Tag Archives: Greece

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Overseas travel awaits

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

You’ve heard about my plans to travel in a recreational vehicle with my wife throughout North America.

That’ll happen in due course. Some of it’s happening now as we take our fifth wheel out for long-weekend excursions. Retirement beckons. It’s coming closer every day and soon enough we’ll be free to hit the road.

However, we have some places we intend to see abroad as well.

My wife and I have compiled an official list of places we intend to visit once we decide we’re tired of working. More or less in order of preference, but not entirely so, here they are:

Australia: Neither of us has been close to the Down Under continent yet. I’ve been to Southeast Asia a time or three over the years. My wife has been to Taiwan twice with me. Australia is calling our name.

We have been communicating with a friend in Adelaide ever since we met this individual on another trip, in 2000, to Greece. We’ve indicated our desire to see him. He is receptive to our visiting him in the state of South Australia.

My fascination with Australia goes back to when I was about 13. My dad was entertaining a job opportunity in the coastal town of Rockhampton, between Sydney and Brisbane. I studied all I could then about Australia, anticipating a huge move. Dad didn’t pursue the opportunity. We stayed put. My interest in Australia, though, has remained high.

My wife has agreed that Australia should be at or near the top of our foreign destinations when the time arrives.

Greece: We’ve been there twice together already, in 2000 and 2001. I returned a third time in 2003. It is the land of my ancestors. My wife fell in love deeply with Greece almost from the moment we landed in Athens.

She has told me on more than one occasion: “Of all the places we’ve seen this is the one place I could return to again and again.”

It is magic. The scenic splendor is breathtaking. The antiquities are staggering. The people are charming.

We’re going back.

Israel: We’ve been there as well. We spent a week in the Holy Land after I had spent four weeks there leading a Rotary International Group Study Exchange. We stayed in Jerusalem and saw quite a few holy sites during our time together there.

We were unable to see a lot of other sites. We didn’t get to Galilee. We saw only a small part of Bethlehem. There were many other sites we left unseen. Time wouldn’t allow it.

Germany: Four years ago on a tour of Taiwan, I met a young journalist who lives in Bavaria, which I call “the pretty part of Germany.” He and I struck up an immediate friendship. We communicate regularly. He has invited us to visit him and his young family. Oh, how I want to see the mountainous region of southern Germany. We’ll get there.

Africa: I’ve long had a fascination with the wildlife of Africa. I want to shoot some of it — with a camera. The idea of a photo safari sounds like more fun than I deserve.

The Netherlands: The trip to Israel five years included my making some friends from The Netherlands. They traveled with our Rotary group. One of the Dutch group and I have remained in contact in the years since then and he, too, has extended the invitation for my wife and me to visit him there. How can I say “no” at the chance of seeing such a spectacular region of Europe?

We’re not yet ready to quit working. Indeed, I intend to keep writing for as long as I am drawing a breath.

It’s a big world out there and we’re excited about seeing more of it.

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Remembering good old Christmas days

This feeling of reflection is hard to shake this time of year.

Allow me another remembrance I hope resonates with others who come from big, boisterous families.

Christmas often — not every year, mind you — brought the Kanelis side of my family together for Christmas dinner and revelry at my grandparents’ house at 703 N.E. Beech Street in Portland, Ore. It was a wondrous time, made possible by a very matriarchal grandmother who was the glue that held our family together.

She and my grandfather produced seven children. My father was the oldest of their brood. Of those seven kids, five of them produced children of their own. They totaled 12 first cousins. One of my aunts married a man with three children, so we acquired three more cousins via marriage, making 15 all together.

One of my uncles was away most of our time growing up, serving in the Army, where he retired eventually in 1970 as a full-bird colonel. Every so often, he and my aunt would make an appearance at one of these family gatherings.

And onĀ rare occasions, my maternal grandmother — my mother’s mother, my “Yiayia,” about whom I’ve written on this blog — would attend one of these events. Now that was a treat, as she would regale my paternal grandfather with off-color stories and have him and our aunts and uncles in stitches.

My Grandma Kanelis — Katina was her name — was an old-country cook of the first order. She was a Greek immigrant who cooked everything from scratch. Easter dinners always included a lamb, as in the entire animal,Ā butchered and hanging from tenterhooks in the basement. Turkey was the main course at Christmas.

We’d laugh until we hurt. The cousins would run through the house, and around the yard (weather permitting, of course) and we would gather around a very large table in the dining room to enjoy the meal my grandmother had prepared.

My aunts would sing Christmas carols — loudly and mostly pretty well.

We’d all tell other that we needed to do a better job of staying in touch. But as with most large families, sometimes you did and sometimes, well, things got in the way and you wouldn’t see each other until Grandma invited us all over for the next big family gathering.

We didn’t do this every Christmas, but often enough to leave a lasting impression at least on me — and I’ll presume on other members of my family. I know my sisters remember those times.

That all came to an end in September 1968. Grandma suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized. She was set to come home after being treated — and then her heart quit. She was just 72 years of age when she died and as I tell folks today, 72 is “sounding younger all the time.”

The glue had been peeled away.

Ours was like many families that featured strong women. Indeed, my maternal grandmother — who I’ve mentioned already here — also filled that role. She would live another 10 years after Grandma Kanelis died.

Christmas has this way of bringing back memories such as these. I will cherish them forever.

My advice for others who have similar memories is to do the same. Believe me, they’ll make you smile.

 

business news, International news

Ancestral homeland climbs back

Greece is the land of my ancestors … all of them.

My mother’s parents emigrated to the United States from Turkey, but they were Greeks through and through. My father’s lineage goes back to the southern peninsula of Greece.

So, when news of Greece is bad, I ache a little bit more than I would if the news were about, say, Sweden or Poland. The Greek economy has been in the news a lot lately. And when the news is good, such as when Greece played host to the spectacular 2004 Summer Olympics, my pride swells.

My heart is gladdened just a bit with news from Reuters News Agency that the Greek economy — you’ll remember, whenĀ much of Europe was trying to bail them out with cash — has come back.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/eurozone-economy-greece-idUSL6N0T42OV20141114

Reuters reports: “Seasonally adjusted figures showed the euro zone weakling posted three consecutive quarters of growth this year, even though it had only been expected to exit what the government has
called Greece’s ‘Great Depression’ in the third quarter.”

What has pulled the Greek economy out of the ditch? Some economists have suggested tourism has given Greece its heft. The country has discounted lodging prices and the country continues to be a magnet for tourists looking for a little culture, sunshine, beautiful landscapes and a walk through some of the grandest antiquities on the planet.

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting my ancestral homeland three times and I plan to return. My wife, who’s made the trip with me said, “Of all the places we’ve been, this is the one place I want to see again and again.” That, folks, is high praise.

So I’m glad to read about the good news about Greece that has gone largely unreported. The media were certainly quick to tell us about the gloom and doom.

According to Reuters: “The news is a boost for Greece’s government, which has been promising austerity-weary Greeks better times ahead.”

I hope to read more about those “better times” when they arrive.

 

 

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He was a great man

Men achieve greatness many ways. Some seek it. Occasionally it falls on others. Still others become great simply by being who they are, by playing by the rules, and living good lives.

I want to introduce you to a great man I once knew.

His name was Ioannis Panayotis Kanellopoulos. The English translation is John Peter Kanelis. He was my grandfather. We called him “Papou,” which is the Greek term for grandpa.

He was born 129 years ago, on Oct. 12, 1885, in a tiny village on the southern peninsula of Greece, the Peloponnese. He would marry my grandmother, whoĀ lived in a nearby village, in 1919.

They had moved to America by the time they married. They brought seven children into the world, starting with my father, Peter; then, in order, came Tom, Eileen, Alice, Elizabeth, Constantino and Sophia. All the children became successes. They all had some heartache and grief along the way, but they have done well.

They owe it to their upbringing.

Papou wasn’t an educated man. He never learned how to drive a car. He toiled as a laborer in a Pittsburgh, Pa., steel mill. Then the Depression hit. He then sought to manage a hotel in Bellows Fall, Vt. That endeavor didn’t work out.

My father — as the eldest child —Ā then helped herd the entire family across the vast country, toĀ Portland, Ore., in the late 1930s.

Papou then operated a shoe-shine stand in the basement of a major downtown Portland department store. That’s what he did for the rest of his working life. He shined shoes. He snapped the buffing rag so smartly it sounded almost like music.

I’ll acknowledge that my grandfather didn’t do a lot of grandfatherly things with me or, as near as I can remember, with any of his grandkids. We didn’t go on outings with him and my grandmother;Ā neither of them drove. I recall a couple of memorable all-inclusive family outings on the Oregon coast that included a whole host of aunts, uncles, cousins and, yes, my grandparents.

My grandmother died in September 1968. My grandparents were married for 49 years. Papou would live until 1981, when he passed away at the age of 95 — which is not bad for a man who smoked stogies daily for nearly his entire adult life.

I want to remember him today as a great American because of the simple dignity with which he lived. He didn’t achieve outward, look-at-me greatness.Ā He didn’t call attention to himself. He simply achieved greatness by being who he was.

He came to the United States of America in search of a better life than the one he left behind in that tiny Greek village. By God, he found it.

Happy birthday, Papou.

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Remembering a great American

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This blog post is adapted from a column published July 5, 1998 in the Amarillo Globe-News.

“You know your grandmother died on the Fourth of July just to make sure we would remember her.”

So said my wife on July 4, 1978, the date of my grandmother’s death. She was right. I do remember that date. All of us in our family remember it.

And oh, do I remember this remarkable woman. My grandmother was an immigrant, but was as much of an American as any native-born U.S. citizen I’ve ever known. Her life, as well as that of her beloved husband, is a testament to the American Dream, the one in which people attain freedom and relative prosperity in a land they embraced as their own.

My grandmother’s life provides a cautionary tale to those who think we have too many “foreigners” living here, who forget this land was built by people just like my grandmother. Her life, while it didn’t produce great material wealth for her or her family, did produce a family whose members have fought for their country, who have lived honorably and prospered in the face of hardship, heartache and tragedy.

A slice of my grandmother’s story is worth sharing on the Fourth of July.

Her name was Diamondoula Panisoy Filipu. We called her “Yiayia,” which is Greek for “grandmother.” This endearment did not come just from the 10 grandchildren who knew her. Neighbor kids — and their parents — called her Yiayia. So did the grocery clerks down the street. Same for the mail carrier and the milkman.

Yiayia was proud of her Greek heritage and she touted it whenever possible. She was equally proud of being an American. She stood in line to vote at every election. I’ll repeat: Every election.

Yiayia was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, the kind we refer to in Texas as a “yellow dog Democrat.” She truly would vote for a yellow dog than vote for a Republican.

She prayed for Franklin Delano Roosevelt every Sunday in church. She displayed pictures of John F. Kennedy on a kitchen credenza. She voted in 1972 for George McGovern even though she could barely pronounce his name. I took her to vote that Election Day and asked, “Who did you vote for, Yiayia?” She looked at me sideways and said, “Nee-xohn,” laughed and then assured that of course she voted for the Democrat.

Returning to the “old country” never was an option for Yiayia. The old country was Turkey. She was an ethnic Greek whom the Turks expelled from the island of Marmara after World War I. The Greeks did the same to Turks living in Greece. Yiayia set foot in Greece one time: a brief stop in Athens en route from Istanbul to New York. She had no desire to return. Yiayia was “home” in the United States of America.

My “Papou,” George, died on Jan, 22, 1950 after visiting his month-old second-born grandson — me — at my parents’ home in Portland, Ore. He suffered a heart attack after pushing his car out of a snowdrift. Yiayia mourned him the rest of her life.

She kept on being proud of her standing as an American. She never took for granted the wonderful life she and Papou carved out for themselves and their family in this country.

Nor did she take for granted the political system that gave her a voice in the very government she adored. Yiayia and Papou were socialists at heart. They loved big, benevolent government. When given the chance to vote, she exercised that right with a gusto few of us know today.

Yiayia believed she may been more of an American those who were born here. She chose to come here, she would say. Native-born Americans were citizens by accident of birth; they made no sacrifice. They didn’t struggle with finding their way across a vast country with no knowledge of the language spoken there.

My uncle recalled this story about Yiayia’s journey to her new home in America: “When she got off the ship in New York, she had no idea how to get to Portland other than she had to take a train. She asked someone how to get to the train station. He told her where it was and asked her where she was going. She told him ‘Portland.’ He said it was only about an eight-hour ride.

“Five days later, she arrived in the other Portland, the one in Oregon.”

Intrepid? They should put Yiayia’s picture next to the word in the dictionary.

My wife may be right about Yiayia’s death. It is as if she planned it that way. It is easy to write about someone as unforgettable as her nearly four decades after her death. It also is easy to remember that she stood for so much of what we celebrate today.

Yiayia embodied unbridled love of God, family and her country.

I remember her as a great American.

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Olympics have ended; world can breathe now

Russia closed its Sochi Winter Olympics in fine fashion Sunday.

It ended without any terrorist incident, which had been the talk of the world in the days leading up to the lighting of the Olympic torch.

Mission accomplished, Russia.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/2014-sochi-winter-olympics-end-103820.html?hp=l17

The Russians’ Ring of Steel, which comprised several thousand military and law enforcement personnel, had been deployed around the Olympic venues to ensure that no suspicious individuals or groups got in. I take my hat off to the Russians for protecting the spectators and athletes from harm.

This does beg the question: Were the alarms sounding prior to the Olympics justified?

Members of the Congress were there, declaring they had evidence of “credible threats” to the Olympics. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, actually suggested that the Russians might want to consider canceling the Olympics because of these threats, which he deemed to be valid and potentially disastrous.

Not to be derailed, the Russian organizers — with plenty of help from other governments — proceeded with the Olympics and they turned out to be quite the affair.

The 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens faced similar questions and concerns about terrorism, given that it was the first Summer Olympics after the 9/11 attacks. The Greeks were thought to be terribly lax in their anti-terror preparation. However, they too were able to pull off a successful Olympic event.

Congratulations are due the Russians. They might be our foes in some key geopolitical disputes at the moment, but they managed to stage a successful Olympic spectacle. They spent a ton of money on it, about $50 billion.

Given that they headed off any terrorist attack, it likely will be deemed worth the cost.

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Russians’ Olympic prep shockingly poor

Security isn’t the only concern facing the 2014 Winter Olympic Games that are about to commence in Sochi, Russia.

It appears the site is lacking in hotel space, streets and roads aren’t complete, the Olympic village where the athletes will stay need finishing.

Yet the Winter Games will go on, with opening ceremonies set to begin Friday night — after the skating and snowboarding events have begun.

Let’s flash back a decade to the start of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

I had the honor of visiting Athens three times prior to the start of those Olympics. The Greek press ministry invited journalists of Greek descent to visit the country of their ancestors. Being one such journalist, I got the invitation, so I went — in 2000, 2001 and 2003.

I recall vividly all the concerns leading up to the Athens Olympics. The venues wouldn’t be done. Security was huge concern there as well, given the Greeks’ infamously lax history of fighting terrorists, which is to say they did little to combat the scourge. Athens had a pitiful international airport, but by 2001 they had opened a gleaming new terminal outside of the city. They, too, had road and highway infrastructure concerns. They built a subway system, a new highway from the airport into the city, scrubbed the buildings of graffiti and spit-shined the ancient city.

Thus, they managed to complete preparation for the Olympics — on time. Yes, it was barely on time, but it was on time. One key was the Greeks’ decision to re-enlist powerhouse businesswoman Gianna Angelopoulous-Daskalaki, who put together Greece’s bid to play host to the Olympics. She stepped in to take command of the Olympic preparation. Believe me when I tell you that she is simply a force of nature. She got ‘er done.

The Greeks took some shortcuts to make sure the venues were suitable, such as not putting a roof over the swimming and diving facilities. It didn’t matter, given that the weather during that period was gorgeous.

To be sure, Greece paid a huge price to stage these Olympics. They went into enormous debt, which contributed to the collapse of the country’s economy just a few years after the Olympic flame was extinguished.

I bring all this up because the Russians, which were awarded the Winter Olympics in 2007, had promised to avoid all the troubles that bedeviled the Greeks. They vowed to spend whatever it took to ensure complete safety and a completed venue in time for the athletes’ arrival.

Well, now we’re hearing about the threat of bombs planted in tubes of toothpaste and the aforementioned incomplete road and highway construction and the lack of lodging for the thousands of tourists pouring into the Black Sea resort city.

That big old Russian machine needs some repair, it seems, especially in light of little ol’ Greece being able to stage an even bigger event than the one that’s about to get under way.

I remain hopeful that the Russian “Ring of Steel” will head off any terrorist attacks during these Olympics. The rest of it remains dicey. Let’s wish them all the best.

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Yes, even babies can get a TSA pat-down

We are living in a strange new world, brought to us to by some terrorists who on Sept. 11, 2001 attacked the United States of America by using commercial jetliners as deadly weapons.

Everyone who boards an airplane is subject to potentially intense scrutiny by security agents working for the federal government.

Isn’t that right, Alec Baldwin?

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/alec-baldwin-5-month-old-daughter-selected-tsa-pat-article-1.1593109

Baldwin was returning from a vacation with his wife and five-month-old daughter, Carmen, when Transportation Security Administration agents decided to pat down — gulp! — the baby.

The sometimes-tempestuous actor tweeted about the incident, signing off with the hashtag #travelingUSisadisgrace.

I won’t get into Baldwin’s previous run-ins with flight crews and airport security officials, but I feel an odd obligation to defend the TSA in this latest incident.

I’m not sure how I would react if I was traveling, say, with my 11-month-old granddaughter and some TSA agent pulled Emma out of a line and started patting her down. I might express more-than-mild surprise, I suppose.

However, from a distance as it relates to little Carmen getting frisked, I have the luxury of being able to reflect just a bit.

Consider a couple of things here:

The bad guys who killed all those people on 9/11 told the world that virtually any act of evil is possible when flying on an jetliner. We also know that terrorists would use any means necessary — any means at all — to harm others. That means they would be fully capable of arming infants with explosive devices.

What’s more, it is totally plausible that someone seeking to sneak contraband into a country — say, drugs or weapons — might consider stuffing it into a baby’s diaper. Is it possible? The question you have to wonder, though, is its probability. Why take the chance to assume that such a thing cannot happen?

I’ve been aggravated myself by overzealous TSA agents in the years since 9/11. My wife and I have traveled some overseas and we’ve been subjected to intense scrutiny by security agents. You haven’t lived, for example, until you’ve been interrogated by an Israeli airport security guard at David Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

One consideration in this Baby Baldwin pat-down caper has to be how the TSA agent handled it. Was he or she discreet? Was the agent courteous and did the agent explain fully why? My wife and I were leaving Venizelos International Airport in Athens in November 2001 — two months after 9/11 — and had every luggage item searched meticulously by an agent, who took the time to apologize profusely for the intrusion.

Should it be routine to frisk every baby who flies on these commercial jetliners? No. I do get, though, the need to take extra precaution, even if it involves an act that seems ludicrous.

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Euro recession over? Tell that to Greeks

This just in: The recession in the European Union is over.

But if youā€™re a citizen of those countries hit hardest by the financial crisis, youā€™re pain hasnā€™t yet let up.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/world/article/Eurozone-recession-end-is-cold-comfort-for-Greece-4731488.php

I get that the Germans, French and even the Italians are faring better these days. Their economies grew for the second quarter in a row, prompting EU economists to declare the recession to be over.

The story in Greece and Spain, for example, is quite different.

Letā€™s look at Greece, my ancestral home that became an international laughingstock when the financial crisis nearly took it down.

The Greek economy is still in the tank, down about 24 percent since 2008; just in the past year alone, it shrank 4 percent. Unemployment is about 25 percent, nearly as bad as Spain, which has Europeā€™s worst unemployment rate. Barry Bosworth of the Brookings Institution describes the Greek economic condition as far worse than a recession. “It goes way beyond anything that looks like a recession,” he said. “It’s absolutely appropriate to refer to Greece as in a depression.”

***

This characterization hurts me at a personal level.

Iā€™ve visited Greece three times: twice with my wife in 2000 and 2001, and again by myself in 2003. Itā€™s a magical place. My three visits there came as the country was preparing to play host to the 2004 Summer Olympics. They cleaned up Athens, scrubbed the graffiti off building walls and highway overpasses, built a sparkling new airport, constructed a state-of-the-art subway system and, in general, presented themselves as more than ready to host such a magnificent worldwide event.

But they did it on borrowed money. They went into hock up to their armpits ā€¦ and then the bills came due.

Iā€™m not sure the Euro recession is as ā€œgoneā€ as the EU folks say it is. Another hiccup in Greece, or Spain, or Portugal ā€“ where the recession/depression is lingering ā€“ could send the continent into another tailspin.

I keep thinking of when I walked to the top of the Acropolis in 2000 and stood in front of the Parthenon. My thoughts were of enormous pride that my ancestors were able to build such structures and were able to produce great genius.

If only they could revive that brilliance and find a way out of the economic mess that is largely of their own making.