The Dead Crow, the Killer Tornadoes, and the Greatest Adventure Story Ever Told
By John Kass | June 8, 2025
There are good boys and there are bad boys.
To be clear, I was not one of the good boys.
Was I some budding homicidal maniac who would take his story as the killer next door to “Evil Lives Here”? No, not really.
I didn’t hurt anyone except for Danny Halloran in 4th Grade because he picked on my brothers. And I never tortured animals. I would become a veterinarian at Lincoln Park Zoo, if I didn’t follow in Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s footsteps first to help heal the poor lepers of darkest Africa.
But was I good? No.
At 10-years-old, I was an altar boy at church and a Cub Scout.
But I was a hunter, a thief and a vandal just itching to get myself a real rap sheet.
Just before Halloween, I was finally caught stealing cool vampire fangs from the dime store next to my father’s grocery store. The pinch-faced Mr. Wolley thought he was showing me mercy by not telling my father (who would have made good on his vow to skin me like a goat if I brought the shame of thievery to our door), but I hated Mr. Wooley for his “mercy” because he had me in his power. I hated that. And the smirk he’d give me.
I couldn’t stand that.
And yes, I was a vandal and often a stupid fool. I took a pen and drew an x through a photograph of beautiful and bossy brown-eyed girl. My true love even if she didn’t know it.
Diane Tatman was a rich girl from Texas. She was the best student in our class and an expert climber on the monkey bars at the playground. Once I held her hand in gym during a square-dancing class. There were blisters on that delicate hand. My heart flipped and flopped like a fish in my chest. The photo of the girl was in a book we’d made for our teacher. I X’d it out and was eventually apprehended and shamed.
Why did I do it?
I dunno.
Love I guess.
I tolja I wasn’t good.
But then my life changed forever with the storm of tornadoes that tore through Oak Lawn on April 21, 1967. When I started on the dangerous path of becoming a writer. How did I begin? By reading.
About the terrible, killer tornado. I wasn’t hurt. I joined my mom and brothers hiding under a table in the basement as the funnel clouds passed overhead. At least we had a basement. I can’t live in a house without a basement now.
At least 58 people were killed that afternoon, hundreds of home were destroyed in minutes and several schools and businesses were obliterated. Looters began attacking and the National Guard was called out to stop them. A year later, after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and the black street gangs burned the West Side, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley would issue his famous “shoot to kill” order against arsonists and looters.
After the’67 tornadoes, As Oak Lawn tried to climb from the rubble, our parish church, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, opened its classrooms to other ruined schools.
I think it was the storm savaged St. Gerald School that found a home with us. Perhaps it was another. I really didn’t care about the ecumenical aspects. What irked me is that tornado or no tornado, after our American school came Greek School. Always. And you’d think we might catch a break and they’d cancel school so we could go outside and play baseball our like our Americani neighbors?
No way.
No excuses. You have to go to Greek School, they said.
No we said.
You’ll shame us in the village! Then my dad made a show of reaching for his belt.
I didn’t care. Willie Mays and Pete Rose weren’t in our village. Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox weren’t from our village.
Each afternoon, after we’d leave Kolmar School in Oak Lawn there was a block walk north across the playground to St. Nicholas. We didn’t have a church built just yet. We held liturgy in the gym. They’d built the big gymnasium with the sculpture of the discus thrower on the outer wall–the Discobolus by Myron–and then built classrooms. Where they would build the church was the site of an old decrepit orchard. For white flight Chicago refugee kids from Back of the Yards, it was like some wild country.
Crows sometimes nested there.
“You can’t kill a crow,” my father said. “You? With a slingshot? Impossible.”
I smiled darkly at the man who just signed a crow’s death warrant. I would kill one. Oh, I’d show him.
So the next day after school I walked to the orchard and planned my crow hunt. First I tore up what was left of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and scattered the pieces near the twisted crabapple trees of that old orchard. I left the bait to work its magic and entered Mrs. Photopoulos’ classroom, the scene of many of our psychic tortures.
The room looked out on a green parkway where kids from Miss Zabinski’s room would sometimes play football after school
And we’d have to watch, as Dave Norgard and Barney Brannigan had fun throwing the football, as we were forced to conjugate verbs and hammered out grammar and read aloud from our reader all about some stupid car trip to “Ooowas-sheen-ton” (Washington) taken by a boring family.
It was excruciating. Three times a week. It was like pulling our own spines out of our bodies.
The stupid family in the Greek School reader were the good boys and girls. The boring plaster saints. They made me ill. I hated them.
There were a few rebels in our class. Dimitri Kottaras who would later be elected a Cook County judge, was almost a rebel, and the Panayiotou boys and my cousins Jimmy, Johnny and Billy Ekonomou were revolutionaries. We wanted to play ball and be free. We weren’t scared of our parents. What were they going to do to us? Send us to Greek School?
So I went back outside. I had a crow to kill.
The bait worked. I had my slingshot pre-loaded, a good rock heavy round and smooth, nestled perfectly in the sling. As I saw them I pulled the slingshot with a straight elbow in one motion and fired. Two thumps! First, the thump of the rock on the big bird and the flop of the feathery blackness on the grass. It fluttered once, then lay still, the blackness of it against the thin green grass.
I shouted: Who can’t kill a crow? WHO CAN’T KILL A CROW!!!!
I wrapped the dead bird in my jacket and returned to the classroom. I slipped my feathered treasure into my desk. But there was a book in there, too, left by one of the Catholic school kids. His name was Patrick McSomething. Hmmm. Let’s see.
“Odysseus the Wanderer. The greatest of all adventure stories told by Aubrey De Selinourt.
Even the cover was exciting, like the old vase paintings. What a find!
And who deserved this bounty more than a Greek American boy being bored to death, stuck in a boring classroom with the boring verb conjugations and the plaster saints of Oowasington?
I opened it to an old man talking to a young man.
“So traveler, you want a story. They say here in Greece there’s a story under every stone—and that’s a lot, if you take a look at these hills I scratch and sow my handful of grain on for a living. I’m a poor hand at story-telling. If it had been my father now…he was a great one for stories...”
I hid Odysseus the Wanderer inside the large boring Greek School reader. I was hooked by the sack of Troy, and the building of the Trojan Horse. The King of Ithaca wasn’t trying to be a “good boy.” He was Odysseus, sacker of cities, and didn’t care what you thought of him. The giant Polyphemus the Cyclops grabbed members of Odysseus’ crew and bashed their brains like puppies on the ground before he ate them raw. Then he slept. Odysseus was forced to use his wits on that one.
This wasn’t a story of good boys or bad boys. This was a story for all boys. In years to come, education would focus on the needs of girls, and stories about the King of Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope would fall out of favor with the educrats, who pushed other stories for boys, pro-gay agenda stories like “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope” and “My Rainbow.”
The hard political left, which had already taken the universities, killed off classical studies and the teaching of Greek and Roman as their way of killing off the West. You ruin the foundation, you break the building. It crumbles. You’ve seen this play out in the open in recent years. The great Western tradition–which gave us democracy and meritocracy and the primacy of the individual–chopped down by communists.
In “Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom”–the 1998 book by classics scholars Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath–it was argued if we lose our knowledge of the Greeks, then we lose our understanding of who we are.
But I knew who I was. I knew who my father and ancestors were. They fought the Nazis and the Italians in the mountains of Albania in the snow. They sacked the great walled city of Troy. They fought the Persians at Thermopylae. They were the Greeks.
I can still remember the touch of the black silkiness of the dead crow in my desk, as Mrs. Photopoulos, ruler in hand, directed us to read. Feeling the feathers as we opened the book of the plaster saints. The girls who liked sitting in front led off. We went row by row.
Something bite my right finger, then my left.
It was alive and bouncing around in the darkness of that desk.
“Mr. Kass what do you have there?!”
Me in a small voice nothing Mrs. Photopoulos. nothing.
She had the yardstick and raised it. The black bird was pounding and moving.
“I said WHAT DO YOU HAVE THERE!!!!”
I reached down into the desk with both hands and took out the crow.
HERE!!!
It flew around the room. The kids screamed and Mrs. Pho made the sign of the cross so quickly her arm was like an airplane propeller. Pho glared and took a swing at me with her yardstick.
With all the kids screaming, my cousin Johnny opened the window. And the bird perched on the ledge. It cawed once, angry. Then it flew off. The Greek School called my parents and ratted me out. My Theo George had been principal of the school and I was a bad boy, a disgrace. I think I was cracked a few times by my mom with the wooden spoon and sent up to my room to wait for my dad.
What did I care?
She said no TV.
What did I care?
I had my book. I’d shot the crow. Pho hated me. She’d forgive me when I became a columnist at “the paper,” but back then I was still the evil child. But I had Homer and the greatest of all adventure stories. And Homer wasn’t dead. Not yet.
And like a kid lost in a wizard’s cave, I began to learn about the mysteries and power hidden in stories.
I would be a writer.
Yes, I stole the book. It’s my precious now. And I never had any intention of giving it back to Patrick McSomebody. Finders keepers Patrick. And I still have it today.
(Copyright John Kass 2025)
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About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.
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Comments 36
Thanks John…..I think. It is very very early morning and your take on the past and present reminds me of my scattered dreams and musings that haunt and delight me in my old age. Memories that come out of nowhere invade my brain at night when all I want to do is sleep peacefully. I grew up in the city and was what they now call a free-range kid. Every day in the summer was an adventure of a mix of the good, the bad, and the garlic. I am grateful today that I still have all my fingers and toes and limbs as well as my life. “Preserve your memories that’s all that’s left of you.” (Simon and Garfunkel)
No one dies so long as memories are passed on. The Left can not kill off the West. A boy can not kill a crow!
Genius, Mr. Kass. Pure genius!
Love your personal childhood stories. Reminds me so much of mine. Kids growing up in the ‘hood getting dirty, doing double-dares. Thanks.
This made my day and brought a flood of memories. A. De Selincourt’s “The World of Herodotus” is what hooked me on the classics [along with Steve Reeves movies] and I went on to get my MA in ancient history. I have taught many ‘evil children’ over the decades. Some went to prison, most turned out well, some became ήρωες. Thank you Mr Kass!
” Tha fas xilo” You were lucky it was just a swing and a miss with a yardstick.
We ate stick.
A great story that brought back memories! I remember the Oak Lawn tornado like it was yesterday: the driving rain, the green sky, and the dead silence that turned into the rumbling roar as the funnel cloud passed right over our house after doing deadly damage at 95th & Southwest Highway. We were on 98th just west of Cicero and I still get a chill at how close it came, and how lucky we were to come through unscathed.
I also remember when St. Nick was built. Oak Lawn churches were plentiful, but kind of plain compared to the opulent cathedral type places in the city. I’ve never been inside, but the white brick structure of St. Nick still stands out and serves as a landmark on 103rd Street.
never forget the pea green sky
While you were in Greek School we were in St. Turibius being hit with the same yardstick by the nuns dressed in the black overweight garb with white accents making them earn the names we called them especially penguins.
Once tuition became too expensive for my parents I was sent off to Pasteur. There the warden let the guards use the back of their hand instead of a yardstick. I, like yourself wasn’t on the good boy list and may have experienced the discipline end of a hand occasionally. My mother shared your mother’s idea of a wooden spoon. Once we got older it was a broom.
Thanks for the memories.
as Jimmy Banakis reminds us “You want to eat stick?” spoon broom what’s the diff?
It didn’t happen very often, but the six most feared words that could be issued by either Mother or Father – didn’t matter which one:
“Go Cut Me A Switch, Boy.”
It meant that you had to go out to the back yard and select/procure the means of your punishment from one of the trees. Dawdling only made it worse. And then it was over.
Brilliant. Enjoyed how you weaved it all together on multiple levels.
Boy, this article brings back the memories. I remember getting a book from my brother, as the inscription said, on the occasion of Christmas 1967. Its title was Stories of the Greeks. I could not put it down. After going through the picture section first, I read the book in one month. That may sound like a long time today, but to a St Killian’s kid living at 87th & Elizabeth, that was fast Evelyn Wood type reading! That started me on the path.
I remember that tornado too. When we finally came out of the house, I noticed a blade of grass was embedded in our wooden front door. Like a miniature spear. When I looked on the inside, there was the tip of that blade of grass. I’ll never forget the second floor of an apartment building was on our front lawn, the curtains wafting in and out of the place were the windows once where. Then the young son-in-law down stairs volunteered with the clean up. Until he saw an arm sticking out of the rubble. When he went to grab it, it came out. Unattached. He promptly puked and was sent home. Good times on the South Side.
Such a wonderful article. For what it is worth, you can read the classics with video lectures from Hillsdale College. I am doing Paradise Lost right now, and it is fantastic. I have read the Odyssey, but it was long ago in freshman high school English. My friend and I are going to read it and others again together using the Hillsdale platform.
Question for John: Did the offspring have to go to Greek school? : )
yes. I am not a barbarian. I told them, I had to go, and so will you.
Milton’s mighty poesy – Over the burning Marle, not like those steps
On Heavens Azure, and the torrid Clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with Fire;
Nathless he so endur’d, till on the Beach
Of that inflamed Sea, he stood and call’d [ 300 ]
His Legions, Angel Forms, who lay intrans’t
Thick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the Brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades
High overarch’t imbowr; or scatterd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce Winds Orion arm’d [ 305 ]
Hath vext the Red-Sea Coast, whose waves orethrew
Busiris and his Memphian Chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursu’d
The Sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore thir floating Carkases [ 310 ]
And broken Chariot Wheels, so thick bestrown
Abject and lost lay these, covering the Flood,
Under amazement of thir hideous change.
He call’d so loud, that all the hollow Deep
Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates, [ 315 ]
Warriers, the Flowr of Heav’n, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can sieze
Eternal spirits; or have ye chos’n this place
After the toyl of Battel to repose
Your wearied vertue, for the ease you find [ 320 ]
To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav’n?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conquerour? who now beholds
Cherube and Seraph rowling in the Flood
With scatter’d Arms and Ensigns, till anon [ 325 ]
His swift pursuers from Heav’n Gates discern
Th’ advantage, and descending tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked Thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this Gulfe.
Awake, arise, or be for ever fall’n. [ 330 ]
Nothing in English surpasses this passage.
A killer tornado, a concussed crow and the discovery of Homer abandoned by Patrick McSomething. Boy, I wish my white bread Glen Ellyn had been that colorful! All we had was looking-for-trouble “Officer Krapke,” who treated kids walking along the abandoned railroad tracks like gangsters but might have come across as Officer Friendly in your tough Oak Lawn.
Great column recalling inspiration for a boy and loss for a society.
Wonderful, wonderful story to read with my morning coffee. Thanks, John. On a side note, I had to go to Russian School every Saturday, from 10 to 2. Only one day a week, but still torture for me. Some of my grade school friends called me a Russian spy.
Wonderful column John Kass. Not worthy of four stars,….but FIVE stars that brought back memories of my youthful days. Thank you for sharing.
John,
Wow did todays excellent column stir up my own memories from the late 60’s in Villa Park. Even had a similar story of getting busted by the nuns at St Alexander with a bag of Gardener snakes in my locker, I caught them on way to school and was excited to have a new pet! Who knew trapped snakes give off a pungent order, that got the sisters on the hunt for the source, the brown paper bag in my locker, oops
I also distinctly remember reading about the Oak Lawn tornado in the afternoon paper after I delivered papers to my route.
Thanks, old memories are the richest
Yianni,
Ah yes, those memories of torture – having to attend St. Connies Koraes Greek School 3 days a week, after going to elementary school all day. From 4 to 6pm Mon-Wed-Fri. God out of day school at 3:15pm and hightailed home to pick up books and get to night school! We lived at 69th and Jeffery, and my oldest sister Popi would force us (2 youger sisters and me) to walk to 73rd and Stony Island to Greek School. If the weather was bad, Mom would give the $2.00 to take a cab from 71st street cab stand. Rain or shine, we had to go to Greek School. Kirea Rifakes was our mentor, and schooled us in countless tenses, which were finally pared down not long after. Thank God. When I finally graduated, and attended high school, I relished playing bluegrass music with my compatriots after school, you know “hilly-billy” music as Mom said. And yet, off to UofWisconsin, a handful of us Greek students prevailed upon the school to offer modern Greek classes. It worked, and those of us that had to attend Greek school as kids, now aced the course, and brought up our GPAs! Who knew all those years ago that Greek School would benefit my higher education? But it sure helped traveling to Greece!!! On our little island of Ikaria, the locals always thought I was born there, cause my Greek “profora” (inflection and accent) was so natural! God bless Kirea Rifakes – and thanks Mom and Dad for forcing me to go!!!
John, what a great story. It’s been a long time since I laughed so hard on a Sunday morning. I can only imagine the mayhem that arose when that crow you “killed“ came to life in your desk. Thanks for the great work.
Good column. Seems education has taken a bit of a twisted turn with those in constant need of affirmation of their lifestyles at the rudder.
Flooded with childhood memories this last week after seeing a post on Facebook asking “when was the last time you saw a kid with a cast on their arm?”
Thanks John Kass for an excellent Sunday column. Homer’s “Odyssey” is a treasure that could greatly benefit every person, especially young men who are being brainwashed into remorse and guilt over their alleged “toxic masculinity”. It’s a hoax, but leftists see it as a weapon. King Odysseus survived because he had skills that liberal educators despise. Odysseus did not oppress women or debase them; he appealed to women. An example is the daughter of King Alcinous, who brought the shipwrecked hero to her father’s palace. In the USA we see how guys in their twenties are degraded with idiotic accusations of so-called “patriarchy.” I googled that word, and the corporate AI spews forth tedious allegations of evil. No socialist is more detrimental to young people’s self esteem than Tim Walz. I believe Pritzker is jealous of Walz, and will do anything to entice his supporters.
I suffered through Greek language class at Quigley and failed because of my inability to master accent marks
Plus side was reading Iliad and odyssey and being exposed to great literature
Great article
jjthulis
Same tornado first hit Rockford then came down in Belvidere. Killed 24 including 17 kids. Hit the High School in Belvidere as school was being dismissed. Turned school buses into balls of metal. I was driving my pickup between the two towns when it went over, picked up my truck, turned it 180 degrees and set me down in a ditch on Newburg Road. I hid on the floor for which seemed a long time, probably only minutes. Scared the crap out of me, still terrified ot tornadoes. So much damage, so much death. Horrible day!
Oh the Greek School memories! No
Greek kid wanted to go after a long day of “American” school especially on a nice day. I remember that specific Greek reader. Ο Κύριος και η Κυρία Λεωνιδας μένουν στο Ουάσινγκτον. Mr and Mrs Leonidas live in Washington. All in all, I’m so glad and proud I finished Greek school, not only for the language, geography, religion and culture lessons, but because I met my future husband in the 3rd grade. Much like you, he was a rebel, bad boy and a bully back then. In fact, there was a carload of 10 siblings and cousins that all were dropped off just in time to disrupt our classroom. Recently, we had a nice chat with our 93 year old Greek school teacher Kyria Davlantes (she also taught our children) She remembered Lou as a “trouble-maker” but with a smile said “kids will always be kids” and that he is a good man because he «έβαλε μυαλό» (wisened up) and married a good woman.
Your column stirs memories of 1967 as it was a pivotal year for me as well. First we had to survive the “Great 1967 Chicago Blizzard in January and then the Oak Lawn tornado in April. I was a senior in high school in 67 attending Oak Lawn Community High School and I had a part time job at the Fairway grocery store ay 95th and Southwest highway. Naturally I was working that Friday afternoon after school when Mother Nature tried to erase Oak Lawn off the map. Fortunately I survived although I did have to crawl out from the wreckage on hands and knees and more fortunately all my coworkers survived as well. Sadly some customers did not. Most of Oak Lawn HS was undamaged so there was no extra baseball for us either, back to school. We did have to graduate on the football field though as the main auditorium was severely damaged. Then it was off to the US Navy. I spent about nine months up at Great Lakes Naval Base for Boot Camp and A school then off to Pearl Harbor. It was then I discovered that operating in and around typhoons in the western Pacific wasn’t particularly fun either. I guess the moral to this story is be nice to Mother Nature or beware.
Reading your column today brought back the first book I read for pleasure, which I’m ashamed to say was not until college, “How Green Was My Valley” by Richard Llewellyn. Until then, I never knew words on a page could bring forth the full spectrum of emotions. Your columns are just as enjoyable, please never stop writing them.
I don’t have enough time or space to tell you how much I loved this column. All I can say is “please keep writing.”
John Kass, that was terrific. Thank you ever so much for your words. Pat Hickey stated my sentiments precisely….thank you Mr. Hickey.
I believe you should reinvent that book John Kass and have it reprinted at the least…..I don’t know how that would work through all the possibilities of law suits, but it is a worth while book to be reinvented …..by you…..or someone else.
God bless you John Kass.
Tom
Love this story of the “bad boy” but did your dad ever admit he dared you to kill a crow?
I am not a writer but was hooked on reading by Huck Finn at an early age and remember it as a true adventure story with a kid as the main character.
I lived through two tornados in Ohio as a child and thankfully our home did not suffer any damage either time, but I agree a house without a basement in the Midwest is not for me.
Great column John, thanks.
Grew up in the South Deering neighborhood in Chicago. Went through the usual winter storms spring rains and other weather mayhem. Left that city six years ago and moved to a suburb of Houston. No more cold winters, we have one week of cold weather and that’s about it. Once we hit the nineties those temps are going to stay until November. Last summer we got hit with a Category One hurricane. I went to sleep knowing it would arrive at about five in the morning. I could hear the wind growing louder and louder as the night progressed. Almost like a freight train approaching. Nothing can prepare you for that sound. I’ve never heard anything like that EVER. That sound will humble you really quick. It will make you find long dormant religious beliefs FAST. After the torrential rains passed within two hours we were in the eye. The sun came out and shined so brightly, skies were blue like nothing had ever happened. Except for the cleanup that is. This was only a Category One. The hurricane that hit the Carolinas was a Five and it blew right past us. I watched the evening news that day and observed the utter destruction. Many are still living in tents where their homes once stood. I went and sat in my backyard that night with a Guinness and lit a cigar. I looked up at the sky and said THANKS. Like I said, the sound of that wind picking up speed will humble you really really fast. AND SERVE TO REMIND YOU OF HOW BLESSED YOU REALLY ARE.
John, we all have our own Odyssey. Thanks for the sobering reminder of that unsettling green sky and calm before the Tornado in “67. I was only 12 then. One of my older sisters was a patient at Christ Community Hospital and watched the terrible twister roar down 95th. You and I doubtless passed each other many times in our youth, as you headed to Kolmar and I and my siblings traipsed up to St. Catherine for our own version of thick ruler Catholic discipline. (My sister Pat was even your baby sitter once upon a time.)
Keep up the writing, it does us all good. As George Santayana opined over a century ago: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Ed Dwyer (7th of the Baker’s Dozen at 105th and Kedvale)
This was a masterpiece of mirth. I grew up in the heart of Oak Lawn , one of 12 siblings and am a graduate of St Gerald’s. I witnessed destruction of my Alma mater firsthand. Your evocation of slingshot hunting resonated deeply with me as I prowled the railroad tracks and back alleys of Oak Lawn in search of rabbits, squirrels and pigeons. The lifestyle of the feral youth was idyllic and I treasure the memories to this day. When I was a young father, I would tell stories to my kids of my exploits and they were astounded at danger and adventure I experienced.
I feel sorry for kids who grew up in a safe and sanitized environment, sentenced to a regimen of over scheduled youth sports and other adult mediated activities.
John, this story hit home today. I’m actually sitting in Chora, Naxos and my dad texted me that I had to read John Kass today. I know you are 2nd generation from Rizes in Arcadia – I am 3rd generation and brought my family to visit Greece for my first time. My great grandfather emigrated to the US from Vlachokersia. This past weekend, I hauled my family up to the village from Athens to just see where my family is from, but what happened was incredible. We sat at a cafe behind the church and an incredibly nice and generous man, Costas “heard” we were in the village square and came to talk to us… for hours. He is married to a woman with my same last name but she didn’t speak English. While my great grandfather emigrated to the USA before WW1, the village (now only 250 people) still talks about the Nazi occupation and the horrible impact to the town. We didn’t just talk about the village’s history, but Costas was up to date on global politics…including US domestic politics. I so enjoyed the interaction and exchange of perspectives. We have lost that in America…ability to exchange different perspectives…to gain empathy…while Costas and I may have shared many similar views, we didn’t agree on all points…but it was never negative…only respect. I find it sad that I had to travel to a mountainside village of 250 people in Greece to see what we can be once again. Something I didn’t expect on my trip to Greece.