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ΣAM 3/9/2013 6:34:36 AM
There was a time when I thought being Greek was the epitome of all things good. I often said my grandfather was a Greek Jew, not a Croatian Jew. His wife, my grandmother, was not a Brit; she was from Athens. Of course, I was just whistling Ymnos in a tin Eleftherian.
But it came as a mild shock when I found that I was never particularly fond of anything Greek, especially its restaurants or food, ships, airlines, writers, books, language, alphabet, or people — except for Sam Spilliopolis, the first and only best friend I ever had from the age of two to eleven. That was long before I met Jordan Wintringham IV or David L. Roberts (another story for another time).
Sam was about fifty when I was born. He was a tall, dark and swarthy giant with a moustache at least ten feet long and as thick as my grandmother’s hedgerow along the railroad tracks on Seventh Street where I was born.
Sam was the shoeshine man at the Pastime Pool Room on Main Street in downtown Coshocton, just around the corner from my other grandparents’ house and restaurant — and I loved it when my favorite uncle (my father’s kid brother) took me in to see Sam and buy me an ice cream cone (they only cost a nickel back then; in fact, we often got two for 5¢).
“This is ME!” he would bellow at the top of his robust lungs every time he saw me, his voice a thundering basso profundo against the din of clicking billiard balls and roar of the radio blaring American League baseball play-by-play. He would proudly point to a framed and faded sepia-tone photograph hanging above the three chairs where his customers sat high up to have their shoes shined.
And there he was — Sam Spilliopolis, a twenty-year-old soldier in the Greek Army, resplendent in a billowing blouse, well embroidered above a starched and tufted skirt, and supported on thick legs encased in decorated stockings, his feet shod in curled, festooned slippers. A plumed fez rode merrily on a rough sea of curls — and this, I often wondered as I grew older, was really what Sam wore into battle to win the Pacifying Forces Meritorious ribbon in WWI? No steel helmet and suit of armor? Really?
Sam Spilliopolis, to his credit, never bathed. He had that foreign, gagging odor about him that was masculine, yet as piercing and foreboding as his darting black eyes and undulating moustache. I loved sitting on his lap as I dripped ice cream all over his filthy white shirt (which I am sure he changed no more than once a month), the sleeves rolled up above elbows that exposed arms gnarled with muscles that could easily have shred Manhattan phone books.
Sam Spilliopolis was the most important, genuine hero I knew in my young life; he meant more to me than my parents, or grandparents, or even my uncle who was the second person I wanted to grow up to be like more than anyone else. You would think I would now be more Greek-like than anybody, but I am now anti-Greek everything — despite Sam Spilliopolis, Anthony Quinn, Angela Huston and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Even our dog is named Sam — not that we had a choice. He was Sam before he was ours, but it was an okay name by me. I even named my first-born son Sam, but my erstwhile wife killed it (the name, not the kid) prior to the baptism.
I do not know when the original Sam-the-Shoe-Shine-Man died, but if he is still alive he would be at least 132. I last saw him when I was eight, in 1939. He let me sit in one of the chairs that were reserved for grownups, and I could almost rest my feet on the brass pedestals as he pretended to shine my Ked high tops.
The first time I knew I was anti-Greek everything was during the 1970s, when my present wife and I cruised on a Greek ship whose name I cannot recall (I doubt if I would use it, anyway, but I do remember there was a big X on the smokestack — symbolic, as Michael Caine might say, Eh wot? That sez it all, mate! Right?)
Our cabin steward, who I am sure never heard of Michael Caine, was a diminutive version of my old best friend, and he wore a filthy white shirt just like Sam’s. I liked him a lot until I realized he spoke no English, or at least pretended not to.
I need a shower curtain in the bath, I told him.
Hokay! he replied, and a half hour later he brought me a can opener. That’s the precise moment my anti-Greek period began.
The food on the Big X ship was atrocious. That night we had spanakopita, a traditional Greek pie of spinach, feta cheese, and seasoning baked in phyllo. A favorite, but it was ghastly. Over the next seven days we tried everything from the moussaka and yuvarlake to the boureski. To this day, I dread going to the Olive Garden because the word OLIVE brings back a gagging reflex fueled by memories of that interminable cruise.
Even Sam, our dog, would have happily jumped overboard had we placed such dishes before him.
Since moving to Georgia we have been to a Greek restaurant just once. A relative, suspecting wrongly we were sophisticated world travelers, enticed us to Markos Lounge for an occasion we should have, but did not, decline. Not only was the food horrible and inedible (especially the alleged salad), the bill was tabulated all wrong. Luckily, Markos went out of business a few months later (as Greek restaurants, it seems, are wont to do), and we never bothered getting even with the outlaw relative.
The economic crisis in Greece today has nothing to do with my nationalistic sentiments. Neither the people, nor the farmers, nor the chefs and esteeatoreeos owners have a thing to do with it. The Greek government and its general mismanagement and concerns over the Euro are solely to blame, I think. Until the drachma (or something) is restored, it will all remain Greek to me (and to most Wall Street aficionados) as well as ordinary Americans.
But even with financial equality finally achieved, I will forever eschew Greek cuisine as detrimental to a sensible constitution. Mine, that is, and most other impatient curmudgeons, such as me.
While I am thinking about it, my good and diligent wife tells me it is the one—well, the MAIN virtue—that I lack: patience. She may be right, but I doubt it.
You have got to be more patient with me! she often admonishes, not realizing I am already at the pinnacle of practiced perfection. What she fails to consider, is that by the time I have asked her for something, I have already thought bout it for twenty minutes or more!
For example, one morning while trying to get dressed, I told her I was having trouble slipping my t-shirt over my head. Be patient, she said, irritated, I have to get your shoes and pants on first!
Later, my computer insisted that the router in the basement was not working properly. Can you help me? I pleaded. I cannot find any of my key bookmarks. Be patient, I was advised, I have computer issues of my own, she said.
Of course, I had already been working on my Dell for better than half an hour before asking for help.
You expect me to drop what I am doing, she admonished, so I can bail you out at the drop of a hat? Is that what you expect?
No, it certainly is not! I have already devoted an inordinate amount of time to my own problem, and all I expect of my good and caring wife is to tend to my needs and go back to her own at a more propitious time.
Is that a lack of patience? I do not think so. Since I have so far expended a fair number of minutes trying to resolve my dilemma, I find extreme annoyance in being told I should be more patient.
It is my contention that the time I spend trying to come up with a solution to my own conundrum should be ample proof I am anything but impatient, and requesting assistance of my good and appreciated spouse should never be labeled an effort of no or little cooperation.
I am the epitome of patience. More often than not, I will wait stoically while my good, much put-upon wife finishes whatever task she feels most pressing, before tackling the debacle I am involved in.
Be it getting dressed, undressed, in or out of bed, bathing, slicing up a meal or just getting in or out of the car, I am forever at the mercy of patience and must wait until she who is always obeyed before any assistance is ever accomplished. Is that fair — or necessary?
Perhaps I should be more spontaneous and without forethought demand help whenever I want it, with little or no preamble or meditation . . . I am reminded of the first job I ever had
A resident of Buffalo at the time, about ten or eleven, I was hired by a professional photographer, for twenty-five cents per hour, to sit in the dark in his basement laboratory, while film plates were processed and fixed in frames suspended in clean and hollowed-out dry cell auto batteries.
A genius in his own mind, Mr. Shutterbug had concocted a sure-fire scheme, and when he sold his idea to Eastman Kodak for fifty million dollars, I asked for a 5¢ raise. I did not get it. I quit, and he offered the job to Wendell Kaufman, my archenemy at Sumner Elementary.
Good. Let Wendell go blind in the dark for ninety minutes at a time while destroying his lungs with the acrid particles of acetic acid and hyopsulphur — and God knows what else he will daily inhale!
Should I do likewise, and quit the lack-of-patience dodge? After lengthy consideration, I think not.
Instead I will continue my twenty-five cents an hour (adjusted for decades) ordeal now at home, and try to develop patience that will appease her sense of diligence while saying, Yes, dear, if you have taught me anything, I now know why doctor’s customers are called patients!
