Stories—and the joy of communal storytelling—I learned from aunt Nika and the ever-changing visitors of the village’s shack/coffeehouse. There, beside the thunder-struck little table of the only telephone, among Kiss gum, drakoulinia candies and Safcol canned spicy squid, there unfolded—jumbled together with tsipouro and still orangeade—political arguments, tales of the mountains and the partisans, lessons in physics and chemistry, stories of the city from the visitors who reunited on holidays and stories of the village from those who had stayed behind. Luckily I understood early that childhood boredom can be cured quickly with a stroll to the coffeehouse.
You cannot be proud of the things that merely happened to you, only of those for which you fought, struggled and loved—only then are they truly yours. And of the book “AGIOS IOANNIS PRODROMOS, PRASIA, EVRYTANIA”, this “small history” of my village, I know that all three authors can be proud.
Because the worth of writing has (also) to do with who is writing and what baggage they carry. Congratulations and fair winds, Kosmas, Andreas and Panos! To the last I owe far more, but I’ll dwell on only one thing: to the ever-recurring question “whose are you?”, the passport-answer was “Panos the teacher’s”.