the morning with papou

I spent the morning with my dad..we had to go pick up a rotor tiller from my brother's and it had to be today because it had to be tomorrow that he must till his little garden..so I went and drove him because my car is big in the back for such things.
I knew he would start talking about family matters so I directed him to his favorite subject and mine, History..it is the best thing!
He begins with how much he enjoyed his latest novel on MacArthur..

"dad, I do not want to talk about MacArthur, I want to talk about the village in 1940..he was six then, my pa, was.
"I remember everything", he said..he always says that! Each time I get more details of his memories.
So the Italians arrived first and the the German soldiers..they had posted signs all over town saying that if you kill a soldier, they will kill 25 Greeks..They were posted everywhere so that there was no  doubt.
Four years of this, there came to be gorillas with guns in the hills and they would kill a soldier now and again and then they come through and they would kill anyone..My dad said that one time they killed three children and a young girl and my mom's dad. he was 32 years old and had nothing to do with any of it.
It was their rule and they could.

I  said, "dad that must have been so hard, where did you go, where did yia yia aspasia hide you?"
"she rushed us to the field and hid us in the hay stack..they also burned many houses when this happened. We ran away."

papou said that they came to the house after they killed those people and asked if her husband was here..
"no, he is in the fields working.", she said as she held on to her children, four of them.
When they searched the house and  found a book shelf and saw that my grandfather was indeed a soldier before their occupation, they torched the whole house. After that my grandfather took his family to Florina and hid them there. Papou said that villagers were the most to suffer..When they began to retreat, and as they left, they would take horses and anything which would help their journey home to their own broken country..right!

humph

My father said that it was after that the political parties began their fight to see who would run Greece. The Right or the Left... the Communists took eighteen thousand children away from their mommas..some came back after ten years having learned skills. Their parents waited for them all that time and some came back ten years later having been taken at age 8. I asked papou, if they were able to fit in again..
"of course, we were so glad to see them!"

xo


I wonder about where we are now and have to say how we have gotten way better. We do think more for ourselves now. We are way more sceptical and understand more about what we can have in life..
My parents, wanted a peaceful rich life..there is nothing wrong with that. I feel  that every time I walk in to my mom's home. It always smells like bread backing and today we shared home made sour kraut, a seasonal dish she always makes this time of year with fresh cabbage..

I kind of love that simplicity about my ma!