41 - Summers of Early Adolescence

During our family summer vacations in the camping of Skotina, the conflict between my introversion (innate or nurtured, it had become irrelevant...) and one of the desiderata of human nature, that is the recognition and acceptance one expects and longs for from one’s environment, this conflict would manifest itself with renewed intensity from the depths of my young soul. Camus, the author of my very first philosophical readings at the threshold of adulthood that profoundly affected thereafter my thinking and whom I rediscovered in maturity in the light of accumulated knowledge and life experience, once wrote: "Consciousness is the desire to be recognized and proclaimed as such by other consciousnesses. It is the others who create us. Only in our relationships and connection with others do we acquire human value." I observed later in life that prestige and status are essential wants and, therefore, for obtaining those two valuable assets one strives throughout life for the recognition of his individuality and value by other beings in one’s intimate environment and broader social circles. There are battles an individual fights either in tandem or against the omni-potent and omni-present struggles at social levels for shares in the national and global wealth and power. The camping offered a space of seclusion, insular from the daily tedium of the city afar, a microcosm where old and young, from Greece and abroad, enjoyed a few weeks of summer vacation free from shackles of work and study. It also became an arena of personal strive for advancement and realisation of my existence, and the recognition of my conscience and being, as Camus said, primarily by adolescent peers, but also by adults who, I could sense, observed expectantly from a discrete distance our movements and behaviour. We were growing into personalities and were forming, rather unconsciously, into types of beings yet unknown to ourselves and others.

Morning dips and swimming in the sea did not excite me; much less, the afternoon ones. The former were always done in the presence and under the supervision of parents: ‘there are many dangers lurking in the sea for kids’ we were told. And a parent or guardian had to time the interval between the last meal and the first dive an OK is given, then be on alert for the threat of sunshine, the risk of sunstrokes and sunburns under the relentless Greek summer sun. The incident with the young man's pale body on the sand being given in vain the ‘kiss of life’ until the ambulance collected his dead body, an event I witnessed and shocked me in one of my holidays there, intensified the sense of danger and our parents’ vigilance. Mother was always a fearful novice when it came to swimming, and neither sea- nor sun-bathing by lying on the beach towel ever exerted an attraction, partly due to her growing in a backward village. In contrast to Father, who always enjoyed his swims, venturing fearlessly far away from the foreshore, and afterwards lounging on the burning hot sand under the sun to dry his body. Although in the shores of the Skotina camping I learned how to float in the sea water without fear and eventually self-learnt how to swim, the ritual of sea-bathing during in Greek summers has never enthralled like it does with others.

Father, for whom, as said, sea bathing was a sine qua non of his summer holidays, devoted the best part of those mornings either to teach swimming and play sand games with little Brother or, lounging by the foreshore and unfazed by the heat and sun to be involved in endless conversations with friends, recent acquaintances from the resort who won his esteem -by no means an easy feat, and the few strangers who somehow intrigued him. Predominant amongst the latter was an Italian gentleman who spent two consecutive summers on vacation with his caravan and family at the campsite. Sitting on the sand and embracing their knees, the Italian on one side of Father, and Brother, a fidgety toddler on the other, the two men were chatting. Usually about politics and current affairs: the dictatorial regime in Greece, the PCI and Enrico Berlinguer in Italy. Even though freedoms of expression in public and public debates had been curtailed by the military junta, and to the disconcertment of Mother nearby, Father with his loud and piercing voice allowed himself to be heard up to where I was sitting and eavesdropping, whilst aimlessly digging holes in the sand. It had been a mystery what Father could discuss with the Italian with his limited Italian vocabulary. And it was a wonder how he managed to learn that little Italian, let alone converse in that language. His admiration for the Italian culture, especially the cinema in its golden era, would certainly not have sufficed for effecting communication in that foreign language. But I was watching, with the wonder of a naturally timid person, Father’s self-confidence on display, as the discussions with the Italian, on an almost daily basis at the same very point of the beach, lasted a long time. ‘Leggi sembre i libri, Giovanni!’ was the Italian's main advice to Brother, a motivation for reading books and learning he had not managed, as he had mentioned, to foster in his daughter: during her teenage holidays in a foreign country, she was more concerned with the sea and the sun, and enjoyed those in isolation from her parents. Father pronounced and recalled his Italian’s friend advice, as a trophy from those conversations of the two men on the beach, for the several years afterwards that we were receiving Christmas cards from the Italian family –to which, rather predictably, Father never reciprocated.

Some unusually competitive chess games were played on some folding tables in the shade of the poplars, soothed by their rustling leaves and the coolness of the afternoon sea breeze. It was an activity I craved more than others during the long lazy siesta hours. My main opponents were Yugoslavs (who, we knew beforehand that were strong chess players). Although Father bought me my first chess board and taught me its rules and moves, and played a few games with me, by and large my limited chess skills were developed via self-learning and playing against myself in the solitude of my room. Sometimes, Father, after his siesta, he would turn up, not to play, but only watch those impromptu friendly chess games amongst the holidaymaker. Sitting by me, he watched with the intensity of an ardent family supporter, agonisingly holding his breath in anticipation of my move, so that the sigh from his deep breaths would not have disturbed my concentration; then he would wheeze exhaling, in relief or disappointment, after I played my move... So, under the poplars, one could say, that I somehow put to a mild test my mental ability and reason, which, admittedly, were above the average for my age, although not exceptional. I was always ‘the positive one’, as Mrs. Kiki had said, in any intellectual enterprise, including chess-playing, which in simple terms meant that I ranked somewhat above average, yet far from the peaks a genius or prodigy attain.

On the other hand, I paid more regular visits to the basketball courts when the sun was still high on its arc, exercising all its brutality, and the barely endurable temperatures of the afternoon at their peaks, at an hour, that is, when most holidaymakers were resting in their bungalows, caravans or tents, or even under a tree. I was too eager to practice my techniques and improve on my skinny physique and endurance with a ball of professional standards and attires of recognized brands –Converse All Star, Adidas, etc. to show off later. For those afternoon trips to the sun-drenched, deserted by the human presence courts, I paid a price and learnt a few lessons: a sunstroke and a burn-scarred shoulders and back for life to remember. Not long after my arrival, the courts filled with Greek and Yugoslav athletic youth of the resort for spontaneous acquaintances and impromptu basketball games. The expensive ball I possessed always attracted eager players around me: for one-against-one to games with several players who often did not speak the same language, but we got along just fine, as either teammates or opponents. In those games I was able to display another ‘positive’ attribute, in the accuracy of my shots to the basket, and a competitive presence despite my short stature and skinny physique, attributes, of course, that would have rendered a sport like basketball unsuitable for one to take up.

Later, at the golden hour before dusk when the heat of the day was subsiding, the holidaymakers used to gather in the open-air café, parents for their afternoon coffee and conversation, children for refreshments and plays in the play area, in anticipation of dinner and the occasional evening entertainment program. But after dinner, the bulk of the youth, with the power of that invisible affinity that glues them together towards a common aim, further intensified by the force world of adults exerts in holiday spots, which repels young people in directions far and away from their families, would rally en masse to their own corner scarcely accessible to adults: a cobbled area fenced with reeds, with ping-pong tables and billiards, and later in the evening, a makeshift disco run by a hired by the camp management DJ. And as midnight approached, the hard and leading core of the young populace would gather around a remote patch of the beach for improvised parties, make log fires by the waves, bring along guitars and radio cassette players, alcohol, in the pursuit of kisses and love; under the moon and the stars, the dark uniform expanse of the sea, its horizon blemished only by flickering lights from desolate spots along the coastline, the murmur of the waves, the scents and caresses of the gentle breeze, nature wonders and sensations which the young party goers were yet unable to appreciate and enjoy consciously. The focus was on the young night, music and dance and love.

40 - To a State-Run Resort with a Brother

Along the arc of life that connected the last years of childhood with the more challenging and turbulent ones of adolescence, our holiday venue Father changed our holiday venue: from the nondescript and forgettable hotel to a camping-cum-resort located a few kilometres north on the same stretch of coastline. The ambitious resort that caught Father’s eye from his inception was established near the village of Skotina at the foothills of Mount Olympus in the early 1970’s by the ambitious National Board of Tourism, still in its glory years. It was managed since and until its overthrow in 1974 by the military regime and, for a short period of time thereafter, by our more democratic state with the lack of discipline and slack that characterised such post-dictatorship governances –when state-run enterprises started declining due to maladministration, favouritism and incompetent management, until they sank into seas of losses and debts and were dissolved.

In the meantime, my one and only sibling, my brother was born. One could say that his presence, in that stage of my life at least, had a negligible effect with respect to my daily outdoors intercourse due to a gap of more than seven years in our age. But it was during that period of the first few summers in the camping of Skotina, when Brother, was growing from a toddler of two and three years old into a lively as well as mischievous and unruly child – that is, a child difficult to deal with especially for Mother. ‘The family rebel’ was he branded by Father and as such he was introduced to friends, and in the privacy of our home he used to sing with a noticeable pride a popular at the time song by Kilaidonis: ‘As things were turning out upside-down and bad // we brought a rebel into our family…’ Kiki, of our family friends, for her part, she renamed him with a bucolic version of his Christian name, which alluded to revolutionary Greece’s mountain guerrillas and bandits, because of the lively and free-spirited and charismatic child he was – distinguishing him thus from the plethora of Greeks with the same, most common name.

From early on, Father nurtured a distinct fondness for Brother for his intelligence and rebellious attitude. He always kept a soft-spot and harboured a weakness so to speak, even into the twilight of his life, and certainly for many years after Brother was transformed through life’s travails into a contrasting personality from the one that his infancy and childhood was indicating. And he expressed that weakness openly and unequivocally and in the presence of friends and family, and my presence. He clearly became his favourite son and not just in my eyes, despite a few exceptions of parental correctness and impartiality, maybe because of some penitence, whenever he mentioned: ‘I loved my two sons equally’, nevertheless sometimes not failing to add: ‘Y is our weakness, but L is our pride’. (The last compliment I was afforded was more due to the discipline and diligence I displayed, attributes that did not characterise Brother’s behaviour, as well due to my star performances at school as the result of those attributes.) Kiki advocated further in her judgements: ‘Y is a rebel with the maturity and bravado of an adult, a spirited child, who objects to instructions and directions from parents and teachers and frequently outsmarts them… and even does not hesitate to react angrily to attempts of untoward reprimands; on the other hand, L had ”a positive attitude”’ – as another way to say that I was slightly above the average, physically and intellectually, in my age bracket.  Natural it was that such distinctions affected my relationship with Father and our emotional closeness, whilst I was young and Father still in his prime, notwithstanding my self-confidence. They had inevitably affected my personality and attitude in my interactions with people, in adolescence and later in life. But the relationship with Fater as it evolved with time, a relationship that on occasions moved on a knife edge, other times it was a relationship of mere acknowledgement of the presence of each other and our opinions and differences, sometimes collapsed to a nadir of aloofness and emotional distance, especially after a barrage of scolding, aggression, even personal insults. But such family shenanigans amount for another long chapter in the book of life.

The two summer holidays we spent at the Platamon Beach Hotel were condemned to a dustbin of childhood memories. But the camping of Skotina, as it opened before my eyes on one spring Sunday before his very first year of operation proper, as we entered through its secure gate and barriers with Father's FIAT, still unspoiled and unblemished by holidaymakers, seemed like a paradise on earth and left me dazzled and dreaming and longing for the months of school holidays. It was then in the early 1970’s, it was its inaugural season, and Father, having heard praise from friend and colleagues, took me along for an on-site audit and to reserve one of the few bungalows in the remote corner of the camping. It was a grandiose (for Greek standards) and rather pioneering recreational undertaking by the National Board of Tourism at the time, built on a huge expanse of land between the highway and the rail tracks of the line that connected Athens and Thessaloniki, hidden from passengers and drivers behind rows of poplars, and the hitherto unspoiled, long and wide beach that stretched from Leptokarya to Platamonas, and overlooked by the then still snowy ridges of Mount Olympus.

With endless stretches of grass land, ideal for football (my imagination had already begun to gallop and dreamed of impromptu matches between the different nations of holidaymakers) and sports in the playgrounds, in the basketball and tennis courts, carefree cycling on the serpentine lanes meandering around the delimited spaces for tents and caravans. Not to the mention, the explorations it offered of plants and butterflies and their collections and classifications during the hours of the hot and laid-back afternoons, in the arbour around the small artificial lake with the water lilies plants, under the foliage of plane and pine trees, where the rustling of the leaves and the sound of the sea two steps further could only be perturbed by the croaking of frogs and the singing of cicadas. Just next to a complex of bungalows one of which would be our adobe for our summer vacation! The bungalows were yellow, red, blue freshly painted boxes, colours fancy from the rays of the spring sun, separated from the sea by another simple village of green. They had balconies shaded by straw canopies, and what I always wanted to sleep on: the top of a bunk bed. All this man-made paradise was waiting to welcome me. I could not wait for the school summer break!

39 - A Lonely Child's Holiday

Before the birth of Brother and the inception of joint summer vacations with our family friends in a camping by the shores of Pieria, Father used to book a three weeks half-board holidays in ‘Platamon Beach’ – a 3* hotel situated also situated in the area between the coastal villages of Leptokarya and Platamonas. The hotel could have been as well characterized as semi-luxurious at that time, but for today’s modern holiday accommodation standards would be viewed as impersonal and mediocre, certainly aged and outmoded. In any case, Father, for reason he only knew, always seemed to shy away from booking rooms in higher than 3* class hotels on trips when overnight accommodation was required.

Our days were repetitive and dull in that three storey-hotel. With a rather dark and claustrophobic, albeit comfortably cool interior, it was located a few steps away from a scorched by the cruel midsummer sun beach, more gravelly than sandy, by a mostly rolling and clouded sea water; in short, a beach that offered little to talk about. Our nominal holiday periods of two weeks were spent going back and forth between the beach for a quick swim in the sea and the restaurant, where we ate our breakfast and the evening meals that we were entitled to as part of the package. I was confined within my shell there, having made no significant progress since infancy as far as my sociability and social skills were concerned, that is since the age I was too shy to even mumble a reply when I was asked by strangers of my name. Therefore, incapable of summoning the courage and confidence to mingle with other children of my age of six and seven years, let alone older, I resigned myself to watch them playing from afar, often hidden behind bushes and trees along the paths leading to the beach from the large terrace and the hotel gardens. I could hear their voices, their laughter, their screams of joy, their songs echoing to the sea, I could see them playing, running, dancing- what a happy bunch of boys and girls enjoying their summer. Both being alone, like a boat in the desert, and feeling lonely, and despite Mother's urging to introduce myself to the play groups of children that were spontaneously formed each evening on the terrace. I was inwardly longing to participate to their play, but I could not summon that courage for a breakthrough and declare my presence to them.

One evening, hidden behind the eucalyptus trees of the hotel gardens between the terrace and the beach, and in order to distract the children who had flooded the terrace and were casually playing and gauge their reactions, I bizarrely decided to throw small stones at them; at time intervals, which I believed were long enough so that they would return to their games before another throw would have caught them again by surprise and disrupt their play. Harmless by virtue of the size of the projectiles, yet the act of throwing stones and other small objects to the kids was Inexplicable and inexcusable and in hindsight only a troubled and eccentric soul would have come up with something like that. It was driven perhaps out of envy, perhaps out of boredom, perhaps as a revolt against loneliness and an illusion of participating. On the surface, I merely wanted to attract their attention, to show to them that a non-trivial being yet invisible being is out there and it exists, with a presence and coordinates, and tries in its eccentric manner to make his mark. I think a buried within wish was lurking -for them to eventually spot me and invite them to their company.

After throwing a few stones and pine cones, from the garden hedges, I suddenly realised that from behind the eucalyptus trees and the dark shadows that provided me some cover from sight, two of the older children of the group were approaching menacingly: towards me, the villain who was throwing stuff at them, the unreasonably hostile and evil actor whom he was. I tried to escape through the cobbled footpaths of the hotel, among the eucalyptus and leyland trees, dimly lit by few scattered garden lamps. I could not have predicted their routes in the maze of paths and met them unexpectedly in a crossing. As guilty, I was naturally captivated by fear, but also overwhelmed by a shame: of the lonely and timid, even coward person, which one might have asserted I carried through into adulthood. If it had not been dark, my flushed cheeks would have betrayed my guilt to the vigilantes. Thankfully, what they saw instead was an insignificant in stature timid child, whom they asked: ‘Hey, did you notice any brat about who throws stones towards the terrace?’ I answered them with an apologetically muffled ‘no’ and they left me to carry on with their search for the villain.

The incident, the only remarkable from those holidays, was over. I returned to the serenity of Mother's company, who was drinking her orange juice in a corner of the cafeteria. There would be no more lonely escapades in ‘The Platamon Beach Hotel’. 

38 - Our Family Friends: A Day Trip to Sithonia

Yes, Nikos had his moments. Moments of irritation and agitation, of outbursts of anger, one could say uncharacteristic of a future politician, as I found out first-hand that afternoon in his village when he lashed out to Billy for interrupting his siesta. Moments, in short, when he was out of humour and beside himself.

On an early summer Sunday, he organized a trip to the Sithonia peninsula by the beach. It was one amongst the many recreational group gatherings and trips that he enjoyed planning and executing for the enjoyment more of his family and friends than himself: Nikos derived much of his joy from the contentment of other. On this occasion, he prepared and ushered a large group of people of his circle to the slopes of Mount Dragoundeli, which descends under the canopy of forest of tall, ancient pine trees to the resplendent beaches of Sithonia – somewhere by the coast between the town of Marmaras and the vineyards and resort of Porto Carras. Nikos distinguished himself for his ability and zeal in planning and organizing these sorts of events, a passion founded on an innate sociability and conviviality, that contrasts with Father. On this occasion, he invited his guests, from his wide pool of friends and friends of friends, without expecting help with the preparations or to chip in the budget for food and drinks or to share means transportation, but only a reciprocal show of good will and joviality. Always with a restless and generous spirit, he dominated the lively conversations with friends that concluded hearty lunches in taverns; he always insisted on footing the bill, whilst he drew a great deal satisfaction from his company’s joy and laughter and appreciation. One or two compliments or some well-intentioned banter at the end, perhaps a warm handshake of gratitude and a mere ‘thank you’ that as a generous host he covertly sought, were for Nikos a bonus that would reward for the heart and soul he put into those social events.

I remember the enjoyable time we had during that Sunday in Sithonia. With the other children of the large group and Billy, as usually, in the lead and, we explored the pine forest that hung on from the steep slopes of the mountain bending its trees towards the sea below, as if these craved the blue sea below. We descended to the pebble beach below and swam playfully in its crystal-clear waters. Hungry and thirsty at noon, we gathered around tablecloths and picnic blankets that had been laid out under the shade of the trees and tasted the delicacies people brought along in lunch-boxes: casseroles: meatballs, pies, salads, cakes, all sorts of treats! There were drinks for everyone, too, in the cooler boxes to quench the thirst: water, juices of all sorts, beers, white wine, retsina, even ouzo for the few ouzo drinkers. The grown-ups, divided into three or four groups, laid on the picnic blankets and kilim rugs; the men enjoyed their wine and beers, smoked their cigarettes, discussed politics and current affairs and their businesses; the women small chat, general gossip, but also about trends in literature and, inevitably, Angelos Sikelianos, the favourite poet of philologist Kiki, who was at the centre of any discourse with some intellectual tinge, as much as Nikos was at the centre of lively conversation of political nature. We children were naturally tired of the adult conversations about lyric and symbolic poetry, politics and work. We hardly understood the political jokes or many of the sophistries and the supposedly witty remarks of Nikos, of Father, and others, that spread laughter amongst the assembly.

Nikos, as he used to do in such parties, with one or two bottles of wine or retsina in his hand, went back and forth from group to group filling glasses, often with a crafty smile under the moustache and a twinkle in the eyes: talking, sometimes plainly, sometimes teasingly, mostly jokingly, with the furrows in his rounded cheeks and broad Pontian brow  deepening, smiling and even laughing loud when someone complemented his joke or matched his banter. A political leader was being formed and materialised through those parties.

Everyone looked and sounded merry under the Epicurean bliss of the drinks and the treats and the philosophical-cum-political chat. It calmed down after the luncheon reached its climax. The buzz of the bees and the incessant whines of the cicadas could still be heard, in an intensity amplified with the rising of the early afternoon temperature. It lingered along with some whispers, barely audible through that of waves and the rustle of leaves – the only sounds that troubled the stillness of the peaceful settings. A woman offered to roast coffee in her gas stove. Many loosened up in the shades and laid there half-asleep musing, a few opted for a proper snooze. Father, very much in character, took his afternoon siesta on a blanket under a tree over a thick layer of pine needles -with his arms folded over his chest, snoring soundly. Us children descended again to the beach adhering to the instructions not to ‘dip into the sea with our stomachs still full’. We were naturally disinterested in a nap, being carefree and our ideas of having a good time being simple and straightforward: the forest and the beach offered endless opportunities. 

In a corner on the margins of the gathering, amongst the guests of Nikos, unheeded by the gang of children, a middle-aged couple was sitting, not much spoken to, generally disengaged, looking bored, almost miserable and rather dissatisfied by the company and the surroundings. In fact, they were not paid much attention or talked by most. Indifference might have been the cause for their downtrodden faces, and a resentment either implicit, betrayed by their mood or explicitly discussed with their host at some, would become the obvious reason for what followed. (A rule of thumb in every trip or journey involving a group of Greeks is that there exists amongst them one or more individuals that are out of place, ‘crooked’ and miserable, or in the psychologists’ lingo displaying a passive-aggressive nature. These are the ones incapable to enjoy themselves with anything that a social setting offers; those who, if they do not remain silent, will find something to ‘grumble’ about, often with sarcastic remarks and impudence, fault finding in everything around them: the place they were brought into, the food and the drinks they were offered, the people in the company of whom they shared a few hours. In the case of our trip, which was organized with drive and effort by Nikos, two long-faces implied ingratitude; it was personal insult, an anathema.

Towards the end of the long afternoon, with the sun setting behind the mountains of Kassandra, Father, freshened up from his nap, offered to drive back a couple of mutual friends in our sad little FIAT, while I, Kiki, Billy and his sister, we got into Nikos’ spacious Renault on the way home, via a rough dirt lane that meandered along the steep slopes of the mountain through a maze of sharp bends and clouds of dust, before merging to the asphalted road along the west coast of Sithonia towards. It was admittedly an arduous return after a long day. A few seconds into the drive back, after a brief exchange of words with Kiki, a thunder erupted, that shook our tired minds and bodies in the back seat. Nikos sweaty face reddened and began to shout: "Ungrateful scoundrels, scumbags, bastards... I’ll whack them!  I'll kill them!" -that whilst slamming with both hands the steering wheel, frantically shifting gears, and accelerating close to the maximum of Renault's potential on the narrow lane, with little inclination to slow down in bends. Kiki next to him was terrified and her reassuring efforts in a trembling voice were drowned in the engine roars and Nikos’ thundery and raging voice. She pleaded: ‘Think of the children in the back seat Nikos. Calm down! We don't deserve to be killed for such a thing… At least, stop the car so that we can get out and then do as you see fit!’, and so on. Billy leaned his head into the gap between the two front seats also pleading with his dad to calm down, even trying comically to hold on to the steering wheel, every time Nikos, with wildly animated gestures of anger and indignation, relinquished control. I remained silent, recoiled in the back seat, terrified by the speed the car around sharp bends, the clouds of dust raised by the car in front, which was Nikos apparently pursuing with intent, the sheer drops beyond the edge of the narrow road with some bushes as the only protective barrier from the void.

Thankfully, his outburst faded with time. As soon as we reached the safety of the highway, his wrath began to subside and rational thinking somehow prevailed, as it usually happens with extreme displays of anger from generally kind and well-intentioned persons. On the highway, the miserable couple he tried to chase with the intention of teaching them a kind of lesson and avenge for their impertinences and ingratitude disappeared from his sight. It was clear that they had placed themselves outside the broader Akrivides’ circle without chances of a pardon and they we never to be seen again in any of his social gatherings.