Chicken Booty

 

Minding the Language Gap

by Alec Newell

"When you call me that, smile."  Gary Cooper, in The Virginian (1946)

 

 

Fortunately, most Greeks have at least a rudimentary grasp of the English language, and  that is especially true of the young people who see fluency in English as a requisite skill that opens doors to all the better paying jobs in this country.  In some cases it has been their ticket out of the country to parts of the globe offering better jobs when the Greek economy was in the tank.  It is not unusual to hear repatriated Greeks who speak English with thick South African, or Australian accents. But as you move out into the more isolated parts of the country, it is almost essential to be able to speak just a little Greek, if only to show some polite measure of accommodation to the natives.  Nothing goes farther to build good will than to attempt even a few mangled words of greeting or appreciation during daily transactions; but those attempts are not always without snares and pitfalls.

 

The Anglo ear and tongue are not always nuanced enough to grasp the subtle differences that can make the difference between a courteous comment and an veiled insult.  The confusion English speakers have with kalimera (good morning) and calamari (squid) have become almost a cliché, and the difference between yerOS (strong) and YERos (old) is just a matter of a slight accent shift, an easy mistake for western tongues to make.

So last week Kathy and I were in a butcher shop in Karlovasi, looking for something to cook on the grill.  I spotted some nice looking thigh quarters behind the glass counter, pointed at them and said to the butcher,  "Kotopoulo, parakalo (The chicken please)."

Butcher: "Bouti?"

Me:  "No, no, the chicken - kotopoulo."

Butcher:  "Ah yes, kotopoulo bouti, you want?"

Me:  "Chicken....... booty?!  No, the leg quarters."

Kathy and the butcher's wife both laughing now.

The butcher indicating Greek lettering on the price tag in the meat case and looking somewhat puzzled now, "Yes, chicken bouti, (chicken thigh) you still like it?"

Pause

Me:  "Well... yes, but in America," pointing at my backside now, "booty means this."

We were back in that same shop again yesterday and the shop owner recognized me immediately, "Ah, you are back!  More chicken booty for you today?"

"Yes, four please."
 

The Funeral

by Alec Newell

 

The Church of St. John
photo by Kathy Skaggs

There was a funeral here Saturday.  There had been more foot traffic in the village than usual, then an odd tolling of the church bells; not the loud cacophony we usually hear on Sundays, but something shorter, more quiet.  What followed was the sound of muffled singing or chanting coming from the church. Later there was more bell ringing and the sound of many footsteps and quiet chatter outside the window.  I looked down to see perhaps 200 villagers dressed in somber clothing, all moving in the same direction along  the narrow street below, a coffin born aloft on their shoulders.  What I was witnessing looked like something I might expect to see in a movie, but never from my own upstairs window.  Before I could grab the camera, the vanguard of the procession bearing the coffin had reached the bottom of the street and had turned west toward the cemetery.  I was left holding the camera feeling a bit like a voyeur.  It is something very familiar to the people of the village, but an event that probably very few Americans ever get to see.

The next day I learned that the funeral had been for Andreas Lagos, a man in his nineties who had grown up here in Vourliotes and had died just the day before the funeral.  A notice of his death had been posted in the street less than twenty feet from our door, but not being fluent in Greek, we were not aware of its significance until later.

 




Funeral Notice for Andreas Lagos 

Bodies here are not embalmed, rather they are buried immediately after death and allowed to decompose in a grave for a period of five years, then the bones are exhumed.  They are carefully cleaned by members of the family then transferred to a special box that is then housed in an ossuary for as long as there are relatives alive to care for them.  At each point in the process there are rituals, services, and even special meals to commemorate passages of the dead.

An hour or so after the funeral procession had passed, Kathy was in the alley watering her plants when she was passed by three men returning from the cemetery, one of them carrying a pair of shovels.  It set me thinking about the cemetery and of the children we see playing in that same alley every evening, children we have been watching grow with each passing season, and of other familiar neighbors who have already begun to slip away in the short time we've been coming here.  These are the uncomplicated rhythms of village life, already so familiar to us in some ways and yet still so foreign to us in others.

To see more on local funerary customs visit:

http://mysamoshome.blogspot.gr/2013/06/the-cemetery_24.html

http://mysamoshome.blogspot.gr/2013/07/the-exumation.html
 



"The Theater of Dionysus" by Alec Newell

Nero once performed here - photo by Newell

There was nothing like a few days in Athens to make us really appreciate being back on Samos.  Kathy had her wallet lifted on the Athens subway; but luckily, her passport, credit cards, and driver's license were not in it.



grilled calamari (squid)

We had a couple of really nice meals in the Plaka, and the hotel we stayed in had a beautiful view of the Acropolis from the roof, where we liked to have a relaxing drink, make a few trans-Atlantic cellphone calls, and play a hand or two of Gin just before turning in at night.

The Parthenon at night from our hotel's roof-top patio

After seeing the museums and the Agora, I had wanted to have a closer look at the Theater of Dionysus which lies in a niche' that was carved from the base of the Acropolis.  I'm old enough to remember when the stadium in Jacksonville was called the Gator Bowl, and its annual featured game was billed as, "The world's largest outdoor cocktail party."  But the great granddaddy of all organized public drunkenness had to have been the Festival of Dionysus, "Open containers WELCOME."




Less than half a block beyond the entrance to the Dionysian Theater, I happened to notice a group of Hells Angels, not riding motorcycles, but waiting to board a Disney style train tram for a guided tour!???  In Athens, some things you expect to see, others you don't.







Kathy's Retirement and Sweet Greek Dreams

by Alec Newell

Archeological Museum in Athens, 6/9/2015 - by Newell

Last Friday was Kathy's last day of teaching.  It marked the end of more than thirty years of  teaching in a career that spanned more than four decades.  That afternoon after school, she met with friends for tapas and drinks at Tacolou (the old Homestead Restaurant).  She brought home flowers, wine, t-shirts, a yearbook, and gift cards for Starbucks, the Fish Company Restaurant, a pedicure - and more.


The next morning she met another retired teacher who brought two glasses and a nice bottle of wine to share while they had a pedicure.  My job was to get Lilly, who is no light traveler, packed and ready for her stay with Helga.  By that evening we were packed for the trip, Lilly had been dropped off, and we off to the Fish Company (in the old Pic-n-Save building) for a celebratory pre-trip dinner.  Between the fried calamari appetizer and the grilled Wahoo and seared scallop entree's, a big commotion broke out in the bar.  We rushed over there just in time to see American Pharaoh cross the finish line to become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.



Visual Arts Chair, FHS - Retired

After Key Lime cheesecake, we went home, to bed, and fell into a couple of cholesterol-induced comas.  About 3:00 am I was awakened by what I thought was the dog wanting me to let her out.  But there was no dog, the noise was coming from across the bed;  it was Kathy actually laughing out loud in her dreams.