which she won in her junior year, a significant accomplishment.
After college, she attended a secretarial school, then entered the work force. In
today’ s world, she could have become an executive.
As a teenager, Helene stayed closer to the Orthodox Church than I, even though
she was socially involved at Christ Church. I remember her carrying the Orthodox
Service Book to church during Easter week and reading the prayers in Greek.
108
Helene, who I often called “ Sis,” was sometimes frustrated with me. I was less
serious than she, and according to her, “ girl crazy.” But, we got along well, and I
listened to her when she offered unsolicited advice.
We attended all the Greek [Macedonian and Kastorian] dances together, even
after Mom and Dad stopped attending. It was my duty as brother to escort my
sister to all social functions where there were eligible young men. Those who
were eligible were great for partying and dancing, which Helene enjoyed, but few
were educated or had anything in common with her.
109
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The Second World War (WW II) will always be “ The War” for me. I served in
the Army during the Korean Conflict (or “ Police Action” … it was rarely called a
“ war” ) and for a time, supported the Vietnam War. Fortunately for me, I neither
served in Korea nor fought in a war.
Except for concerned talk around our kitchen table about Italy, Germany, armies,
and war in Greece, I remember nothing of events that led to the Second World
War. I learned later of “ OXI” (NO), the response Greek Prime Minister Metaxas
gave to Mussolini when on 28 October 1940, the Italian government requested
that Greece allow Italian occupation of its country. The Greek army pushed back
the Italians who attacked from Albania through the mountains of Epirus. Greece’ s
defeat of Italy caused the Germans to divert their attention from Russia to the
conquest of Greece. Photo 40 is a grim reminder of German bombers flying over
the Acropolis in Athens. The German Army soon followed, occupying the city.
Relatives and friends became hostage to the Nazis and suffered years of
oppression and hunger.
Photo 40
Germ an Dornier Bom bers
Over the Acropolis 1940
President Roosevelt’ s broadcasted speech just after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor when he asked for a Declaration of War is still vivid in my memory. I was
seven, playing on our kitchen floor in the sunlight that came through the window
110
and heard his historic “ Day of Infamy” address to a joint session of the Congress
of the United States. I understood only that it was a very grave and serious time.
Dad had turned forty-one the previous September so had little worry of military
service. Bobby (Robert) Capidaglis, son of Chris “ Capi” Capidaglis and grandson
of Constantinos, lived on the third floor of our home with his mother, Marion. He
was already in the Army and scheduled for discharge in January of 1942. He
served through 1946, the duration of the war, and returned to Brooklyn with his
British bride, Edith.
Twenty-six sons of relatives and close friends of our family were in the war. Of
these, all but two went overseas. Some, like Bill Fotiades, a neighbor on Ovington
Avenue, received terrible wounds. A Marine lieutenant, he lost several ribs on one
side of his body when machine-gunned on Iwo Jima. Others served in the
Philippines, Britain, France, Italy, and Germany. The only young man that did not
come home was Guy Capidaglis, grandson of Constantinos by his first wife, and
an only child. As luck would have it, he died in an automobile accident
hitchhiking back to his base from a Thanksgiving leave at home.
Dad’ s immediate contribution to the war effort was the sale of our automobile. He
would not use for pleasure gasoline that his nephews and family friends needed to
fight the war.
For me, the war was sirens and blackouts at night, and bomb drills at school
where windows had thin, cloth mesh strips glued on them to prevent glass from
shattering in the event of bombings. War Bond drives, patriotic songs,
preservation of scarce lemons in sand-filled boxes in the basement, men in
uniform coming to our home on Sundays after church, Thea Anastasia in her Red
Cross uniform, and Christmas gift packages we made up at school for servicemen
were all part of the experience.
High wood fences installed along the bay made it difficult to see ships. (One
could see what they wanted from the roofs of the apartment houses along Shore
Road.) Convoys of men and war materials left at night to make their way to the
battlefronts of Europe. Sometimes in the east we saw a bright red glow in the
night sky from fire and explosions on a ship torpedoed by waiting German Uboats (submarines).
Each month, my consciousness of the war grew. Motion pictures made to spur the
will of the American people sensitized me as I watched John Wayne and other
movie idols fight the evils of Japan and Germany.
Dad took me to the Newsreel Theater in Manhattan with my Nouno and Uncle
Louie. This was the CNN of the 1940s that provided extensive war coverage. I
listened to the radio to hear about the war and remember being excited about news
111
of a massive bombing raid over Germany while I sat safely in my bed, eating
grapes on a hot summer night.
Nitsa and I helped Mom and Dad pack War Relief packages to send to Mavrovo
and Kastoria. Preparing these made me conscious for the first time of relatives
who lived far away. Dad started to tell me stories about his childhood and
Mavrovo. We filled boxes with rice, pasta, wool socks, sweaters, and other
necessities. No one knew how many of the packages arrived to help our relatives
in Greece. They suffered greatly during the Nazi occupation and the Greek Civil
War. It was a constant worry for Dad.
V-E Day (Victory in Europe) in May of 1945 did not leave any impression on me.
I do not know why. V-J Day (Victory over Japan) was memorable. Mom, Nitsa,
and I were at Carelas’ farm in the Catskill Mountains. A few days before Japan’ s
surrender, the headlines and photographs on the front page of The New York Daily
News were about the atomic bomb and its enormous power: “ Equal to Twenty
Thousand Tons of TNT.” That summer, the government first released
photographs of the B-29, a plane whose size was beyond our comprehension.
Cheering and loud car horns at Carelas’ greeted news of the war’ s end. That night,
Mom took Nitsa and me with a group of her friends and their children to the Blue
Mountain Inn, a restaurant and bar that was strictly off-limits for us until that
night. I remember the band playing, streamers flying, and people laughing,
drinking, and dancing.
In 1944, immediately after the Nazi occupation ended, Greece entered into a dark
period of civil war. Armed guerrilla groups representing communist, monarchist,
and republican factions battled over control of the future of Greece. Our relatives
in Macedonia fought the communists in the mountains surrounding Kastoria. Fifty
thousand or more Greeks killed each other in the horror that Nicholas Gage
documented in his novel Eleni.1 In it he tells the story of fratricide in Greece and
of his mother’ s murder.
At the end of the Second World War, Russian troops occupied Bulgaria, installed
a communist government, and secured the country as part of the Russian bloc.
Sozopol was behind the Iron Curtain.
Mom had her first heart attack late in the summer of 1945, just a few days after
we returned home to Brooklyn from the Catskills. Our lives changed.
1
Nicholas Gage, Eleni, 1st ed. (New York: Random House, 1983).
112
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Papou
My memories of my Papou are of warmth, fun, and adventure. Papou, Leonardo
Perna, known as “ Louie,” was not my blood grandfather. Anything he was not
able to claim by virtue of blood, he won with the love and affection only a
grandfather can give.
Papou was widower of four or more years by the time I was old enough to
remember him in my life. He lived with us in the house that his wife, Eleni, had
purchased in 1920.
On Saturday and Sunday mornings, my sister and I would steal into Papou’ s
small bedroom on the second floor of our-three story brownstone in Brooklyn and
crawl into his bed. We giggled under the covers while he pretended sleep. In a
few minutes we were a raucous threesome, his fingers tickling our tummies and
necks.
Leonardo was born on 12 March 1890, in Avellino, Italy. He was perhaps five
feet, six inches tall, quiet, soft-spoken, hardworking, and unassuming. Slender in
his youth, he developed a thick middle as he aged. His short hair and quick, wideeyed smile made his appearance boyish. He spoke his native Italian, and broken
English and Greek with care and thought.
Trained as a tailor in Italy, Leonardo immigrated to the United States when he
was sixteen. He arrived at Ellis Island aboard the ship Sicily on 13 June 1906, and
for reasons unknown, made his way to Chicago, where he worked in a dry
cleaning establishment that allowed him to pursue his trade. It was there that he
met my grandmother, Eleni. They were married in Chicago late in 1915 or early
in 1916, shortly after she had been widowed for the second time.
The backyard and basement of our brownstone on Ovington Avenue in Bay Ridge
was Leonardo’ s realm. The small city garden, measuring twenty by fifty feet, had
a paved center area covered by a grapevine trellis — like those found in the
gardens of Italy. Surrounding the trellised section were a small vegetable plot and
ample planting areas for roses, azaleas, gladioli, and spring bulbs. And, there was
a fig tree. Photo 41 of Papou, Nitsa, and me was taken in the garden in 1938.
Papou was a loving grandfather. He never scolded or punished us. His arms were
always a place of refuge and his generosity was unending. When he married
Adela, his second wife, we did not understand why he had to leave our home. His
frequent visits, our expeditions with him, and our many feasts in his new home
made his absence bearable.
113
Photo 41
Pap ou (Lou ie) w ith N itsa and Jason
N ote Trellis and Grap es to Left of Pap ou
Su m m er 1938
Photo 42
Photo 43
Gard en in 1930’s
N ote the Trellis for Grap es
Gard en in Decem ber 1947
The Blizzard of 1947 – 26” Snow fall
114
Mama and Skunks
When I was a little boy between the ages of three and six, Mom often took my
sister Nitsa and me with her to shop in midtown Manhattan. On wet, cold, wintry
days she wore a fur coat. Often, it became a little wet as we rushed from store to
store. Coming home on the subway I would nestle close to her and drift in and out
of sleep as the train thump-thumped on the tracks and the doors open and closed
at the stations along the way. I was like a little animal burrowing into its mother’ s
fur for warmth and security.
I remember still the faint, comforting smell of Mama at those times — the
lightest, almost undetectable scent her coat gave off when it was damp and
warmed by the body it enveloped. It was a coat made of skunk fur.
Suivez-Moi
Dad had his signature scent, that of a cologne named Suivez-Moi [follow-me], the
meaning of which I learned in my high school French class. I think that he bought
it at Macy’ s. It was one of those nice affectations that he acquired as part of his
transformation from barefoot village boy to New York City gentleman.
I can still summon the scent that attached to the stock of Dad’ s shotgun and rifle,
drifted from his armoire, filled the bathroom after he left it, and left tell-tale
identification on his wallet and ties, checkbook, coat collar, muffler, hat, and any
other personal item that came in contact with his hands or face.
It was a proud day when I first shaved and followed the routine I had learned by
watching Dad. I washed my face well, applied the shaving cream, shaved with my
new Gillette razor (later, for a time copying my Papou, I tried a shaving mug and
straight razor), rinsed my face, applied witch hazel, followed it with a splash of
Suivez-Moi, and dusted my face lightly with a fine face talcum. I was a man like
my Dad.
The Cellar
We called the basement of our home, “ the cellar.” It was both: basement or the
lowest story of the house, and cellar for it served as a storeroom for provisions,
especially, according to The Oxford English Dictionary, for wine. It was much
larger and far more comfortable than the first floor storage rooms found in the
Balkans and did not shelter family livestock in cold weather. We were therefore
happily not subject to the animal odors that in winter rose through the cracks in
the rough plank floors of Balkan village homes.
Until 1936, a coal-fired furnace that provided hot water heat in the winter glowed
red in the far corner. A small room was used to store coal. An oil-burning heating
unit, a gas water heater, and a tank replaced the coal furnace in 1936, and the coal
bin became a wine cellar. An oil fuel tank was buried under the front courtyard
entrance to the house.
115
A set of wooden steps led from the entry hall on the first floor down to the cellar.
The bottom step faced Ovington Avenue. The electric service panel that held
fuses to protect house circuits from an overload was on the wall three or four feet
directly ahead. Papou thwarted this safety feature by inserting pennies between
the base of a fuse socket and the fuse. We were lucky not to have gone up in
flames.
To the right of the electric service panel, high up in the ceiling next to the
foundation wall that bordered the street side of the house, was a covered access to
the courtyard. This had been used to deliver coal to the storage bins in the room
directly to the right; it later became a delivery port for grapes and a way to lift
heavy items out of the cellar without going up the narrow steps.
The entire twenty-foot-wide and fifty-foot-long cellar was visible from the
electric panel. Running down its middle were seven black steel posts that
supported the floor above. Mom ran clothes lines between these posts to dry
clothing in the winter and at other times to hang sausage to cure and herbs to dry.
To the left, after the wine storage room, was an open space where luggage, sea
trunks, earthenware crocks, and other items were neatly arranged. All three sides
of this alcove area had shelves that contained preserved food of all kinds.
Next, there was a three by five foot pantry-like shelved room that held old bolts,
screws, nuts, wire, nails, tools, other hardware, paint, thinner, shellac, varnish,
and assorted plumbing supplies.
Finally, on the left was a service room with a second, small kitchen and washtubs.
Mom washed clothing there by hand, and used the 1920s vintage range and oven
as an extra cooking facility on holidays. She never had a washing machine
because Dad did not want her to do heavy laundry. Sheets, shirts, tablecloths, and
such went to the Chinese laundry across the street.
The room was large enough to serve as my retreat. I experimented there with my
Gilbert chemistry set on an old white enamel topped table that had a blue
patterned decoration at its rectangular edge. I mixed chemicals haphazardly and
boiled noxious blends in test tubes over an alcohol lamp. It was a miracle that I
survived the fumes. A shoulder-high window opened into a grated well in the
garden and provided lifesaving fresh air. In my teens, the room served as the
meeting place for my Boy Scout Patrol.
On the right side of the cellar looking down its length from the electrical panel,
under the cellar steps and against the wall, there was a long, narrow table on
which Mom stored her winter carpets in the summer and her summer carpets in
the winter. Assorted lumber was stacked under the carpets. Almost at the end of
the cellar, the oil-burning furnace that kept us warm in the winter hummed
ominously, its flame visible through a small peephole when it was on. Behind it,
116
against the wall, stood a fifty-gallon gas hot water heater and tank. And, behind
the tank was a door that opened to the concrete steps that led up through cellar
trapdoors to the garden.
A lot happened in our cellar.
Grapes, Wine, and Grappa
In early September, Papou went to the wholesale fruit and vegetable market in
Manhattan to arrange for delivery of crates of red and white grapes from
California. With neighborhood children watching, men lowered the crates through
the courtyard access into the basement and the loving and expectant care of
Leonardo. [His Italian name is more appropriate for winemaking than “ Louie.” ]
There were two or three fifty-gallon wood barrels standing in what had been the
coal storage room. Set on top of one of the barrels was a grape press. It was old
and worn, its metal parts rough and dark, its wood stained. At the top of the press
was a trough, shaped like a V. It had interlaced, opposing spiked rollers on either
side of the V. These, turned by gears that linked to a long-handled manual crank,
pulled the grapes down between them, squeezing out the juice, which fell into the
barrel with the grapes’ pulp and skins. The press greedily devoured the grapes as
we fed them in from the top. When the first barrel was filled, we moved the press
to the second and third barrels in turn. Each received the must1 of a particular
grape.
I helped Papou, putting my hands under his as he turned the crank and dropping
grapes into the press at his command. He rarely had any other help in the process.
It was his private and happy labor. I often wondered whether he had learned the
wine-making process as a child in Calabria or from Italian friends in the United
States. I liked to think of him as a boy helping his grandfather as I helped him.
The basement was dark, light coming only from dim forty-watt bulbs hanging
from the ceiling on extension cords. End of summer dampness condensed and
trickled down the cold, black steel posts that supported the floors above. After
what seemed like endless hours of pressing, the crates were empty and the barrels
full. We breathed the aroma of grape must.
In the semi-darkness of the cellar, Papou used his skill to help the grape juice
transform into three kinds of wine, each with its own character. He inspected the
barrels every night after returning from his job in the City. He would strike a
match and lower it slowly into the space just above the bubbling juices. He
watched to see if the flame died as he lowered it close to the liquid. If after a few
seconds the flame continued to burn, indicating the absence of carbon dioxide and
the end of the must’ s fermentation, it was time for him to begin the next step of
the process.
1
The juice, pulp, and skins of the crushed grape.
117
Leonardo siphoned the fermented juice out of the large barrels into smaller ones
that he had prepared earlier. I choked on the fermented juice several times when
he taught me how to prime the rubber siphon by sucking on it like a straw. He had
treated the barrels with the smoke of burning sulfur in the weeks before delivery
of the grapes. During the process, the whole house smelled of burning sulfur.
With her furious protestations, Lily made Leonardo believe he was where burning
sulfur prevailed — Hell. He never learned to contain the fumes.
Leonardo sealed some barrels immediately. To others he added measures of sugar
and perhaps of yeast to initiate a second fermentation of the already-once
fermented juice. He left several gallons of must and the remains of the wet mash
in the bottom of the barrel as raw material for the creation of grappa.
He created three wines. One was a robust, deep red, burgundy-colored wine with
the intensity of claret and the roughness of Chianti. The second, a soft, gold, white
wine was a very dry, white varietal. The third, a golden-colored sparking
muscatel, was slightly sweet and very full-flavored with a huge bouquet. These
Leonardo placed in casks for aging. He moved them from cask to bottle over time,
as the spirit of Bacchus inspired him.
Early on the first Saturday after the fermented grape juice had been siphoned from
the large barrels, Papou uncovered his shiny copper still. Perhaps three feet in
height, it was stored under old sheets and tarps, and hidden behind two gigantic
steamer trunks that he and my grandmother, Eleni, had used on their trip to
Greece and Italy in 1931. The trunks, often opened for play by my sister and me,
were covered with stickers of foreign-sounding steamships and hotels, some
Greek, others Italian.
After cleaning and setting up the still on a small table, Papou filled it with the
remains of mash and liquid from the large barrels and lit its kerosene burner. Next
to the still he set a card table, and five or six chairs. The still was directly behind
his chair. He brought a green felt table cover, playing cards, and gambling chips
to the basement from their place in the heavy, dark wood bureau in the dining
room, and suspended one bare electric bulb over the table. By mid-morning, one
by one, his friends began to arrive and follow him down the steps to the annual
meeting of the informal Grappa Society.
The game was poker. Red, white, and blue chips represented pennies, nickels, and
dimes. Stakes were low. Passions ran high.
All day the game went on, and all evening and late into the night, and into the
early, dark morning. The game went on until the still had completed its work.
Cigarette smoke rose from the table and swirled around the light bulb, some of it
of heavy and sweet smelling Turkish tobacco. Wine glasses and coffee cups filled
spaces on either side of the players. Plates with the remains of sandwiches of
prosciutto, capocollo, feta, provolone, lakerda, and sardeles were on the floor.
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Behind Papou was the steady drip, drip of clear grappa as made its way down the
spiral condensing tube into a heavy, glass container. Periodically, Papou would
lift a small tumbler from the table, move it behind him until it was directly under
the drip, and hold it there for thirty seconds. Then, without any fanfare, he would
lift the tumbler to his lips and test a few drops of the liquor. He gave no sign other
than a slight nod of his head.
A few days after the still had relinquished the last drop of condensate, Papou
would take a twenty-four-inch long black case from its place on a shelf in the
storage room. Nestled in it, in a bed of green velvet, was a beautifully handblown
glass hydrometer. He lowered the glass work of art into a wide-mouthed jug that
held the liquor gained from the still. With the care of a chemist, he added distilled
water to the liquor, sharing the liquid with a second jug when the first filled. He
continued the process until the hydrometer indicated that the alcohol content in
each jug was 90 proof (45% alcohol), down from the 120-140 proof that had been
delivered by the still.
Some of this liquor he put into a small, one-gallon keg without any additive.
Some he put into two or three other kegs with flavorings that created whiskey or
brandy in ways known only to him.
Bottles of Papou’ s liquors were secreted in the basement ceiling and walls. I
learned this when I watched him retrieved a bottle for his fiftieth birthday. The
bottles were named and dated: “ Nitsa, September 1931, for wedding” ; “ Jason,
March 1934, for wedding” ; “ Jimmy & Lily for 25 Anniversary” ; “ Leonardo 60
Birthday” .
Papou’ s wine was our table wine. I did not know until later, after he had moved in
the early 1940s with his barrels and still to Bay Fourteenth Street, that he made
enough wine to sell. One gallon at a time, he sold his product to Greek and Italian
neighbors who favored “ homemade” over the wines in the store.
Our family prized Papou’ s brandy. We never knew when he was going to open a
bottle. Invariably, it was for a family celebration that he had anticipated by ten,
twenty, or more years.
The Garden
Our garden provided us with the visual images that defined the change of seasons.
[See Photos 42 and 43.] By late February the crocus were sticking their heads
through the snow. They were followed by daffodils and tulips, carefully planted in
the late fall by Papou and my Dad. As spring progressed buds broke into leaves
on the grapevines, rosebushes and trees, and finally, in May, the magnolia tree
burst into bloom. That event signaled the time for Papou and Dad to start planting
tomatoes, peppers, radishes, carrots, lettuce, and dandelions (yes, they planted
dandelions in rows), and occasional experiments with watermelon, pumpkin, and
one or another variety of melon.
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Until I was twelve, Mom, Nitsa, and I summered at Carelas’ farm just west of
Saugerties, New York, so we missed experiencing the garden for most of the
summer. We were amazed to find the jungle of growth when we returned to the
city just after Labor Day. For a few weeks we enjoyed the vegetables Papou and
Dad had husbanded all summer.
Many early or late summer evenings before we left for or returned from the farm,
I would look down onto the garden from the second-story window of the bedroom
that my sister and I shared. A single light bulb, suspended from an extension cord
that ran over the grape trellis through the window of the kitchen that faced the
garden and to the nearest electrical outlet, illuminated the area under the thick
cover of vines that hid Louie, Jimmy and their friends. The women sat to the side
in the dark, conversing with unseen animation and rising from time to time to
serve the men refreshments.
Fireflies were like sparks in the dark border around the space that held a card
table and the enthusiastic, happy players. There were a jug of dark red wine, halffilled glasses, servings of karpusi (watermelon), cups of café, (aromatic Greek
coffee), betting of pennies and nickels, and expletives that proclaimed the luck of
the cards drawn. I fell to sleep listening to the conversation and laughter that rose
to our window.
Fall was a time for garden cleanup, pruning, and preparation for winter. Dad
squeezed in two or three Sundays of effort on the weekends that he, Bill Rusuli,
and Louie Dimitroff did not go to Carelas’ farm for fall hunting. The
Thanksgiving holiday anticipated winter. The garden looked bleak as the days
grew short until, on the morning after the first snowfall, the garden became a
beautiful white-blanketed landscape with tree limbs shimmering in coats of ice.
There were times that the garden was the Yukon, a polar ice cap, or a valley high
in the Rocky Mountains, and my imagination created adventures for me in each
setting as I lost myself in fantasies in the snow.
Over time, the garden changed. The trellis and its grape vines were removed, a
cherry tree replaced the fig tree, and later, young Jason enthusiastically cut down
the cherry tree. An azalea was added here and a rosebush there. Periodically,
Nitsa and I repainted the garden furniture in garish orange and green.
For almost forty years, the garden was the site for family photographs that
recorded four generations, many celebrations, and times of change.
Carelas’ Farm
From the time I was two until my twelfth birthday, Mom, Nitsa, and I spent eight
to ten weeks each summer at Carelas’ farm, just a few miles outside of Saugerties,
New York. [See Photos 44, 45, and 46.] Situated lower in altitude and certainly
less stylish, it was the Greek answer to the Borscht Circuit whose hotels were
located on the higher slopes of the Catskills. A working dairy farm, it was also a
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boarding house in the summer. Its rooms and cabins housed thirty to forty
mothers and children who escaped the heat of New York City in July and August.
The young families were formed mostly by immigrants from Kastoria and
Sozopolis. There were a few senior residents. On Friday evenings, husbands came
from their work in New York City to spend Saturday and most of Sunday with
their families.
Everyone referred to the proprietor as Carelas. His first name was Jimmy
(formally, James, and in Greek, Dimitrios). In the mid-1920s, Carelas married
Margaret, an Irish woman, who gave birth to five children: James (Jimmy),
Georgianne, Betty, Basil (Billy), and Joan. Margaret never gave Carelas a
moment’ s peace, and I never heard him say anything nice about her. In fact, he
made denigrating her an art form and she yelled at him all the time. Yet, they
remained married for more than sixty-five years. He died first, shortly after he ran
into the Greenville, New York Post Office at age ninety-six and the police
confiscated his car.
Carelas once operated a small restaurant in Coney Island that failed at the start of
the Great Depression. Somehow, my father knew Carelas and of his desperate
need to support his family. My Dad, my godfather, Bill Rusuli, and Louis
Dimitroff lent Carelas the down payment to purchase the farm in Saugerties. In
return, Carelas provided them with a big bedroom at the farm in Saugerties, and
then in later years, at the farm in Greenville when Carelas moved his operation
there. Mom, Nitsa, and I used the room at the farm in Saugerties all summer.
While I was a guest at the summer boarding house, my Dad made it clear to
Carelas that he encouraged my participation in farm work. So, I took part in the
hay harvest, milking, chicken feeding, chicken coop cleaning, and other activities
whenever Angelo, Carelas’ long term sidekick and retainer, wanted help. I also
helped slaughter pigs, sheep, cows, bulls, chickens, and geese, becoming
accustomed to the blood, guts, and smells. None of my friends in Brooklyn could
boast of the same.
The task I performed only once and never wanted to get near again was cleaning
the barn’ s silo. There is no more horrible smell than that of the sour, rotting debris
in a silo’ s well.
Three or four times I was enlisted to use my Dad’ s 22 Hornet rifle to down a bull
or cow that had gone mad. The rifle’ s scope enabled me to shoot the animal in the
head at fifty to one hundred yards. Once down, we would rush to cut its throat and
bleed it so the meat would not spoil.
Carelas worked ceaselessly. He was the head cook for the summer boarders,
purchased all the groceries and supplies, traveled to livestock auctions and ran his
dairy farm. As the years went by, he expanded his operations in Saugerties,
opening a tavern and dance hall in conjunction with his dining room for summer
boarders. Eventually, he sold his Saugerties property and purchased a larger farm
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Photo 44
Carelas’ Farm
Photo 45
Jason, N itsa and Lily
1938
.
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in Greenville, New York. Through the years, he added thousands of acres to his
holdings, built a man-made lake, an outdoor theater, a roadhouse restaurant and
bar, and traded in livestock. A multimillionaire, he never appeared to be anything
more than a poor, rumpled, badly-dressed, unshaven immigrant farmer with an
accent.
A small river at the Saugerties farm offered swimming and fishing. Greek
immigrants knew nothing about golf or tennis. The pleasures of walking and
talking were enough. On weekends, except for my father, the men, mostly from
the fur market, would often play poker through the night. The only hunter was my
Dad. He and I would go off to kill as many crows and woodchucks as we could
find.
Kastorians were noted gamblers and the games at the farm were for high stakes,
but not as high as the games played over the Christmas holidays in hotel rooms in
New York City or on the ocean liners that took the gamblers and their families on
holidays to Greece. Life savings, homes, and businesses were lost on those trips.
My cousin, Elias Demitriades, won his fortune on an ocean trip to Greece and
never returned to the United States or the fur market.
Kyria Ekaterina
One summer at Carelas’ farm, I fell in love with Kyria Ekaterina (Lady
Katherine), my Lady. I was eight years old. My Lady had a sympathetic smile, a
well-tanned, light olive complexion, dazzling white teeth, light-brown hair, blue
eyes and, I learned, a lovely figure, as best an eight-year-old could judge. She
must have been in her mid- to late thirties, was married, and was kind and gentle
to me. I had begun to stammer that year, and she made me feel comfortable
around her.
Kyria Ekaterina was a little aloof from the rest of the women at Carelas’ . She read
a lot and spent hours knitting quietly while sitting alone in the shade of an
expansive tree. Sometimes, when I looked for her to deliver my gift, she was
nowhere to be found.
My Lady loved fresh, warm chicken eggs, and they were my gift to her. I would
creep around the chicken coop and scoop up an egg just as it was laid, when its
shell was still soft. I rushed it to her. She greeted me happily when I brought her
the prize. I watched her use a safety pin to punch holes into the egg and then suck
out its still warm, raw contents with one or two efforts. This would ordinarily
have revolted me, but when my Lady performed the act, it was great art —
beautiful.
Often, I would go on one of my solitary missions into the woods, creeping behind
trees and walls, pretending I was a soldier fighting the Germans or a pioneer
escaping from a band of Indians. The trees of the forest provided shadows that
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moved with the wind and created as many enemies and pursuers as my
imagination could conjure.
On one morning, I ventured far into the wood that led to Mr. Schoonmaker’ s
pastures and farmhouse. Stealing along a fieldstone wall, I spied over it hoping to
see a woodchuck or a deer, or a German machine-gun nest or an Indian inching up
to attack me. What I saw was my Lady far from any road or home, stretched out
on a blanket in the tall grass, reading a book. She was naked — totally,
completely, naked. I stared at this vision for no more than three seconds, but it
seemed like hours. I was sure that she had seen or heard me, and that my mother
was watching me from a few feet away.
I slumped to the ground behind the rock wall for a few moments, recovered my
composure, or at least some of it, suppressed my guilt, and slowly peeked over the
wall again to be sure that I had seen what I thought I had seen. Yes, I had! For
several breathless minutes I studied every mysterious detail of this goddess’ body,
then slowly crawled away along the wall and turned into the wood until I had
gone far enough to be sure that I would not be seen. I never again returned to that
spot in the forest.
Hayrides
Carelas treated his boarders to a hayride two or three times each summer. Dinner
on those nights consisted of barbecued hot dogs cooked by the river at the great
fireplace that we used to roast lambs in the spring. We children devoured a dessert
of roasted marshmallows, cookies, and ice cream. At twilight, two or three horse
drawn wagons filled with loose hay would arrive on the scene. We climbed
aboard them for a long ride — men, women, and children. Carelas seemed to plan
the dates of the rides on the availability of a full moon and a clear sky.
There was always someone along with a mandolin or guitar; sometimes, there
were two or three amateur instrumentalists. As the horses pulled us slowly along
country roads, men and women would sing Greek songs, tell stories, and laugh in
the light of the moon under the dome of a star-studded sky. The song I remember
most was about Barba Ianni [old John] and his papoutsia lastika [rubber shoes].
My sister and I would eventually snuggle close to Mom and fall asleep. There was
a very warm feeling about these rides. We traveled in a circle, a journey that
brought us home and to bed
Theo Costa
Theo Costa and Thea Anastasia were part of my growing up. As a child I did not
understand why I called them Theo and Thea, Uncle and Aunt, as they were not
related to us. However, we were Koumbari, a designation that closely associates
families. It describes ties created through marriage, as between in-laws, or by
acting as the best man or maid of honor at a wedding, or by becoming a
godparent. These family ties are strong and lasting.
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Later in life, a godparent might also be matron of honor or best man at the
godchild’ s wedding. My mother and grandfather were godparents to Costa and
Anastasia’ s children, Jimmy and Anesti. My mother relished her role as Matron of
Honor at Jimmy’ s wedding. (Years later, my Nouno was my best man.)
Costa and Anastasia were not my uncle and aunt. However, it is common for
close friends of a Greek family to become proxy uncles and aunts to children.
At whatever age I was, I remember Theo Costa Zelios at always the same age,
somewhere between fifty-five and sixty. He just did not change.
Theo Costa’ s round, dark, olive-skinned face, was characteristic of the TurkicBulgar tribes that had invaded the Balkans. His hair was short, thin, and gray. The
yellow-brown stains on the left side of his salt and pepper moustache, and on the
thumb, index, and middle fingers of his left hand evidenced his chain smoking of
unfiltered Camel cigarettes. Not a big man, perhaps five feet seven inches in
height, he moved quietly with slow, purposeful strength, and spoke little whether
in his native Greek or in halting English. He had a knowing tight-lipped smile.
Greek was Theo Costa’ s native language, learned as a child in Sozopolis on the
coast of the Black Sea.
Theo Costa married his wife, Anastasia, after the Balkan Wars and the First
World War, but before 1922, when the immigration gates closed in the United
States. Somehow they made their way from Bulgaria to Greece, and then to Ellis
Island. Settling in Brooklyn, they spent most of their years in a bright secondstory apartment on Seventy-second Street between Third Avenue and Ridge
Boulevard.
Theo Costa was a night-shift building engineer at the CBS Building in New York
City for thirty or more years. He had the mechanical aptitude, health, and work
ethic that made him a prized employee. During the day, he worked as a house
painter to earn extra money for his family.
One of the unusual things Theo Costa did was to make soap. Greek families in
Bay Ridge saved animal fat for him, spooning it from roasting pans and stockpots
into jars. About twice each year, he would collect it, and in his apartment kitchen
mix the fat with other ingredients, cook the mixture in a huge kettle, and produce
soft bars of tan, lightly-scented soap. He took great pride in delivering bars of
soap to family and friends.
Anastasia was a big, big-hearted, open-armed, smiling, laughing, gentle, pious,
mountain of a woman. Her energy was unbounded. She loved her sons without
limit. I remember her in her Second World War Red Cross uniform when she
visited our home after rolling bandages all day. She sat with my mother having
her sweet and Elliniko, not Turkico, café while knitting socks for her sons who
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were in the Army — Jimmy with the artillery in Italy and Anesti with the infantry
in the Philippines. The prayers she offered every minute of every day and those
that rose on Sundays with the smoke of the candles at her church, Kimisis Tis
Theotoko (The Dormition of the Mother of God) on Eighteenth Street in
Brooklyn, were answered in full. Both came home safely.
Anastasia was the unchallenged local expert in making likismata (sweets) until
the arrival in the United States of my Thea Filareti, my father’ s brother’ s wife,
and another story. These are the wonderful, candied fruits served to guests by
Greek hostesses. A cold glass of water and a cup of thick Greek coffee
accompany them. It was impossible to choose among the thick slices of orange
and grapefruit rinds, dark black cherries, rose petals trapped in their viscous
liquor, and quince, either shredded or in bite-sized pieces cooked until their color
was a deep, almost amber, orange.
She baked the customary Vasilopita [St. Basil’ s Bread] made for New Year’ s, and
Lambropsomo [Easter Bread]. She brought loaves to us every year as gifts to her
children’ s godparents.
Vasilopita was a treat on New Year’ s morning when my father performed the
traditional blessing of the loaf, then cut slices for the world, our home, and each
family member in order of age. The loaf was huge, perhaps sixteen inches in
diameter, golden from an egg glaze, and showered with sesame seeds. When
toasted, the aroma of the Mahlepi1 that was used to flavor the bread filled the
room.
Lambropsomo was like Vasilopita but for the presence of dyed, deep red eggs set
in the crown of the loaf and the absence of Mahlepi and the coin.
Theo Costa was the celebrant of two periodic events in our home.
Every six or seven years he painted the rooms of our three-story brownstone on
Ovington Avenue. Sometimes I helped, or at least I thought I did. The job seemed
to take forever. He was slow, methodical, and meticulous. I remember the smell
of the lead-based paints thinned with oil that took days to dry.
He worked always with a cigarette, a Camel, between his lips. The ritual lighting
of the cigarette included his tapping down the tobacco to one end, twisting the
paper of the less full end before lighting it, and moistening the paper on the end
that was held delicately between his lips. As the smoke rose, his hand moved the
brush gracefully, in the way of a conductor leading an orchestra in an adagio. I
liked helping him clean the brushes, which were his treasured tools. They were of
all sizes, some very fine and soft.
1
See page 66, note 1.
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I liked best helping Theo Costa make lakerda [salted tunny].
From the beginning of recorded history, excess Greek populations of Ionia,
Attica, Boetia, and the Greek city-states colonized coastal villages in Thrace on
the Black Sea. They grew grapes and made wine, mined minerals, grew corn,
captured and sold Skythian slaves, and caught and preserved fish for themselves
and for export to cities dependent on imported food. Tsiri [dried, salted mackerel],
rengha [dried, smoked herring], sardeles [salted large sardines or anchovies in
olive oil], tarama [carp or red mullet roe which when whipped with olive oil,
bread crumbs, and lemon juice form a delicious, creamy dip], and lakerda were
among the staple fish.
As a child, Theo Costa watched the men of Sozopolis as they preserved their
catch from the Black Sea. He learned how to clean, salt, and smoke fish and
brought those skills to America and to Brooklyn.
Every fall, Mom put up preserves, made loukanika [dried sausage]; jarred
tomatoes, and packed brine-filled crocks with green tomatoes, carrots, celery, and
heads of cabbage [toursi]. Then, after Leonardo stored newly-fermented grape
juice into barrels for a second fermentation or aging, as the purpose required, and
put the residual grape mash into the shiny copper still and made raki or, since he
was from Monteleone, Italy, grappa — the time came to make lakerda.
Theo Costa would arrive early one October morning in time for a cup of coffee
with my mother before beginning the work. He lugged huge bags over his
shoulders, having gone at dawn directly from CBS in mid-town to the Fulton Fish
Market on the lower east side of Manhattan to select as many two-foot-long,
deep-blue, torpedo-like tuna fish as he could carry. These he deposited in the
entry vestibule while he sat and rested, and had his coffee and a Camel cigarette. I
waited anxiously for my instructions — which every year were the same. Mom
would give me one or two dollars and tell me to go to Mr. Kramer’ s Hardware
Store on Third Avenue to buy ten, five-pound bags of Kosher salt (rock salt). Mr.
Kramer kept these in stock for his customers to rid their outdoor steps and
sidewalks of ice and snow, and for the Jew or Greek or Scandinavian who needed
it to prepare an ethnic specialty.
By the time I made the three or four trips necessary for me to carry that much salt,
Theo Costa was ready to start work. We carried the tunny and salt down the
wooden steps to the basement. The smells were those of the West Side
delicatessens on Eighth and Tenth Avenues in mid-town Manhattan. Theo Costa
retrieved two, twenty-four-inch deep ceramic crocks, a flat cutting stone, and
butcher knives from under the storage tables. Slowly, too agonizingly slowly for
the patience of a boy, he carried the crocks to the other end of the basement where
there was a water spigot and drain. While he spread newspapers on the floor, set
the cutting stone across two stools, and sharpened the knives, I washed out the
crocks and dried them.
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Cigarette between his lips and a razor-sharp knife in his hand, Theo Costa
removed the heads, fins, and tails from the tunny. We washed each body
carefully, removing any loose tissue. Finally, to the cutting stone, and with long,
strong motions, he sliced the tunny into one-inch steaks. We set one layer of these
in the crocks on top of a two-inch bed of salt. Then, we added another layer of salt
and another layer of tunny until finally the crocks were filled, the top layer being
salt. After wooden lids were placed on top of the crocks, he moved them to a
dark corner under the storage tables. I washed the heavy cutting stone thoroughly,
brushing it under hot water brought from the sink in the small basement kitchen,
dried it, and carried it with difficulty to Theo Costa for him to store away.
Now we waited.
Greeks fix the time of many of life’ s events to a mystical period: forty days. It
must derive from biblical stories and religious observance: Noah’ s forty days of
rain and forty days of waiting to exit the Ark after it went aground; Moses’ forty
days on Mount Sinai; Jesus’ forty days praying and fasting in the wilderness; etc.
In keeping with biblical tradition, the Great Lent and minor Lents last forty days,
a couple waits forty days from the time they are married until they go to church, a
baby is churched1 forty days after birth, and the first memorial service is forty
days after the death of a loved one.
Therefore, it takes forty days to make brandied cherries and forty days to dry
sausage. And, it takes forty days before rock salt and tunny combine miraculously
to create lakerda. On that great day, Theo Costa arrived with a gallon of olive oil
and a lemon.
I followed him to the basement in anticipation of a filet of lakerda swimming in
olive oil and lemon juice at the dinner table. He rolled the crocks out from their
cool, dark hiding place, lit the indispensable Camel cigarette, took off the lid of
one crock, scraped salt away from the top, and removed one steak from the first
layer of tunny to a waiting platter. This he washed under cold water and dried
with the softest of cotton towels. He placed the tunny steak on a plate, sprinkled it
liberally with olive oil and a dash of lemon, and cut it into bite-size pieces. Theo
Costa put the first piece in his mouth, chewed gently, closed his eyes, savored the
flavor, and made his judgment. “ Kallo!” [“ Good!” ] Then, I put a tender piece in
my mouth and the waiting was rewarded.
We emptied the crocks under the constant supervision of Theo Costa’ s genie,
washing, drying, and layering the tunny, now transformed into slices of lakerda,
into glass jars that had been carefully stored since their last use. Enough room was
1
A baby is brought to church to be blessed and consecrated to God. A female child is
brought only to the Royal Door of the iconostasion while a male child is carried
into the sanctuary and around the altar.
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left in each jar for a quantity of the golden-green olive oil that preserved and
sweetened the salted fish. Theo Costa had again worked his magic.
For Theo Costa our basement, redolent with Black Sea smells of cabbage in brine,
wine barrels, drying sausage, dried mackerel and herring, and bouquets of herbs
hanging from the ceiling, and now containing newly filled jars of lakerda, made
him again a young boy far away in a small city by the sea.
The Fig Tree
Papou’ s fig tree represented his repudiation of the climate of New York and his
nostalgia for the Calabrian warmth of Monteleone. But, the fig’ s genetics were
consistent with its Mediterranean home, not with Brooklyn’ s winters. So in the
fall when its leaves fell to the ground, Papou carefully pruned the fig’ s limbs and
enveloped its trunk with two or three wrappings of old carpet, forming a tall
column. Into its center, Leonardo stuffed insulating leaves. Thus protected, the
tree stood to survive the winter. When covered with snow and ice, it looked like
an ancient temple column in a desolate landscape.
In mid-April with the chance of frost past, Papou would remove the carpet from
the fig and sweep away the rotted leaves. Every morning, he would go to the tree
before leaving for work to see if there was a sign of life. The first leaf bud was a
signal for the celebration of spring’ s renewal. For Papou, this fig tree’ s first bud
was as symbolic of the Resurrection as Easter eggs and lilies.
By sometime in July, one, two, or three figs would have formed. Papou
suspended silver icicles used to decorate Christmas trees on the fig’ s branches to
frighten the birds and set netting to protect the precious fruits. The triumphal
reward came in late August when the one or two surviving figs were shared —
one small, sweet piece of the fruit for each of us.
Japanese Beetles
One summer before the Second World, War Papou single-handedly took on the
Japanese beetles that attacked his vines. They were huge, ugly, shiny-black, hardshelled insects.
Ingenious at devising tools to accomplish work in the garden, he made a Japanese
beetle trap by attaching a coffee can to a broom handle and filling it with an inch
of kerosene. Using a small brush on a second broom handle, he hunted, found and
then swept the beetles to a fatal swim in kerosene. I enjoyed watching their death
throes as, on their backs, they struggled for survival with their legs kicking
frantically. So much for the compassion of a five-year-old!
Papou lost his grape harvest that year, and with the arrival of more beetles, the
following year he gave up his summer trellis, the vines, and their shade.
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The Watermelon
During the summer of 1940, on one of his visits to Carelas’ farm to see us Papou
told Nitsa and me about a watermelon growing in our garden in Brooklyn. He said
it was huge and promised to keep it untouched until we returned home on the first
weekend after Labor Day.
The trip back to Brooklyn was filled with the expectation of seeing our
neighborhood friends, the new school year, and the great watermelon. Nitsa and I
were wedged between pieces of luggage, fruit baskets, pillows, toys, and an
ironing board that would not fit in the trunk. The nomadic gypsies of the Balkans
were surely our cousins. At her feet in her front, right navigator’ s seat from which
she gave commands like, “ Pass him, Jimmy!” Mom had a basket of huge aromatic
peaches that Dad had purchased at a roadside stand. We must have eaten half of
them on the trip.
The long, hot, and humid drive south from the Catskill Mountains to Brooklyn
took four or five hours on the two lane roads of 1940. After reaching Kingston on
the Hudson, we traveled south on Route 9W until we came to the George
Washington Bridge. Crossing it to Manhattan, Dad drove south along Riverside
Drive and on to the cobblestone paved, slick, West Side elevated highway that at
that time stood below Fifty-seventh Street. [The badly rusted elevated highway
collapsed in December of 1973. The immediate cause was the weight of a
concrete truck that was making a delivery for road repairs.]
The car’ s windows were all open, allowing the noises and smells of the traffic to
reach us. There was no air conditioning. The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was still a
dream, so Dad followed the slow traffic over the Brooklyn Bridge and made his
way along Fourth Avenue, delivering us finally to Bay Ridge. [See Photo 47.]
We arrived at home to the damp and particular smell of Brooklyn at the end of
summer. It was early evening when Papou greeted us at the door. Nitsa and I ran
through the house to the garden, Papou on our heels. As we opened the door our
eyes searched for the giant watermelon, and there it was. Nitsa saw it first. We
caressed it and marveled at the size of this single great watermelon amidst the
tangled vines. Then, Nitsa found the string that tied the watermelon to the plant.
The Mulberry Tree
A lone, slender mulberry tree softened the hard-surfaced courtyard to our home.
The tree had few branches and was only six or seven feet tall. It seemed tenuously
to cling to life. When the snows were gone and spring temperatures revived it, it
budded and broke into leaf having survived to live another summer.
The courtyard faced north, so the tree that would have been at home in the
Peloponnesos received little of the warm sunshine it needed to thrive.
Nonetheless, each year the little tree provided a handful of berries that Papou and
Dad happily harvested and shared with the family.
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Fish, Fish — Fresh Fish !!!
The late 1930s and early ‘40s witnessed the decline of horse-drawn carts in New
York City. From them, mobile vendors delivered ice and milk, and sold
vegetables, fruit, fish, and sometimes pots, pans, and clothing. Italians, Greeks,
Irishmen, Jews, and other ethnic groups were in the diverse body of men who
hawked their portable goods.
The wood carts were simple, with wheel rims covered sometimes with rubber, but
more often, bare metal. Most carts had a stepladder hanging in back and a tentlike awning to protect cargoes from rain and sun. Some had rails surrounding the
space that held the vendor’ s goods. Wood boards covered with fabric or old carpet
gave the men a place to sit as they drove their wagons.
Tired horses pulled the carts and their contents through the streets. Typically, a
horse’ s traces were worn and heavy blinders covered its eyes. Occasionally, a
shabby but ornately-beaded head ornament with feather plumes crowned its head.
On hot summer days, flies attacked the animals unmercifully. Moving slowly with
their heads bowed, sounding clip-clop through the streets, they were a sorry sight.
Before the blight of Dutch elm disease, our street enjoyed the dense shade of
huge, mature trees. The horses seemed comforted in the shade and did not react to
the taunts of the children that surrounded them. The poor animals were like Zen
Buddhist monks sinking into themselves to find peace.
The fish cart was the most interesting of all the carts that passed our house. “ Fish,
fresh fish!” we would hear from half a block away as the cart turned the corner
and came down Ovington Avenue. In the back of the wagon on a huge bed of ice
lay all manner of seafood. Above the fish, a spring scale hung from the frame that
supported the wagon’ s cover.
I was smug about my knowledge of the squid, octopus, mackerel, bass, cod, crab,
and lobster. I had seen the same fish in the window of Cosentino’ s Fish Market on
Third Avenue. Somehow they seemed more immediate and exotic in the middle
of the street on top of a mountain of ice that was dripping its melt to the street.
One day, a huge lobster lay on top of the mound of ice on the cart, a mythic
monster trapped on an iceberg. Each of its claws was bigger than both my fists
together. A white, serrated, almost tooth-like structure flowed into a red, orange
color in the claw that melted into the bluish, green-brown shell of the lobster. This
all turned bright red in a pot of boiling water.
Papou told me that it was a Papou lobster, an old, old man of the sea. I felt sorry
for him on his mound of ice, moving down the street toward his end as a
magnificent meal. At the same time, I wished he were going to be on our table.
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Other carts came down Ovington Avenue. Among them were those pushed by
ragged men who from time to time collected newspapers. They sold these to a
scrap buyer around the block on Sixty-ninth Street, next to the garage-and-filling
station, walked half a block to the liquor store soon to emerge with brown paper
bags. They hurried off down Third Avenue out of our sight and thought. Later,
when I was ten, eleven, and twelve years old, I went into competitive business
with these poor men. There was no pity from boys wanting to raise money for
comic books and the movies.
The Shooting Gallery
The boy from Mavrovo lived ever inside the man who was my father. His love of
guns and shooting was never satisfied, and he remembered wistfully the muzzleloading pistol of his youth. He carried it illegally in his waistband, just as the
klefts did in the mountains surrounding Kastoria. Among these bandit klefts were
some of the most romantic figures of the Macedonian people, at best equivalent to
Robin Hood and at worst, Billy the Kid. While they usually concentrated their
brigandage on Turkish towns and caravans, they were often indiscriminate about
whom they robbed.
Dad read about a design for a home target range in a hunting magazine. Following
its directions, he purchased an eighteen-inch square piece of quarter-inch steel
plate. This he placed at a downward sloping angle behind three or four inches of
wood in a sandbox. He set his construction at end of the basement closest to the
cellar door that led to the garden and pinned concentric circled targets on it.
We shot at the targets with my Remington .22 caliber rifle from just under the
electric panel, a distance of about fifty feet. In the confined space, the little .22
sounded like an elephant gun. While acrid smoke filled the cellar, we kept
shooting until my mother’ s voice called down the steps, “ Jimmy, arketa
[enough]! Open the cellar door and air the place out!”
Shooting holes through the middle of pennies and dimes was the greatest
challenge Dad set for me. We wasted many small coins in practice.
Dad’ s pride and joy was a homemade, muzzle-loaded gun. It was designed like
the .22 caliber zip guns used by street gangs in New York during the late 1940s
and 1950s. They typically consisted of a two- to three-inch length of small-sized
pipe set in a wooden handle with a spring or rubber band loaded firing pin. Dad
made his from the casing of a .50 caliber WW II machine-gun bullet, which he
strapped into a carved-out notch in a wood block that looked like a miniature
cannon carriage. He punched a tiny opening into the back end of the shell casing
to use as a firing hole.
Dad filled the “ barrel” with black gunpowder using rifle bore cleaning pads to
ram down the charge. Then, he loaded BB pellets into the casing as shot. Once
ready, he sprinkled a little powder on the firing hole, pointed the baby cannon at
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the target, and lit the powder with a match. First, there was a flash, then, a
“ woompff” as the little cannon jumped and belched a cloud of black smoke before
it. The BBs made a smacking sound as they hit the paper target. Dad’ s face was
one big smile.
It amazes me that my sober, serious, responsible, and conservative father could
behave so much like a boy around guns, gunpowder, and fireworks.
Coney Island — Sheepshead Bay
Once or twice each year, in the spring or fall, memories of the Black and
Tyrrhenian Seas brought visions of glistening black mussels to Mom and Papou,
respectively. The recollection of the briny smell of the sea quickly gave way to an
image of a heaping dish of the black-shelled delicacies stuffed and steaming in a
serving bowl. It was then that Papou would announce to Nitsa and me, “ We go
Ships-a-hedda-bay!”
The first time he took us with him was in 1939 or 1940, when he still lived with
us. After he moved to Bay Fourteenth Street, Papou came early in the morning,
and had breakfast with us before we left the house, Nitsa and I on either side of
him, each holding his hand as went out the door to begin our adventure. We
walked to the corner, turned left on Third Avenue, continued one block further,
and boarded the Sixty-ninth Street trolley.
Trolleys were long, red cars, some with well-varnished wooden seats running
along their length, others with wicker seats facing frontward and backward. [See
Photo 48.] A pole connected the trolley to the electric power line that hung over
the street. Shiny rails that marked the route guided the trolley’ s steel wheels
through Brooklyn’ s ethnic neighborhoods. The conductor’ s function was to start
and stop the trolley, collect fares, and ring the warning bell. Poles and hanging
straps afforded security for standing passengers; early on Saturday morning there
were none. We had the trolley almost to ourselves.
It was a long trip taking an hour or more to reach Coney Island’ s beach and
boardwalk with its rides, sideshows, and hot dog stands. To keep us entertained
along the way, Papou told us stories, pointed out people, stores, and new cars, and
asked us what we wanted to do when we reached the wonderland. The trolley’ s
wheels generated a rhythmic thump, thump, thump as they crossed over the
expansion joints between rail sections. The occasional “ cling-clang” of the
trolley’ s warning bells turned our heads to see what danger was being avoided.
Push carts, pedestrians, and automobiles cleared the way before us.
When we reached Coney Island, its sights and smells bombarded our senses. Nitsa
wanted to ride the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster. Papou would leave me with
the ride’ s gatekeeper and I watched as he and Nitsa climb into the cars and hurtled
into space. The sight and screams of those rides scared me so much that I never
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Photo 46
Jim m y, Lou ie, N itsa, Jason & Lily
Carelas’ Farm 1937
Photo 47
The Brooklyn Brid ge
Photo 48
Typ ical N ew York City Trolley Car
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climbed into a seat. Nitsa would return with delight, and Papou would be smiling
and laughing with her.
My less daring choices were bumper cars and boats, the merry-go-round, and an
obstacle course of a ride that had us careening down a slide that had many turns
and corners, and then crawling through a cylinder that revolved on its side. The
bumper boats and cars gave me a great sense of control and authority. I loved to
smash into Papou and Nitsa.
Hot dogs and soda pops at Nathan’ s followed. I smothered my hot dog with
sauerkraut, relish, and mustard. Sometimes I had cotton candy. Nitsa always
opted for ice cream. Papou enjoyed a tall stein of beer with his hot dog.
Hunger satisfied, we got back on the trolley for the ride past Brighton Beach and
Manhattan Beach to Sheepshead Bay. It was a two- or three-block walk from the
final trolley stop to the bay, its boats, and the fish markets that Papou favored.
While the fish Mom and Papou bought at Cosentino’ s Fish Market on Third
Avenue, just off Ovington, were always fresh, nothing satisfied Papou more than
the fish at these Sheepshead Bay markets. Perhaps it reminded him of the life he
knew as a child in Italy.
He bought as much fish as we three could carry, making his selections after a long
conversation with the old Italian owner about what was available, close
examination of each fish, including its eyes, and some poking and pressing as he
tested the firmness of the flesh of the fish he chose. My bag was always the one
filled with the prized, shiny-black, seaweed-covered, sea- and salty-smelling
mussels. The fishmonger packed them in a net bag that contained wet seaweed,
then in two or three additional paper bags.
Large cod and bass heads filled one of the other bags. These were used to make a
wonderful fish soup that, with meat from the cheeks of the fish heads, onions,
potatoes, celery, tomatoes, carrots, and herbs, was almost a stew. Warm, crusty
bread soaked in the broth was delicious.
The other bag held sea bass, blue fish, flounder, cod, or mackerel. Sometimes
Papou would buy two or three varieties of fish. Always, on top, there was a bag
filled with fresh fish roe and liver.
Burdened with our sea treasures we walked to the trolley stop, boarded our
transport, and started the long trip home. With the bags wedged between our legs
and the lower part of our seats, Nitsa and I, on either side of Papou, drifted into a
sleep induced by the trolley’ s constant thump, thump, thump. He cradled us in his
arms until we returned to Sixty-ninth Street and Third Avenue. We arrived home
exhausted but eager to tell Mom of our adventures and to show her the contents of
the bags we carried.
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Mom immediately washed the fish heads and put them into a pot on the stove
with water, wine, and herbs. They simmered slowly to become a wonderful stock
and soup. The fish, washed, went into the refrigerator for the night. Mom emptied
the mussels into a large steel bowl filled with cold water and a handful of rock
salt. She stirred the mussels round and round in the bowl and left them for half an
hour. She said this bath revived them.
Gently Mom washed the fish roe and liver, patted them dry and placed them in a
bowl and into the refrigerator. She then turned her attention to the mussels. I often
helped in scrubbing them and in removing their “ whiskers” , the vegetation that a
mussel uses to adhere itself to the rocks on which it lives. She showed me that I
could not open a live mussel by twisting its shell. We discarded any mussel not
tightly closed.
A huge kettle held the mussels with onions and white rice previously sautéed in
olive oil, crushed fresh tomatoes, toasted pignoli nuts, and currant raisins. White
wine, water, a little chopped fresh dill, salt, and pepper were the final ingredients.
After she set the mussels and rice to a simmer, Mom prepared a salad and took the
roe and liver from the refrigerator. These she sautéed in butter, olive oil, and
oregano, with a little black pepper, and finished in a generous bath of lemon juice.
Dinner was ready. By now, Dad had returned from his Saturday work in the fur
market. He, Papou, Nitsa, Mom, and I, with the guest or guests of the day (there
were frequently unannounced friends for dinner) would sit down to the feast.
Salad, sautéed roes and livers, mussels that had stuffed themselves with the rice
mixture as they opened and cooked, crusty warm bread, olives, cheese, and
Papou'
s dry wine or Retsina imported from Greece were a festive climax to a
wonderful day. We were at the shores of the Black and the Tyrrhenian Seas.
Sledding in Owl’ s Head Park
A "Red Flyer" sled with ribbons and bows and a card with my name on it sat
under the Christmas tree the morning of 25 December 1940. I was approaching
my seventh birthday and more than ready for the excitement the sled promised.
But, there was no snow!
Days passed before a heavy gray sky emptied several inches of white powder on
the streets, cars, and houses of Bay Ridge. Best of all, it happened on a weekend,
so Papou was ready and available to take us to the park. Nitsa and I ate a
steaming breakfast and were then dressed in pants and sweaters, stuffed into
snowsuits, and outfitted with hats, gloves, mufflers, and boots. Barely able to
walk in our layers of clothing, we went out the door, Papou carrying the sled.
Owl’ s Head Park is close to Lower New York Bay at the foot of Sixty-eighth
Street. Before the Second World War, there were still hulks of old wooden ships
visible at the shoreline. These provided the stage for our pirate fantasies in 1940
and 1941, before the military built screening walls all around the shoreline to
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prevent peering eyes from seeing the ships massing for their run out the Narrows
of New York’ s lower bay and into the Atlantic. Signs proclaiming “ Loose Lips
Sink Ships” covered the fences.
In late December of 1940, Owl’ s Head Park represented something entirely
different for me. It was a place high in a remote mountain valley in Alaska. In my
imagination, Papou turned into a team of huskies as he pulled Nitsa and me
through the snow on our new sled, bumping over curbs and crashing through
man-made drifts on our long trek.
At last, we came to the park and its first gentle slope. Nitsa and I took turns on
the sled learning how to maneuver it with our feet when sitting up and with our
hands when lying on our stomachs, heads tilted up to see ahead. Sometimes, we
rode together with either Nitsa or me lying on top of the other, or sitting one
behind the other with Papou running alongside to encourage us.
After pleading with Papou several times, he took us to the steeper hill, the big
hill, the one that really counted. There were eight- and ten-year-olds on this hill.
Nitsa went first. She ably guided the sled down the slope with cheers from Papou
and me. She almost ran back up the hill pulling the sled and screaming her
delight. I could not wait for my turn.
I decided to sit on the sled. Steering with my feet was easier than with my hands
and sitting gave me more visibility and confidence. Papou started me off with a
gentle push. As it moved down the hill, the sled gained speed at a rate that first
surprised, then petrified me. Frozen motionless on the sled I watched the trees at
the bottom of the hill rush up at me. The biggest tree was in the middle, and I hit
it head-on, or more specifically, nose-on. It broke — my nose, not the tree — and
blood gushed out all over me and the snow.
The next thing I knew I was in Papou’ s arms. Then, almost miraculously, I was in
our kitchen at home lying on the table with an ice pack on my face. Poor Papou
sat there accepting the blame and taking the verbal punishment from Mom. Still,
he was the best Papou in the world. Broken nose or not, I went down the big hill!
Sunday Dinner, Bocce, Pizza, and Spies
One or two years before the start of the Second World War, Papou married Adela.
She was a big woman from Naples, Italy. Not fat — big. She was tall, broadshouldered, huge faced, and with ear lobes that under the weight of massive
earrings fell almost to her shoulders. The holes pierced in her ears when she was
child had become long slits, the effect being reminiscent of the ears, necks, noses
and other body parts that are disfigured by some cultures to attain a valued
aesthetic.
Adela’ s voice matched her physique, big and authoritative. Words sometimes
exploded out of her.
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Once married to Adela, Papou left our home on Ovington Avenue and moved to
Bay Fourteenth Street in the Bath Beach District of Brooklyn. The treasured wine
press and barrels, still, hydrometer, and bottles went with him.
Their home had a red-brick facing and was on the east side of the street, just a city
block or two from the shore of Lower New York Bay. The main floor consisted of
an entry, living room, dining room, and kitchen. A stair immediately to the right
of the entry door led to two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. The
basement, converted into a small restaurant-sized dining room, held one large
table capable of seating twenty. A second kitchen and a storage facility completed
the basement. Papou grew tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and other table greens
in a small garden.
Adela furnished her home in the style of late nineteenth century Naples with
exotic influences of the mysterious Middle East, Sicily, and Calabria. The
furniture was massive, of dark wood, and where upholstered, covered with richlycolored, heavily-textured brocades. The lamps were colorful, several having
beaded skirts decorating their shades. Nondescript framed prints of Italy and its
classical history covered the walls. There were deep red and green glass ashtrays
and candy dishes. Ceramic pastoral figurines of peasant girls and boys seemed
playful on the end tables and the coffee table in the living room.
Adela was a sewing machine operator in the garment industry. She would not
work for anyone as a salaried employee, preferring to capitalize on her skill and
speed at piecework. Unions had no friend in her. She could out earn most anyone
at a sewing machine and loved the challenge of doing so. “ Ma, sur-a,” she would
say, “ I make-a lot-a mon, an-a I buy-a da-best-a.” If there were anything she
bought that was the best, it was the food for her table.
Adela did not serve a dinner, a meal, a lunch, a snack, or anything other than a
banquet. As a child, I loved to have dinner at Papou and Adela’ s home. And, as a
teen-ager, I met her every challenge and ate enthusiastically. In my teen years and
as a young adult, I remember being at her table with Jimmy and Anesti Zelios, my
mother’ s and Papou’ s godchildren. My friend Don Kaye, my brother-in-law, Stan
Avitabile, and many others enjoyed Adela’ s hospitality with me. At such times,
she was in her glory, for she loved young men, loved to cook for young men, and
knew how to cook only in great quantity.
The only person I knew that did not love to eat at Adela’ s table was my father,
whose tender stomach could not tolerate heavy tomato sauces or garlic.
Her dinners would start with a tasty appetizer. The one I loved most was a deepfried rice ball stuffed with cheese and served swimming in a marinara sauce. She
served soup next, not a clear broth, but hearty minestrone or a soup of beef and
pasta. Then came pasta — ravioli, spaghetti or lasagna — in a meat sauce or
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accompanied by wonderfully stuffed bracciole or sausage. Papou ate an amazing
bowl, not dish, but bowl of pasta. He was a small man with an enormous capacity.
Most appetites were, by now, fully satisfied, and if it was their first dinner at
Papou and Adela’ s, guests thought the dinner over. Not so! The next course was a
refreshing salad, perhaps with anchovies or sardines, and a liberal amount of
minced garlic. And, then she served the main course: roast lamb, beef or chicken,
with potatoes and vegetables.
The dinner dishes cleared, Adela presented a bowl of fresh apples and pears,
another filled with nuts, and a tray of two or three cheeses. We pared and cut the
fruit into pieces to marinate in our wine glasses. When it had taken on enough
flavor, the fruit joined cracked nuts and cheese on our plates. These we ate slowly
with bread and conversation.
Sated, we sat in the living room to rest, went for a walk along the waterfront or
found a corner to take a nap. When an hour or two had passed and Adela had the
kitchen in order, it was time for dessert and coffee. Papou usually bought
wonderful Italian pastries from a local store: cannoli [a shell stuffed with sweet
ricotta and chocolate custard], pasticciotti [lemon custard filled tart] and Papou’ s
favorite, Rum Baba [sponge cake saturated with rum and topped with vanilla
custard], and more. The coffee was espresso. With it, Papou served his sweet
muscatel and home made brandy.
Shortly after Papou moved, he took Nitsa and me to the Italian Club that was
housed in a huge old Victorian mansion just a block or two away from his new
home. There he introduced us to bocce and pizza.
For an hour or so, the serious competitors permitted our Papou to monopolize one
of the bocce pits while he showed us how to play the game. We were novices not
only at pitching the heavy ball with purpose (ours was simply to smash other
balls), but at the eccentric poses and dramatic exclamations that seemed to be a
necessary part of the game. The men playing in the neighboring pits were
passionate about bocce.
When Papou thought we had played enough, he took us to a table on the
expansive porch that surrounded most of the aged mansion. Paint peeled from its
window frames and exterior walls like bark shedding from a tree. A waiter took
Papou’ s order and in a few minutes we each had an aromatic slice of something
called “ pizza” and a glass of Coca-Cola in front of us. Papou had beer. The
cheesy, tomato-covered slice, fragrant with oregano, was one of the great early
experiences of my life.
One Sunday in 1943, Papou and Adela had Papou’ s nephew with his wife and
young son visiting from Glens Falls. The boy was about my age, eight or nine.
After dinner, he and I went on a walk along the shore. It was cold and blustery
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with good-sized waves smashing against the rocks below the paved path that ran
along the water. This section of Lower New York Bay coast faced almost directly
to sea, so unlike the coast of the inner bay, there was no security fence to prevent
looking out to the horizon. The security fences installed during the war along the
shore of the upper Bay, past the Narrows between Bay Ridge and Staten Island,
prevented anyone from easily counting ships as they assembled to form the
convoys headed for Europe or from seeing them as they left.
We climbed over the guardrail fence and down onto the rocks, challenging the
waves and tempting fate while we searched the debris that washed up onto the
rocks for treasure. What we found was a poplin life jacket, one we were sure a
German spy had worn as he swam from a submarine to the shore. Our
imaginations ran wild. We had to find the police, get to the FBI, and warn the
country. We took turns dragging the water-soaked life preserver through the
streets while asking passers-by where the police station was.
Wandering at least one mile to the Eighty-sixth Street Precinct Police Station, we
pulled the life preserver up the steps into the station and across the tiled lobby
floor to the sergeant’ s desk. Breathless, we told him about the German spy and
showed him our evidence.
“ Get that damn thing out of here!” was the only response we heard. Frightened
and confused, we dragged our evidence out of the station and down its steps,
leaving it at the curb. We ran most of the way back to Papou’ s.
“ Where-a-you-a-been?” Papou asked, “ You-a-late!” We did not answer him, my
Mom, or Dad. Shrugging our shoulders we made for the dining room table and the
mountain of cannoli, cookies and cakes that awaited us.
Scrambled Eggs
Between the ages of seven and nine, I was a sickly boy, suffering from intestinal
problems of vague and uncertain origin. Dr. DeTata ordered that I be kept home
from school for one year. My appetite had vanished and even the best of my
mother’ s extraordinary cooking did not tempt me. Even worse, I was denied my
staple food, Ebinger’ s hard icing, chocolate cream-filled layer cake. Poor Mom,
frustrated by her inability to create meals that would generate an enthusiastic
response from me, lamented the dark circles under my eyes and my skinny body.
One rainy Saturday morning in March, Papou came to watch over me while Mom
had her hair done and she and Nitsa went to downtown Brooklyn to shop at
Namm’ s Department Store. It was early March, and I was looking forward to my
ninth birthday.
Just after Mom and Nitsa left the house, Papou asked me what I had eaten for
breakfast. Not happy with the response, he said, “ I fix-a you some-a egg.” I was
not enthusiastic but enjoyed sitting at the table in our large, warm, and well-lit
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kitchen while rain made chattering noise against the windows. Papou assembled
the frying pan, mixing bowl, butter, eggs, bread, quince preserves, and a chunk of
white feta cheese.
After cracking two eggs and plopping them into a bowl, he came to the table to
show me how much fresh black pepper and crumbled feta cheese to add to the
mixture. Then, he demonstrated how to use the hand whisk to beat the egg and
cheese mixture until it was frothy and filled with air, while saying, “ do-a like-a
dis.” The frying pan already on the range had a generous dollop of butter slowly
melting on its bottom. “ Not-a too-a hot,” he cautioned. “ Slow-a cook, mix all-a
time.” His phrasing and articulation were not slow. In fact, he spoke quickly,
quietly, and calmly. He never intimidated me.
The eggs cooked slowly, very slowly, endlessly. As he stirred them continually
with a wooden cooking fork, his hands deftly put bread in the toaster. He let me
turn the toast because it was like playing with a toy.
Our modern 1940 toaster glowed red-hot. Toasting required two steps. After the
first side of the bread toasted, it was time to flip the bread to toast the other side.
One did this by pulling the top of the hatch door-like side outward. It rotated
down to table level, allowing the toast to slip down onto the toaster door, cooked
side out. When the door closed, the untoasted side faced the hot elements. It
worked every time.
Meanwhile, the eggs in the frying pan set into soft curds, Papou’ s hand never
ceasing its gentle stirring. Finally, he announced: “ Dey-a-don.” He buttered the
slices of toast, spread a generous layer of quince preserves on them, and served
the eggs and toast to me on a warm plate. We sat down, and he encouraged me to
take a bite.
Miracle cure!
They were wonderful, delicious, and I ate everything on my plate, the eggs and
the toast. Papou glowed.
When Mom returned I greeted with her with the news. “ I ate all the eggs!” She
asked Papou what the excitement was all about, and he told her how I loved his
scrambled eggs. She frowned. She was, for an instant hurt that I had eaten
Papou’ s cooking and not hers. But, that passed as she realized that her son had
eaten food with enjoyment. Her feelings were totally resolved when as she saw
me eating more and more of her wonderfully prepared meals.
I never forgot how to make Papou’ s scrambled eggs.
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Mozzarella for Lily
Though a stepfather, Papou adored Lily and did for her everything a caring father
would do for his child. One of the more simple and thoughtful expressions of his
feelings was the occasional delivery of fresh mozzarella procured from an Italian
cheese factory somewhere on Sixteenth Avenue between Fifty-ninth and Sixtyninth Streets. This Italian neighborhood was where our family doctor, Ettore De
Tata, lived and practiced.
The neighborhood provided most everything available from Italy or prepared for
Italian kitchens whether fresh, dried, canned, or preserved. The cheese factory
was one of the few local sources of fresh mozzarella, a delicately flavored, soft
cheese that had not attained the rubbery texture of its mature state. Lily lavished
this on warm Italian bread or fried under eggs swimming in butter. It lasted only
for as long as it was fresh, perhaps two days.
Papou went to Sixteenth Avenue on the Saturdays he was not at work. He filled
bags with fresh Italian bread, capocollo, salami, provolone, olives, hot pickled
cherry tomatoes stuffed with anchovy paste, bread, sardines, and whatever else he
relished. These would compete with the Greek delicacies brought by my father
from Eighth Avenue in Manhattan: feta, kasseri, kefaloteri, sardeles, elies
[olives], tsiri, tarama, lakerda, and the myriad other foods that made our home
like one of a Mediterranean village but set in Brooklyn.
Sometime before noon on Saturday, Papou would return from his shopping spree
and place the two large bags he carried on our kitchen table. With a smile that
creased the corners of his eyes, he would fish out the package of cheese and hand
it to my mother. I do not remember her ever hugging or kissing Papou, but her
acceptance of the cheese was an embrace between them.
Dresses from Papou
After working closely with Eleni in the 1920s Louie found employment during
the Depression first with Brooks Brothers as a tailor, and later with Junior Miss as
a dressmaker. By the time my sister was ten or twelve, Leonardo was well
established at Junior Miss, working closely with my mother’ s cousin Christos
Capidaglis. He was a prominent designer known in the business as “ Capi.”
At seasonal changes, at birthdays, and prior to special social events, Papou would
appear at our front door late on a Saturday afternoon burdened with an armful of
dresses, skirts, and blouses for my sister and mother. Nitsa and Mom would try on
one garment after another while my mother and Papou marked them with tailor’ s
chalk and pinned hems, waistlines, and bust lines for later correction.
Nitsa and I had both learned to mark, to pin, to cut with scissors and pinking
shears, to hem, to sew, and to press. Everyone in our home knew and practiced
these skills. So, for several days we all worked on the garments until mother and
Nitsa had their new fashions ready to wear.
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This went on even after Nitsa was married to Stanton H. Avitabile. While he was
a medical student, they lived in a small apartment in the East Seventies near New
York Medical Center’ s Cornell Medical School. Because their small apartment
had little closet space, I would transport and exchange a carload of her wardrobe
when the seasons changed. There were often new dresses from Papou in the
delivery.
In Louie’ s case, the old adage about the shoemaker’ s children did not apply. His
children and grandchildren, though not of his blood, had the best that he could
provide.
It’ s-A-Horse-A-Toot!
In the summers of the late 1940s Mom and Dad rented a cabin at Dover, New
Jersey, in a lakeside, vacation community. Mom and Nitsa spent July and August
there while I was at Boy Scout Troop 123s Camp Waramaug at Ten Mile River,
New York. Dad would arrive at the cabin late on Friday evenings after leaving the
steaming-hot streets of the Seventh Avenue fur market in Manhattan.
On many Saturday mornings, Mom, Dad, and my sister would drive along the
Delaware River through Port Jervis, New York, to Narrowsburg, Ten Mile River,
and the camp. Dad was both an interested parent and a member of the Board that
was responsible for the camp and its boys. When they arrived, the trunk of the
green 1946 Hudson usually was filled with watermelon, corn, and other treats for
all. [See Photo 49.]
On the final Sunday morning of August in 1950, the last year that I was at the
camp as its cook, Dad came to take my friends and me to Dover. That night, they
would go on with him to Brooklyn. I was to spend the week with Mom and Nitsa
at the cabin before I started my senior year in high school.
We arrived at noon just in time for lunch. Mom and Nitsa were waiting, as were
family friends and Dover neighbors George and Pearl Gigiakos, their daughter,
Catherine, and Papou and Adela.
Mom came to the door of her cabin immediately on hearing the boisterous sounds
of hungry teenagers. There was no sound sweeter to her ears. There were kisses,
hugs, and hurried instructions to start the barbecue, set the tables, toss the salad,
and do all the other things necessary for a picnic.
While these preparations were being made, my friends Dick Stillwell, Ron Moss,
Don Kaye, Frank Johnston, Warner Shattuck, and I walked to the lake with Nitsa,
Catherine, and two other of Nitsa’ s girl friends. We rode the carousel, jumping
from animal to animal and reaching far out to reach for the brass rings. When one
of us was successful, the hero was lauded with shouts and whistles.
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Photo 49
Lily, Jason, Jim m y
Cam p Waram au g 1947
Photo 50
Photo 51
Jason and H elene
Jason’s 8th Grad e Grad u ation
1948
H elene’s College Grad u ation
(Wearing Phi Beta Kap p a Key)
1950
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After ten weeks at rustic Camp Waramaug [no electricity, no telephone] we
thought ourselves as members of lost battalion returned from the rigors of the
“ front” and were eager to make an impression on the young women. I doubt that
we did, except as rowdy teenagers.
When we returned to the cabin, hamburgers and hot dogs were sizzling on the
barbecue. The picnic tables — there were two set under the trees — were loaded
with platters of hot dogs, hamburgers, and cold fried chicken, bowls of macaroni
salad, potato chips, roast peppers, mixed green salad, and coleslaw, cheese and
olives, hot dog and hamburger buns, soft drinks, beer, and wine, jars of
condiments — pickles, mustard, mayonnaise, relish, and catsup, a mountain of
steaming golden corn dripping with hot butter, and desserts — Ebinger'
s apple pie
and chocolate cake. We made my mother smile. Starved savages, we each
devoured two or more hamburgers and two or more hot dogs, a breast or leg of
chicken, and one or more generous portions of everything else on the table.
Temporarily satisfied, we lay down under the trees while waiting for our
stomachs to make room for dessert. Frank Johnson, a wiry, short, and olive
skinned Norwegian-American (about half of us were still hyphenated) with very
white teeth stretched, got up, and walked around the cabins kicking at small
stones and clumps of grass that were in his path. In a few minutes he came back to
show us an enormous molar that he had taken from a horse or cow jaw he had
found behind one of the cabins. Popping it in his mouth he stumbled to the table
where my grandfather and Adela were seated, groaned, and spat the tooth out onto
the table moaning, "My tooth, my tooth!"
Adela, startled, looked at the tooth and picked it up in her fingers. She scowled
and declared authoritatively: "Dat’ s-a-not-a-you-a-toot. It’ s-a-horse-a-toot!" We
all burst out laughing. We never forgot the picnic, and "It'
s a-horse-a-toot!"
Piano Lessons
Miss Morrow taught an elementary music class at our school and recruited private
piano students from her first and second grade students. Nitsa and I studied with
her for several years.
She was a middle-aged spinster who lived with her brother and a German
shepherd in a first floor apartment dominated by the 5'6" grand piano that filled
her living room. It was in this room and on that piano that her students performed
in the annual recital.
Parents jammed the living room and its adjoining dining room in tightly placed,
folding chairs. It was usually hot with the proud recital-goers discomfort
minimally relieved by the cross ventilation of an open front door and raised
windows. Miss Morrow must have made some appeasing gestures to neighbors
for her annual intrusion on their otherwise peaceful existences. In the hallway that
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led to the apartment’ s bedrooms, we students waited nervously standing or
squatting in the order that we were to perform.
Nitsa and I usually took our lessons on the same afternoon, Friday, between 3:30
and 4:30. Nitsa had her lesson first while I took the German shepherd for a walk.
I hated that dog! Winter and summer, sunshine and rain, often in the snow, I
walked that dog to the empty lot around the corner hoping that it would take care
of its needs. Miss Morrow invariably asked, “ Did he do his business?” just as I sat
at the piano for my lesson.
During my lesson, I would sometimes hear footsteps in the hallway, murmuring
directed at the dog, and perhaps a noise in the kitchen. I knew it was Miss
Morrow’ s brother but felt threatened nonetheless. He was a mystery. Neither my
sister nor I ever saw him. We knew he was back there only because we heard him.
I was not a good student. I could learn enough by practicing — just enough — to
keep Miss Morrow from complaining to my mother. Perhaps my time with the
dog won me mercy. At recitals, I would make a run for the door just as my name
was called, then dash down the street and wait for my mother, father, and sister to
come out from the recital when it was over. Mom and Dad never chastised me for
my stage fright, perhaps because of their satisfaction with Nitsa, who was Miss
Morrow’ s best student and an excellent pianist.
I continued to take lessons until the age of twelve when I became active in the
Boy Scouts and the teenage organizations at Bay Ridge’ s Christ Church. After
that, I had no time for lessons but I played popular music from Broadway shows
for my own enjoyment. It never occurred to me to play for others. Basketball and
other sports seemed to be the way to recognition and success, especially with
teenage girls.
Then, one Sunday afternoon, I happened to sit at a piano in a dark corner of a
local church. I played some tunes softly while waiting for friends to finish their
participation in a meeting. As I played, a girl peeked through the door and walked
quietly to the piano. Within minutes there were four or five girls standing around
me asking for a song from this or that show. Suddenly I, a total failure on the
basketball court, was a complete success with these lovely girls. Music became a
passion and I started to take lessons again.
Books
I discovered books on one warm spring Friday afternoon. I was walking home
along Ridge Boulevard following my piano lesson at Miss Morrow’ s apartment
on Seventy-fifth Street.
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As I crossed Seventy-third Street, I noticed a slight, gray-haired woman standing
at the entrance to a building I had passed too many times to count. She smiled and
beckoned to me to come closer.
“ Hello,” she said. “ Would you like to see the library?”
Intensive training governed my behavior. Extending courtesy to women,
especially to older women, was high on the list of the expectations my mother
made clear to me at a very early age. So, I walked to the bottom of the steps
leading to the door of the building, and at her silent urging climbed the steps and
entered. As I passed through the door I saw a large counter immediately in front
of me. The floors were of two-inch-wide wood strips, grayed by age and wear. To
my left and right there were rooms filled with row after row of bookshelves. To
the right of the counter, stairs lead to a second floor.
The woman guided me up the stairs to a large room. It included a small section
with low shelves filled with books, and furnished with low tables and short chairs.
A larger section of the second floor contained normally sized tables and chairs,
tall bookshelves, a counter, and a desk. Books on music and art were in this larger
section.
“ Do you like adventure stories?” she asked. “ Look at these books,” she said
pointing to a bookcase with three or four low shelves. “ Pick a book and bring it to
the desk.” She sat behind the desk and busied herself with books and papers.
I watched other children taking books from shelves, browsing through the pages,
and returning them to their place. I did the same and came upon a book with a
blue jacket. On its cover was a drawing of a huge, four-engine bomber pursued by
fighter planes. The title was, Stratosphere Jim and his Flying Fortress. I opened
the book and read the first page; it was a story.1
Timidly, I took the book to the woman at the desk. She smiled, asked my name,
and whether I knew my address. I did. She wrote my name, address, and other
words on two cards. One she kept and the other she handed to me while she
quietly said: “ This is your library card. Bring it whenever you come to the library
and borrow books you would like to read. You must return them in two weeks.
Do you understand?” I thought I did, mostly.
She stamped the due date on a card in the back of my book, explaining that it was
the date the book was to be returned. I was a little confused, did not thank her as I
left, and was not completely sure about the arrangement.
1
In March 2000, I purchased a good copy of Stratosphere Jim and his Flying Fortress
copyrighted in 1941, from a used bookstore in Tyler, Texas. The authors’ names are
Oscar Lebeck and Gaylord Dubois. The book has a proud place in my library.
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With the book under my arm, I continued on to meet Mom at Thea Anastasia’ s
apartment where she was visiting for afternoon coffee. On arrival, I kissed and
was kissed by the ladies present, given cookies on a plate, and a glass of cold
water flavored with a tablespoon full of dark, sweet cherry preserves, and allowed
to sit in Jimmy and Anesti’ s room at the back of the apartment. Once comfortable,
I opened Stratosphere Jim and entered the world of reading.
What an adventure. The story was about a secret cave in the Rockies that hid
development of a super bomber that Jim used to conquer evil. It was actionpacked and exciting. I read for an hour until Mom collected me to walk home. I
read before dinner and after dinner and finished the book before I went to sleep.
The next morning, Saturday, I asked my mother if I could go to the library. I told
her about my experience at the library the previous afternoon. She gave her
approval and off I went. By noon, I returned home with three books, the
maximum permitted, and began my exploration of the worlds opened to me the
previous day.
By the time I was twelve, I had read everything that interested me on the second
floor, the children’ s floor, and under the supervision of the librarians, began to
take books they approved for me out of the adult section on the first floor. At
thirteen, I was allowed to select any book I wanted from the first floor. The
librarian had spoken to my mother on the telephone and received permission for
the library to let me make my own selections.
Historical novels were my first interest. Then, I found books and plays of social
commentary. These provided a mountain of ammunition to attack the status quo,
and lots of air to inflate my sense of moral indignation. I must have been
insufferable, especially to my conservative father. He listened to my ranting about
the ills of the world that he and his generation perpetuated as we drove to and
from hunting weekends.
The Bay Ridge Public Library is still located at the corner of Seventy-third Street
and Ridge Boulevard, opposite the lawn of Christ Church. The old building is
gone, replaced by a modern facility. No matter. I can still see the red brick, the
steps, and the gray-haired lady beckoning me to come in.
Pennies
Visiting my godfather’ s shop in the fur market was always a treat. He had entered
business for himself after leaving the partnership with my Dad at the start of the
Depression. My Nouno was a salesman, not a designer, matcher, cutter, or
operator. He performed some simple manufacturing tasks, repairing a skin in a
garment or a silk lining. His forte was catering to the vanity of the women who
came to his shop to buy furs wholesale. Many, if not most, of his customers came
from the contacts that his brother-in-law, Uncle Louis, provided: rich insurance
clients, executives of Metropolitan Life, and their friends.
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The shop, located in one of the typically dingy buildings that served fur
manufacturers, was relatively small. It had a solid front door with a second, wirescreen door that one could pass through only if “ buzzed in.” His showroom had a
set of sofas that curved cocktail lounge-like around a formica-top table. One
three- way mirror allowed eager customers to admire themselves in mink, fox,
ermine, Persian lamb, or if Nouno was really lucky, Russian sable. No woman’ s
fur-draped figure was denied exuberant praise.
A walk-in vault contained countless coats, stoles, and jackets of all kinds. I liked
to go into the vault and bury myself in the soft warmth. In the small shop there
were: a matching and cutting table, perhaps fifteen feet long; three or four sewing
machines; two tumblers for cleaning furs; and, a four-by-six-foot wooden frame
that held nailing boards. Nouno sometimes had contract workers in the shop. Most
often it was empty, except for George Gigiakos, a burly, big-faced Greek from
Larissa, who looked always surprised or confused. He subleased space to nail
garments to patterns as a non-union subcontractor and performed some work for
Nouno, too. Occasionally, my Dad used the shop for his independent projects. In
the late 1940s, Dad left Fierstein & Fierstein and struck out on his own, again
sharing Nouno’s shop with him.
My godmother Rose came to the market two days each week to keep Nouno’s
books and to venture out to mid-town to shop and visit. I remember them pouring
over the financial pages of The New York Times, checking their fortunes in the
stock market.
When I visited the shop, I often had lunch with Nouno. Sometimes Dad would
join us with two or three other friends. Nouno sent me to a deli on the corner of
Twenty-eighth Street and Eighth Avenue where sandwiches stuffed with selected
cold cuts and provolone, and topped with sweet red peppers, olive oil and
pepperocini were made on whole or half loaves of Italian bread. Each day the deli
made literally hundred of sandwiches for delivery to the fur shops in the area. We
would sit around the showroom table and enjoy the sandwiches, pickles, olives,
beer (for the men), Coca-Cola (for me), and coffee.
Nouno always tasked me to clean the shop for him. I swept the floors and the area
around the sewing machines, organized the patterns on their wall pegs, and
cleaned out the fur tumblers. For my efforts, I received pay: perhaps a quarter, or
if I also cleaned the showroom, a half dollar.
Once when I was eight or nine years, old I had finished my work and was waiting
for my father to arrive. We were going to the Catskills for a weekend of shooting
woodchucks and crows, and for the annual lamb roast. Passing the time, I stepped
out onto the fire escape landing ten stories above the back alleys below and
searched the rooftops and windows for anything of interest. In the summer, I
sometimes spotted young women sunbathing on a rooftop!
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My fingers touched the small coins that were in my pocket. I took them out to
count. Among the coins that made up my wealth were several pennies. I took one,
held it out over the railing, and let it slip through my fingers. It fell so quickly that
I lost sight of it before it hit the ground. So, I tried another, and another, and
another. Then, I heard my Nouno’ s voice behind me. He said something like,
“ You are so rich that you can throw money away?” That is all he said, ever, about
what I was doing.
I was ashamed. Nouno did not approve, and I felt that I had disappointed him.
From that day on, I picked up every penny I ever found in the street and always
thought, “ See, Nouno?”
Miss Bosman
Miss Mildred M. Bosman [“ Ms.” had yet to be invented] was an eighth-grade
mathematics teacher at the K-8 public school that served the families in our
neighborhood. It was P.S. 102. On Ridge Boulevard, the four-story building filled
the half block between Seventy-first and Seventy-second Streets. A very large
concrete playground that we called the schoolyard claimed several square inches
of flesh from my knees and elbows. It was a place of personal humiliation as I
was never able to compete successfully in running, hitting a ball, or getting a
basketball through the hoop.
Miss Bosman lived in one of the more elegant houses on Ovington Avenue,
perhaps two-thirds of the way down the street from number 260 where we lived.
[In Bay Ridge “ down the street” meant toward the Bay and a declining street
number, and “ up the street” , the opposite.] As I passed her house four times every
school day (going to — coming from — going to — coming from), I sensed her
critical eyes watching me from behind curtained windows. If I were running as I
approached the house, I slowed to a walk; if laughing and roughhousing, I became
an acolyte, and even though I was curious, I stared straight ahead. I never knew
whether she was there or not.
I did not fear her. Miss Bosman was not threatening, physically or
psychologically. But, down deep, I knew that she was a force to respect, and a
person whose good graces were valued by parents and children alike.
Miss Bosman was tall and slender. Her hair, pulled into a bun, was fine and light
brown with generous strands of gray. She wore little or no makeup to give color
to her very white skin and pale, thin lips. [In every attribute — manner, dress, and
tone of voice — she was elegant.] I would cast Katherine Hepburn to play her in a
film.
Half the students at P.S.102 had Miss Bosman for eighth grade mathematics,
elementary algebra. My sister did. The other half, me included, had Mr. Collins,
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whose classroom was at the other end of the hall from Miss Bosman’ s. We were
on the fourth floor, which was assigned to seventh and eighth graders.
Miss Bosman was dedicated to directing the academic paths — and therefore the
futures — of children from immigrant families. She asked her fellow teachers
which of their students showed promise in the basic skills — reading, writing and
arithmetic — and were well-behaved. Then, having followed their progress long
enough to confirm their opinion, she sometimes paid a personal visit to their
homes. Both Nitsa and I received her attention.
One late afternoon, my mother answered the doorbell to find a tall woman asking
to speak to her. A few minutes later at our kitchen table, Miss Bosman, gently and
with authority, told Mom that she had to see to it that we continued to do our
homework and get good grades (A’ s). She made clear that Helene would attend
Hunter College High School in Manhattan and that I would attend one of three
high schools — Brooklyn Technical High School, the Bronx High School of
Science, or Stuyvesant High School.
These schools were academically competitive with the best private preparatory
schools. They admitted students whose elementary school grades qualified them
to take an entrance examination. Successful academic work at any one of these
virtually assured acceptance to most colleges and universities in the United States.
God only knows how many parents received guidance for their children during
the years of Miss Bosman’ s career as a teacher. Because of her, countless children
of immigrants attended the best public high schools of New York City and went
on to college and to professional schools and careers. I hope Miss Bosman
realized that she was appreciated.
The Democratic Club
Directly across the street from our brownstone was a huge Victorian home that
must have once been the pride of Ovington Avenue. An almost equally
impressive home to its left was owned by the grandmother of my next-door
neighbor nemesis, Suggie, whose name was William. To the right of the Victorian
was an apartment house whose tenants at one time or another included: Sonja
Schnoll, the daughter of the owner of the dry goods store on Third Avenue;
Diamond and Clara Papadiskos, cousins and newlyweds, whom my mother
supervised; Aristede and Filareti Mavrovitis, my father’ s brother and his wife,
newly arrived from Kastoria; and Patty, who with flaming red hair was one of the
best stickball players and between-the-car football receivers on the block. She
also favored several pubescent neighborhood boys by introducing them to sex.
The Democratic Club was a mysterious place. Men went in and out of the Club at
all hours. It was very quiet. There did not seem to be any meetings. If there were,
they were very decorous and considerate of the neighborhood. On occasion, a
uniformed police officer would go into the building and exit within a few minutes.
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My friends and I knew the name of only one man who came and went on an
almost daily basis, Mr. Flynn. He always wore a conservative coat, tie, and hat.
Sandy-haired, not short, nor tall, nor fat, nor skinny, he was sufficiently
nondescript not to call attention to himself, except at Thanksgiving. Mr. Flynn
played a significant role in our annual Thanksgiving Day celebration.
We never dressed in costume at Halloween. For some reason, Thanksgiving was
our day for costumes and begging. We would beg “ Anything for Thanksgiving,”
expecting candy treats. Mr. Flynn had his own approach.
Neighborhood children, mostly bratty boys, gathered just up the street from the
Club at the corner of Ovington and Third Avenue at about ten o’ clock in the
morning. We looked expectantly down Ovington for Mr. Flynn. When he came
out of the Club, we would give him a cheer in greeting. When he reached the
corner, he retrieved pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters from his pant pockets.
These he hurled into the air. As they fell to the concrete pavement, we scrambled
to gather all that we could. Knuckles and fingers bled as they scraped the ground
in the frantic grab for riches. With his hat tipped back on his head, coat open, and
hands at his waist, Mr. Flynn would rock on his feet and roar with laughter.
Soon after becoming fourteen, I was leaving our brownstone and saw Mr. Flynn
across the street walking toward the Club. He noticed me and motioned to me to
come to him. “ Want to make a buck?” he asked.
I had taken a liking to making money at about the age of eight when I ran a comic
book brokerage operation on the front steps of our brownstone. Selling and
exchanging comic books became a passion. It may have been a genetic expression
of my Black Sea heritage, a throwback to the merchant Greek operating between
the ports of the Black Sea and Constantinople. In any event, it was exciting and
lucrative. It taught me to buy wholesale and sell retail, and to make exchanges
with the percentages in my favor.
I often shoveled the front steps of my emporium clean of snow and ice. They led
to the formal second floor entrance to our home, Aunt Marion’ s entrance (she
lived on the third floor for years, her rent paid by Mom’ s cousin “ Capi” , who she
had divorced). Once inside, she continued up another flight of stairs to her
apartment.
We used the street level entrance. Not as elegant, it led to the large kitchen where
we spent our family time and where most guests visited with us informally. Our
dining room was on the first floor, too. It had a small sitting area. The larger
parlor, three bedrooms, and a bath were on the second floor.
My moneymaking ventures grew from the comic book operation to fall leaf
cleaning and snow and ice removal at the grand Victorian homes in the Seventieth
and Eightieth Street blocks of Bay Ridge below Third Avenue. Door-to-door
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collection of scrap paper for sale at the scrap dealer on Sixty-ninth Street was
another way to make a few dollars. But, it was worth doing only when the scrap
paper prices were high enough to warrant the time and energy needed to collect
the paper and to compensate for the abuse that came from the angry derelicts that
used this market as an income source for wine and beer.
Mr. Flynn seemed to be offering me yet another opportunity to make money.
I said, “ Yeah,” and followed him up the steps and through the front door of the
Club. I was the only boy I knew who had ever crossed that threshold. I waited in
the vestibule while Mr. Flynn disappeared down the hall. It was dark and quiet,
but I could hear muffled voices and the ringing of telephones. In a minute or two,
Mr. Flynn reappeared. He handed me a ten-dollar bill and told me to go to Lento’ s
Bar on Third Avenue, pick up an order of pizzas, sandwiches, and drinks, and
return right away. A one-dollar tip was my reward for executing his instructions
to the letter. One dollar was a huge tip!
Over the next three years, I made a routine of checking in at the Club after school
and on Saturday afternoons to determine whether Mr. Flynn or one of his friends
wanted me to run an errand. Often they did, and I was enriched by many dollar
bills.
Rumor had it that there was a bookie operation in the back of the Club. I do not
know if the Democratic Club was a gambling front, but I do know that there were
not any large meetings or busy activities there during elections.
Snow Forts
The first snowfall of the season was always a thrill, especially if it came while I
was in class at P.S. 102. The child lucky enough first to see the white flakes
falling past our windows would say the magic word, “ snow” and the entire class
looked to the window and echoed the announcement, “ SNOW!”
We longed for a substantial snowfall, at least six inches, because that made it
possible to build snowmen and take our sleds for serious downhill racing at Owl’ s
Head Park. It also gave us the opportunity to earn some money by shoveling snow
for the elderly or the lazy.
A twelve or more inch snowfall was even better, for we could do all of the above
and build snow forts that made wars possible. These were our version of the
scenes we saw acted out on Saturday afternoons in motion pictures playing at the
local Loewe’ s Bay Ridge Theater. We were the sackers of cities, the besiegers of
the fortified medieval towns of Europe, and protectors of the innocent.
We built the forts in any empty space we found between cars, a fort taking away
valuable parking space until the snow melted. We built them with walls twelve to
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twenty-four inches thick, as high as our shoulders, and with tunnel entrances.
Sometimes there were three or four forts on our block.
The snowball battles that ensued were ferocious and never fair. One fort usually
had a contingent of bigger, older boys that included our infamous tomboy, Pat.
They were all good pitchers. Wars would be fought with one group attacking the
other’ s fort. The goal was to destroy its walls and disperse its defenders with as
many direct hits as possible.
We learned how to pack the walls of our snow forts and to sprinkle them with
water when the temperature was low enough to freeze. This made breaking down
defensive walls more difficult. Of course, the same technique could be used on
snowballs, making the missiles thus manufactured near-deadly.
During truces or in the absence of an enemy, passing cars, trucks and girls
walking home from shopping on Third Avenue or from the Sixty-ninth Street
B.M.T. subway station were opportune targets. One day, the driver of a black
sedan happened to open his window just as we launched our missiles. Unluckily
for him and for us, two or three of our usually ineffective snowballs went right
through the window and into his face. The car skidded to a stop almost hitting a
parked car. The driver came hurtling out the car door, yelling at us.
We ran as fast as we could to Third Avenue, turned right, and headed toward
Seventy-first Street. Halfway there, we dashed unnoticed past a busy Italian
proprietor, down the aisle through his vegetable store and into his backyard, then
being used as storage for Christmas trees. We must have hidden in that forest of
evergreens for half an hour before having the courage to sneak back to Ovington
to see if the coast was clear. It was. The man and his car were gone, and it was
certain that he was not from the neighborhood; my mother never mentioned
anything about what had happened. In our neighborhood, the news about
misbehavior usually got home before you did.
Greek Lessons
Most children of Greek immigrants attended Greek language classes at their
church. Nitsa and I had Kyria Ioanna [Madame Johanna].
I remember almost nothing about the woman that came to our home every week
to give us an hour or two of private Greek lessons. Kyria Ioanna, who may have
been a teacher in Greece, was quiet and gentle as she taught us. She had a son
about whom she talked with Mom, who always had coffee, pastry, and a visit with
her after our session.
Poor Kyria Ioanna was frustrated with me. Several times she grabbed me by the
shirt or arm as I tried to escape through the front door to avoid the hour. Nitsa, on
the other hand, was a great student. Her lesson book was filled with As. Not mine.
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Oi-Y’ Oi
One evening each month my father cleared the kitchen table to start his “ OiY’ Oi” hour. The Yiddish idiom came right from the fur market where, when
trouble loomed or something bad had happened, the immediate response often
heard from the mouth of a Jewish furrier was “ Oi-Y’ Oi.” We interpreted it as
“ Oh, Woe” or “ Oh, God help,” an expression of pain and suffering.
Dad arrived home at about six in the evening, and after kissing my mother went
into the small dressing room in the middle of the first floor of our home. He
changed into his sweater and house slippers, came into the kitchen, and sat at the
head of the table. Nitsa and I went to him to get our hug and kiss before Mom
served him dinner. He ate while listening to Mom’ s news, and to H. V.
Kaltenborne’ s commentary on the radio. Fulton Lewis Jr. and Lowell Thomas
were other popular radio commentators of the time.
On most evenings, Dad would go to the dining room after dinner and relax in the
alcove sitting area by the front bay window. There, with a cup of Greek coffee, he
read a newspaper, either the Tribune or the Journal American (he had read the
Times on the way to work in the morning), or enjoyed the latest issue of The
National Geographic. These were the days before we got our first television set.
Often, a friend or relative would have joined him for dinner or one of our Greek
neighbors would drop by unexpectedly for coffee and conversation.
On “ Oi-Y’ Oi” night, Dad did not leave the kitchen. After the dinner dishes were
cleared, he turned the table cover over to its green, felt side, the one that was used
for card games. He retrieved a packet of envelopes and his checkbook from the
drawer in the small table in the kitchen that held the radio and, one by one,
opened the envelopes and arranged the bills they contained in front of him. Then,
he methodically considered each bill and wrote a check to include in the payment
envelope. Most he processed without any outward signs, but at least once or twice
on every check-writing night we would all hear him utter softly, “ Oi-Y’ Oi” .
I watched him pay the bills every month with no complaint or comment other than
the occasional “ Oi-Y’ Oi” that might come from his lips, perhaps as he shook his
head from side to side. It was a great lesson for me. This is what a father did. He
earned for his family. He paid their bills. This was a man’ s role. This was
expected. This was defining.
Loewe’ s “ Bay Ridge Theater” & Chinese
When Nitsa and I were students at P.S.102, we met Mom most every Wednesday
after school at Loewe’ s Bay Ridge Theater to see the midweek double feature. On
Saturdays, after the shopping was done and household chores were finished, we
would go to the theater again to see the next double bill. Featured films usually
changed twice each week.
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Sometimes on Saturdays, I would be sent on ahead to a small cigarette and
newspaper stand on Seventy-first Street, just down from Third Avenue, to
purchase a package of Spud Tips cigarettes for Mom. She smoked eight to ten
cigarettes each day until she had her first heart attack in 1945.
I met Nitsa and Mom at Dorfman’ s Fountain and Ice Cream Parlor. It was next to
the theater. Nitsa and Mom would have roast beef sandwiches on whole-wheat
toast with mayonnaise and a milkshake. I would order a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich on white bread with the crusts removed and a chocolate-malt. [I was
fussy.]
We always sat in the loge, where Mom could smoke. I was intrigued by what
people were doing in the balcony behind us. Teenagers seemed not to be
interested in the movies and almost squeezed themselves into one seat. Mom told
me not to look behind me. But, I did.
While scary movies were Nitsa’ s delight, I hid under the seat during anything
remotely spooky or terrifying. I loved musicals and swashbuckling films with
swordplay. When I got home after one of my favorites, I imagined myself either
as a piano-playing composer who could dance his way around the world with
grace and ease, or an expert swordsman. Every boy in the neighborhood became
an expert swordsman after an Errol Flynn swashbuckler like “ Captain Blood” or
“ The Sea Hawk” , and we hurried home to play swords, which we pronounced
sounding the “ w” and exactly as spelled.
Mr. Kramer, who owned the local hardware store on Third Avenue, looked
forward to films that featured swordsmanship. He stocked inexpensive funnels
and one-quarter- inch dowel sticks for such occasions. We would buy these and fit
the funnel over the stick as a hand guard. Voilá, a sword! Up and down the street
and on the steps of the brownstone houses that became our ships-of-the-line we
fought each other valiantly, having a great time until some older boys came along
with three-eighth or half-inch dowel sticks and broke our swords into pieces.
The best thing that could happen when we were in the movies was for the weather
to turn cold and for it to snow. There was nothing like coming out of the Bay
Ridge Theater into an already dark winter evening with snow falling and piling up
on the ground. It was even better when Dad was away hunting with Bill Rusuli
and Louie Dimitroff and Mom planned for us to eat Chinese. If that were the case,
Mom would give me money and I would go on to the Chinese restaurant between
Sixty-ninth Street and Ovington on Third Avenue while she and Nitsa headed
home to set the table and boil water for tea.
The Chinese restaurant had a picture of General Chang Kai-shek in its red lit
window. Inside it was dimly lit, had colorful scenery painted on its walls, smelled
wonderfully to a hungry young boy, and was mysterious. The only other Asian
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people I knew operated the laundry on Ovington, just up and across the street
from us. They were exotic people who spoke very little English.
A Chinese man took my order: four egg rolls, one quart of chicken chow mein,
crispy noodles, steamed rice, and almond cookies. We were not very
adventuresome in our choice of Chinese cuisine. He hurried my order back to the
kitchen that was visible from where I sat and waited by the front window. There
were men in back in light shirts wearing bandanas around their heads and talking
strangely as they mixed ingredients in a curious, large black frying pan with high
sides that I later learned was a wok.
When it was ready, the manager brought the order to the cash register in a large
brown shopping bag. Heavy paper containers held the food. I paid and left with
the warm bag pressed to by chest, so good to carry in the cold night with snow
falling on my face. The smell of the food intensified my hunger.
The kitchen was bright and warm when I arrived home, and in a very few minutes
Mom, Nitsa and I were enjoying chow mein and tea in the comfort of our kitchen.
Carmen
I was ten years old when my mother, or my godmother, or both, decided that it
was time for Nitsa and me to be exposed to opera.
One Saturday morning, I was ordered to bathe and dress up: white shirt, blue suit,
and tie. We were going to New York. We always said that we going to New York
when we were on the way to Manhattan, as if Brooklyn were unworthy to be
considered part of the metropolis.
We met my Nouna outside of the Fifty-sixth Street subway station behind
Carnegie Hall and walked to Fifty-fifth Street, where between Sixth and Seventh
Avenues, there was a theater entrance with exotic colored, oriental columns. It
was the New York City Center, a building that during the Second World War had
been converted from a Shriners’ Temple to a theater by Mayor Fiorello La
Guardia.
I had no idea of what I was to see. I remember that we were seated on the right
side of the orchestra, close to the stage.
The houselights dimmed and a man’ s head appeared in a spotlight just below the
stage in front of us. He raised his arms, brought them down and the house filled
with the opening bars of the overture to the opera, Carmen.
The next three hours were a miracle. Music, singing, color, dance, action, and
passion bombarded me. I had only a fuzzy understanding of the story, but an
immediate connection was made. I loved opera. I loved musical theater.
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Just weeks later, I wrote a paper for my fifth grade class about opera, specifically
about Carmen. I think that my teacher’ s positive response to my paper reinforced
my interest.
It surprises me that my first exposure to opera did not come accompanied by my
father, who was passionate about the form. He did see to it that we listened more
and more to his collection of old 78s [78 rpm recordings that were displaced by
45 rpm and 33 rpm media in the 1950s] of Enrico Caruso and Beniamino Gigli,
and to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on Saturday afternoons. Eventually, we
went with him to see and hear performances at the “ old” Met, at Broadway and
Thirty-ninth Street.
On Friday evening, November 17, 1950, we were driving past the Met after
having dinner in the city following Christmas shopping. Mom turned and said,
“ Jimmy, let’ s go to the opera!” He double-parked the car, jumped out, and
returned in a few minutes with four tickets to Mozart’ s Don Giovanni. It was the
night of Roberta Peters’ debut at the Met as a last minute replacement in the role
of Zerlina. She was a smash!
Spring Cleaning — Fall Cleaning
After my mother suffered her first heart attack in September of 1945, my sister
and I assumed household responsibilities. Treatment for a heart attack in 1945
consisted of morphine for pain at the time of the attack and months of
recuperative bed rest. Mom spent almost six months in bed, a lifetime for an
active, energetic woman.
I remember a conversation at the kitchen table with our Dad when Nitsa and I told
him we that were going to take over the household and for him not to think about
arrangements for our care that we had heard him discuss with relatives. Nitsa, at
fourteen, was the leader. She made out shopping lists for me, saw to the laundry,
and did most of the cooking. I was eleven and did the grocery shopping, heavy
house cleaning, some cooking, and lots of dishwashing.
By the time we left for school in the morning, we had served Mom breakfast and
prepared her for the day. We learned to help her bathe in bed and to carry
bedpans. Thea Anastasia would arrive as we went out the door to stay with Mom
all day until we arrived home from school to take over. She did this every school
day until my mother was well. Dad gave her a beautiful Persian lamb coat in
gratitude; she would not take money.
The radio kept me company on Saturdays as I cleaned house. My assignments
included washing and waxing the linoleum floors that covered the kitchen and
hallway of the first floor. Since it was fall, I performed this duty while listening to
the Army (West Point) football games and the heroics of Glenn Davis and Doc
Blanchard.
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My chores continued after Mom was back on her feet. She developed angina and
used nitroglycerin tablets and Teachers Scotch as heart medication and to control
her anxiety, respectively. Somehow, she managed the stairs. I believe that going
up and down them improved circulation to her heart muscle.
Dad had Mom arrange for a housekeeper to come every week to clean the
bathrooms, dust, vacuum, and help wherever needed. The woman was a poor
Greek immigrant widow with a son and daughter. If she had to clean houses to
make ends meet, she could have found no better house than ours. Mom was a
sympathetic, compassionate, and generous woman who provided much more than
the few dollars the housecleaner asked for her services.
I still had my chores to do, and my responsibilities expanded to include
semiannual house cleanings at the vernal and autumn equinoxes. I would roll up
the summer (or winter, if that were the season) carpets. The summer carpets were
of thick cotton, and the oriental winter carpets of wool. There was one carpet in
the first floor dining room, one in each of the three rooms on the second floor, two
that ran the length of the hallways on the first and second floors, and a one that
covered the staircase between the first and second floors.
First, I scattered mothballs over a carpet, then rolled it and tied it securely.
Finally, I wrapped it in a tarpaper that provided even more protection against
moths. I carried all the carpets to the basement and lay them temporarily on the
floor.
The next part of the job was to wash and wax the hardwood floors that covered
the entire second floor and half the first floor of the house. When that was done, I
carried the replacement carpets appropriate to the season up from the basement,
unwrapped and unrolled them, vacuumed them, and placed the furniture where it
belonged.
Then, I changed drapes, bundling those taken down for delivery to the cleaners.
Finally, I took the carpets I had put on the floor in the basement and stored them
on the shelf used for the purpose.
By the end of the day, I was very tired. I showered, enjoyed a huge dinner, and
felt good about my efforts.
Christmas
Until I was five or six, Santa Claus was real and he brought Christmas to our
home on Christmas Eve while Nitsa and I slept. Of course, she knew the truth
before I did but kept the secret.
Mom and Dad would wait until I had fallen to sleep and then bring in the tree, set
it in our second floor parlor, decorate it, and pile presents beneath it. When I
awoke Christmas morning, everything was in place.
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There were rules to follow. Before any presents could be opened Nitsa and I had
to wash our faces and comb our hair, and drink a glass of orange juice. Our first
present was a sock that contained an orange and five or six wrapped pieces of
coal. The latter represented the naughty things we had done during the past year.
When I was able, the job of setting up the Christmas tree became mine. Nitsa
would help, but I did the heavy work. Then, she and I would decorate the tree
often inviting friends to help us. It became an annual event, a tree decorating
party. The magic was still there for me. I remember waking before dawn, and in
the darkness, staring at the tree from my bed in the next room. I was able to make
out the ornaments by the glow of the streetlights and passed the endless time until
dawn by counting them. There were favorite ornaments that I could identify if I
tried hard enough.
There was only one Christmas Day in my first nineteen years that we did not
spend at home. It was during the Second World War, in 1944. My godparents and
Uncle Louie invited us to their apartment on the upper West Side for Christmas
dinner. A beautifully decorated tree graced the living room. It stood before the
fireplace, next to a grand piano. The dinner table was elegant, decorated with
sprays of pine, red candles and ribbons, and little red sleigh placeholders with
Santa Clauses. These we took home with us. I remember one topic of
conversation. The adults complained about a young singer who had performed at
the Paramount Theater during the past year. A threat to decent society, he made
fools out of teenage girls. His name? Frank Sinatra.
Christmas at home was celebrated with twenty or more friends and relatives at our
dinner table. Cocktails and hors d’ oeuvres [mezedes] preceded dinner that always
started with a traditional soup, patsa. It was made with pork head, feet, and hocks;
it was boiled for hours with a whole head of garlic, and strained. Then, the meat
was removed from the bones and placed back into the broth, which was colored
with paprika fried in pork fat, and flavored with wine vinegar. The soup made
one’ s lips sticky because of its high gelatin content. Mom cooked enough of it for
us to eat cold and hot during the whole week of Christmas.
Stuffed pickled cabbage leaves (sauerkraut), a traditional Macedonian and
Thracian dish called sarmades followed. The cabbage came from the pickling
crocks in our basement. If none were available, Mom used fresh cabbage and
cooked the sarmades in a bed of store-bought sauerkraut. Turkey with a bay leaf,
cumin, cinnamon, and allspice— seasoned stuffing of ground meat, bread, onions,
pignoli nuts, chestnuts, parsley, and currant raisins was one of the main courses,
as was a Virginia ham or roast suckling pig. Serving dishes of sweet potato, rice
(pilaf), Brussels sprouts, and cranberry sauce covered the table.
Nuts, cheese and fruit followed the meal. Later, Mom would serve coffee (Greek
and regular) and dessert. Dad usually had made kadaifi, a version of baklava
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made with shredded wheat-like dough, and a candy, soutzouki, made from Muscat
grape juice. If he had not already done so at Thanksgiving, Dad might open a
crock of brandied fruit that he had carefully prepared beginning in August. He
layered one fruit on top of another as each came in season, preserving all in a bath
of Metaxa, a Greek brandy.
Making of soutzouki was complicated. Dad boiled Muscat grape juice with very
clean oak ash until the juice thickened. The ash, whose thickening properties are a
mystery, came from Carelas’ farm. On a hunting weekend, Dad burned oak in a
clean fireplace, allowed the embers to die out overnight, and bagged the ash to
take home.
The thickened juice was filtered through several layers of cheesecloth until it ran
clear, then returned to the fire to boil again. When he thought the mixture was
ready Dad had us dip necklaces of half walnuts that had been strung on long
pieces of cotton thread into the viscous liquid, time and again, until layers of the
thickened grape juice gradually adhered to the nuts and formed a sausage-like roll
covering them. When they were about one inch in diameter, he dusted the rolls
with powdered sugar and cut them into half-inch pieces. Delicious!
In 1943, at the height of the War, several of our family’ s young men were home
on leave from the Army. Tom Papanas, Diamond Papadiskos, Elias Demitriades,
Anesti and Jim Zelios, and others were with us on Christmas Day. The house was
packed and Mom, wanting the young men to enjoy themselves, made telephone
calls to every Greek home with a daughter in Bay Ridge. By seven in the evening,
our parlor on the second floor was converted into a dance floor with a Christmas
tree at its head, and filled with young men and women. The party went on for
hours. I remember how happy my mother was to provide a good time for these
young men, all of whom returned at the end of the War.
There were many Sundays during the War that Mom collected soldiers and sailors
at the back of the church and brought them home for a family dinner.
New Year’ s Eve and Day
When Nitsa and I were very young, we would have a babysitter on New Year’ s
Eve. Mom and Dad would meet my godparents, Bill and Rose Rusuli, and Rose’ s
brother, Louie Dimitroff, who was accompanied by one of his girlfriends, at the
Astor Hotel for the celebration. Dinner and dancing at the rooftop, horseshoe
ballroom of the Astor would be followed by a three-in-the-morning breakfast at
Toffenetti’ s across from the Astor on Times Square, or perhaps at an open Child’ s
or Schraft’ s. Schraft’ s, incidentally, had a chain of small restaurants that offered
wonderful ice cream sundaes.
We were trained to be very quiet when we woke on New Year’ s morning. Under
our beds we would find New Year’ s hats, noisemakers, confetti, and streamers
brought from the hotel ballroom. I waited as long as my patience held out before
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making tentative use of the rattles and whistles. Nitsa would scowl at me. She was
far too sophisticated for the toys that amused me.
The first time we were allowed to stay at home alone on New Year’ s Eve, Nitsa
was probably twelve and I, nine. We decided to make chocolate chip cookies. I do
not remember helping very much, but I do remember eating tablespoons full of
the uncooked dough and the upset stomach that followed. Nitsa reported my
condition to our parents when they called just before midnight. Unalarmed, Mom
told Nitsa to put me to bed.
The following year, Mom and Dad took Nitsa and me with them on New Year’ s
Eve. My godparents, Nouno Bill and Nouna Rose were there. For some reason,
Uncle Louie was not with us. I remember only the incredible size of the room, the
bright lights, the band, and a beautiful blond vocalist. Nouno saw that I was taken
by her. At some point after dinner he left the table returning a little while later
with the young lady in tow. She asked me to dance with her. I was completely
flustered, not a clear thought in my head. But, I danced; I danced with Bette
Hutton who would a year or two later begin a Hollywood career capped by her
performance as Annie, in Irving Berlin’ s Annie Get Your Gun.
New Year’ s Day was very special. It started mid-morning with Happy New Year
hugs and kisses at the kitchen table in the middle of which was a beautiful goldenbrown, round loaf of Vasilopita [St. Basil’ s Bread]. An annual gift from Thea
Anastasia, it was fragrant with the smell of mahlepi, the ground kernel of the wild
cherry tree. Hidden in it was a silver coin, which was believed to bring St. Basil’ s
blessing to the lucky person who found it in their slice of the loaf.1
Dad made the sign of the cross three times over the bread before he cut it into
wedges: the first piece, for our home, the second for himself, the third for Mom,
the fourth for Nitsa, the fifth for me, and what remained, for all the people in the
world. The coin was placed in a small glass with wine, and set by the icon and its
lamp in our home. When the little glass contained three or four years worth of
coins, Mom would wash them and take them to church, where she deposited them
in the tray for the poor.
Mom usually made scrambled eggs with feta cheese on New Year’ s morning, and
served a platter of homemade loukanika, a sausage that she had made in the early
fall and hung to dry and cure in our basement. Buttered, toasted slices of the
Vasilopita, with orange-amber quince preserves spooned on them, accompanied
the eggs and sausage.
1
St. Basil was born in Cappadocia (west-central Asia Minor) about the time that
Constantine the Great founded Constantinople (326 A.D.). A brilliant scholar and
philosopher, he was ordained and eventually became a bishop. He is revered as
one of the most distinguished leaders of the early church, and for his love and
work for the poor and sick.
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After our late brunch, we bathed, and dressed in our best. In the early afternoon,
Dad went to the Greek florist on Sixty-ninth Street, just up from Third Avenue,
and then walked back across Third Avenue to get our car from the garage. Boxed
and under his arm would be two dozen, long-stemmed red roses that he had
ordered days before.
When we were all in the car, we began the drive to our destination: 157th Street
and Riverside Drive in Manhattan. During the Second World War, when Dad
refused to own an automobile and use precious gasoline needed by the military,
we made the long trip by subway.
Dad drove from Bay Ridge to downtown Brooklyn and, pre-war, over the
Brooklyn Bridge. After the war, he used the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel to reach the
elevated West Side Highway, the elevated highway from the Battery to Fiftyseventh Street, which is now long gone.
New Year’ s Day 1946 was particularly grim. Dark, heavy clouds threatened to
add more inches of snow on top of that already on the ground. We had a 1930s
vintage LaSalle that Dad bought just after the war ended, before he bought a new
1946 Hudson from Papou Perna’ s relatives in Little Falls. The heating system in
the La Salle was nearly non-existent. Nitsa and I were bundled in blankets in the
back seat.
Dad drove the plowed city streets that day. Broadway, which north of Columbus
Circle was lined with small shops, had very few pedestrians. Automobiles on the
side streets and even on Broadway were buried under snow banks made by the
city’ s plows. Decorations and blinking lights in store windows seemed gaudy and
shabby in the grey light of a post-Christmas, snowy winter afternoon.
When we arrived at the building where my godparents and Uncle Louie lived, a
doorman in formal dress opened the front door for my mother. She, Nitsa, and I
went into the building’ s lobby while Dad drove the car to a nearby garage where
Uncle Louie kept his Buick. Arrangements had been made for Dad to leave his
car there for the afternoon.
The lobby had a tiled floor, with wide red carpet that was easily one hundred feet
long and led from the front door to the three elevators that served the building.
French doors to one side of the lobby opened onto a small garden that was deep in
snow, and on the other side to a walkway that led towards Riverside Drive. We
waited for Dad in a lounge close to the elevators where a Christmas tree twinkled
and a crackling fireplace warmed our hands, faces, and spirits. The elevator
operators greeted my mother as we waited, and made comments about how Nitsa
and I had grown.
When Dad arrived, roses in hand, the doorman announced our arrival to my
godparents by phone, and we entered an elevator for the ride to the twelfth floor.
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As Nouno answered the doorbell, Nitsa and I broke into our song: Aios Vasilis
Airhaitai, [“ Saint Basil is Coming” ], the hymn for St. Basil. It was Nouno’ s name
day, which he celebrated every year with a New Year’ s Day open house.
Nouna came to the door, greeted and kissed us all, accepted the roses from Dad,
and handed them to a maid, who, within minutes, put them in a beautiful vase and
placed it on the grand piano. The apartment was already bustling with guests,
most of whom my parents knew.
The twelfth floor apartment was elegant and larger than many homes. It looked
north over the Hudson River with a view of the George Washington Bridge and
the New Jersey Palisades. The front door entry opened onto a foyer dominated by
an oil portrait of Uncle Louie resplendent, white-haired, and sporting a
boutonnière, his constant accessory.
Directly ahead of the foyer was a large living room with French doors opening
onto a small terrace. The dining room was to the left of the living room. The rest
of the apartment consisted of three large bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, and
maid’ s room with bath. There was a service entrance to the kitchen.
As on other New Year’ s Days, there was a magnificent Christmas tree in the
living room, to one side of the fireplace. Its limbs were meticulously draped with
silver tinsel, each piece perfectly placed an eighth of an inch from its neighbor.
Ornate lights shaped like little trees, houses, sleighs, and Santa Clauses twinkled,
some miraculously blinking on and off.
Under the tree, Nouna, Nouno, and Uncle Louie displayed the Christmas gifts
they had received. It was ostentatious. Guests were wide-eyed at cashmere
scarves, handmade silk lingerie (half hidden under tissue), suede jackets, and
other equally luxurious items.
The fireplace had imitation logs, with a multicolored lamp hidden in them. The
heat of the lamp turned a small, slotted umbrella-like device set on it, and it
created a firelight effect. To the right of the fireplace was a grand piano. On top of
its embroidered, long-fringed cover, photographs surrounded the vase that held
the roses that Mom and Dad had given to Nouna Rose.
The dining room table was festively decorated and covered with a sumptuous
buffet: Virginia ham, smoked whole turkey, smoked salmon, roast beef, small
bowls containing salmon roe, salads of several kinds, breads, and condiments. A
waiter and two maids served drinks and canapés, cleared plates, and otherwise
allowed Nouno, Nouna, and Uncle Louie attend to their guests. Occasionally,
Nouno or Uncle Louie would show special favor by personally preparing and
serving a drink to someone.
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In retrospect, I note that Greek delicacies were noticeably absent from the buffet.
This was one of many indications that Rose, Bill, and Louie consciously had
separated themselves from the world of immigrants and become assimilated as
New Yorkers.
The scene could well have been in a 1930s motion picture. Nouno and Uncle
Louie wore deep maroon, velvet house-jackets with silk lapels. One or the other
might be wearing very elegant, leather house shoes, not slippers, but shoes
without soles, made specifically to be worn indoors.
Silver martini shakers, CO2-charged crystal containers that dispensed carbonized
water into high ball glasses, bottles of superior Scotches, whiskies, and gins on a
serving cart, maids with white hats and aprons, cigars, cigarettes, furs, and other
props in vogue in the 1930s were everywhere. Few of the guests measured up to
the sophistication the picture demanded.
Nitsa and I sat wide-eyed in a corner, alert to any social demand that might be
made of us. Our goal was to be unobserved. But, inevitably the moment came and
Nouna asked us to play a few Christmas carols on the piano. It had not been tuned
for years and was, to the best of my recollection, opened only on New Year’ s
Day. It was just another piece of elegant furniture, and a place to display
photographs.
Nitsa was the star, the soloist. She played effortlessly. She had devised a strategy
to keep me from flubbing under stress: I joined her in two or three duets. So, I
satisfied Nouna’ s command for a performance by playing as quietly as I could on
the lower registers of the piano, while Nitsa provided musical acrobatics in the
upper registers. She made me look good.
There must have been a dozen or more godchildren competing for the attention of
Nouno, Nouna, and Uncle Louie. They were the most successful and
cosmopolitan of the immigrant friends and relatives in their circle, and were
therefore the most sought-after as sponsors for the children of the set. Parents
competed with each other through the accomplishments of their children, inflated
beyond recognition as described to the three godparents.
People came and left as the afternoon wore on. Mom and Dad were always
quietly asked to stay until there were but two or three families left — those closest
to the hosts and hostess. Coffee and dessert were served, and after an hour of
relaxed conversation we left, walking two blocks in the cold and through snow
before the long ride home to Brooklyn.
Pascha [Easter]
Pascha culminated the forty days of spiritual and physical preparation undertaken
during the Great Lent. The forty days were meatless in our household. We did not
suffer much as there were abundant cheese, egg, fish, and bean and pasta dishes to
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enjoy. However, abstention from meat made us continually aware that we were in
a period of religious observance.
Palm Sunday initiated Megali Evthomadtha, the Great Week of Lent commonly
known as Holy Week. We participated in the traditional religious services,
activities, and celebrations that made the most important religious holiday in the
year so special.
One of the difficulties we faced was the fact that the Greek Orthodox dates for
Easter and those of the western Christian churches coincided only three times in a
ten-year cycle. In seven of the years, the Greek Orthodox Easter might be
celebrated as many as five weeks after the western Easter.
The reason for this divergence is the historical existence of three calendars: the
Julian, the “ Revised” Julian and the Gregorian. Jews in different regions of
Europe who were part of the Diaspora that resulted when the Romans destroyed
Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 A.D., became governed by several dissimilar
pagan calendar systems. Different calendar systems caused the date set by the
Jews for Passover to vary depending on their location.
Confusion in Europe over the proper date for Passover caused western Christians
to stop using the date as one of the data points for establishing the date for Easter.
Rivalry between the western and eastern churches and the conservative rigidity of
the “ Old Calendarists” of the Russian Orthodox Church did not help matters.
In any event, we frequently found ourselves carrying palms on the day that the
rest of the country was celebrating Easter, or celebrating Easter weeks after the
Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue was history.
If our Palm Sunday was not Easter for the rest of the country, we returned home
from church or went to a seafood restaurant for a traditional fish dinner. This was
the last day in Lent that we were allowed to eat seafood (meat was already
disallowed).
If our Palm Sunday were Easter for the rest of the country, we would proceed
from church to Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to walk in the Easter Parade. We often
met my godparents and Uncle Louie at Rockefeller Center. We enjoyed the
display of lilies, and Mom, Nouna, and Nitsa took in the latest fashions. Often,
there were outlandishly dressed women, some with deer, small lions, or other
exotic animals in tow. Leashed and out of their element, I suspect the poor
creatures were in shock as they were dragged through the crowds.
One “ American” Easter Uncle Louie suggested that we go from Fifth Avenue
over to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue for brunch. The lobby of the
hotel had been turned into a great dining room filled with lilies. At one side of the
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vast space, an elevated stage held a chorus and orchestra that performed seasonal
music.
When we arrived, the Maitre d’ told Uncle Louie that all the tables were reserved.
I saw a green twenty dollar bill pass gracefully from Uncle Louie’ s hand into that
of the Maitre d’ , and out of nowhere there appeared men who carried a table and
chairs to the front and center of the space below the stage. The Maitre d’ uttered
profuse apologies for having “ misplaced” Mr. Dimitroff’ s reservation.
Orthodox services presented the liturgical drama of Jesus’ last days every evening
of Holy Week: His betrayal, trial, execution, burial, and resurrection. We
attended Saints Constantine and Helen parish on Brooklyn’ s Schermerhorn Street,
where Dad had served on the Parish Board at the time the congregation first
formed. It was small and dark, had low ceilings, and lacked adequate ventilation.
So, for a child whose face came only to the waist level of most worshippers, the
services were uncomfortably hot, and the air stifling, thick with the smoke of
candles and the scent of incense.
There was a crush of worshippers at the Holy Week services. I was mesmerized
by the candles, glimmering icons, shining red oil lamps, incense, and chants of the
priest and his psaltis. On Holy Thursday morning, we went to church together as a
family to receive holy unction and communion. Having fasted in preparation for
communion, Dad took us to a cafe for breakfast after the service, before he went
to work and we returned to Bay Ridge and our school day. I always enjoyed these
special family breakfasts.
After school, we helped Mom dye Easter eggs, a task traditionally performed on
Holy Thursday. Thea Anastasia made the sweet, chalah-like bread,
Lambropsomo, for us with red eggs embedded in its sesame seed-covered crust.
Lambropsomo is translated literally as ‘bread of light.”
The service on Good Friday evening is a service of lamentation, first for the death
of Jesus and second for our personal failings. Its centerpiece is a flower-covered
representation of Jesus’ tomb, the epitaphion. I remember craning my neck to be
sure that fragrant rose scented water sprinkled on me as the priest processed
through the church flicking the silver vessel, the randistirion, to bless the
worshippers with holy water. Even as a child, I was moved by the emotion
conveyed in the service and its music. We were given flowers from the epitaphion
to take home to place at our candle-lit icons.
Finally it was Saturday, Easter eve. While we had fasted throughout Lent, a
stricter fast began on Holy Thursday. We ate only plain vegetables and grains
(without any oil or animal fats), and slices of halvah, a sweet, solid cake of
ground sesame seeds. By now, our refrigerator contained a spring lamb, lamb
heads, organ meats, and all the makings of a feast.
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On Saturday, Mom began preparation of the traditional soup, mageritsa, by
boiling lamb heads, neck, liver, and lungs in a great pot (unlike most Greek cooks,
she did not use lamb tripe). Later, she would strain the broth, cut the meat into
small pieces, and add rice. Just before serving the soup, she made the avgolemeno
[egg-lemon mixture] and added it to the soup with fresh minced dill and parsley.
She also minced lamb organ meats, including kidneys, browned them in butter
and fat taken from the lining of the lamb’ s stomach, and mixed the meat with
onion, parsley, cumin, allspice, bay leaves, and cinnamon. Once well browned,
she put the mixture into a pan that was lined with net-like fatty tissue from the
lamb’ s stomach. Covered like a pie with the same tissue, it was baked until brown
and crispy. This was a version of kokoretsi, a delicacy of spiced organ meats that
villagers formed into an intestine-wrapped roll and barbecued over hot coals as an
appetizer.
I could not wait for Easter Day.
On Easter eve, we ate a simple, early dinner. By 6:30 we were put to bed to nap
until 9:00, when Mom got us up. Nitsa and I washed our faces and hands, brushed
our hair, and dressed into our best clothing. Just before 10:00 we left Brooklyn in
our car with the radio set to the Chicago Theater of the Air, a program that
featured great lyric operettas like “ The Vagabond King,” “ No, No, Nanette,” and
“ The Merry Widow” . It was one of my father’ s favorite radio shows. It was
sponsored by The Chicago Tribune whose editor, Col. Robert R. McCormick,
provided long, unmemorable commentaries between the acts. We would listen as
Dad drove us to East Seventy-fourth Street in Manhattan and sought out a parking
place close to Holy Trinity Cathedral. We arrived early and close to the front of
the church to hear all of the Odes of Lamentation.
By midnight the cathedral was filled. Prominent Greek diplomats and socialites
sat in a special section in front of the iconostasion, on either side of the Royal
Gate that opened to the altar. Latecomers stood, packed in the aisles.
I remember especially a Greek Air Force officer who attended services for several
years. Probably attached to the United Nations or the Greek Consulate, he wore a
beautiful blue-gray uniform with many decorations. He was somehow handsome
and the epitome of dignity and grace in spite of a terribly disfigured face. It was
covered with scar tissue, perhaps the result of severe burns. For reasons that I did
not consciously understand, I felt a bond with this man and wished to know him.
At midnight, the cathedral’ s lights were extinguished and we sat in complete
darkness. In a minute or two there was a flicker of light from behind the
iconostasion, then another. The Archbishop came forth from the Great Gate and
sang (in Greek): “ Come ye and receive the light from the unwaning life. Glorify
Christ, who arose from the dead.” Soon after, he announced: “ Christos Anesti!”
and the congregation fervently responded “ Alithos Anesti!” [Christ is risen! —
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Truly He is risen!] The faithful followed the Archbishop and the priests into the
street where the service continued and an enthusiastic congregation sang the
triumphant, stirring, resurrection hymn “ Christos Anesti” [Christ is Risen]
countless times. Many onlookers watched the service from open windows of the
apartment houses that lined East Seventy-fourth Street.
While outside, we met my godparents and Uncle Louie to declare, “ Christos
Anesti!” and to perform the Easter egg ritual. One participant holds a hard-boiled,
red-dyed Easter egg in hand, while the other strikes it with his or her own egg
(point to point, rounded end to rounded end). The person with the strongest egg,
the one that does not crack, wins “ good fortune.”
Because of my mother’ s heart condition and her need to be up early the next
morning to prepare the Easter feast for the family and its guests, we did not go
back into the cathedral for the liturgy which lasted until after 2:30 in the morning.
Had circumstances been otherwise, Dad would very much have liked to stay, as
we had before Mom’ s illness.
We carried our lit candles home in the car to the amazement of passengers in
other cars and pedestrians who saw us. When we arrived at our front door, we
made the sign of the cross at its top and went in to the kitchen to break our fast
with a bowl of hot Mageritsa. Exhausted, we went to bed.
On Pascha, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends arrived early in the afternoon.
Mom was in her glory, serving a magnificent dinner. Once I asked why we could
not have Patsa (the Christmas soup) and Mageritsa year round. Mom said simply:
“ You would not enjoy them nearly so much if you had them every day. They are
special, for special times.” She was right.
The Cemetery
We visited the grave of my brother, grandmother and great-grandmother at Mount
Olivet Cemetery in Long Island on the Sunday after Easter, then again on
Mother’ s Day or Memorial Day, and on a Sunday between Thanksgiving and
Christmas.
I can still see the entrance to the cemetery with its wrought iron gate, over the top
of which the cemetery’ s name was set in gold letters. I always looked up at the
name as we passed under it in our car. The gate would have been a perfect prop
for a Halloween movie. Wrought iron, black, and high, with gold letters forming
the cemetery’ s name, it seemed foreboding.
We turned right immediately after entering the cemetery and proceeded along a
downward sloping drive passing row after row of graves with varying sizes and
shapes of headstones. Just one or two hundred yards from the gate, my father
stopped the car. We got out and went to the grave. Dad and Mom cleaned the
headstone and set fresh flowers. At Easter, we brought lilies and red-dyed eggs to
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leave at the grave, and at Christmas, an evergreen spray with a red bow. I was
very careful to walk between the graves, fearful of the consequences of stepping
on one.
There was an Orthodox priest at the cemetery on Sundays. He would offer prayers
at gravesites and receive gratuities for his services. The priests were often those
without parishes of their own.
Fireworks
When Dad arrived at Carelas’ for the Fourth of July weekend, he had a trunk full
of fireworks with him. His chief motivation was not to entertain children or
wives, nor to celebrate Independence Day. It was really a matter of Dad being a
boy. He loved guns, muzzle-loaders, and fireworks.
On the day of the Fourth, we boys would throw cherry bombs into the river to see
if we could kill some fish. Throwing a string of small firecrackers amidst two or
three cats was lots of fun, as was placing large bombs under cans to propel them
into the air. Cherry bombs and their fat, cylindrical cousins were powerful
explosive devices. We were lucky not to have lost a finger or two, or worse, an
eye.
Dad waited for evening to set his rockets along a rock wall that bordered a cow
pasture. When it was dark enough and he had gathered his audience, he sent
rocket after rocket into the sky primarily for his — and secondarily for everyone
else’ s — enjoyment. Occasionally, a rocket became a projectile hurtling parallel
to the ground, spewing flames behind. Sometimes, we had to run to put out grass
fires with buckets of water.
Hunting
Dad loved to hunt. Hunting brought together in one activity the things that he
loved most, aside from family: guns, the forest, companionship with men he
respected, game for the table, escape from city life and the pressures of the
Market, and a connection with his youth in the fields of his village, Mavrovo, and
the slopes of the hills and mountains that surrounded Lake Kastoria in Macedonia.
My first exposure to hunting was watching my father set about constructing a
homemade bird trap just as he had as a child. He remembered checking his traps
once or twice each day on the shores of Lake Orestiada and the satisfaction of
bringing a half dozen or so starlings and blackbirds home to add to the family
table.
The trap was a simple contraption. A stick held a cardboard box up, open side
facing down, tilted at a forty-five degree angle. Tied to the stick at ninety degrees
was another that formed a perch inside the box. At the end of the perch, Dad
would place a chunk of suet. When a bird perched on the stick and pecked at the
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suet, the weight of its body and force of its feeding would move the support and
cause the box to drop, trapping it inside.
Dad set his simple trap on the second from the top step that led out of basement to
our garden. He positioned it so that it could not be seen by neighbors. Most often
he set his trap in the winter, after a snow when the birds would be hungry and
more likely to risk foraging for food in an atypical place.
The little boy from Mavrovo that was in my Dad was thrilled when he caught a
bird in his trap. He let all fly free.
Dad brought home rabbits, pheasants, partridge, woodcock, ducks, and venison on
the Sunday evenings when he returned from a fall or winter hunting weekend at
Carelas’ farm. After hugs and kisses for Mom, Nitsa, and me and changing his
clothing, he would set immediately to skinning rabbits and plucking birds. I
learned how to dress game at the kitchen table. The next night, Mom would serve
stefado, a rabbit stewed with onions, wine, tomato and cinnamon, or woodcock or
partridge cooked with rice, or roast duck, or braised venison. Within the week, we
had eaten all the game. Dad often gave rabbits and birds to my grandfather and
Thea Anastasia.
When I was five or six years old, Dad started to take me on woodchuck hunting
safaris during the summer weekends that he visited us at Carelas’ . On these
adventures, I hiked with Dad to the dirt road that led to Mr. Schoonmaker’ s dairy
farm. Rock walls, common to all the northeastern states, bordered pastures and
separated them from woodland. We would stalk quietly along the road shielded
by the rock walls and spy over them into the fields looking for an unsuspecting
woodchuck. Often, we would walk through the forest along the walls, further and
further from the road, until I felt I was alone with my father in a primeval wood.1
My short legs tired quickly, and Dad would sit with me behind a wall under tall
trees to let me rest. At these times, he told me stories about his village, his hunting
excursions into the hills behind Mavrovo where he looked for rabbit to shoot with
his musket-like gun, and his sense of communion with nature and God when he
was outdoors.
Sometimes, Dad would call crows using a device he bought at the annual
Sportsman’ s Show that came to Madison Square Garden. When successful, crows
1
In 1986, I visited my father for a long weekend, arranging beforehand for him to
prepare a picnic basket just like the ones we enjoyed when we hunted together in
the late 1940s. We drove to all the old hunting haunts in the Catskills, Dad
reminiscing about happy times with friends. I stopped the car on a macadam road
that led to Mr. Schoonmaker’ s farm. It had once been dirt. Where once there had
been pastures that hid abundant woodchucks now were modern homes and a
regrown forest.
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would fly round and round us just over the treetops screaming their “ caw, caws”
while looking for an enemy or a wounded brother. With practice and experience, I
was able to call the crows using my voice without using any store bought device.
Of course, the object of calling the crows was to shoot as many as possible. It
seemed right at the time. It was a good way to practice for the real hunting season.
Now I wonder at the sad and senseless carnage. One of the rationalizations for
shooting woodchucks was that they dug burrows in pastures, causing cows to
break their legs in the entrances to the chucks’ homes. I never heard of a cow
breaking a leg in a woodchuck hole and cannot imagine that we could possibly
have shot enough woodchucks to make a difference.
Any hapless woodchuck spotted grazing in the rich grass and clover was a target
for Dad’ s .22 caliber, Winchester Hornet. Sometimes a soft whistle would make
the woodchuck stand to look around, providing a better target. I was barely able to
carry one back to the farm for everyone to see.
At least woodchucks were not wasted. Many farmers enjoyed eating them, cooked
just as one would prepare a rabbit. My grandfather’ s wife, Adela, would take as
many as my Dad would bring to her.
My early hunting was limited to accompanying my father on summer weekends
and learning to shoot a .22 caliber Springfield rifle. By the time I was six or
seven, I could hit a target at fifty to seventy-five feet, and at twelve could do it as
it floated past me down the river or put a bullet through the center of a dime or
penny at fifty feet. Dad introduced me to shooting animals by taking me to the
chicken coops.
We did not shoot chickens. Because there was an abundance of chicken feed
spilled on the ground around the coop, starlings, blackbirds, and sparrows used it
as their local restaurant. Dad would take me inside the coop, and sitting on a
wooden crate, I would point my Springfield out of a top-hinged shutter that
opened into the chicken yard. Using scatter shot (small pellets loaded into the .22
caliber shell) I would, to the accolades heaped on me by my father, systematically
kill every starling or blackbird that sat on the nearby fence, before or after
feeding. With these and more birds that Dad shot out of a huge tree with his
shotgun at twilight, Mom would make a wonderful rice dish filled with the breasts
of the tiny birds. Each provided hardly a mouthful.
My fourteenth birthday was one of the most exciting of my life. I received a
Browning 16-gauge automatic shotgun from Dad, and he took me to register for
my junior hunting license. It permitted me to hunt when accompanied by an adult.
I could hardly wait until early May when, on the first weekend after Easter, I
would join the men for their annual lamb barbecue and the first weekend of
woodchuck hunting. The core group included Dad, my godfather, Bill Rusuli, and
his brother-in-law, Uncle Louie. Others joined the group for the barbeque
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weekend. Occasionally, and to my delight, Lou Siskin, an insurance agent who
worked for Uncle Louie, came along for the weekend. Over the years, he proved
to be a good mentor and friend.
My initial hunting experiences were not all that positive. I was slow to get into
position, aim and shoot, often missing my target under the pressure of Uncle
Louie’ s critical appraisal. There were times I wished I would disappear when I
missed a shot that Uncle Louie wanted to take. My godfather and Dad were
always supportive and encouraging. I did not know it then, but I was going
through a rite of passage, moving from boyhood to manhood through a series of
experiences and tests with the men.
On Friday afternoons during the fall hunting season, I would leave my high
school, Brooklyn Technical, and take the subway to the Twenty-eighth Street and
Sixth Avenue station, walking from there to 330 Seventh Avenue where Dad was
the manufacturing foreman for Fierstein & Fierstein, a partnership owned by
brothers Joe and Abe Fierstein. I remember ringing the security bell at the heavy
front door to the showroom and being let in by one of the female bookkeepers or
secretaries. They offered perfunctory hellos, rarely more. Abe and Joe Fierstein, if
they saw me at all, might nod their heads.
I hurried through the showroom where frequently there would be one or two
women trying on fox or mink stoles, jackets, or coats to the admiring and
encouraging attention of a salesman. The showroom was in an art deco style, the
furniture worn, cigarette burned and covered with a fine layer of mink and fox
hair. I usually found Louie Wilhem in the showroom or just beyond where the
finished goods were stored in a vault. Louie was a big, gregarious salesman who
made an effort to make me feel comfortable. He usually talked about college
football and asked which team I favored, offering to bet a candy bar on the
outcome of a game. Unwilling to admit that I knew little about football, I would
choose a team whose name I recognized: Army, Notre Dame, and Navy were
among the few names I knew, probably because of movies I had seen about them.
Louie ushered me into the factory where Dad was at his cutting table dressed in a
white coat and wearing a tie. He acknowledged me and moved quickly to finish
the week’ s work, sometimes going to sewing machine operators or to the
stretching tables or finishers to give last minute instructions. The finishers, busy
sewing silk linings into garments, were all women. They made me feel uneasy.
My discomfort was, in part, my teenage aversion to feminine fussing, and in some
measure my awareness that the attention I was being paid may have been
prompted by the fact that my father was their foreman. I was happy to leave.
Dad and I walked to a Greek deli on Eighth Avenue to pick up one or two
shopping bags filled with aromatic cheeses, cured meats, and bread, and carry
them to the lot where our car was parked. My Nouno and Uncle Louie would meet
us there, or we would pick them up outside of the building on Twenty-eighth
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Street where Nouno had his business. We entered the West Side Highway at Fiftyninth Street and headed north passing the George Washington Bridge, following
the Taconic State Parkway north, until we reached Poughkeepsie, where we
crossed the river and continued north to Kingston.
Sometimes, we picnicked at a rest stop along the way eating improvised salami
and cheese sandwiches and fruit. More often, we stopped at a restaurant in
Kingston or further along at Cairo. One night we left New York City late and
famished, so stopped at an Italian trattoria in Cairo. It was a cold night, and the
restaurant’ s warmth was welcome.
I imitated Uncle Louie by ordering salad and Spaghetti Bolognese, amazed that
the urbane Uncle Louie would eat such food. He showered his spaghetti with red
flakes from a container on the table. I did the same in spite of warnings from the
men about how hot these little flakes were. They were hot. They were
excruciatingly hot. But, I ate every bit, hiding the pain in my flaming mouth as
best I could. On a later trip, I relearned the same lesson with stuffed hot cherry
peppers.
On Saturday mornings, Carelas hardboiled two dozen eggs for us and filled
thermos bottles with coffee. We packed these with the boxes in the trunk of our
car that held the magnificent picnic lunches we enjoyed. Mouthfuls of ham,
capocollo, prosciutto, salami, feta, olives, eggs, provolone, kasseri, bread and fruit
satisfied our hunger after four or five hours of trekking through the woods. Beer,
soft drinks and coffee quenched our thirst. They were marvelous picnics, meals
more satisfying than many restaurant dinners.
The first hunting weekend in October 1948 brought an early snow. On Saturday
morning, I got up when it was still dark, dressed, and entered the woods behind
the barn at dawn a little after the legal hunting hour (though I was still underage to
hunt alone). The snow was fresh on the ground, four inches of beautiful white
dressing over the landscape. The trees’ leaves were just past their prime show of
fall color but colorful enough to make a spectacular display against a deep blue,
clear sky at sunrise. Cold air filled my lungs. I realize now what a great sense of
life and promise filled me.
I wandered through the woods being as quiet as I could be. I called the crows and
in minutes, surrounded by a circling, diving flock, I happily killed three or four of
the ill-fated birds.
An hour passed and the morning exercise had wakened my appetite. I started back
toward the farm with hopes for scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and hot coffee. Just
as I was nearing the end of the wood, I jumped a rabbit. The startled creature ran
before me through the snow, and without a thought, I lifted my shotgun, aimed
and fired. The rabbit tumbled forward a few feet and lay still on the white snow,
red splotches covering the path of its final few steps. I was elated.
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Just as I picked up the rabbit, I heard Dad calling me. I came out of the wood and
saw him walking up the slope from the barn. His face broke into a great smile as
he saw me walking down the hill toward him, my first rabbit held high for him to
see.
In the three years that followed, I became the best hunter of the group, having
finally found a sport in which I could excel. It eased the pain of welts and bruises
that my ego received on baseball diamonds, running tracks, and basketball courts.
One day I bagged two partridges as they thundered into the air, one on either side
of a pine tree — a double. Another time, I downed two woodchucks with one
bullet, having aligned the creatures, one about ten feet behind the other by
crawling through the grass to the shooting point. The high velocity bullet passed
through the first woodchuck and killed the second as well. Uncle Louis could no
longer compete with me in quickness or shooting ability. I had passed the tests. I
joined the men in the fellowship of after-hunting drinks and dinner, and left
boyhood behind.
Looking back, I recognize my father as the steady guide, taking me to and
standing by me through my initiation. My godfather, Bill, was my encourager and
supporter. Lou Siskin, more interested in comradeship and walking in the forest
than in killing animals, was a leveling spirit, making my passage less troubling
and keeping everything in perspective. And finally, Uncle Louie, served as the
taskmaster and judge. They all were examples of good, honorable men with
integrity and purpose. They were wonderful role models for an awkward,
stammering, unsure boy.
Shad Roe
In late spring, shad mindlessly start their spawning run up the Hudson River. Dad
and Louie Dimitroff had a simultaneous visceral calling, they longed for the roe
of the shad.
As she swims upstream, each female shad has two kidney-shaped sacks of
precious eggs in her body. The sacks are brownish-red, eight to nine inches long,
three inches wide at their widest point, one inch thick, and each contains tens of
thousands of tiny, pinhead-size eggs.
As the season for the run approached, Dad, Nouno, and Uncle Louie would check
the New York Times daily for a report of shad in the river. The first weekend that a
shad run and woodchuck hunting coincided, they made for the riverbank at
Saugerties. There they found half a dozen or more local teenagers catching shad
with flies, lures and live bait. The youngsters skillfully filleted each bony fish and
deftly removed its roe.
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Dad and Uncle Louie bought as many roe as were available; literally, as many as
were available. They wrapped them in wax paper and put them in an ice-filled
container prepared earlier. From the river, we drove directly back to Carelas’ to
store the delicacies in the hotel-size refrigerator.
That evening back at Carelas’ after a day’ s hunting, Dad prepared a charcoal fire
outside the kitchen door. Waiting for the coals to burn down to white ash, the
hunting comrades nursed iced drinks of Teachers Scotch. Dad set the olive oilbathed roe on the grill, the coals hot enough to cook but not hot enough to burst
the tender sacks. When cooked through, he put the sizzling roe on a platter,
showered them with lemon juice, and delivered them to the table. Dad, Uncle
Louie, Nouno, and I sat down to a feast of roe, French fries, a huge salad, olives,
cheese, and Italian bread.
It was spring, and the beverage of choice was Ballantine’ s Bock Beer, the
seasonal alternative to the Ballantine’ s Ale (“ Three Ring” ) whose deep green
bottles were usually on the table. Ballantine’ s Bock came in distinctive brown
bottles, two or three cases of which were stored in our cellar every March.
On Sunday afternoon, Dad removed the remaining roe from Carelas’ refrigerator
and packed them in ice for the long trip home to my mother’ s tender care. She
wrapped each set of roe in wax paper and placed them all in our freezer. Every
two or three weeks, until the supply was exhausted, Dad would barbecue shad roe
either as an appetizer to serve to special friends or as dinner for the two of us.
(Mom and Nitsa either did not particularly like the taste of roe, or they decided to
let us enjoy all of it.)
Transition from Boyhood
Early in 1946, a friend at school asked me to come to a Boy Scout meeting. Two
or three of my classmates were members of Christ Episcopal Church’ s scout troop
that met just three blocks from my home at Seventy-third Street and Ridge
Boulevard. The troop was recruiting new scouts.
I was not sure what scouting was all about. Mom encouraged me to go to my first
meeting on the next Friday evening in February. I had not yet reached the
required age of twelve but was close enough to attend as a prospective scout. On
that Friday, night I started a new phase of my life.
The paramilitary aspect of scouting appealed to me, probably because of the
association with all the patriotic war movies of the 1940s. I did not like the
roughhouse games and soon found a way to avoid them by volunteering for
organizational and administrative duties.
By late April, I learned about the troop’ s summer camp on a lake at the Ten Mile
River Boy Scout Reservation near Narrowsburg, New York. For one week I
hounded my mother to allow me to go to summer Boy Scout camp. Her answer
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was unequivocally, “ No!” I do not remember having wanted to do anything so
much or ever otherwise having risked her health (I did not want to cause a heart
attack) or wrath by asking time after time.
On a Friday evening in early May, I went into my parent’ s bedroom after a scout
meeting to say good night and gathered my courage to ask my mother one final
time. Dad lowered the newspaper he was reading and asked about my request. It
was the first time he had ever involved himself in questions that I addressed to my
mother. I told him that I wanted to go to summer Boy Scout camp for eight
weeks, and that it would cost ten dollars a week. He said, “ Yes, go!” And that, as
they say, was that. Mom never said another word. She was not offended, not hurt,
and not angry.
In the days, weeks, and months that followed, I came to the realization that Dad
had taken over my rearing. He made the decisions, and I was not required to ask
my mother for permission to do anything. I had achieved some level of junior
manhood. He gave me maximum independence. Out of love, respect, and
courtesy, I still told my mother where I was going and what time I would return. I
met my responsibilities in the household and had a well-developed internal sense
of what I had to do to be a good son. I wanted to be that.
The Boy Scouts and Camp Waramaug
Joining the Boy Scouts was my first step into teenage life. And, Christ Episcopal
Church, Bay Ridge, was the center of my social and religious world for six
formative years.
My new friends in Boy Scout Troop 123 who were members of the Christ Church
quickly introduced me to Vance Hays, a man in his mid-forties who was director
of the youth programs of the parish. Vance told me about a young women’ s
scouting program called the Mariners that was one of many programs the parish
sponsored. Within days, I introduced Nitsa to Vance, and she soon was a Mariner.
She met two or three lifelong friends in the program. One of them, Greta
Hirsimaki, was the sister of John Hirsimaki, who joined the Boy Scout Troop at
the urging of Greta’ s boyfriend and became one of my best friends.
Rey & Pierre’ s
Dad frequently took Mom, Nitsa, and me out to dinner after church on Sunday.
Among of our family favorites was Rey & Pierre’ s French Restaurant on Fiftysecond Street close to Fifth Avenue, just across from the “ 21 Club.” It looked
exactly as a teenaged New York boy would imagine a French country restaurant.
It was comfortable and casual with bright red-and-white-checkered tablecloths
and walls covered with murals of pastoral scenes; it was welcoming to a hungry
family. The owners offered their French and other guests delicious, modestly
priced food in the Provencal style: hearty entrées laced with butter, wine, and
garlic. It was there that I learned to enjoy escargot and frogs legs Provencal.
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We dined at Rey & Pierre’ s frequently enough for the proprietors to recognize
me, so it was with great élan that I took my first dinner date there on a hot, humid
Tuesday evening in August 1951. I was seventeen, and on my day off from my
job at the Breezy Point Surf Club. My date was Ann Emelda Gillen, an eighth
grade crush who I ran into and asked out when I met her while walking home on
Ridge Boulevard one evening. We went to an afternoon showing of a foreign
movie on East Fifty-seventh Street, close to Third Avenue, and then walked to
dinner, ducking into store doorways to avoid rain showers. She thought I was
extravagant.
Another time, I hosted a Christmas dinner at Rey & Pierre’ s for my friends Don
Kaye and John Hirsimaki. We enjoyed dishes liberally flavored with garlic and
drank Bordeaux. Two hours later, we were asked to leave our seats at the
Metropolitan Opera. Apparently, our garlic and wine aura was nauseating the
opera-goers around us. Arrogant, we did not leave; the others did!
West of Rey & Pierre’ s on Fifty-second Street were “ Jimmy Ryan’ s,” and the
other nightclubs for which the street was noted. (In earlier times, the street was
also known for its brothels.) But, except for the “ 21 Club,” they are all gone now,
replaced by high-rise office buildings.
Dad made sure that my mother got out of the kitchen two or more Saturday or
Sunday evenings each month. There were other restaurants that we went to
regularly: The Seafare of the Aegean, first on Third Avenue, then, when it moved,
to West Fifty-sixth Street (the location was The Beacon restaurant in 2001); an
Italian restaurant just a block or two away, whose name I have forgotten; the Fort
Hamilton, located across the street from Fort Hamilton in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn;
Lundy’ s in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, where we ate steamed clams, crab, and
lobster with butter running down our arms; Rumpelmayer’ s, at the St. Moritz
Hotel on Central Park South for traditional fare and wonderful desserts; the Blue
Ribbon, a dark German restaurant on West Forty-forth Street, its walls lined with
photographs of Wagnerian opera greats from the nearby Met; and, not to be
forgotten, the Hunting Room at the Astor Hotel on Times Square for very special
occasions.
Dad once advised me that it would be important that I take my wife and family
out to dinner at nice restaurants when I married.
The Bells of St. Mary’ s
Most anyone who has seen the film, The Godfather, remembers Michael Corleone
(Al Pacino) walking past the Radio City Music Hall during the 1945 Christmas
holiday with his girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton). The theater’ s marquee announces
The Bells of St. Mary’ s, starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman, as the feature
attraction. At this moment in The Godfather, Kay sees a New York News headline
reporting that Michael’ s father, Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) had been shot.
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Nothing quite that dramatic happened to us. Mom, Dad, Nitsa, and I were in line
outside the theater in a light snowfall one day of the 1945 Christmas holiday
waiting for the early showing of The Bells of St. Mary’ s to end. Dad had reserved
seats in the loge for the second showing of the day. It included an hour stage
review of Christmas music and dancing featuring the Rockettes, the famous
chorus line of energetic, high-kicking young women.
We entered the theater in the low light of a clouded winter afternoon and came
out aglow with the good feeling engendered by the film to find Sixth Avenue
covered with a blanket of snow. We walked a few blocks to our favorite Italian
restaurant for warmth and dinner, and talk about the movie, then drove home to
Brooklyn.
Friends
I had three friends in my teenage years.
John
John Hirsimaki shared my interest in books, the Museum of Modern Art, walks
from the Cloisters, north of the George Washington Bridge, to Bay Ridge (more
then twenty-five miles), and exploration of the city. He, his sister Greta, Nitsa,
and I often spent time together.
On occasion, we four drove along the Hudson on New Jersey’ s Route 9-W to
have a smörgasbord dinner at “ A Little Bit of Sweden,” overlooking the river. On
one memorable evening we found “ A Little Bit of Sweden” closed, and after a
search came upon a restaurant marked by a roadside sign that directed us down a
dark, long, narrow road toward the Hudson River. We found a charming Victorian
House converted into an inviting restaurant named “ The Boulderberger Inn,” and
enjoyed a quiet room, the warmth of a fireplace, a thick cut of barbecued steak,
Chianti, and happy conversation.
Most Christmas holidays from the time I was fourteen until I left for California,
Nitsa and I would visit the Hirsimaki’ s home on an evening two or three days
before Christmas. We were treated to Swedish and Finnish specialties that
included delicious sandwiches and desserts, and soul-warming cups of glögg.
[This warm drink of port, claret, and brandy is spiced with clove, cinnamon,
cardamom, and dried orange peel, and served in a glass with raisins and almonds.
Just before serving, sugar saturated with cognac is burned over the mixture and
pounded gently into it through a wire sieve.] Mrs. Hirsimaki was a gracious
hostess, elegant and refined.
Occasionally when at John’ s home, perhaps with another friend, John Ryan, Mr.
Hirsimaki would pop in to say hello to the “ serious thinkers.” I do not know
whether he was kidding us or not, but I took the comment as a compliment.
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One of our favorite haunts was a place on West Fifty-second Street called Jimmy
Ryan’ s (no relation to John Ryan). [See Figure 9.] From the late 1940s through
the 1950s Ryan’ s was the home of “ Wilbur de Paris and the Rampart Street
Ramblers,” the “ New New Orleans Jazz Band” — Dixieland Jazz. Fifty-second
Street was lined with nightclubs — burlesque on the south side of the street,
Ryans’ s and the “ 21 Club,” on the north side. Dixieland devotees, we were
regulars even before being of age, known to the manager and barmen, and often
let in ahead of the queue at the front door. The special treatment made me feel
important.
John and I shared not having clarity about what we wanted to do with our lives.
John went to sea after high school, then to college for one year before entering the
army on the same day that I did. The year he was at sea, I finished high school.
Then, when I was in my first year at the Manhattan School of Music, he was at
Wittenberg College in Ohio. Still unsure about our futures, we came to the same
decision in the late winter of 1953 — we would go into the army that summer.
Ronnie
Ronald E. Moss and I went to Boy Scout summer camp together and shared
interests in musical theater, show business, and girls. We were initiated into a Boy
Scout fraternal service organization, the Order of the Arrow, in the summer of
1948, and became Brotherhood (second degree) initiates together two years later.
And, we were awarded the “ Camp Waramaug Emblem,” at the same ceremony. It
was a big thing for us.
Ronnie and I worked together for two summers at Breezy Point, sharing
commutes by train and ferry, finding ways to maximize our income, and enjoying
our days off in the city. His father, doing us a favor and wanting to spend some
time with his son, would occasionally drive us to Breezy Point on a weekend
morning. It would have been wonderful but for the fact that I was relegated to the
back seat with Mr. Moss’ s huge, ugly, drooling, and flatulent bulldog as my travel
companion. Drool-stained slacks and shoes and nausea were the cost of the car
ride.
Ronnie was athletic, very popular with the girls, and had a good voice (tenor). He
tried show business working summer stock and touring nationally with a group
named The Rover Boys. While I was at Columbia, Ronnie introduced me to
young Broadway singers and dancers. We double-dated a lot, even taking young
women to his alma mater, Trinity, for football games and parties. Some came
home with me for holiday dinners.
Eventually embracing the responsibilities of marriage and family, he settled into a
very successful advertising career with The New York Times.
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Figure 9
52nd
Street in Manhattan
Looking East from Sixth Avenu e tow ard Fifth Avenu e
Cover of Park East Magazine
Janu ary 1952
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G. Donald Kaye
I met Don Kaye at Christ Church. He was (and is) a serious musician, was active
in the Boy Scouts, and became a close friend. Don guided me as I prepared to be
inducted into the Brotherhood level of the Order of the Arrow, and my companion
on a trip to attend the national convention of the Order held at the University of
Indiana campus in Bloomington, Indiana, in the late summer of 1950.
The trip to Bloomington included a stop in Chicago on the return leg. We visited
my cousin Helen, who was the daughter of my great-aunt Sultana, my
grandmother Eleni’ s sister. Don and I stayed with Helen and her husband for three
or four days. In addition to Aunt Helen’ s very generous hospitality, two
experiences are firm in my memory: a visit to the Bahai Temple and an
introduction to the religion [I was very impressed by it], and a picnic to Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin.
The picnic introduced Don and me to the beauty of Wisconsin, especially Lake
Geneva whose shore was lined with large, beautiful homes. Our picnic was
incredible. My cousin, who I called Aunt Helen in the Greek tradition, had slowbaked a covered leg of lamb at 250º F. all the previous night. It contained slivers
of garlic, was bathed in olive oil and lemon juice, and sprinkled with oregano,
salt, and pepper. The result was sweet lamb falling off the bone in most tender
pieces. We devoured a picnic lunch that included roast potatoes, salad, bread,
wine, cheese, and, never to be forgotten, raw garlic.
Yes — heads of raw garlic,
My aunt’ s husband, whose name I do not remember, peeled a clove of raw garlic
at the beginning of lunch and popped it into his mouth, chewing it with relish. The
first clove was followed by a second. As we watched incredulously, he offered
Don and me our very own cloves. Were we men, or were we men? Not to be
outdone, we each took a clove, then a second. We three must have eaten two
heads of garlic, and woe the person that came near to us. I think we had garlic
seeping from our pores for two days.
My friendship with Don brought me into contact with Vladimir Havsky, a
Russian pianist who became the organist and choir director at Christ Church. Don
and Vladimir greatly influenced my interest in serious music.
We attended broadcast performances of the NBC Symphony conducted by Arturo
Toscanini at Carnegie Hall on many Saturday afternoons, buying tickets from a
Russian scalper on the corner of Fifty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue just
around the block from the Carnegie’ s entrance. Most memorable of these was a
performance of the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition on 24 January
1953.
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After a concert, we often took the subway to Little Italy
somewhere close to Mulberry Street, and ate dinner at
restaurant. It was secreted behind the boarded-up windows
store and was owned and operated by Don Ciccio and his
how he came to receive the Italian honorific “ Don.”
in lower Manhattan,
a small, unlicensed
of a defunct grocery
wife. I have no idea
The restaurant had one room with perhaps six or seven tables located right next to
an open kitchen. There was no menu; one simply looked in the refrigerator and in
the pots and pans on the range and in the oven to make a selection of a soup or
stew, fish or meat, pasta, and salad. Wine drawn into a carafe from the
proprietor’ s barrel in the cellar was brought up the stairs and set on the table with
an ample plate of antipasti and a loaf of fresh, crusty bread. Having dinner there
was a treat, and we were regularly in the company of NBC Symphony members.
After dinner, we would have coffee at the Italian pastry shop next door, then set
out to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and on to Bay Ridge, arriving home in the
early, but still dark morning. Conversation made time pass quickly.
Don was often at our home. My mother and father had a great affection for him
and encouraged his participation in our family life.
Friends at Home
Our home was open to all of our friends. Helene and I were free to invite them to
dinner at almost any time, and for after dinner visits and holiday festivities. John,
his sister, Greta, Ronnie, and Don were practically family. Others came to our
home as well. Nitsa’ s college classmates, my army buddies, and many of the
young people I met through Ronnie that were on Broadway and far from home,
found my father’ s welcome and my mother’ s open arms and good food.
I remember game dinners, barbecues, picnics, and movie nights, when we would
rent a sixteen-millimeter projector and view old films, even “ silents.” There was
no television.
Guilty — With a Reason
I know of only one time that Dad received a citation for illegal driving or parking.
I am certain that he never was pursued about an unpaid bill or caused to appear in
court for any other reason.
It happened when he was driving back to Brooklyn from Mom and Nitsa’ s
summer cottage at Dover Lake, New Jersey. Earlier in the day he had visited
Camp Waramaug. Since he was going to return to New York after stopping at
Dover Lake, he offered a ride to a fellow Scout Board member and his wife.
Somewhere between Dover Lake and the Lincoln Tunnel, Dad passed a car on the
right side at an intersection on a two-lane road. The New Jersey Highway Patrol
was on the alert. Dad was stopped and ticketed.
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Dad would not ordinarily drive aggressively. In this instance, his female
passenger was six months pregnant and nauseated by the exhaust fumes billowing
from the car in front of them. Dad just performed the gentlemanly act one might
have expected of him. He passed the car at the first opportunity. Unfortunately, it
was the wrong place, time, and lane.
Dad could have mailed a check to cover his bail and forgotten the matter.
However, he wanted to make his case before a judge and prove that his
transgression was for a good reason and therefore justified. So, one afternoon he
took me with him on the drive to a small town in New Jersey and to the informal
courtroom where he was to appear.
Dad went forward to stand in front of the judge when his name was called. The
room looked exactly as you might imagine in a small southern town, with a judge
prepared to exact tribute from northern tourists. It was the first and only time I
ever saw perspiration on Dad’ s forehead. One would have thought he was about
to plead in a murder case.
“ Guilty, with a reason,” was his plea. The judge gave him sixty seconds to recite,
in a trembling voice, the reason for his passing on the right and to describe the
distress of his passenger.
The judge said: “ Guilty, pay the clerk fifty dollars!”
Dad wrote the check, and we left. Somehow he felt vindicated. While he had been
found guilty, he had been able to publicly state the reason for his having broken
the letter of the law. What counted to him was that he had done what he felt was
right and proper under the circumstances to protect the health of a pregnant young
woman.
Christ Church
After my first summer at Camp Waramaug, I returned to Bay Ridge bonded in
friendship with boys of my age who were members of Christ Church. It was just a
matter of weeks before I was singing alto in its all-male choir and attending
Sunday school. My sister and I became members of the Young Peoples
Fellowship (YPF), the youth group for teenagers of the parish. I was initiated into
the young men’ s fraternal organization of the Church, Phi Sigma Beta,
participated in theater productions and countless benefit programs, was a member
of a veteran’ s hospital visitation group, and following in my sister’ s footsteps,
became secretary, vice president and president of several of the organizations. I
tried hard to contribute to success of the basketball team but spent most of my
time on the bench.
My parents supported my sister and me spending more and more of our time at
Christ Church. It was a good environment, and since there was no comparable
program offered at a nearby Greek church (there was no nearby Greek church), I
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am sure that they were happy to have us actively involved in it. Dad even pledged
an annual contribution to the church, and for a year or two canvassed members of
the parish for pledges. He did not want his children taking advantage of programs
paid for by others.
Father Fitzgerald, the minister at Christ Church, frequently reminded me that I
was Greek Orthodox, and that while I was welcome in his congregation and to its
communion, I should never forget my heritage.
The church was austere, built of stone in a crucifer plan common to Anglican
churches. It would have fit comfortably into Britain’ s landscape. Of my many
memories of Christ Church and the teenagers I grew up with, none stand out more
than the Christmas Eve celebrations, especially Sunday, 24 December 1950. That
Christmas Eve morning as I sang in the choir at the eleven o’ clock service, the
church showed no hint of Christmas.
Immediately after the eleven o’ clock service, I hurried home for a quick lunch and
to change into work clothes. Back at the corner of Seventy-third Street within
forty-five minutes, I saw Mr. Moss, Ronnie Moss’ father, perched high on top of a
ladder against the exterior rear wall of the church. A cigarette between his lips, he
was wiring the huge six-pointed star that would shine brightly that night as it had
for years of Christmas Eves.
Inside the church there was a storm of activity. Under the supervision of adults,
teenagers helped position and decorate with green boughs and red ribbons the
long candleholders (twelve-foot-long, dark wood planks) that hung above both
sides of the central aisle of the nave. We stacked fresh evergreen trees in the
corners of the transepts to the left and right of the chancel, and draped the lectern,
pulpit, and altar with Christmas garlands. In a matter of two or three hours, the
church was transformed into a colorful expression of Christmas.
Late in the afternoon, I rushed home to shower, change, and wolf down my
dinner. By seven o’ clock, I was in my choir robes and holding a candle as part of
the procession entering the church singing, “ Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” The
church was lit only with candles. This, the first service of the evening, was over
by eight o’ clock. Teenagers assembled outside of the church with lanterns and
candles, and proceeded to walk through Bay Ridge to the homes of the elderly
and infirmed to sing a carol or two at each stop before moving on. From time to
time, we were greeted with hot chocolate and Christmas cookies.
At eleven o’ clock, I was back into my choir robes and again part of the procession
entering the church for the second and more formal Candlelight Service. At
midnight, the service was over, and I rushed home and to bed in anticipation of
Christmas Day.
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It was a special Christmas Eve. I remember it for the sense of community,
fellowship, and joy that we had in creating the Christmas spirit, transforming the
church in an afternoon, and sharing in the excitement of the season.
Brooklyn Tech & Music
My high school deserves a comment. I was accepted to Brooklyn Technical and
Stuyvesant High Schools after passing competitive examinations for each. My
high school years at Brooklyn Tech were not remarkable. I was a good student in
a college pre-engineering curriculum, achieving a B+ overall average without too
much effort. I did not want to invest the time to achieve higher grades and was not
pressed by my parents to do so; my teenage activities were too important to me.
The academic program was rigorous. I had only two decisions to make: French or
German for three years (I chose French), and a choice of shops for the final onehalf year (I chose print shop).
Brooklyn Tech was a twenty-minute subway ride from Bay Ridge, and a tenminute walk from the downtown Brooklyn station to Ft. Greene Place where Tech
was located. As a commuter, I did not form the kind of bonds with other students
that are typical in a community high school. Friends who attended our local Fort
Hamilton High School had a much different experience than I.
I was a confused teenager without a specific career goal. The results of scholastic
aptitude and interest tests that I took in my junior year indicated that I could
pursue virtually any career, except for sports and physical education; no surprise
there. Still, I had no notion of what I wanted to do and received little guidance
from my parents or relatives. Becoming a doctor was the profession most parents
preferred for their Greek-American sons. But, I disliked chemistry, had no interest
in medical school, and admit to having been squeamish about blood and suffering.
Romantic notions of a career in music fostered by my friendships with musicians
led me to the Manhattan School of Music and my first year of college.
Breezy Point
As the summer of 1951 approached, I decided that it was time to make some
money for college. The minister at Christ Church, Rev. John Fitzgerald, D.D.,
recommended Ronnie Moss and me as possible summer employees to the
manager of The Breezy Point Surf Club at Rockaway Point. The manager had
evidently sent letters to all the ministers and priests in Bay Ridge asking for
referrals.
Breezy Point Surf Club was (and still is) a country club at the beach. There were
several membership classifications. The most desirable included use of
permanently assigned cabanas located in U-shaped courts of thirty each. There
were eight courts. The cabanas enclosed a 100 ft. x 150 ft. rectangular space on
three sides; the open end led to the beach and the sea.
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Each cabana measured nine feet across and fifteen feet deep, and had a boardwalk
at its front where there was an outdoor, shaded seating area. A front room with an
icebox, sink, and counters, two dressing rooms and a shower completed the unit.
The rear walls of the cabanas on either end of the club did not abut a unit, so had a
back deck leading to open space. Premium cabanas with enclosed ocean view
porches facing the sea were at the end of the courts.
Ronnie and I were interviewed and hired by Mr. Bernard, a well-groomed
caricature of a gentleman’ s gentleman. We started work on the first weekend in
May. Our weekend work through Memorial Day was to shovel sand off the
boardwalks, clean cabanas, move furniture, paint railings and steps, and perform
other clean-up activities in preparation for the Club’ s annual opening on the
Saturday of the Memorial Day weekend.
Mom prepared three Kaiser Roll sandwiches for me every workday. I ate one
mid-morning, two at lunch, and hungry again at my three-in-the-afternoon break,
I rushed to the hamburger stand for more nourishment.
It took us an hour and one-half to get to work from Bay Ridge. We started the trip
on a subway to Sheepshead Bay, then boarded a ferry to Breezy Point, and finally
walked about one mile to the club. The club paid us $1.16 per hour for our labor.
The Christmas before my first summer at Breezy Point Nitsa had given me a copy
of Fitzgerald’ s translation of The Rubáiyat of Omar Kayyám. It was exotic and
romantic, and I was seventeen. I carried it every day on our commute to work, and
by the end of the summer, had the entire volume committed to memory. I gushed
quatrains at every opportunity.
Ronnie and I were assigned adjoining cabana stations; he on one court, and I on
the next. Each “ Cabana Boy” serviced half a court, or fifteen cabanas. Our
training took all of an hour. Basic duties included: opening the cabanas every
morning; taking out the furniture; sweeping and washing the floors; and,
providing service to members as required — porter their personal bags and
groceries in from their cars, bring ice to their iceboxes, raise and lower the
awnings, and run whatever errands they requested. For these services, we received
weekly gratuities. We were pleased to have $60 or more in our pockets after the
first week. However, we were ambitious teenagers and willing to work hard.
Within three weeks, we were pulling in over $100 each, and by August, $150 was
not unusual.
Ronnie and I kept the cleanest cabanas at Breezy Point. In no time, women were
leaving dirty dishes, messy counters, full ashtrays, and dressing rooms strewn
with bathing suits and covered with wet sand for us to clean. Not only did we
clean, we catered. By August, we catered clambakes and steak barbecues after our
normal working hours.
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On Monday mornings, we collected all the empty bottles we could find and
packed them into an empty storage room we had requisitioned. Every two weeks,
on the night before our day off, Nitsa would drive out and we would pack Dad’ s
car with bottles that we turned in to markets for cash.
For my favorite members, Mr. and Mrs. Goodhand, nothing was good enough.
His whiskey sour was chilled and waiting for him when he arrived Saturday and
Sunday mornings. And, her cabinets, counters and floors were spotless. I washed
the glass panes of the enclosed sitting area inside and out, making them sparkle,
and cleaned her icebox every Friday.
Actually, the Goodhands were such nice people that I would have done anything
for them regardless of the amount they tipped me each week. As one might
expect, they were the biggest tippers: $20!
They had a beautiful, seventeen-year-old niece, Marjorie, whom Ronnie and I first
saw as she entered the club in high heels, wearing a white, short-sleeve, highnecked, bouffant dress, held out by a crinoline underskirt. Her head was crowned
with a wide-brimmed straw hat circled by a white, long band with blue polka dots.
Now, fifty-one years later, the impression is still vivid. Ronnie dated Marjorie that
fall and had her as a guest at Trinity College. I became her friend.
At the end of the summer, Mr. Bernard sent a very nice letter to Dr. Fitzgerald
expressing, “ …the gratitude of the management of the club for sending us such
splendid boys.” Mr. Bernard wanted us back for the following summer, and we
agreed to return on the condition that we would each be assigned a full court (30
cabanas).
The summer of 1952, we worked even longer hours and were energized by the
money that was rolling in — over $250 per week! Ronnie and I had solved our
immediate college tuition and expense problem.
Joining us at our work in the second year was a fraternity brother of Ronnie’ s
from Trinity College, Stanton “ Stan” H. Avitabile. Stan was more intellectual and
less money hungry than we. He was six feet four inches in height, had straight As
in college, and while devoted to history, planned to go to medical school. I invited
Stan to dinner with Ronnie on a Sunday evening when my parents would be away
on vacation. I wanted Stan to meet Helene, who was also a straight A student,
stood five feet nine inches in her stocking feet, and was a terrific cook. I had
plans.
Unfortunately, on that Sunday morning, Mr. Bernard unexpectedly asked Ronnie,
Stan, and me to work overtime at a dance. I said no, and my friends joined me.
Mr. Bernard, in a pique, threatened to fire us. We, in a huff and with our
testosterone levels raging, said we had an engagement we could not break and left
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at five to have dinner with my sister. The dinner was a smash, impressing Stan.
Good for sister! Good for brother!
The next morning, when we went to work we were confronted by a very angry
Mr. Bernard. It only took one day for us to notify our members that we were
being fired and for Mr. Bernard to back off. It must have been difficult for him,
but it would have been even more difficult for him to explain to his membership
why he fired his best and their favorite cabana boys. Things quieted down.
In my first year, shortly after I started working at the club, I learned that my Uncle
Louie had a cabana and was a long-time member. My godmother and godfather
were frequent visitors, as were Uncle Louie’ s two special women friends: one
from uptown and the other from midtown Manhattan. They never attended family
social functions, but one or the other would go to dances, the theater, and dinner
with Uncle Louie and my godparents, sometimes when my mother and father
were present. I learned that he lived a less virtuous life than I thought.
Once or twice I had to avoid him at the club when he got very drunk, drinking
beer alone on summer weekday afternoons. I had never seen him intoxicated
before.
It was a revelation that he and my godparents belonged to this elite club of white,
mostly catholic, Brooklyn and Manhattan families. I am not sure that my parents
knew it until the summer I worked at the club, saw Uncle Louie, and was seen by
my Nouna Rose.
Uncle Louie’ s Death
One September evening in 1952, Dad came home a little late from work and
looking somber. When we finished dinner, he told us that Uncle Louie was in the
hospital and that his condition was serious. Over the next few days, I learned that
he had been prescribed a new antibiotic to treat a bladder infection. It was called
chloromycetin. Early tests of the drug had not revealed a dangerous side effect:
aplastic anemia. Uncle Louie experienced the worst possible consequence, and his
bone marrow ceased to function.
We visited him regularly in the hospital. In fact, he held court for his friends
every afternoon with an open bar and hors d’ ouevres. His business associates and
hunting pals came to have a few drinks and reminisce with Louie while he
declined and drew close to death. He knew that he was dying, but somehow did
not impose his burden on his friends. I offered to provide a bone marrow
transplant, but Nouna chose to find a non-family donor. It was a new procedure
that unfortunately did not help him.
On another evening in early October, Dad came home and told us that Uncle
Louie had died that afternoon.
189
The funeral was at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral on the east side of Manhattan.
The burial was at Mount Olive Cemetery. Louie joined his mother, just one
hundred yards from my great-grandmother, grandmother, and brother’ s grave. At
the cemetery, we learned that we were all to go to the penthouse of the Saint
Moritz Hotel on Central Park South at Sixth Avenue. Cocktails, dinner, and
dancing awaited us. Uncle Louie had provided in his last will and testament that
everyone who came to his funeral should celebrate his life just as he had . . . with
a party.
Conservatory Days
That fall of 1952, I started my college career at the Manhattan School of Music
which was located in a run-down neighborhood at East 105th Street in Manhattan.
It was a difficult, confusing, and unhappy year. I did not fit in at the conservatory,
was unsure of what I wanted to do with my life, had only enough money for the
first year of school, and was possessed by a persistent impulse to break out, to
escape, and to run. The freshman fats caught up with me, and my weight surged
from 185 to 242 pounds.
In late October or early November of 1952, I drove to Trinity College to visit
Ronnie for a football weekend. Stan Avitabile was in the same fraternity house as
Ronnie, and I stopped in to see him in his room. He was not going to attend the
game; he planned to use the time in a laboratory to dissect a shark. That afternoon
he told me that he was going to marry my sister. I asked him if he had told her,
knowing that he had not even dated her. Stan smiled, and future events proved
him right.
Sometime in January or February of 1953, I started to think about joining the
Army to fulfill my military obligation. I had an academic deferment, gained by
examination, but felt that I was not living up to my responsibilities. My older
cousins and family friends had all served in the Second World War; it seemed
only right that I should serve in the Korean War. And, military service was an
excuse to leave school and home, and buy time to consider my future. Moreover,
there was the promise of the G.I. Bill to help pay for my education. After much
correspondence with John Hirsimaki, who was at Wittenberg College in Ohio, I
decided to volunteer for the draft, as did he.
When I informed my parents of my plan, they accepted my decision without
discussion. I learned that I was on my own and had the freedom to make my life
as I wanted. I planned to leave the Manhattan School of Music at the end of the
academic year.
Late in May, I went to the draft board on Eighty-sixth Street and asked if it were
possible to be called for duty, to be drafted. It seemed a better alternative to be
drafted for two years than to enlist for a minimum term of three years. No
problem. They took my index card from the file, I signed a waiver, and my name
was placed first in queue to report for induction on Monday, 20 July 1953.
190
I made a round of visits to friends and relatives to play the role of the young man
off to arms. Bob Capidaglis, Anesti and Jim Zelios, Dr. DeTata, Tom Papanas,
and the other World War II veterans gave me terrific advice. I was later most
grateful for the tips they gave me about how to survive on a troop ship: Rush to
the hold to which I was assigned and find a top bunk next to an air inlet; protect
this piece of turf with my life; and, volunteer for kitchen duty as a cook’ s helper.
The morning I left home, I wore clothing I planned to throw away and carried a
small, ragged satchel with a razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, and two
changes of socks and underwear. My parents each had a final admonition for me.
Mom: “ If you get a girl in trouble, I’ ll kill you!”
Dad:
“ Do not dishonor your family name!”
As I walked up Ovington, over to Sixty-ninth Street and toward Fourth Avenue, I
had no idea of what lay before me.
191
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$UP\'D\V
20 July 1953
It was a hot, humid morning. John Hirsimaki, John Ryan, and I met at the Sixtyninth Street subway station for our trip to downtown Brooklyn and the Army
Induction Center. Once there, we were processed through a cursory medical
examination.
I weighed 242 pounds, the result of my eating my way through my year at the
Manhattan School of Music, and was afraid that I would be turned down for high
blood pressure just as the Naval Reserve had refused me months earlier. But, the
only inductee told to go home and see his doctor had visible blood in his urine.
Everyone else was “ warm” enough to be inducted. After the examination, we
were inoculated several times, told that we would be sore, sick, and feverish for a
couple of days, and warned not to complain.
Herded into a room, we stood at attention and took the oath that bound us as
members of the United States Army, stepped forward to signify our commitment,
then picked up our small personal bags, and boarded waiting buses for the ride to
Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. Camp Kilmer functioned as a processing center for
inductees, reassignments, and separations from service. I would visit it twice more
in the next two years.
Camp Kilmer, New Jersey
I am separated from John Hirsimaki and John Ryan.
A sergeant tells us to use no more than one square of toilet paper.
A lieutenant reads the Articles of War to us at midnight.
Broom handles encourage our swift exit from our barracks when ordered.
Whistles start to govern my behavior.
I receive my Army duffel and clothes, learn how to make a bed, and how to scrub
the “ john” [bathroom].
We eat in a mess hall designed to feed five thousand.
I “ pull” (am assigned to) KP (kitchen police, or mess hall duty), scrubbing floors
with lemon juice and brown soap that have just been scrubbed with lemon juice
and brown soap by another team, and will be scrubbed with lemon juice and
brown soap by a team following immediately behind us.
I pull KP and clean pots large enough to step into.
192
I want to go home.
I pull garbage duty and service the WAC barracks.
I am miserable.
I learn to spit-polish boots.
While many recruits sitting at desks use the opportunity to catch up on sleep, I
take aptitude tests, two sets of them.
I receive orders to ship out to Camp Gordon, in Augusta, Georgia.
Buses take us to an airport in Philadelphia where a tired old DC3 waits for us on
the runway.
I ask a sergeant if I can take the train.
He calls a captain who orders me on board under pain of court martial and prison.
I obey.
The plane has Spanish language instructions. It is a frayed plane from a charter
airline that makes runs to Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico.
We fly south.
It is my first flight, and I am white-knuckle terrified.
Camp Gordon, Georgia
Our plane lands on the afternoon of a late July, bright, hot, and humid day.
I stumble down the steps onto a black tarmac that is spongy underfoot and
radiating heat.
I find my duffel as it is thrown from the plane’ s baggage compartment and with it
on my shoulder, double-time toward a waiting bus in a column of twos under the
watchful eyes and screaming orders of drill sergeants.
My uniform is soaked in sweat.
I pass out and crumble to the tarmac. I am kicked to my feet and onto the bus.
We pass an obstacle course where soldiers in fatigue uniforms, wearing steel
helmets and carrying M-1 rifles, climb walls, walk logs high over muddy ground,
193
and perform other acts of physical prowess that make me certain that I am going
to die here in Georgia.
Our bus, one of several, stops in front of a small building opposite a row of
barracks.
We are ordered out and into formation. Within a few minutes a captain and a first
sergeant came out of the building to the command, “ Attention!”
We are introduced to our company commander, who I scarcely remember seeing
two or three times in the next eight weeks. The first sergeant looks like a John
Wayne clone. He has a chest full of citations and a combat infantry badge. Timein-service slash marks run up one of his sleeves and several gold, time-in-combat
slash marks run down the other.
The first sergeant has words for us:
“ Your platoon sergeant drill instructor is f-----g GOD. Obey his orders!
Tomorrow you will ache. Every f-----g bone and muscle in your body will
ache.
Don’ t f-----g complain! Don’ t go on f--king sick report because
you hurt.
There is no f-----g way out of the next eight weeks.
Fall out!”
I’ m issued my steel helmet with liner.
I’ m issued an M-1 rifle, a bayonet, a cartridge belt, a canteen, and other field
equipment.
“ This is my rifle
This is my gun
This is for killing
This is for fun!”
One day merges into the next. Hot, humid, torrential afternoon rains, double-time.
I pass out. Push-ups, pants loose, hungry, mail, pullups, sleepy, double-time. I
pass out. Pants looser, red clay dust, tired, thirsty, rifles, grenades, exhausted.
Overnight pass in Augusta at Augusta Hotel with Leon McKusick, my buddy.
Photo 52, in uniform, taken for Mom.
194
We buy a small bottle of gin, quinine water, ice. Take turns soaking in the
bathtub, drink, nap, soak, dinner downstairs, soak, sleep — twelve hours.
Shave, shower, breakfast, bus, barracks.
Push-ups, pullups, double-time easier. I am not passing out.
Pants looser.
Pride.
Night on the range crawling under machine-gun fire, grenade throwing, bayonet
drills.
Survive the obstacle course.
Parade, pants looser, pride.
Final inspection.
Major:
Me:
Sergeant:
Major:
“ Whose clothes are those, soldier?”
“ Mine, sir.”
“ They’ re his, sir.”
“ Get him new ones!”
I lost forty-seven pounds in ten weeks, down from a size 46 to 38.
Lieutenant:
Me:
Lieutenant:
Me:
“ You are going to fire control school.”
“ I don’ t want to be a fireman.”
“ It’ s radar school at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey.”
“ Yes, sir!”
There was a golden evening sky over a DC-6 at the Augusta airport on a Saturday
in the first week in October. I got on board at twilight, no questions, and flew
north.
Fort Monmouth, New Jersey
We arrive at Ft. Monmouth late on Saturday night. They do not know what to do
with us, so hand out twenty-four hour passes. I head for Brooklyn and ring our
doorbell at 260 Ovington at 5:30 A.M. on Sunday. Mom answers the door, looks
at me, hugs and kisses me, and heads for the kitchen. Scrambled eggs, toast,
sausage, coffee; I eat two helpings of everything. Dad asks questions. Mom looks
at me like I am about to die from starvation and sews cuffs on the new size 34
Class “ A” trousers issued to me just before I left Georgia.
195
We visit Nouno in the hospital. Home, sleepy, photographs in the garden, early
dinner, Mom and Dad drive me back to Ft. Monmouth.
*******
I was assigned to Training Company “ U” with a group that consisted generally of
young men with one or more years of college, or with strong previous technical
experience. Our barracks were reopened World War II vintage. The wood slates
on the siding of the barracks had shrunk, so snow blew in to make straight-line
patterns on our bunks and floors. Old boilers heated us. We had “ boiler watch” at
night for safety. One exploded and took half of one barrack with it while we were
in class.
My thirty-six weeks at Ft. Monmouth were spent in class eight hours each night,
from 4:00 P.M. until midnight. Our instructors were electrical engineering and
physics professors from local colleges who had second jobs teaching us
electronics.
It was good duty.
I had a pass most weekends, so I went home frequently, arriving at 3:00 A.M. on
Saturday and returning to the barracks by noon on Monday.
We ate great meatball and marinara sauce, and fried pepper and egg sandwiches
from an Italian restaurant just off the base on Monday nights when the cooks
threw all the “ C” rations into one pot (sausage patties, corned beef, lima beans,
frankfurters, beans, and God knows what else).
We built a company day room (recreation room) using pinewood from boxes for
wall covering. I rebuilt an old player piano, and we scrounged a pool table with a
slightly torn green cover from somewhere.
When I pulled mess duty (KP), the sergeants applauded me as pot washer
extraordinaire. I did nothing but wash pots and pans with great energy and to
perfection. They loved the high polish.
The weeks pass. I graduated as a Radar and Electronic Countermeasure
Technician (Military Occupational Specialty, MOS-1984).
*******
That summer of 1954, my parents shared a cabana at Breezy Point with my
godmother and godfather. Uncle Louie had died two years before. I was a guest a
few times while on weekend passes from Ft. Monmouth before I shipped out
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Photo 52
Jason C. Mavis, Private E-1
Cam p Gord on, GA - Au gu st 1953
Photo 53
Breezy Point Su rf Clu b, Ju ne 1954
On a w eekend p ass, w aiting for ord ers to ship overseas.
Left to right: Mom , Dad , Jason, N ouno Bill and N ouna Rose
197
to Germany. It was nice to enjoy the club as the son of members and to visit with
the members I had served for two years. [See Photo 53.]
A few weeks earlier, on Easter weekend, I had taken a photograph of my parents,
Nitsa and cousins. [See Photo 54.] They were all still bachelors, though Diamond
Papadiskos and Thanasi Mavrovitis were soon to become engaged.
Photo 54
Easter Sund ay, 1954
Stand ing, Left to Right are Jim m y’ s N ephew s: Diam ond Papad iskos, Athanasios
Mavrovitis, Elias Dem itriad es, Thom a Samaras, Nicolaos Mavrovitis and Thom as
Papanas.
Seated : Jim m y and Lily.
Kneeling in front: H elene (N itsa).
Jim m y greatly valued the fam ily ties and enjoyed having his nephew s near to
him . Lily ad ored all the young m en and w elcomed them , open arm ed , to her
hom e and table.
198
Atlantic Crossing
I originally had orders to fly to Vienna for assignment to the American Embassy.
A lieutenant had priority orders and took my seat on the airplane. Within twentyfour hours, my assignment was changed, and a few days later, I was on the deck
of a military transport ship docked in New Jersey. It was loading troops and cargo
bound for Bremerhaven, Germany. I remembered the advice I had received from
World War II veterans and tumbled down a gangway to find the hold I was
assigned to and a top bunk at an air vent. I climbed up, and in, and claimed my
territory.
Volunteering for kitchen duty was easy enough. Within minutes, I was in the
ship’ s kitchen wearing a gigantic white apron. I was a butcher’ s helper, cutting
meat, scrubbing chopping blocks, and doing whatever the cook wanted me to do.
The chief cook was Greek, so I ate well when on duty, eight hours every other
day.
I have three lasting memories of the voyage:
1) As we sailed out of New York Bay and into the Atlantic, I was in the
kitchen somewhere deep in the bowels of the vessel. I felt the motion
of the ship as it rolled through the sea and was immediately seasick. I
went into the “ head” to throw-up and saw a green face staring back at
me from the mirror. Really green! In a few hours it passed, and I was
well from then on.
2) We sailed though the English Channel during the day, so we saw the
White Cliffs of Dover. They brought back memories of wartime songs
and the Normandy landings, and filled me with pride for what
American troops had sacrificed and accomplished.
3) The first thing I saw on German soil as I climbed out of the hold onto
the deck of the ship was a gigantic sign high in the air: “ TRINK
COCA-COLA.”
It did not occur to me in 1954, for I did not then have the historical perspective,
but on reflection I now wonder at the constant change in the political and
economic relationships between countries, ethnicities, and religions. When I
walked down the gangplank, I was an American soldier of Greek, Thracian, and
Macedonian extraction (with all the mixing of blood that implies) landing in
Germany to serve as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
which was prepared to fight the Russians and East Europeans in defense of
Western Europe. Moreover, the Turks and the Greeks were allied members of
NATO, aligned against Russia, which, in its Tsarist and Orthodox manifestation,
fought the Ottomans and helped the Hellenes to throw off the “ Turkish Yoke.”
Augsburg and Ansbach, Germany
A train was waiting for us within walking distance from the ship. We got on board
and started our trip south toward a relocation center close to the German-French
199
border. The center, at Zweibruecken, was on a hill overlooking a beautiful,
forested landscape. In seventy-two hours our clothing had been laundered and
dry-cleaned, our hair cut, and our transit orders issued. We were taken to the rail
station and sent off to our units.
The train ride gave me a sense of what Germany was like. The rail right-of-way
bordered many well-kept homes whose flowered gardens were a surprise to see
out of the train window; it was nothing like train travel in the U.S. After several
hours, we stopped at a station, and my group was ordered off the train at
Augsburg by the sergeant who accompanied us. It was a beautiful summer
afternoon. The little square directly outside the station had a statue, a fountain,
and flowers. We climbed aboard the trucks that were waiting.
I was dropped off at the company commander’ s office of the Fifth Signal
Company, Fifth Infantry Division just as the sirens sounded an “ Alert” .1 The
sergeant told me to follow the office staff and I was soon hiking into the
countryside behind combat dressed GIs, my Class “ A” uniform soaked with
sweat. We returned to the kaserne2 just in time for evening mess.
I met my fellow technicians and fell into the daily work routine with relative ease.
The truth be known, I liked the Army and my duties. [See Photos 55 and 56.]
Within two or three weeks, I was ordered to report to my company commander.
He told me that I was being sent to a radar specialist school in Ansbach and to
prepare to leave the next day.
The small city is located southwest of Nürnberg [Nuremberg] in the region of
Bavaria known as “ Franconia,” the land of the Franks. Its countryside of rolling
hills and walled medieval cities includes Würzburg, Bayreuth (where Wagner
built his opera house), and Nürnberg. It is close to the fabled romantic road that
passes through charming towns like Dinkelsbühl and Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber.
Ansbach proved to be a dream assignment. We had classes for six hours each day,
weekends free, and lots of spare time. Fortunately for me, I met Adolph Lang,
who was the organist at the Post Chapel.
Adolph was a student at Erlangen University and had achieved the position of
doctorante, one who has been accepted for studies leading to a doctoral degree.
The title was highly respected by the townspeople. Adolph eventually received his
Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Montpellier in France, and
1
2
An “ Alert” was a surprise military exercise designed to train European NATO
organizations to respond to an attack by the Russians and East Europeans. All
units came to full combat readiness and took pre-assigned defensive positions to
await further orders. It was the time of “ The Cold War.”
German for “ military barracks” .
200
Photo 55
Jason at w ork in a rep air van.
Photo 56
First Lieu tenant Gou biash w atching Jas on
rep air an AN / MPQ-10 cou nter a rtillery
rad ar, in su p p ort of the 19th Field Artillery
Battalion. Photo taken by Lt. Praeger.
Photo 57
Mrs. Lang and her son, Ad olp h , w ho
befriend ed m e. H e w as a d octoral
cand id ate at Erlangen University . After
com p leting his d octoral stu d ies at
Montp ellier in France, he becam e the
Cu rator of Art and H istory for the
Ansbach and Bayreu th District.
201
became the curator of art and history for the Ansbach-Bayreuth District in
Germany.
Adolph’ s friendship opened doors for me in the German community and offered
many wonderful experiences with German families and students. I met Adolph’ s
mother, was a guest in their home, and was invited to several family socials
during my stay. [See Photo 57.] With Adolph’ s sponsorship, I traveled on
weekends with him and his student friends to out-of-the-way towns and
restaurants, and became, for a short time, the first American member of the
Ansbach Madrigal Chorus. Its young boy soprano members arrived at rehearsals
with mud-and-cow-dung covered boots, incredible voices, and advanced musical
training.
Adolph introduced me to his friends as a “ Greek” -American. The Germans,
especially the educated class, had a high regard for anything Greek and
romantically credited to me the best attributes of an ancient Macedonian or
Athenian.
My mother was so appreciative of my having been taken in by Mrs. Lang that she
sent a box of lingerie and cosmetics to her as a Christmas gift. Germany was still
recovering from the war, and luxury items were in short supply, very desired, and
expensive.
On a golden October morning, Adolph, several student friends, and I took a drive
to Rothenburg-ob-der-Taum, a picture book, medieval-walled town that sits on a
high hill overlooking the river Taum. We had lunch under grape arbors at an
outdoor restaurant that was tucked next to the town wall on the side of the hill that
led down to the river.
Following lunch, we visited a museum that exhibited artifacts of medieval
Rothenburg: suits of armor, mail, weapons, and — in glass cases — various
pieces of jewelry and implements. I stopped at one case puzzling over a tool or
implement that looked like a trap. Finally, Adolph came to me with two young
women from the group. “ What is this, Adolph?” I asked. He broke into a grin, and
the girls started to giggle. “ A chastity belt,” he whispered. I thought that their
existence was myth.
After several letters back and forth to work out the details, John Hirsimaki and
John Ryan arranged to spend a Saturday with me in Ansbach. They were with the
16th Infantry Regiment of the First Division (the Bloody Red One) in Schweinfurt,
a train ride of about two hours from Ansbach, with a transfer in Nürnberg. They
introduced me to Weiner Schnitzel a la Holstein1 at a little second floor restaurant
named Bratwurstglöckle, that overlooked an ancient cobblestone street. The
1
Breaded and fried veal cutlet with a fried egg on top, and caviar or anchovy with
capers as accompanying condiments.
202
restaurant represented itself as Althistoriche Gastatte seit 1540, having been in
existence as a restaurant since 1540 A.D. We made plans over a wonderful meal
to meet in Heidelberg at Christmas. [See Photos 58, 59, and 60.]
In late October, I returned to the Fifth Signal Company to resume my duties as a
technician at Fifth Division Headquarters and in the field with the Fifth Division’ s
artillery battalion. I serviced radar and electronic equipment at Headquarters and
at the field training facilities of Grafenwoehr, Vilkseck, and Hohenfels, where
artillery and tank exercises were conducted in conjunction with infantry units.
The first three weeks of December 1954, I was in Munich as part of a team of
technicians. We were on special assignment to a tank division to install new
communications equipment. Living conditions were interesting. My three
companions and I from the Fifth Signal Company were billeted in a room behind
the post laundry. We had two double bunks, a table, and our own bathroom. I
planted myself in an upper bunk that had next to it a shutter-type window that
opened on to the back of the laundry’ s service counter. Low and behold, if there
were not several charming German girls working there from seven in the morning
until six in the evening every day. They flirted with us every morning, took in our
laundry gratis, and at our request, almost daily brought fresh pastries from town
for our breakfast. We, of course, paid for the pastries, and to thank the young
women, bought them little gifts at the PX [Post Exchange].
I might have tried to date one of the laundry girls if I had not met Dolores, a
young “ older” woman in her mid-twenties who worked at the USO canteen on
base. She arranged weekend tour trips and entertainments for G.I.s. We hit it off,
and before I knew it, I was spending time at the Munich home that housed several
female American employees of the USO. The women dated officers almost
exclusively; at least, I was the only enlisted man that attended parties. They
protected me from overbearing officers by threatening to throw them out if they
harassed me. It was clear that the officers considered the home their territory.
Theater, opera, concerts, and parties were the order of the day, every evening.
Returning to Augsburg just in time to take my Christmas leave, I packed my bags
and was off to Ansbach to visit Adolph and his mother for two days. They lived in
an apartment on the third floor of a building across from St. Johannis church
(constructed 1436-41 A.D.), the burial church of the Margraves of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Margraves were German nobility and landholders.
Because they were not yet home, I sat on a snowbank just under a huge stained
glass window of St. Johannis to wait for them. The church was lit, so the colors of
the stained glass were vivid against a black, star-filled sky. I listened to the
wonderful choir rehearse music for Christmas services.
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Photo 58
Ansbach, Germ any
Markgraffenbru nnen u nd Stad thau s
Photo 59
A view of a street in Ansbach. On
it w as the restau rant w here John
H irsim aki, John Ryan and I had
ou r reu nion in Germ any p arty.
Photo 60
John H irsim aki and Jason in
Ansbach, October 1954. The
p hoto w as taken by John Ryan.
204
While I was in Ansbach, Adolph insisted that we visit Dinkelsbühl. Accompanied
by several of Adolph’ s friends, we drove through the snow-covered hills and
valleys to the small town and climbed its church tower to a walkway high above
its square. The walkway led round the tower clock. The scene of the town in its
still valley at dusk was magical as lights shown from home and shop windows and
cast bright paths onto the snow.
Suddenly, in what seemed to come from a heavenly source, we heard a brass band
playing, “ Joy to the World.” The musicians, bundled in warm wools, were
standing on the tower walkway just around the corner from us. We listened as
they played a different carol from each compass point.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, I left Ansbach for Heidelberg where I met the
two Johns, and for the first time their friend, Mike Tugendreich.
Heidelberg at Christmas — Salzburg Stop — and Vienna on New Year’ s Eve
My train arrived at the Bahnhoff in Heidelberg in mid-afternoon on Christmas
Eve, two hours or so before my friends were due in. I lugged a two-suit travel bag
and a twelve-inch cube box with me as I walked the streets almost aimlessly but
for the fact that I kept my location with respect to the Bahnhoff fixed. The box
contained treats that my mother had sent to me for the holidays. Heidelberg was
very quiet, and I found myself in an uninteresting residential district with little to
see.
John Hirsimaki and John Ryan arrived in the late afternoon with Mike
Tugendreich, who would become a friend, and Bob West, a buddy of theirs from
the 16th Infantry Regiment. At sunset, we found a hotel that would have us. The
proprietor made an exception as his hotel had been emptied for the holiday, as had
most other hotels. He expected relatives to arrive from the countryside that
evening to spend Christmas with his family.
Our rooms were next to, or just across a small hall, from each other. Since there
was no one else on our floor, we kept our doors open, and as we settled in, I
opened my mother’ s care package. In it was a quart bottle of Johnny Walker Red
Label accompanied by cans of dolmades, anchovies, olives, cheese, a lemon or
two, and crackers. We immediately set about having a cocktail party. The
proprietor wandered by, probably a little worried about what we were doing, and
was happy to join us in a Christmas Eve drink – Fröliche Weinachten!
Christmas morning was cold, wet, and snowy. What I saw from the window of
my room, captured in Photo 61, did not make me want to wander about
sightseeing.
We started the day off with a hearty breakfast of an orange, four tiny, pullet eggs
fried on top of ham in a small crockery utensil, sweet rolls, and coffee. Fortified,
we ventured out to see Heidelberg. Our civilian clothes barely kept us warm. Bob
205
West did not have a coat and froze most of the day. Suffering the cold and wet
weather, we toured the Schloss, which had been reconstructed several times after
its destruction in wars between 1398 and the nineteenth century. [See Photos 62
and 63.]
We boarded the funicular, riding it up to the castle, then further to the top of the
mountain, the Königstuhl. The weather prohibited us from seeing anything of the
view and encouraged us to enter an inn and enjoy a steaming bowl of oxtail soup
with brandy.
The next morning, we boarded a train for a short ride to Mannheim, where Mike
Tugendreich hoped to find some evidence of his family at a local cemetery.
Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful.
I left the two Johns, Mike, and Bob in Manheim, taking the train south to
Augsburg, where I stopped at the Flak Kaserne to pick up my mail and clean
clothing. The following morning I took the train from Augsburg to Munich and
there got on board the Orient Express for a week-long trip to Salzburg and
Vienna.
On the train, I met two young air force lieutenants. They were both Europeanborn, one from Hungary and the other from Czechoslovakia, and both in
intelligence operations. They took me on as a companion largely because I was
Greek-American. By now, I had learned what an advantage the “ Greek” part of
my hyphenated nationality was in Europe.
My companions knew Salzburg and were acquainted with a woman they called
“ Baroness.” She had two daughters in their late teens. We spent a day visiting the
Schloss, Mozart’ s Geburtshaus [birthplace] and the cathedral. and an evening
with the “ Baroness” and her daughters at a restaurant that featured music and
dancing. I talked to the piano player and learned that he was a Hungarian medical
doctor making his way in Austria as a musician. There were many dislocated
people in Western Europe struggling to start life anew.
Vienna provided another adventure for me. I left my air force friends with the
Baroness in Salzburg, and arrived in Vienna the evening before New Year’ s Eve.
I asked the driver of the pre-World War Two diesel-powered taxi to take me to
the Hotel Mozart. At the front desk, I was told there were no rooms available. The
manager suggested that I got to the Hotel Westminster (an interesting name for a
hotel in a country that had recently fought Great Britain). I felt a tap on my
shoulder, turned, and met two young American women who offered me a ride to
the hotel in their automobile.
My new friends were from the Midwest and students in Paris. They decided to
spend their daddies’ money on a New Year holiday in Vienna. Within hours, I
was appointed their escort, and the next morning was outfitted with a rented
206
Photo 61
H eid elberg Rooftop s, Christm as Morning 1954. From ou r hotel w ind ow .
Photo 62
The Schloss at H eid elberg
Photo 63
Freezing at the Schloss, left to
right, are: Mike Tu gend reich,
Bob West, Jason, John
H irsim aki and John Ryan.
207
tuxedo so that I could properly perform my duties on New Year’ s Eve. They even
provided a pocketful of money.
In the early morning of 1 January 1955, while driving their car, I was stopped by a
Russian MP on a bridge over the Danube. Fortunately, it was New Years and
many less-than-sober drivers had gone the wrong way. The girls had American
passports, and I, my military ID. The Russian turned me over to the American
MPs.
It turned out that I was not supposed to have been given a “ Grey Card,” a visalike authorization that permitted U.S. military personnel to travel through the
Russian Zone to central Vienna. My security clearances prohibited travel to
Vienna and Berlin, both cities lying within Russian zones of occupation. So, at
about eight o’ clock in the morning, there was a knock on my hotel door. Two MP
sergeants rousted me out of bed and told me that I was to pack immediately and
go with them to the rail station to be transported through the Russian Zone to
U.S.-controlled Austria.
Leaving my tux at the front desk, I checked out of the hotel, never again to see my
New Year’ s dates.
Return to Duty
January found me back in Munich and dating Dolores. My stay was highlighted
by a performance of Mozart’ s Opera, Cosi fan Tutti, at the Mozart Theater, and
celebration of Fasching, the pre-Lent carnival madness in Bavaria.
In February, I was sent to service electronic equipment located close to the
Czechoslovakian border, [See Photos 54, 65, and 66.] and then to GrafenwoehrVielseck and Baumholder, where I serviced electronic equipment during artillery
and tank maneuvers.
Returning to Augsburg in early March, I had just enough time to make final
arrangements for my trip to Italy and Greece.
208
Photo 64
A Cru cifixion Tableau on a rem ote Germ an road
Photo 65
Ox Draw n Carts Were Com m on on Second ary Road s
These photographs w ere
taken from a jeep w hile on
m aneuvers on the bord er
of East Germ any in
January 1955. The day
w as spectacularly clear,
very bright and very cold .
Photo 66
Looking east from Germ any to East Germ any
209
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The house was quiet when I woke, warm under a mountainous down comforter. It
was a chilly Monday morning in Kastoria, Macedonia, Greece, 18 April 1955, the
day after Easter. From my bed, I was able to see past French doors that opened to
a small, second-story balcony and through blossoming plum trees to the lake. [See
Photo 67.] The water was shining, here gold and there steel gray, gold where the
sun’ s spring rays pierced between the shifting vertical columns of mist, and gray
beneath the mist as it rose from the lake’ s surface.
The room was sparse and clean. For the ten days I was in Kastoria, I slept in the
large bed that belonged to my Uncle Constantine, who I called Theo Costa, and
his wife, Thea Ekaterini. The space was furnished with a bed, two straight-back
chairs, a bureau with a mirror, a wash stand, and in the corner opposite the bed on
a small shelf, an icon of Saints Constantine and Helen with a votive candle in red
glass glowing before it. The floor was a barely finished dark plank.
Across the room, my freshly laundered clothing was carefully draped on a chair:
At its feet were my polished shoes. The kindness and care I received in this
humble and beautiful home embarrassed me and made me self-conscious. But,
there was no way to prevent my aunt and my cousin Kalliopi from lavishing every
attention on me. And, I admit to enjoying every minute, so different from my
barracks in Augsburg. I wore civilian clothing in Greece but was easily
distinguishable as an American soldier by my short, crew cut hair and the dog
tags that hung round my neck.
I had arrived late in the evening of the previous Thursday, 14 April, after a
harrowing bus ride through the mountains of Macedonia.
Ten days before, on 4 April, my friend Frank Brummet and I left the Flak
Kaserne in Augsburg earlier than planned. Just before breakfast, we learned from
the company first sergeant that there was about to be an Alert. We dressed,
grabbed the bags we had packed the night before, and ran. At the Kaserne’ s main
gate, we lunged into one of the taxis that were always waiting, disregarding, as
the taxi speeded away, both the siren that sounded the Alert and the shriek of the
whistles the MPs used to force our attention to their order for us to return to the
base.
If we had hesitated, we would have missed our train; so much for obedience to
Army discipline in the face of losing one day of leave. Staying for the Alert would
have required us to take our defensive position with the rest of the Division on the
outskirts of Augsburg for the better part of the day.
210
Photo 67
From the balcony of the bed room w here I slep t in m y Uncle and Au nt’s hom e in
Kastoria, Greece. Snow cap s Mt. Vitsi in the d istance. Plu m trees in bloom . Ap ril 1955
Photo 68
Descend ing from the Alp s into Italy.
211
Frank was a native of southern Indiana, a good young man, even more innocent
than I. Why he decided to travel with me to Italy is a forgotten memory.
I started to plan a trip to Greece from the time I knew that I was being shipped to
Germany. My letters home included questions and proposed dates. Dad sent me
detailed instructions, especially about being in Kastoria for Easter and places to
visit while I was there. His letters were full of his memories.
In late February of 1955, the Fifth Division’ s artillery battalion went on
maneuvers in northern Germany. I accompanied them with two other members of
my team, a corporal and a sergeant, who manned a radio and radar repair van with
me. One night after a hot shower I returned to the van through two feet of snow to
discover that I had lost my wallet and military identification card.
Knowing that my leave was approved for early April, I talked to the sergeant
about how best to obtain a new ID He told me to keep my mouth shut as it would
take several weeks to get a new one, and without an ID, my leave would likely be
cancelled. I took his advice and followed his instructions on how to travel without
proper identification.
Frank and I ducked the military police at the train station on the morning of the
fourth of April, and boarded our train in Augsburg. We traveled south through
Munich, into Switzerland, and across Brenner Pass. At the Swiss and Italian
borders, I pretended to sleep as border officials passed through the train to check
papers and stamp passports. I put two packages of Lucky Strike cigarettes on my
chest on top of my leave orders. They took the cigarettes, then read, stamped, and
put my leave papers back in my lap, while I prayed silently that they would not
ask me for my military ID card. Frank was more afraid than I. He probably had
more sense.
We traveled through Switzerland at night and slept sitting up in our second-class
compartment. When dawn came, we were descending from the Italian Alps into
northern Italy. There were monasteries and castles on the tops of hills, vineyards
and cultivated fields on the slopes, and cattle in the verdant valleys. [See Photo
68.]
The train stopped in Verona, where we had a layover of several hours while
waiting for the train to Florence. We walked a bit, amazed by the bright sunlight
of Italy and street scenes and sounds that contrasted so dramatically to those we
experienced in Germany. It was as though we had stepped out of a silent, gray fog
into a song-filled, brilliant landscape.
We left Verona in late afternoon. The train passed rolling, barren hills different
from any landscape I had seen before. In the light of a full moon, it looked like
what I imagined moonscape to be. We arrived at Firenze (Florence) late in the
evening. Tired and a bit confused, we asked a taxicab driver to take us to a modest
212
hotel. In a few minutes, he stopped on a dark street and helped us into a small
lobby, waking the attendant who was snoring in a chair behind the counter. In just
a few more minutes, after paying the cab driver and taking a slow lift to the third
floor, we collapsed into our beds.
We woke to early morning street noise, quickly washed, shaved, dressed, and
made for the lobby where we learned that our hotel, the Massimo, was on Via
Calzaiuoli, about one block from Piazza Del Duomo. The Duomo [cathedral] was
Santa Maria del Fiore.
Dressing in the 1950s meant jacket and tie.
The hotel staff suggested that we to go to a restaurant at the Piazza de la Signoria
for breakfast. It was a short walk. The bright April morning was already warming,
and Florence was beautiful. We ate our outdoor breakfast of rolls and coffee in
the presence of a lovely young woman who sat at a table a few feet from us, and
close to the waist-high railing that separated the restaurant from the piazza. There
were potted red geraniums on the top of the railing to the left of her profiled blond
head. To her right, the Piazza presented buildings and statuary created during the
Renaissance. The scene was overwhelming. It was great to be alive and to be
young.
For the next three and one-half days, we soaked in the light, the museums, the art
and the energy of the city. Among my memories are the magnificent statue of
David, the Palazzo Pitti and its endless collection of art, the Duomo, the Ponte
Vecchio, our long walk up a small mountain to Fiesole, lunch at the outdoor
restaurant on the way, and a glass of wine in its square while listening to a boys’
choir rehearse in the cathedral. [See Photos 69 to 76.]
Every afternoon, I relaxed with glass of Cinzano Rosso at a café on the Piazza de
la Repubblica, a colorful “ Cinzano” umbrella shading the table while I wrote
postcards, read the Paris edition of the New York Tribune and watched beautiful
women pass my table.
On the Saturday morning of our departure for Rome, the space before the Duomo
was filled with people dressed in Renaissance costumes. They participated in the
Scopio del Carro [explosion of the wagon], an annual celebration. We were able
to see it all from our hotel room, and watched fireworks flaring from an ornate
and flower-bedecked, almost thirty-foot high tower that was pulled through the
street by four white, garlanded oxen. It was a dramatic climax to our short stay in
Florence.
We boarded the train for Rome late in the afternoon. On arrival, we once again
asked a cab driver to take us to an inexpensive hotel. It was a short ride. We
registered at a pensione located just five or six blocks from the railway station,
likely on Via Sforza and a block or two from Santa Maria Maggiore.
213
Photo 69
Florence from Forte Belvedere
Photo 70
Photo 71
Santa Maria d el Fiore
Frank Bru m m et w ith the Sou thern
Shore Of the Arno River Behind H im
214
Photo 72
Ponte V ecchio
Photo 73
Verm ou th at the Piazza de la Republica
Photo 74
Lu nch at Table 10 – On the Way to Fiesole
215
Photo 75
Photo 76
These tw o p hotos w ere taken from m y hotel room on H oly Satu rd ay m orning in
Florence. In Photo 75, the flam es in the d istance are firew orks exp lod ing on an ornate
cart. Photo 76 show s the cart d raw n by w hite oxen in the p hoto on the right. It is the
annu al celebration of Scoppio del Carro, w hich com m em orates Pazzino d ei Pazzi’s scaling
of the w alls of Jeru salem in 1099. H e retu rned to Florence w ith stones from the H oly
Sep u lchre. These are u sed to kind le the flam e that exp lod es the cart, to the joy of the
festive crow d s.
Photo 77
Jason in Rom e
Behind m e, the Monu m ent to King Victor Em annu el
216
We were lucky to have found any accommodation on the night before Easter.
Rome was overflowing with the faithful from all parts of the world.
On Easter morning, 10 April, we learned that we were in a pensione whose guests
were, for the most part middle-aged British couples on long-term visits. After a
hurried breakfast, we were on our way into the streets of Rome. A short walk
from our hotel had us at the Foro Romano, the Roman Forum, where we explored
and saw the Coliseum and the Arch of Constantine.1 [See Photos 77 to 80.]
By mid-morning, we had visited the national monument to King Victor
Emmanuel II, who, in 1861, became the first king of a united Italy.
Our goal was to be at the Vatican for the Pope’ s Easter appearance and blessing.
The walk along the Tiber was very beautiful. Trees were in early leaf, and we
could see the dome of St. Peter’ s across the river ahead of us and to our left.
We came to the Castel Sant’ Angelo from which Tosca jumps to her death in the
last scene of Puccini’ s opera of the same name, crossed the Ponte Sant’ Angelo,
and walked on along the Via Della Conciliazione following the crowds to the
Vatican. There, we witnessed Pope Pius XII offer his Easter blessing to an
enormous and enthusiastic multiracial, multilingual throng of worshippers.
We left the Vatican and walked along the west bank of the Tiber, crossing back to
the eastern side at a point that took us to the Spanish Steps, and continued on
through the streets of Rome passing palazzos and fountains whose names I never
learned. We made it back to our pensione in time for dinner and a fascinating
Roman history lesson from a retired British professor and his wife.
On Monday, the morning after Easter (the western Easter), Frank boarded a train
for Germany and I an airplane, British European Airlines, to Athens. Traveling
without an ID card had its moments. At the airport, I waited in the men’ s room
until the final boarding call for my flight, then rushed to the counter with my
leave orders in hand to be stamped. I was on board the aircraft before anyone had
a chance to ask for my ID.
I was excited as the plane moved over the Adriatic as I knew that I would soon be
in Greece. [See Photo 81.]
1
This is the Constantine who founded Constantinople. This arch was erected in his
honor after he defeated Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in 315 A.D. It was at this battle
that tradition holds him to have seen a cross in the sky, and heard a voice telling him that
he would conquer under this sign. Inscription: "Constantine overcame his enemies by
divine inspiration"
217
Photo 78
Along the Tiber, N orth Tow ard s the Vatican
Photo 79
Castel Sant’A ngelo – Where Tosca m et her fate.
Photo 80
The Vatican, Easter 1955
Pop e Piu s is the Little White Dot
218
The airplane landed in Athens late in the afternoon. When a customs inspector
asked me where I was going, I answered in broken Greek that I was on my way to
visit my grandmother in Kastoria for Easter. He smiled and told me to sit nearby
and wait for him. In half an hour or so he collected me and my bag, never having
asked for my ID, and took me to the city and the Hotel Washington in his
automobile. He left me in my room with his blessing and best wishes for my visit
to my grandmother.
First thing the next morning, I took a cab to the American Embassy where I
reported that my raincoat with my ID card had been stolen. The clerk wrote down
my name, serial number, military address, unit identification, and my travel plans
in Greece. He told me to have the Embassy called if I ran into any trouble,
otherwise to proceed with my trip carrying my travel orders.
I spent the day in Athens walking though Syntagma, then via the Plaka,
Monastiraki, and Aprides districts to the Acropolis, which can be seen from a
distance from all over Athens. I made stops along the way to buy bread, cheese,
olives, and a small bottle of wine for lunch. As I approached the Acropolis from
the Aprides district, I looked up to see the four columns of the north porch of the
Erechtheion.1 The northwest corner of the Propylaia2 is visible on the far right
rim of the Acropolis.
From the Aprides, I walked past The Tower of the Winds and through the Agora,
the marketplace of ancient Athens, and on toward the Pnyx. This is the hill on
which Themistocles, Pericles, and Demosthenes, each in his own time, spoke to
the citizens of Athens in the first democracy in history. They gathered there for
over two centuries to make decisions about how, among other things, to: counter
invasions by the Persians; conduct the Peloponnesian War against Sparta; pursue
the invasion of Sicily; and, establish a relationship between Athens and Macedon,
first with its King Philip, then after his assassination, with his son, Alexander the
Great. [See Photos 82-86.]
I climbed the steps leading to the top of the Acropolis and entered the site through
the Propylaia, unprepared for the impact the Parthenon would have on me. It was
overwhelming.
1
2
The Erechtheion (Erechtheum) housed several cults but was primarily dedicated to
Athena Polias (Athena’ s attribution as the protector of cities) and to Poseidon.
See: Hornblower and Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 554
The Propylaia is, in this case, the Periclean gateway to the Acropolis. See: Ibid.,
1259
219
1
Photo 81
Flying East
Ap p roaching the Ad riatic
Photo 82
The Acrop olis
N orth Porch of the Erechtheion
Photo 83
The Acrop olis
From the Pynx
220
Photo 84
The Parthenon
Photo 85
Erechtheion from the Sou theast — Lykavittos H ill in the Distance
Photo 86
The Erechtheion West Wall — Athena’s Olive Tree
221
I was one of very few visitors for the two or three hours I spent on the site of the
sacred temples of Athena and Poseidon. No barriers existed in 1955. Visitors were
free to walk into the Parthenon and climb about the temple of Nike Athena,1 the
Propylaia, and the Erechtheion, whose design was particularly appealing to me.
The photograph of the Erechtheion from its southwest corner has six Karyatids2
(four in the first line and one each behind those in the front corners). Lord Elgin
carried one of the Karyatids off to Great Britain along with many other treasures
of the Acropolis. All the Karyatids are now copies. The originals were removed to
be safeguarded in the Acropolis museum.
I picnicked on the steps of the Parthenon and took time to read from a small
volume of Plato’ s works that I had brought with me from Germany. I had come
face to face with my Greek heritage and identified myself, really for the first time,
with the race of Greek-speaking people that inhabited the Balkans: Hellenes,
Macedonians, Thracians, and those “ barbarians” who had invaded, settled, and
been absorbed into the Hellenic world.
Wednesday morning I boarded a flight from Athens to Thessaloniki. On arrival, a
cab driver showed me where the bus station was and took me to a nearby hotel. It
was mid-afternoon, so I had time to see something of the city.
After settling into my small hotel near the waterfront, I wandered from street to
street through the afternoon and evening looking into shops and restaurants. The
city was romantic and mysterious. My senses were bombarded by colorful beaded
curtains, the strong smell of Turkish and Greek tobaccos, buyers and sellers
haggling over prices in hushed tones and with loud, angry exclamations, and
music that was rhythmic and erotic tumbling from open doorways. Toward
evening, my mouth watered at the aroma of roasted meat and fish. The bay was
beautiful, a late afternoon sun gilding its wavelets.
The next morning, I made my way along the bay to the bus station and set my bag
down to purchase my ticket to Kastoria. When I turned my bag was gone. Within
a moment, a young man stepped up to me and asked in Greek whether I had “ lost”
my bag. He assured me that for twenty dollars he would be able to find it. Clearly,
extortion, but just as clearly, I needed my bag. Within just two or three minutes
after I handed over a twenty-dollar bill, my bag was dropped out of a passing car.
I was an Amerikanaki in Thessaloniki. Native-born Greeks use this derogatory
name to describe first generation Americans who returned to Greece on a visit.
We were not Greeks, just pretenders, and we offended the native-born. There was
and is an understandable resentment toward Greek-Americans, too many of whom
1
2
Athena Victorious. See: Hornblower and Spawforth, The Oxford Classical
Dictionary., 201.
Karyatids is also spelled Caryatids. They are column shafts carved in the form of
young women or maidens
222
visited postwar Greece with their bright new Buicks and Oldsmobiles
extravagantly shipped from New York on passenger ships. They brought these to
show off their economic success to relatives who had suffered poverty and worse
during the Italian and German occupation, and later during the civil war.
When the crowded bus left Thessaloniki, I sat in the midst of travelers going
home to their towns and villages for Easter. There were live lambs, goats, and
chickens inside mesh cages tied down to the roof of the bus. Inside, the occupants,
seated on hard wood benches, carried worn suitcases, bundles of clothing, and
bags full of food. I could smell the feta, kasseri, olives, sausage, and salt fish
being carried to become part of an Easter feast. From time to time, a traveler
would take out a chunk of bread, use a pocket knife to cut a piece of cheese, select
a few olives, and eat, washing the food down with a generous draught of FIX beer
or Retsina.
By early evening, the bus was climbing up mountain roads with only four
remaining riders: the driver, two Greek soldiers on their way to their villages for
Easter, and me. The other passengers with all their clothing, livestock, and food
had left the bus one or two at a time in the center of a small town or at a crossroad
that led to some village, a walking distance from the main road.
Because my Greek was limited, I was able to strike up only an awkward
conversation with the two Greek soldiers. But, once it was clear that I was also a
soldier, we were comrades. One of them produced a small mandolin from his
pack, and they, along with the bus driver, sang songs as we careened up the road.
It was starting to rain, and as the bus climbed higher into the mountains, snow
mixed with the rain.
I was hungry. The bus driver stopped at an inn in a village that seemed glued to
the hillside next to the road. In spite of it being the week before Easter, a week in
which Greek Orthodox Christians adhere to a strict fast, there was a leg of lamb in
the oven. I bought it, cheese, bread, olives, and two liters of Retsina and returned
to my companions on the bus. We had a picnic. We drank the Retsina, and we
sang songs (encouraged by my companions, I joined in as best I could), and the
bus driver, strengthened by the food and emboldened by the wine, drove wildly
on into the dark of the night, through the snow, on a winding road with steep cliffs
beside it. There was neither guardrail nor wall between us in the bus and a pitchblack chasm.
Somewhere, a few kilometers from Kastoria, my friends left the bus to walk to
their villages. We parted with embraces and wishes for a Kallo Pascha, Happy
Easter. Shortly after nine o’ clock, we reached a dark square in Kastoria. It was
raining and snowing. The bus driver took me to a small café where men were
sitting, playing cards, drinking coffee, and smoking. He helped me ask where I
might find my Uncle, Constantinos Mavrovitis.
223
A man with two or three days of gray stubble on his face rose from his table while
grinding out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. He pushed back his chair and
said, “ Ella mazi mou” , [“ Come with me” ], as he passed me and walked into the
darkness of the square. Thanking the bus driver, I picked up my bag and hurried
to follow my guide over wet cobblestone streets slippery from rain and ice,
through narrow alleys and down steps toward the lake that I saw for the first time.
It looked cold, steely gray and black, reflecting just a few lights from homes close
to the water. We turned a corner and reached a wooden staircase that led to the
second story of a building.
The man motioned for me to follow him up. At the landing, he knocked on the
door and then pushed it open. Sitting in a chair in the middle of the room with one
uncovered electric light bulb hanging above her head was a small, wrinkled, old
woman in a black dress that draped to the floor and hid her feet. A shawl covered
her head. Her eyes narrowed, and as she squinted trying better to see us she asked,
“ Pios enai?” [“ Who is it?” ]
“ Efara to engoni sou” [“ I brought your grandson” ], he replied.
I stepped toward her slowly while, in a weak-voiced, agitated response she told
the man that I could not be her grandson because he was in the army, and this boy
did not wear a uniform. She also remarked that I was too big to be her grandson. I
knelt before her and told her in my broken Greek that I was Jason, Dimitraki’ s
son, and that I was a soldier. She held my face, and tried to pull me up into her
lap. She kissed my face one hundred times.
Within minutes, my Uncle Constantinos and Cousin Kalliopi came through the
door, greeting me excitedly with embraces. A moment later, my Aunt Ekaterini
followed, her wet face smiling broadly. They had been out looking for me in the
town.
My uncle was a tall, thin man whose long and angular face showed sensitivity and
a touch of shyness. In his sixties, with thinning hair and a day or more of beard on
his cheeks, he looked like a man who carried more than sixty years of life’ s strain.
My aunt, a handsome woman in her late fifties, was already covered in the black
costume that middle-age Greek women were destined to wear as family members
died and mourning became a constant occupation. Kalliopi was a fresh, pretty,
open-eyed, enthusiastic young woman whose energy brightened the room.
I spent all of my time in Kastoria with my uncle, aunt, and cousin Kalliopi under
the doting eye of my grandmother, Kalliopi Mavrovitis, or Yia-Yia, the endearing
Greek term for grandmother. At eighty-eight, she was mentally alert though
physically limited. Nonetheless, she stood and danced at our Easter celebration,
and the day before, on Holy Saturday morning, I took her to church in the Moxi
(the town cab). It was her first ride in an automobile, and she was delighted by it.
I carried her to the altar of the church and at her insistence, passed the waiting
224
queue to stand before a young priest. She had known him from the day he was
born, so was unashamed when she directed him to offer communion first to me,
“ my grandson from America,” and then to her.
My uncle, aunt, Kalliopi, and I had attended the Metropolitan Cathedral of
Kastoria1 the night before, Good Friday evening, to participate in The
Lamentation, a service that mourns the death and entombment of Jesus and
reminds us of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Resurrection. It took
place with a focus on the flower-bedecked representation of Christ’ s tomb which
was placed before the Royal Gate of the iconostasion, a carved wood Byzantine
artwork illuminated by glowing red oil lamps that hung above icons of the Virgin,
Jesus, and the Saints. Chants by the priest and his psalti, the darkness, incense,
and ancient hymns lent great dignity and gravity to the drama.
On the evening of Holy Saturday, we returned to the cathedral at eleven o’ clock
to listen to the lessons and wait for announcement of an expected, yet astounding
event. At midnight, in total darkness, the light of one candle glowed from behind
the iconostasion and the Royal Gate opened to the proclamation of the bishop
“ Christos Anesti” [Christ is Risen]! “ Alithos Anesti” [Truly He Is Risen], the
congregation responded as one, as the flame from one candle spread to the
candles held by all in the church. The flickering candles made the mosaics, icons,
and gold and silver ornamentation in the church shimmer with life. Shortly after,
as the congregation sang the resurrection hymn, a military band joined in
accompaniment from outside the cathedral, and an artillery unit began to fire a
twenty-one-gun salute.
At about two-thirty in the morning, after the liturgy was complete, we walked
home carrying our Resurrection candles to perform the traditional blessing of the
house by making the sign of the cross at the top of the front door with the candles’
flames. A fast-breaking meal of mageritsa, a soup of lamb, rice, and dill with an
egg-lemon sauce, hard-boiled Easter eggs, Lambropsomo (Easter bread), olives,
cheese, and wine awaited us. Each of us struck another’ s egg with our own to see
which would remain unbroken, bringing good luck to the holder.
Easter morning, Kalliopi and I took the family’ s lamb dinner to the bakery where
many families brought their roasting pans to fill the cavernous space of the great
oven after the morning’ s fresh, crisp bread had been baked. Few homes in
Kastoria had indoor ovens; some had outdoor bread ovens, but these were more
commonly found in neighboring villages.
1
This is the very same cathedral that metropolitan Germanos Karavangelis served
during the Macedonian Agony (1900-1910).
225
In the afternoon, we attended the Agapi1 service at the cathedral. The final prayer
of the service before the Dismissal is:
“ It is the day of the Resurrection, let us be glorious in splendor for the
festival, and let us embrace one another. Let us speak also, O brethren, to
those that hate us, and in the Resurrection, let us forgive all things, and so
let us cry: Christ has risen from the dead, by death trampling upon Death,
and has bestowed life eternal to those in the tombs.”
Before we left my Thea and Theo’ s home for the Agapi service we took
photographs in the garden. [See Photos 87 to 89.] Later in the day, Kalliope and I
retrieved the pan of roast lamb and potatoes from the baker’ s oven and carried it
home for our Easter feast.
The day after Easter was chosen as the day for me to visit Mavrovo, the ancestral
home of the Mavrovitis family. I was excited at the prospect and had no idea what
to expect.
The next morning I got out of bed, washed using the fresh, warm water that had
been quietly placed in the washstand for me as I woke, dressed, and went into the
main room. There my grandmother sat on a low, Ottoman-styled divan. In front of
her was a charcoal brazier with glowing coals in the middle of a bed of sand. She
stirred my morning coffee in a long-handled, shiny brass pot unique to the
preparation of Elliniko Café.
Kalliopi and her mother each gave me a morning hug and kiss. A dish with warm
bread, cheese, and olives was set out for my wonderful breakfast. Soon after Theo
Costa returned from a morning walk, he, Kalliopi, and I were on our way to the
ferry that carried passengers to and from the villages on the lake. Perhaps the term
“ ferry” conjures too grand an image; it was an open, diesel-driven boat that might
have seated, at most, ten to twelve passengers. This early morning, with
Kastoria’ s Easter revelers still in bed, we were its only occupants.
A wind had come up out of the north, and as the mist blew away I was able to see
the snow-capped peak of Vitsi, the mountain that had absorbed much of the
bloodshed during the Greek civil war that followed the Second World War. Graywhite clouds streaked across a blue sky, while we below bumped along in the boat
as it broke against the waves raised by the wind. The water was a very deep blue
and cold. It was exhilarating.
1
Agape is the name of the Easter Vespers Service held in the early afternoon on
Easter. The faithful express their brotherly love and exchange the kiss of love
honoring the resurrected Christ. There are local traditions for arguments to be
resolved, mortgages satisfied and burned, and enmities publicly ended.
226
Photo 87
Y ia-Y ia Kalliop e Mavrovitis and Grand son Jason
in the gard en. Easter Su nd ay, 17 Ap ril 1955.
Photo 88
Thea Ekaterini and Theo Constantinos w ith Jason
Photo 89
Cou sin Kalliop e Mavrovitis in the Gard en
The trees had recently broken into leaf: some still appeared skeletal, others
displayed flowers, and a few were fully greened. The shore of the lake looked
227
empty and ominous. I saw occasional evidence of villages on the shore. From the
middle of the lake, my Uncle pointed to two parallel rows of tall poplar trees on
the shore in the distance. From behind, they framed a dock that jutted out into the
lake. Through the mist, I could see a tall figure moving slowly toward the end of
the dock.
As we drew closer, I thought I was having an Old Testament vision. There on the
wharf was a tall man — hatless, with white hair flowing over his shoulders and a
thin beard reaching to the middle of his chest. A lambskin cape covered his
shoulders. He wore a coarse black woolen shirt, and a black skirt that fell to his
ankles. In his hand he carried a shepherd’ s staff, a wooden crook worthy of a
bishop. My Theo Constantinos gave me instructions as we tied to the pier.
This was my great-uncle, Theo Michaeli, my grandfather’ s brother and patriarch
of the family. His eyes burned holes through mine as I approached him. I took and
kissed his hands as my Uncle had instructed, and embraced him to receive his
blessing and a kiss. Theo Michaeli was about eighty-six. He had not left his home
for more than one year before this day but walked unescorted to the dock to greet
his great-nephew from America.
Joined by cousin Peter Vouitsis, the village schoolmaster who in future years
would become the superintendent of schools for the district, his sisters, and
others, Theo Michaeli led me through the apple orchards whose trees were
covered with blossoms.
He asked, “ In America, is the sky this blue?”
Answer: “ Oxi Theo”
He asked, “ In America, is the grass this green?”
Answer: “ Oxi Theo.”
He asked, “ In America, are the blossoms this beautiful?”
Answer: “ Oxi Theo.”
There was no other possible answer: “ Oxi, Theo.” [“ No, Uncle.” ]
We progressed to the home his sons had financed.1 It was on the site of the house
that my father had lived in as a child. Sections of the wall that had surrounded the
property were still there. And, in the place that my father remembered was the
outdoor oven where his mother had baked their bread. [See Photos 90 to 92.]
1
Theo Michaelis’ youngest son, Constantinos, was born by his second wife when
Michaelis was seventy-two years of age. Women frequently died in childbirth.
They worked hard in their difficult village lives.
228
Photo 90
The w om en ar e sitting on either sid e of
the gate that led into the stable yard of
m y grand father Athanasio’s hom e,
w hich w as su rrou nd ed by a m u d -brick
w all. In the u p p er right hand corner of
the p hotograp h , rising from the top of
the w all, is the chim ney of the origin al
ou td oor bread oven. The w alls kep t
livestock in and p red ators (inclu d ing
m an) ou t. On the right, is m y greatu ncle Theo Michaelis w ife, Thom ai.
They are both long d eceased . The
w om an on the left is a neighbor. The
chicken joins the lad ies in koutsobolio
[gossip ].
Photo 91
Jason joins his cou sin Peter in the
branches of a fam ily ap p le tree in
their orchard s in Mavrovo.
Photo 92
Mavrovo’s School
You ng p eop le have gathered
here on the d ay after Easter
and are d ancing u nd er the
trees.
229
Once in the house, we were served a traditional sweet (candied orange or
grapefruit rind, quince, or cherries) with ice-cold water, a brandy, and Greek
coffee. The conversation was more a monologue by my great-uncle. Cousin Peter
taught me that the only acceptable response was, “ Aechis dikeo, Theo.” [“ You are
in the right, Uncle.” ].
After leaving, Theo Michaeli, my cousins, and I walked through outlying orchards
until we reached the village church that my father had asked me to visit. Peter led
us to a small, white structure at the corner of the churchyard cemetery. Entering it
through an unlocked door, whose opening provided dim light to the 15 x 15 foot
space, I saw wood boxes, one stacked on top of the other on shelves. Some were
labeled with names and dates, others not. In the far corner, there was a heap of
what I thought at first to be white sticks. Then I saw the gaping, black-holed eye
sockets of human skulls. For a moment my knees weakened. This was the
village’ s ossuary, the place, I learned, were exhumed skeletons were stored to
make room in the limited space of the cemetery for the next generation to be
buried and decompose.
Peter very matter-of-factly started to apologize for the pile of bones. “ They were
all in boxes and labeled,” he said, “ but a mortar shell hit the corner of the building
during the civil war and the boxes along one wall were shattered and the bones
scattered on the floor.” Kalliope stepped quickly to one corner of the pile, lifted a
skull, and handed it to me. She said, “ We think this is our Papou Athanasios.” I
had a Hamlet like moment holding in my hands what may have been my
grandfather’ s skull. It somehow seemed very natural, though I had never before
seen a human skull, or stacks of bones.
We left the cemetery and in keeping with Peter’ s plan came upon the village
school. The teachers and two or three young students were waiting for me with a
bouquet of spring flowers. I was surprised at the welcome and did not understand
the reason for the honor given me until I entered the school and was shown the
photograph portraits of my great-uncle Theodore who had immigrated to
Alexandria, Egypt and become a successful merchant. He paid to build the school
in this remote village and the entire Mavrovitis family was honored for his
benefaction. I was moved. Months later, I helped to organize the Mavrovitis and
other immigrants from Mavrovo who lived in New York to provide funds and
equipment for the school.
Evening came accompanied by swirling gray clouds and a chilling north wind.
Kalliopi, Theo Constantinos, and I made our way back to the dock and left
Mavrovo by boat to return to Kastoria. [See Photo93.]
The next day, Kalliopi, together with one of my cousins, a child of seven or eight,
took me by boat to Mavriotissa, the monastery where, as a boy, my father was
apprenticed as a psalti. [See Part One, Chapter Two.] In my pocket, I had an
230
envelope addressed by my father to Father Demetrios. It enclosed a letter and a
fifty-dollar bill.
We boarded the ferry again for the trip to the monastery. From the boat, I saw
villages on the far shore of the lake and towering behind them in the distance,
Vitsi with its range covered in snow. Forests and defiles on the sides of Mount
Vitsi hid the andartes of the early twentieth century and the final battles of the
Greek civil war were fought on its slopes. [See Photo 94.]
We climbed off the ferry at a small dock and approached the long, low building
whose wall was partially covered with plaster. Where archaeologists and art
historians recently had removed the plaster, there were Byzantine religious murals
with bold imagery and vibrant colors. The Ottoman Turks had systematically
scratched out the eyes of, and covered with paint or plaster, all the icons and
mosaics they found. Islam does not permit images of man. [See Photos 12 and
13.]
As we approached the monastery church, a thin, fragile, bearded, black-robed old
monk approached us. He blessed us, and I asked him for Pater Dimitrios. He said,
“ Ego Imai.” [“ I am he.” ] I introduced myself as Dimitraki’ s son from America
and asked if he remembered teaching young Demetrios Mavrovitis from Mavrovo
to become a psalti fifty years before. I doubted that this was the right Pater
Dimitrios, or that if he were, the man he would or could remember a village boy
he had not seen for a lifetime. His looked at me quizzically, and then his eyes
seemed as if they were seeing an apparition.
“ Dimitraki?” he asked, “ DIMITRAKI who went to America? Athanasios’ s son?”
He hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. I gave him the envelope from
Dimitraki, the contents of which, both letter and money, overwhelmed him. It was
difficult to leave this humble man who was so moved by having been
remembered by the young boy who had left Mavriotissa so many years before.
Theo Constantinos was very proud to show me the statue of United States General
James Van Fleet in Kastoria’ s commemorative park. General Van Fleet was head
of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory and Planning Group that led Greece’ s forces
to victory over the communists in the Greek civil war. Van Fleet served in Greece
from 1948 to 1950 and made his northern headquarters at Kastoria, the strategic
center against incursions from Albania (the Grammos mountains) and Yugoslavia
(the Vitsi mountains).
Each evening, in keeping with social custom, families and groups of young people
strolled around Kastoria in clockwise and counterclockwise paths, meeting and
greeting and exchanging news. “ Yia sou,” 1 was the greeting between peers,
1
The phrase can be interpreted as a wish for good health or well-being.
231
Photo 93
Leaving Mavrovo by Boat — April 1955
Photo 94
The Vitsi Mountains from Lake Kastoria – April 1955
232
“ Chairetai,” 1 the more formal greeting awarded to seniors. We visited relatives
both close and distant, so to satisfy my hosts, I ate two huge meals every day and
forced down two or more servings of likismata.
My uncle and aunt gave a party for close family the night before I left. Their
small house was full, and somehow they managed to serve a wonderful buffet
dinner. The phonograph scratched out Greek music while my grandmother,
scarcely able to take two steps, stood and bounced in place to the rhythms,
holding the handkerchief that joined the lead and second person in the line dance.
[See Photo 95.]
Photo 95
On the left lead ing the d ance is m y grand m other, Kalliop e Mavrovitis. It w as the night
before I left Kastoria to retu rn to m y m ilitary d u ties in Germ any. Ju st a few w eeks later I
board ed a troop transp ort that carried m e hom e to the United States.
The following morning, my aunt, uncle, and cousins accompanied me to the bus
station to see me off with kisses and hugs. I had not expected the kind of
reception I received in Kastoria, or the abundant warmth and love of my relatives,
or my emotions at parting.
Memory of the bus trip to Thessaloniki, the air flight to Athens and on to Rome,
and the train ride to Germany, is lost to me. I remember only my brief
incarceration at the airport in Rome when, finally, a customs official insisted on
seeing my ID card. Carabinieri, elegantly costumed and very courteous, escorted
1
The word is a common form of greeting. It includes in its sense: rejoice, be glad,
be delighted, hail, welcome.
233
me to a clean, well-lit cell at the Rome airport. Before being locked in and fed a
nice lunch, I was permitted to call the American Embassy.
Within an hour or two, a very unhappy Air Force captain named Adrian appeared.
He questioned me, telephoned my company in Augsburg to confirm the
information I had given, typed, and signed a request for my release [See Figure
10.], and had me escorted to and put on board the first train leaving for Germany.
I made it back to the Flak Kaserne just in time to avoid being AWOL.1 Waiting
for me were my orders to return to the United States for discharge from active
duty.
Figure 10
1
$:2/
$EVHQW:LWKRXW2IILFLDO/HDYH
234
&+$37(56(9(1
+RPH$JDLQ
I shipped out for the States from Bremerhaven, Germany, where I found John
Ryan and Mike Tugendreich in line in the embarkation center’ s gigantic mess
hall. We were leaving on the same ship. John Hirsimaki had arranged to be
discharged from active duty in Germany in order to see more of Europe before
returning to the United States and the fall semester at Columbia University. As we
climbed the gangway with our duffels on our shoulders, we saw a group of twenty
or more shackled and handcuffed young men. They were convicted felons being
led to the ship’ s brig for transit to Leavenworth Federal Prison. We were on our
way home. I remembered my father’ s words: “ Do not dishonor your family
name.”
We found top bunks in the five-or six-tiered hold to which we were assigned. I
volunteered to work in the kitchen, just as I had on the trip from the States to
Germany. One of John and Mike’ s 16th Infantry Regiment buddies spent the entire
voyage running and hiding to avoid work. He was exhausted when we reached
port.
We experienced a gale-force storm that sent huge waves over the bow and caused
the propeller to break water and create violent vibrations through the ship. At first
it alarmed me. Somehow we were able to sneak on deck to see the power of the
sea. My fear changed to awe and submission to the forces of nature.
Our progress across the Atlantic was reported daily in the ship’ s newspaper. One
morning, New York Bay appeared before us. Seeing the Statue of Liberty and the
Manhattan skyline was exciting. It made me think about the feelings my
grandmother, mother, and father must have had when first they saw the Great
Lady as they approached Ellis Island.
We dressed in our Class “ A” uniforms, manhandled our duffels up out of the hold,
and started down the gangway. When I came to the sergeant who was reading off
our names as we disembarked, he motioned me over to a crowd of people
standing behind barriers. To my surprise, Dad was there. He gave me a big hug
and shook my hand. It was the first time Dad had ever appeared at an event in my
life. I do not remember him at special grade school assemblies, at my graduations,
or other celebratory events. But, here he was on the wharf to welcome me home.
After just two or three days at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, I was released from
active duty and arrived home to hugs and kisses from Mom and Nitsa, great food,
and the future. [See Photo 96.]
235
Photo 96
H om e w ith Lily, My Mom
236
(3,/2*8(
Helene Mavis (Nitsa) married Stanton Hugh Avitabile on 1 September 1956,
while he was still a medical student. They had five children: Lynn, Scott, Keith,
Bruce and Gregg. Helene lived the life of a wife, mother, and community activist
in Glastonbury, Connecticut, until April 1978, when she suffered a brain
hemorrhage and died at the age of 47. She is interred at the Coburn Cemetery in
the small town of Sherman in western Connecticut.
Jason married Panayota Gianopoulos, [“ Bette” ], on 3 September 1960, in
California. They have two daughters, Demetra and Reveka Evangelia.
Lily lived to hold in her arms and bless all seven of her grandchildren. She and
Jimmy left the brownstone on Ovington Avenue, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in 1959.
They moved to a newly-built home in Demarest, New Jersey, only a few miles
from Dr. DeTata and his family, who lived in Closter, New Jersey.
Lily never fully reconciled herself to her move from Brooklyn. She died on 4
February 1967 at the age of sixty-two, succumbing after a second stroke, the
result of the high blood pressure that plagued her throughout her life. Lily’ s
internment at the Englewood Cemetery, Englewood, New Jersey, was on 8
February 1967, after one of the most severe blizzards in New York City’ s
recorded history. For the two days that her body was at the funeral home,
snowdrifts across the avenues in New York City were two and three feet high.
Nonetheless, on each of two nights, with temperatures falling to ten below zero,
more than one hundred visitors paid their respects, and more than one hundred
attended her funeral service.
In 1968, seeking to renew himself, Jimmy returned to Greece for the first time, to
Athens, to Kastoria, and to his village of Mavrovo. In 1916, it had taken over
thirty days including two weeks in a ship’ s steerage for him to reach New York
City from his village. Fifty-two years later, the trip from his home in New Jersey
to his village lasted only eighteen hours. Almost every summer thereafter, he flew
to Athens and then to Kastoria, where he drew strength from his homeland, and
from visiting friends and relatives. After each visit to Greece, he said: “ It gives
me a lift!” One summer he had the joy of having Helene and his granddaughter,
Lynn, accompany him.
In 1985, Bette, Reveka, and I joined Dad on a three-week driving tour that
included Attica, Thessaly, Macedonia, Epirus, Acarnania, Corfu, and the
Peloponnesos. We met, for the first time members of the Mavrovitis family from
Egypt including Myrto and Mischou Mavrovitis, Rena Mavrovitis, and their
families. We visited Kastoria and our family there, and were introduced to Bette’ s
aunt and cousins in the village of Menolon, outside of the city of Tripolis. Her
aunt, Thea Christitsa, and cousins Georgia and George Vasilopoulos, hosted a
237
wonderful dinner for us in a small summer cottage in the middle of their
farmland. Everything we ate was from their land, including the wheat in the bread
that had been baked in an outdoor oven that morning.
Jimmy flew to California at least once each year to visit Jason, Bette, and his
granddaughters, Demetra and Reveka. And, he frequently drove to Connecticut to
see his son-in-law, Stan, and his grandchildren.
Jimmy died on 8 February 1989, at the age of eighty-eight. He had retired at
sixty-five to be with Lily. After her passing, he went back to work half-time,
taking pleasure in his contacts in the Market, and from his frequent visits to see
his nephews, Thanasi and Nick Mavrovitis, whom he regarded almost as sons.
The money he earned made travel possible, and for the first time in his life, he
was able to put some savings aside.
In the end, Jimmy joined the love of his life, Lily. Their grave is at the Brookside
Cemetery, 425 Engle Street, Englewood, New Jersey, on the right-hand side of
the east side circle.
Papou lived a long life, surviving Adela by almost thirty years. He died in a
nursing home in Little Falls, New York in 1990, having lived there for more than
ten years, close to his family from Italy. He was one hundred years of age.
Jason and his wife, Bette, live in Sonoma, California. In the year 2000, with
Bette’ s whole-hearted support, Jason reclaimed his family name, Mavrovitis.
Afterthought
When I was in Germany, I never considered visiting Sozopol in Bulgaria for I
knew little about my mother’ s origins until I reached middle age. In any event,
Bulgaria was then behind the Iron Curtain (part of the Soviet Bloc in Eastern
Europe), and inaccessible. I still hope to see Sozopolis, Pyrgos, and Anchialos in
Bulgaria, and the Hellespont, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous, and
Constantinople (it is hard to call it Istanbul).
I am thankful to know that Greeks and Bulgarians now have become good
neighbors and friends, overcoming memories of the horrors each experienced at
the hands of the other. And, I look forward to walk, one day, along the shore of
the Black Sea.
238
$33(1',;$
The Mystery of Lily’s Father
Evangelia’ s father has never been positively identified. Consistent in reports
about him are four details: he was Bulgarian, a pharmacist (an apothecary),
married to Eleni, and died c1906.
Lily’ s Version
1
In her “ Affidavit for License to Marry” of 20 April 1922, Lily entered her
father’ s name as Stephan Athanas. She signed her surname with a variant
spelling: Athenas. In her Certificate of Marriage to Demetrios A. Mavrovitis,
2
Evangelia shows her name as Evangeline Athenas. She also used the name
Athenas on documents that supported her application for citizenship.
1. Lily never reported her father as being Bulgarian.
2. She talked about her father as an apothecary.
3. She said that he died while performing an appendectomy on himself when
caught in a storm at a small coastal village.
4. Her story was that she and her mother were forced into the sea to drown by
Bulgarians, and that they were saved by Greek fishermen.
Family Accounts
Theano Pieredes
Eleni’ s niece, Theano Pierides, daughter of Sophia Zissis Capidaglis, wrote the
following to her son, Ralis Pierides:
“Ralis, you ask who was aunt Eleni’ s husband and Lilly’ s [sic] father. He
was an Orthodox Bulgarian from Bourgas of Bulgaria; had the largest
apothecary of those times; and fell in love with aunt Helen (Eleni) and
married her, but died prematurely.”
Ralis Pierides
Ralis Pierides, grandson of Sofia Capidaglis, remembers stories of Eleni’ s
husband dying in a boat accident while delivering pharmaceuticals to a coastal
village.
Written Notes
Evangelia’ s second husband, James Mavis (Demetrios Mavrovitis), left
handwritten notes in his personal papers stating that:
1. Her father’ s surname was Athanasios or Athanasiou.
1
2
Her first marriage to James Tsavalas.
Her second marriage to Demetrios Mavrovitis.
239
2. Gives his year of death as 1905 at the age of 30 due to: “ Accident
during expatriation from Bulgaria.” The year of death is likely incorrect.
The pogroms in the Burgas region were in 1906.
Athanasios and Athanasiou are Greek, not Bulgarian names. His name might have
been Slavic, i.e., Atanas.
Research
In the summer of 1995, a Bulgarian graduate student from the Technical
University in Vienna, Stavri Nikolov, conducted research on the Capidaglis and
Zissis families in Burgas and Sozopol, Bulgaria. The result of several days of
document searches and interviews is as follows:
♦ No church archives prior to 1914 exist. There is therefore no
marriage record to prove Eleni’ s marriage.
♦ The surnames of apothecary owners in Burgas at the end of the
nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century included
Georgiev, Savov, Kalkanjiev, Andreev, Dobrev, and Zurkov.
♦ Kalkanjiev had the first apothecary in Burgas at the end of the
nineteenth century.
♦ Zurkov was apprentice to Kalkanjiev.
♦ The biggest apothecary in Burgas at the beginning of the twentieth
century belonged to Zurkov.
♦ Zurkov also had an apothecary in Sozopol.
An apothecary owner with the Greek name Athenas, Athanasiou or Athanasios, or
with the Slavic name Atanas, does not appear in records of Sozopol or Burgas.
Discussion
There are two accounts of Eleni’ s husband having been a Bulgarian apothecary.
But, these are not necessarily independent reports, as they may be different
versions of the same story.
That he “ had the largest apothecary of those times” is probably an exaggeration.
He may only have been apprentice to, or worked for, the largest apothecary of that
time in Burgas.
Evangelia used the name Athenas, certainly Greek and possibly a shortened
version of her original name, convenient in the United States. Her husband,
Demetrios Mavrovitis (James Mavis), was close to his mother-in-law, Eleni, and
loved by her. He must have believed his notations about the family to be accurate
oral history, i.e. that Lily’ s father was named Athanasiou or Athanasios, and that
he died in an accident associated with the “ expatriation,” a term he may have
associated with the expatriation of Greeks from Bulgaria and Turkey after 1922
and used in lieu of the word expulsion.
240
The “ lost at sea” and “ self-performed appendectomy” stories are a stretch and
conflict with what Jimmy documented as Eleni’ s story. Who other than Eleni
would have told him about an accidental death?
Was Lily hiding something by telling her version to her children? Or, did Eleni
make up a version of how her husband died to make Lily believe her father
heroic? A report of a father’ s untimely death, in vague circumstances, often raised
the question: Was the mother married at the time of the child’ s birth?
These questions will never be answered.
Conclusion
Lacking better sources or information, I assert the following:
Stefan Atanas was a Bulgarian. He worked for the largest apothecary in Burgas
owned by the Bulgarian Zurkov, who also had an apothecary in Sozopolis.
Eleni met Evangelia’ s father when she worked in Burgas as a seamstress. She
lived there with a cousin by marriage, Sofia Georgi Stateva.
Eleni was married to Stefan Atanas, and he was Evangelia’ s father. Atanas died
during the pogrom of 30 July 1906, at the hands of Greeks or Bulgarians, or in an
accident.
The Bulgarian surname Atanas, was either misunderstood by, or innocently
transliterated to the Greek Athanasiou or Athanasios, by Demetrios Mavrovitis, or
intentionally made Greek by Eleni to avoid admitting that Evangelia had
Bulgarian blood. [Demetrios was from Macedonia and may have expressed his
abhorrence of all things Bulgarian after his childhood experiences of guerrilla
warfare between Bulgar and Greek in the early twentieth century.]
Eleni escaped from Bulgaria with her daughter in dramatic fashion, i.e. pushed
into the sea to drown. She and Evangelia were interned at a refugee camp in
Greece, and eventually made contact with Sophia Capidaglis in Athens. However,
many Greeks remained in Bulgaria after the pogroms, including Eleni’ s mother,
Vasiliki, and others of her family.
After her stepfather, Christos Stamatiou, died in Chicago in 1915, Evangelia
dropped her stepfather’ s name, Stamatiou, and took a shortened and differently
spelled version of her biological father’ s name, Athenas. Evangelia never used the
surname of Eleni’ s third husband, Leonardo Perna.
241
APPENDIX B
Third Class Travel (Steerage)
Third class ship travel was the mass transportation of its day, designed
specifically to bring hundreds of thousands of poor immigrants from Europe to
the shores of the United States.
The following is a partially fictional but reasonable account of Eleni and
Evangelia’ s journey to America.
*******
On a hot day in July 1912, at the port of Piraeus, Eleni and Evangelia waited to
board their ship to America. In a processing room next to the wharf where the S.S.
Macedonia was being loaded, they were given a rudimentary physical
examination, for if found unhealthy at Ellis Island, they would be shipped back to
Greece at the ship-owner’ s expense.
After the medical examination, Eleni and Evangelia were segregated into the
third- class women’ s group. Single men and women were separated into their
respective gender groups, and married couples with or without children formed
the third group.
Once on board, Eleni and Evangelia were taken down into the bottom of the ship,
below the waterline. There, they found a large hold filled with bunks, three or
four high, that had pseudo-mattresses of stretched canvas. A single blanket (no
pillow) was on each bunk.
Eleni selected two bunks and crammed what few possessions they had into them,
leaving enough room for them to stretch out to sleep.
The ship left its mooring and entered the Bay of Salamis in what was a gentle sea.
Nonetheless, within a very few minutes, the ship’ s motion, stale air, noise, and
fear nauseated several passengers. There was one communal toilet with no
privacy. Slop buckets were provided for emergency use, elimination, or nausea.
There were no bathing facilities, only cold water and a sink.
Dank, cold moisture condensed on the bare metal hull of the ship.
Meals were self-served from huge tureens, generally stews made with the least
expensive meats and vegetables. There were few stewards serving third class. But,
the ship-owners had reason to feed the passengers well enough to assure their
good health on arrival at Ellis Island.
242
Days passed. The ship left the Straits of Gibraltar behind and entered the Atlantic.
Seas roughened. The noise of the hull as it plowed through the water, the
pounding of the engines, and the groan of the turn screws created such noise that
sleep was almost impossible. There was no entertainment. The passengers played
cards, sang songs, and if there were a musician on board with a clarinet, a
bouzouki, or a mandolin, they might even have danced.
The smell of unwashed bodies, slop buckets, and vomit was nearly unbearable.
On days that weather permitted, Eleni and Evangelia huddled close together on
the third-class deck and breathed fresh, cold sea air for the hour or two they were
permitted the luxury.
After seventeen nightmarish days and nights, Eleni and Evangelia debarked at
Ellis Island. Herded along through one processing station after another, they were
confused and fearful. Evangelia did not have enough money to buy rail tickets to
St. Paul. Officials helped her send a telegram to Christos, who, in three days’
time, wired funds back to her at Ellis Island. Eleni purchased the railroad tickets
and with Evangelia was on her way, sitting up in a coach without any knowledge
of the language, how to purchase food, or where she and Evangelia were going.
Eleni had never in her life seen so much land. The train rumbled past vast forested
mountains in Pennsylvania and miles of farmland in Indiana and Ohio. The rail
yard in Chicago frightened them as their car was disconnected from one engine
and connected to another for the trip across the plains of Wisconsin to Minnesota.
Three hard days passed before the conductor motioned for them to get off the
train. They had arrived in St. Paul and found Christos waiting.
Ship-owners made fortunes in third-class passenger transportation until the
immigration gates closed in the early 1920s. The ships were then either quickly
converted to serve a new “ tourist” class with modest but far more comfortable
accommodations than third class had been, or scrapped for the value of the metal
remains.
243
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