1964: Summer in Greece

I graduated from Stanford in 1964, and boom! I was off with brother Bruce to spend the summer in Greece with our folks and Gina their pure white French bulldog. (We left so fast I even skipped the graduation ceremonies).  First stop: the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, to pick up my new VW Bug.  Next stop: Naples Italy, to pick up Salvatori Amatrudi, a boy John and Mom had "adopted" through the Foster Parents Plan (When we picked him up, his family served us a meal served on the frisbee we had sent as a gift, and which they had thought was a plate).  Final stop: sunny Glyfada, on the Greek coast just south of Athens, where we  three would spend the summer with our parents.  What a setup!  A great apartment, walking distance to the beach, short drive to Athens, restaurants nearby, and an outdoor movie theater.  

John had a job working with the Greek government on legal issues concerning the development of the Greek coastline for tourism (at least I think that's what he was doing).  I would do day trips to Athens and environs, slaking my interest in Greek art, architecture, and history (I had studied all three at Stanford).  And all of us would repair to the beach as often as possible.

The most exciting adventure of the summer was the trip I took with Bruce to the monasteries of Mt. Athos.  We obtained permission to visit by applying to the Archbishop of Thessaloniki: I claimed that I was a teacher of Greek history, and Bruce was my student.  

Mt. Athos is an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism.  It has been occupied from about 800 AD, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hundreds of years ago after several monks reported visions of the Virgin Mary, it was decided that the Athos monks should devote themselves to her, and that no other woman should be allowed to outshine her. All women were duly banished from the peninsula, and with them all female animals (except cats: to keep the rat population down).

We visited the Athos peninsula for about a week, walking along its perimeter, staying each night at one of its twenty monasteries.  We saw no other visitors. Some highlights: (1) A monk at one of the monasteries showed us a room with shelves full of the skulls of former monks.  He picked up one skull , looked at it lovingly, and told us what a great fellow he was.  (2) At another monastery, a monk delivered a basket of food down the side of a cliff by a rope to a monk living alone in a cave.  (3) On of the "toilets" we used extended out of the monastery's wall, so that there was a straight shot down to the sea below.  

One more fun fact: on my drive back with Bruce to Germany to have my VW bug shipped home, we cashed in my two birthday presents from John and Mom: a meal at La Pyramide in Vienne, then considered the finest restaurant in France, and later enjoyed the cabaret show at Le Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris.  

The Amatrudi family.  Our "adopted" brother Salvatori is on the right.  Bruce and I visited Salvatori at his home in Naples, and drove to Greece to stay with us for the summer. When we picked him up in Naples, his family served us a lovely meal - on a frisbee that we had sent earlier as a present!