Politics of Sports vs. Sport of Politics

 

Politics and Sports

Not too bright--but the sun is too bright

 

A few days ago I said my goodbyes to my Spetses family and caught the rust-bucket ferry to the mainland Peloponnese, where my rental car was  ensconced in a secure parking lot, safe from the Gypsy prybars and screwdrivers.

 

Stopping mid-run for a quick swim

I have said these goodbyes dozens of times—perhaps more than fifty times—over the past 44 years, but this time felt somehow different. My aunts and uncles, the last of my mother’s first cousins, are all in their mid-80s or older. My relationship with their children, my second cousins, is warm but somehow different. I discovered my Spetses heritage as a nineteen year old before most of the next generation was even born.

 

So there is greater salience attached to departure, knowing that so many of the older generation—those who remembered my grandparents, who were born in the 1890s—are fading from the scene. And the island that I remembered as a young person, then still steeped in the old ways, has been transformed. The very wealthy are to blame, buying up valuable real-estate, building jumbo villas with heliports, marginalizing the local people. It is part of the larger story of what I call the villa(fication) of traditional Greece.

 

View toward Finikounda from the house

In the words of the “quiet” Beatle, George Harrison: “All things must pass.” Including the richness of traditional life.

 

The Last Night

 

Uncle Kyriakos drove us up the mountain in a steady rain, in near darkness, to watch the national election results at his son Yiorgo’s house. Yiorgio had a better idea: watching the European basketball finals, being held in Lithuania, with little underdog Greece fighting an epic battle (the only type Greek’s fight) against powerhouse Madrid Real.

 

Against all odds, with five minutes of regulation play remaining, Greece led by 7 points. Sadly the lead evaporated, and with just three seconds remaining, Madrid sunk a three-pointer and led by just one point. The “hail Mary” by the Greek forward missed its mark.

 

The despair was palpable. In ancient Greek fashion, the more than ten thousand Greek fans were quite literally pulling their hair out and weeping. There was a kind of universal groan, heard from Macedonia in the North to Crete in the South.

 

Praise the cobalt sea

So we switched back to the election results, a despair of different order. Among the forty-four (!) parties contending for seats in parliament, the ruling party nearly won a majority and will form an unchallenged government without partnering parties. Like so many elections, there were those who cheered and those with long, dark faces.

 

Like in America, the party that can convince the electorate that so many promises can be kept wins. I recalled the political parodies from the time I lived in Athens in the early 1980s. There was a faux party whose adherents marched on the Parliament and shouted in unison:

 

Poutanes ekato (“prostitutes for only 100 drachmas”)

Traino sti Kriti (“a train to Crete”—an island 200 kilometers away)

Thallasa sti Trikala (“the ocean to Trikala”—a landlocked city in the mountains)

 

The whole thing reminds me of the “Republicrats” back home, our two-party system that is fully committed to the plutocracy rather than to the people.

 

We snacked on pieces of cold, boiled goat; spicy cheese; and olives. This is the Greek equivalent of party food.

 

Back to the Hood

 

I drove over the Mt. Didyma range to Nauplion, Greece’s first capital (1832), then on to Argos, past the Mycenean citadel of Tiryns, and onto the national highway, which took all of two hours.

May rains make the olives happy

 

The highway, constructed by German engineering firms for the 2004 Olympics, is a modern wonder in its own right. Tunnels pass through the centers of 6,000-foot mountain ranges, with some tunnels more than a kilometer in length, a feat of engineering prowess. The highway passed Tripoli and on to the long descent into the lush valley that leads to Kalamata and to the sea beyond. Kalamata is the queen city of our prefecture, which is called Messenia.

 

Old Poseidon Hotel, Spetses

Messenia is famous from antiquity. Overrun by the Spartans in the 6th century bce, the people living there became known as helots, slave/serfs of the Spartan war machine, which subjugated it with constant brutality for about 300 years, until Messenia itself rose to defeat the dreaded Spartans once and for all.

 

The final 45 minutes from Kalamata to our little house on the mountain top is a visual wonder, with endless olive groves, vineyards, well-tended farms, and a cobalt ribbon of sea: the Aegean to the east, the Ionian to the west.

 

First arriving is always an interesting moment: putting the key into a door that was locked with some finality ten months earlier.

 

First Things First

 

After opening the door, the search begins: for snakes (none), scorpions (some), and dust/grime (a lot). Then I installed the screens, opened and latched the heavy wooden shutters, and marveled at this little sanctuary, the Mediterranean light streaming in from four sides, the wafting essence of pasture, the hoots of owls, the distant cries of jackals.

 

A short tour of the property revealed heavily laden orange, mandarin, and lemon trees; avocado saplings that had grown from mere whips in 2014 to 12-foot-tall trees; a pomegranate tree loaded with unripe fruit; a dead pear tree (sadly); and a half dozen olive trees full of blossoms, with the promise of a good harvest in October. I couldn’t be happier.

 

Before unpacking, I did the thing that has come so naturally for 50 years: I ran. Down the mountain, to the ocean, to the clothes-optional beach of one. Now I knew for sure: I had arrived.

 

To Steki

 

I snuck into the village the back way, under cover of darkness, too tired to entertain the thought of being treated to a drink at every cafeneion along the waterfront. Hospitality can be painful—and tough on the liver.

Our friend Niko, having survived a near-death experience, had re-opened his restaurant, To Steki (“the alleyway”), just a few weeks before. I found my way to his door and was greeted with a glass of wine and a meze (appetizer plate) on the house.

 

One of my oldest and dearest friends, Dimitri, was sitting alone. After some pleasantries, we sat together in near silence, until I asked him: “What’s wrong? You have a long face.”

The quintessential gyro

 

He offered one of those distinctive Greek gestures, hunching his shoulders and looking up to the heavens.

 

“We lost [the election] and now we are condemned.” Having felt the same in the States in 2016, no further explanation was needed.

Malta is somewhere beyond the sunset