The smoking room

Pretty much everybody I know that smokes or used to smoke has started the same way.

As a kid 12,13 years old, they stole cigarettes from their Father’s pack.

My Pop smoked cigars, 5 cent White Owls, they even had a hole in them so you didn’t have to bite the end off…I would have preferred to have been able to bite the ends off. Seemed more cigar-like.

We had a luncheonette in Coney Island, since we sold cigars and cigarettes it was no big deal to steal a couple of cigars when I wanted to smoke. It never entered my mind to steal cigarettes, Pop smoked cigars so that is what I would smoke.

I have no idea if Pop knew. He never said anything. I suspect Moma knew, but she probably thought Pop was smoking more.

I would go the beach with a couple of friends to smoke, usually at night so we would not be seen.

We would climb up on to the abandoned lifeguard’s chair to smoke and look at the ocean…if we were lucky we had a full moon.

It seems like the epitome of the luxurious cigar smoking experience, view of the sea, two good friends sharing the experience.

Throwing up after the first few puffs at the beginning didn’t seem to take too much away from the experience. Eventually we were able to finish the cigars and did not even get nauseous or turn green.

The view, the friendship, the slight guilt, the danger of being caught, seemed to make smoking attractive.

I became a cigar smoker, preferred them to cigarettes. The real attraction, memories and friendship, was related to 5 cent White Owl cigars.

I eventually progressed to better cigars. Cubans.

I gave my Father a Cuban cigar once thinking he would love it, not a chance, he immediately started a White Owl and offered me one saying “Here is a real cigar. Pare ena alithino puro, vre.”

I could never smoke in front of my Mother or Father. No matter how old I was or even if my parents lived longer, it would have been impossible to smoke in front of them. It must have been a bizarre kind of respect or maybe even a bit of fear.

Of my entire cigar smoking experiences, great cigars after a great meal in exotic places… not one of them, lived up to smoking a cheap crappy cigar with some friends, up a lifeguard chair on the beach at night in Coney Island, watching the sea, even though I threw up after.

How to eat Barbounia

By far one of my favorite fish to eat is fresh caught and fresh fried Barbounia,

crispy from head to tail.

They are small and delicious…for you xeni, they are red mullets.

There is an old Greek expression that says,

“The cats in Greece do not eat Barbounia, there is never anything left for them.”

I go with some Greek friends to

a small place owned and run by a fisherman and his wife,

We eat there a couple of times a month.

Freshly caught Barbounia, a good Greek salad, Tsipouro, ice and water, best meze possible.

OK, before I get complaints, it is pretty good with Ouzo as well.

Obviously the place, like all Greek tavernas has its share of cats,

Although these are never pests and do not beg for scraps,

especially if you have ordered Barbounia. How do they know?

We have many friends in the area and sometimes they join us,

the men at least, since this is a man-thing.

They are not Greeks and they do not really know how to eat Barbounia.

They leave the heads and try to take the skin off, and all tails are left on their plate.

They even order beer…you guessed it, British.

The cats seem to know that these guys will leave some of their Barbounia,

they probably hear them speak English.

My American accent keeps the cats away, just like Greek does.

For the best Barbounia and the smartest cats, go to Giorgo’s place,

Just do not speak English, especially with a British accent.

Crystals in the Labyrinth!

I was getting dizzy when I turned my head a certain way, or when I got up.

It even happened when I rolled over in bed at times.

Was I having a hangover, was it my blood pressure, was it something in my brain, what the hell was going on? Balance has never been a great strength of mine, in anything, even walking.

It had to be my age, old geezers seem to stagger around, and I was on that road.

I went to my local doctor, here, in the town where we live in Greece.

He happens to be a cardiologist, and we have a drink in town when we meet up.

After a bit of a chat, discussing the quality of the barbounia (fish) in the taverna where we meet, he tells me it is not my heart or my blood pressure. It must be my inner ear.

We are about to leave for the States and I figured I would see our general practitioner there.

I visited our doctor in NY and as usual he sends me to an “expert,” actually to a specialist in dizziness.

In reality to an ear, nose and throat specialist.

Turns out he is a Greek, we are all over and evidently experts in dizziness.

Great office, 30 diplomas on the wall…very impressive guy, he even has a beard.

I start to feel that he will cure my dizzy spells. I tell him what is going on and he says,

“Crystals are loose, they are roaming in the labyrinth.” That is one hell of a diagnosis! I love it.

 All this within 15 seconds, and he also tells me, all of this, is in my inner ear.

“ What is the treatment for these rambling crystals?" I assume it might be surgery or something equally complex.

He makes me lie on a table with my head lower than my body. He turns my head to the right and then to the left, he then has me sit up and says to hold on to the table, not him, since I will be dizzy.

That is it…he managed to get the crystals where they belong…no more dizziness. I figure he should be wearing horns and furs…seems like witchcraft to me.

OK, let me explain a bit, the inner ear is like an octopus with channels going all over, somewhere on top is a platform with crystals balanced on it. This platform sometimes weakens and some crystals fall off and get into the channels and cause havoc, vertigo, dizziness. It could be caused by age (me) or an accident. 

Voila, crystals in the labyrinth.

He thinks I should have a session of physiotherapy. The therapist is a great looking Russian girl, she puts a mask on me and tells me to keep my eyes open, she makes me go through the same thing, head to the right, then to the left, sit up. All this while connected to a computer.

Shazam! It is done.

No more dizziness. This should last a while. If I get it again, follow these instructions: head back, to the right, to the left, sit up and those crystals scramble back where they belong and out of the labyrinth.

All of this is available on the Internet. I could have done it myself, but I would not have had as much fun.

No Greek doctor, beard, diplomas, Russian therapist, masks, computers and amazement.

Turkey to New York, now and 100 years ago.

We normally go to the states once a year for doctors and family. We go direct from Athens non-stop.

This year there were no direct flights from Athens to NY during the winter, evidently they will start again in June.

The decision was where do we connect?

France was out, I hate Charles De Gaulle airport, did not want to do Germany nor the UK.

Turkish Airlines keeps getting great reviews so we decided on Istanbul as a connection to the States. It is a city we love and my Parents were Greeks from Asia Minor…it also occurred to me that Pop made the same trip more than a 100 years ago, more about that later.

The flight from Athens to Istanbul was good, on time, great food even on the short hop, new plane and good service, so far so good.

We arrive and realize it is a huge crazy airport.

Turkish airline personnel speak English…but nobody at the airport seems to, I asked somebody in a uniform if he spoke English and he said, “yes I do” and walked away. I guess he realized I was Greek. We eventually found our gate…even though it changed twice.

A word of warning, if you are flying from Athens and it is a Greek flight your destination is called Constantinople but fly Turkish airways and it is Istanbul.

By the way, Istanbul is Greek as well, it comes from the Greeks saying, “ Is tin Poly” (to the city), the Turks took to calling Constantinople, Istanbul.

It seems to me it would be OK to call it Istanbul at the Greek airport, although I like the idea that we are going to Constantinople.

Flight to the States was great…crowded but not a problem, good food, good drinks, good entertainment, movies, internet…more drinks, more food and we arrive in NY right on time.

I suddenly started thinking about my Father making the trip about 1913 more or less.

My grandfather would send his sons abroad so they would not have to serve in the Turkish army.

Pop made the trip before the Catastrophe in 1922.

I have just a few hints about his trip as well as a bit of research.

The village, Michaniona, is on the Sea of Marmara…at least 6 hours away from Constantinople by ship.

Pop spoke about having been to the “Poli” when he was a kid. Perhaps he went there and took a ship to Smyrna and then took a ship to England.

He once told us, when I was transferred to London, that perhaps he should have stayed there,

a hint that he was there at some point. After all, his older brother Theo Stefanos went to England before, avoiding the Turkish draft as well. When he returned to Greece after the Catastrophe he was called “O Englesos”, I wonder if I have any English cousins, Theo Stefano was the family rascal after all.

It is possible Pop went to the States via England.

He must have worked for some relative when he got to the States and became a candy maker. They usually went to be with a relative and were apprenticed to whatever that relative did.

I do not know what his trip was exactly, but it had to be complicated and long and difficult.

I bitch about delays at airports with a drink in my hand in the first class lounge. Pop took a month at least to make the trip, maybe more. A kid with no knowledge of where he was going exactly, I feel for what he must have suffered.

“Damn it… another dog in a yard.”

While in college I worked for the post office at Christmas time delivering mail.

This was pre Internet and it was snail mail, especially at Christmas time, tons of it.

Two to three weeks of helping the regular mailman.

It was my first government job; my second was the Army a few years later.

Before I go any further, I have to explain something; as a kid growing up in Coney Island, dogs were not part of my life as they are now. Through my wife and kids, all dog lovers I have become pretty much a dog person.

In an immigrant neighborhood where I was raised, nobody had pets, certainly no dogs, maybe a cat for mice if you had a store. Dogs were scary; think of the expression “junk yard dogs.”

I delivered mail in Brooklyn, but a Brooklyn different from Coney Island.

I delivered mail in a neighborhood that had single and double family houses. These houses had front yards with fences around them and they had dogs; big noisy, snarling, vicious, rabid dogs, between me and the mail box, which was usually on the porch. Perhaps the regular mailman knew each dog personally…but not me, to me they were “junk yard dogs.” All dogs were supposed to be dangerous.

There was only one way to deliver the mail, after all, the mail must get through, even though it was

only Christmas cards and life magazines and ads.

I opened the gates and the dogs ran out, free and happy I guess.

I could deliver my load of mail. I have created a whole neighborhood of released happy dogs involved with each other, probably mating and making more dogs for next years Christmas help.

I am not proud of this crappy thing I did, I would like to personally apologize to my daughter Chris (she is a great dog lover, check her blog, thelifeofcaptainchip.blogspot.gr.)

I remember arriving at a house, no yard, and no dog. I start to put some mail in the brass slot at the bottom of the door and I am ambushed by a dog on the inside, he grabs my fingers and I try to pull my hand out and the mail slot closes on my fingers cutting them. Freezing weather, bleeding fingers and the dog is on the inside proudly barking away.

How do I get me revenge on this beast, it actually might have been a tiny poodle, but to me he was a snarling Ridgeback; I get a life magazine out of my bag, I have no idea if they even subscribed. I put the magazine in the slot until the dog gets a hold of it. I then pull him into the door and then ram the magazine in…hoping to skewer him; I must have missed because he continued barking and probably making fun of me, giving me the “paw.”

Aside from the cold and the dogs, delivering Christmas mail was OK, meeting for coffee and killing time so we could go out on a second run and drag it into heavy overtime.

I now know all dogs are not “junk yard dogs’” at least the ones I have in my yard aren’t.

Buying a “round” in an English pub.

When you go to a country to live, or even to visit there are things you have to get used to, some are hard, some are easy.

In the 60s in London, going to the pub was easy to get used to, after work we all ended up at the local pub…even ended up there at lunch time. Thank heavens there were pub hours or we would have been there all afternoon.

Our local was The Adams Arms, or at least I think it was. The lady that ran it was Mrs. Fitzpatrick, she cashed lots of my checks.

Pubs had some things that required getting used to. They served cheese sandwiches and also ham sandwiches…but try to get a ham and cheese sandwich. What would they do with the extra two pieces of bread?

Mixed drinks were impossible; alcohol was sold by the measure. If James Bond walked in, he would have to buy a shot of vermouth and six shots of gin to make a reasonably dry martini. Forget the shaken not stirred stuff, not in any pub I went to.

Pubs seemed very novel to me and sort of “cute”, especially the country ones. I felt that it was 1944 not 1965 and I was a “Yank”. Scotch on the rocks was one rapidly melting ice cube, and if you wanted more ice, they had to send out for it.

What drove the regulars from McCann crazy was the round of drinks thing.

You buy a round and if there are five guys each one buys a round, at least five drinks are consumed.

Sometimes the crowd is even bigger. This then starts all over again, to the abuse of your liver.

I would walk in buy a round of drinks and then leave to the complete consternation of all. They take their responsibility of buying a round very serious.

I am afraid I didn’t respect the rules of the “round” as much as I should have.

I have English friends and they tell me that pubs have changed, the food is better, they have ham and cheese sandwiches as well as great food, OK, and I will take their word for it. They even have plenty of ice and can make a Martini.

I personally like to remember them, as they were when I first was introduced to them. No ham and cheese sandwiches and five ice cubes per pub.

"You can't fire me, I don't work for you."

London in the sixties again –

Three Americans in McCann London, facing weird problems.

Our chairman was a good-looking Irish-American executive, from Bay Ridge Brooklyn.

White hair, immaculately dressed always, the right schools - London was his stepping-stone to much bigger responsibilities.

He seemed like he went to Princeton or Yale, we are talking about a serious senior executive in our company.

He was central casting for a CEO in a movie about American industry.

He was always backlit - great suits that he changed mid-day so he was never wrinkled.

In spite of all that, he was still a good guy from Brooklyn.

Our executive CD was a well to do American that had custom suits, a well-dressed guy. He would have his favorite suit copied at a Savile Row tailor (and they would even copy his baggy knees). His suits were so English they didn’t even fit right, the true sign of an upper class custom-made suit.

I was not as conventional as they were, but certainly not as wild as most of my department, after all it was the 60s in London.

Bell-bottom trousers, multicolored shirts, velvet jackets and cowboy boots, short mini skirts on the women, not hippy American style but London Carnaby Street stuff. That was pretty much the style of our creative department (and we were not the wildest agency in London).

Our boss would stop me and complain about the dress code of the creative department. I would defend them by saying if they dress wild they have to change their outfits every day, you cannot wear orange bell-bottoms twice in the same week. My argument was that at least the creative’s clothes were aired out if not cleaned. The account guys wore the same blue suit every day, probably even on holiday, you couldn’t get downwind of some of them.

He reluctantly accepted my argument, but I don’t think he was completely convinced.

He was in the lift one day going up to his office on the fourth floor; we had four out of the six floors in the building. There was an especially wildly dressed guy on the lift with him - I think he was even wearing glitter in his hair.

Just too damn much swinging London for our grey suited leader.

“God damn it, you are fired! Get out of this building!”

“You can’t fire me dude, I don’t work for you, I am just delivering these Photostats.”

He never tried to fire anybody from the elevator again. And certainly not because of their clothes!