44 - Struggling for Attention

Summers rolled by, children were growing into teenagers, the camping-cum-resort was ageing too along with its loyal holidaymakers, and lost its pristine and youthful charm of my first summer there. Its first manager, the retired military officer who demanded discipline from employees and holidaymakers alike, order and cleanliness in the site and the observance of the regulations to the letter, was replaced by a public servant, who was appointed thanks to his connections with the new slightly more “democratic” government, and with little experience and even less skills in managing a tourist enterprise of that scale. He implemented the familiar tactics of the traditional Greek governance. The limited number of bungalows, which in the opening seasons were rented to holidaymaker on a first-come, first-serve basis, were now allocated well in advanced, even before the end of the preceding holiday season, to family and friends, and friends of friends, who had some access to the echelons of the administration. It is called favouritism and it was applicable to holiday accommodation in state-owned and managed resorts as well.

Father, unable to hire a bungalow, he followed the footsteps of our family friends, and bought a tent -predictably, smaller and of lower standards than his friend's. We had to bring to the campsite well in advance of the commencement of the holiday season, to secure and set it up on one of the few privileged lots that had not yet been occupied or ‘booked’ by campers or caravan owners, with illicit or other means, and before the large crowds converged to the resort in peak season. My skinny adolescent body undertook the setting-up of the tent in the late morning sunshine, on soil hard from the spring drought. Father was averse to anything requiring physical effort, let alone the exertion of setting-up a tent, as his main interests, outside his day job in the telecom industry, lied exclusively in the domains of intellect. Therefore, he limited himself into issuing instructions and commands. I set the tent up on my own, with considerable effort it must be said, under the condescending comment and unhelpful guidance of Father. After I completed my task, whilst standing in a queue in the self-service restaurant for a plate of pasta and a Coca-Cola, I passed out. Upon regaining conscience, I found myself lying in a bed in a side-room. An unknown lady, possibly a nurse, was smiling at me and saying to the worrisome Mother who was standing by: ‘Nothing is wrong with the lad... He's tired and dehydrated.’ I felt a sudden rejuvenation and an unusual vigour from the oxygenated blood flow returning and swirling like mountain streams in my brain and enjoyed my pasta meal with great appetite, a scant reward for the hard work done.

Those first holidays in the tent would begin with preparations dictated by the immature way of thinking and conducting myself: new ball of professional standards, new Adidas clothing, Converse All Star footwear for basketball, all bought by a rogue sportswear dealer from the pocket money I managed to save from different sources and the occasional pinching of 50 and 100 drachma notes from Father’s pockets or Mother’s purse without them noticing. Ah, and the Fred Perry polo-shirt for evenings outings, and a pair of Speedo trunks for the beach... All were brands with recognized logos on display, for every social occasion that give adolescents an illusion of an elevated status and esteem amongst wealthier peers. With such artificially enhanced outward appearance they believe that they generate impressions and become, at least temporarily, centres of attention and, potentially, stir emotions of admiration from friends and envy from foes. So, under peer pressure one might say, I went with the flow and tried to follow the trends of my age, to gain attention and confirmation and recognition, especially amongst the female populace.

For a taciturn, timid and introvert child, these were coarse and subconscious expressions of an imaginary modus vivendi as far as he could understand it, but the means and the methods were superficial and ineffective, when seen from the perspective of adulthood. But then again, I had neither the life experience nor the knowledge, nor the depth of thought for deep introspections. The trends of my milieu were dominating our way of thinking and conducting ourselves, and the immature child in me adopted those trends thoughtlessly, but eagerly. Self-criticism had yet to become a tool in personal development. As it turned out, those brand names I was wearing at a large monetary cost did not help me a jot. They failed to attract even fleeting glances of admiration from girls I was desperately seeking, let alone help me build any sort of solid friendship. Several boys of my age used similar tactics, in perhaps more glamorous and effective ways, especially when their fashionable appearances were augmented with their auras of courage, bravado, conviviality, personal charm and other personal gifts I did not possess. But I had to tread water and survive amongst stronger egos and follow blindly those, after all, oppressive trends. I naively presumed that a personality is somehow enhanced by showing-off a trendy attire of recognized brands. Those presumptions were tested in the holiday site and, in hindsight, they crushed in the brutal world of adolescence. I learned the hard way, as was pointed out by Leo Cohen and others, that reality is a possibility that we cannot ignore or underestimate.