The trouble began in the early morning of November 26 when a light snowfall brought down the power lines at the sub-station of the Electric Company (DEI) in Aharnai, a suburb of Athens. The plant is the central station for relaying electric power which comes from the north of Greece to the whole of Attica. Athens was immediately plunged into darkness, causing a momentary panic at DEI’s largest power station four hundred kilometres away, at Ptolemias in Macedonia, the major source of power for the city. Noting that Athens was no longer drawing power, the DEI people up there began to suspect that some horrendous act of God had suddenly obliterated the city from the face of the earth.
In the resulting mayhem thousands of Athenians were stranded in the underground and another thousand were trapped in lifts. With the traffic lights off and the electric trolleys stalled in the middle of streets, the traffic jams became monumental. Hospitals were in an upheaval. In the absence of functioning emergency generators, X-rays were stopped short, operations interrupted, and the artificial kidney machine at the King Paul Hospital stopped functioning for over an hour. There were, however, no fatalities.
Industry ground to a halt, telephone services were in a shambles, water was cut off in the northern suburbs and many houses were without heat. Only the small Piraeus suburb of Agios Yorgos Keratsini shone out like a beacon in the storm. It is the only neighbourhood left in the Athens area whose electricity is locally produced by steam.
The school system throughout the city was in a state of havoc as well. Most schools closed but the Fifteenth Lyceum for Boys in Kypseli — famous for its delapidated condition — sent out an SOS in mid-morning reporting that the teachers and students were heroically patching paneless windows with strips of cardboard but the roof was beginning to spring numerous leaks.
Ellinikon International Airport was twice deprived of power in the morning during which time the public rooms and the passenger boarding area were romantically illuminated by hurricane lamps. Eleven flights were cancelled although the control tower remained in operation using auxiliary generators.
Sea conditions at Piraeus, where the wind velocity was registering nine on the Beaufort scale within the harbour, produced nothing less than bedlam. Visibility was zero at nine o’clock in the morning as unmanned yachts began to leave port. The Almond Tree and the Archangel Gabriel broke moorings and began nosing into other berths and the Golden Odyssey strayed out to sea. The Nausicaa and the Delphi actually left the harbour, the latter colliding offshore with the Bon Vivant.
DEI crews in snowsuits manfully went about their duties. An attempt was made to join the northern power system with one in the Peloponnisos, but the high-tension level became so dangerous that the attempt was abandoned. At noon, as the storm began to abate, DEI made the following public announcement: Ά power failure produced by unfavourable and unexpected weather conditions has caused temporary irregularities in Attica’.
The year 1976 was one of great natural calamities and it was only fitting that Athens should have its share of nature’s wrath. Although it was a minor disturbance compared to the earthquakes and floods that struck so many parts of the world, it would be interesting to speculate on what posterity will make of the storm. Even while it was in progress, people were recalling memories of another storm twenty years ago when a great black cloud appeared over the Saronic Gulf, swept over the city meting out destruction, increasing in fury as it approached the northern suburbs. Survivors like to reminisce about the eighteen pine trees that were uprooted in a single lot in Kifissia, the entire tile roof that was swept off a house in Kastri and neatly laid onto the roof next door. It is said that in Ekali, as the storm reached its peak, the winds lifted a man to the height of the tree tops and gently set him down again several blocks to the north. Recalled today in the most matter-of-fact manner, listeners nod gravely in agreement and say, ‘I remember it, too. That is the way it was.’
No, to the Law of Casanova
ON SUNDAY November 28 a large poster outside the lobby of the Palace Cinema on Voukourestiou Street showed the Devil cutting the ribbon that joins the floral crowns — stefana—which symbolize the marriage union, and are worn by the bride and groom during Greek Orthodox weddings. The occasion was not a new film on satanism but a live performance with a cast of over two thousand. They had gathered to protest the controversial bill providing for automatic divorce after six years of separation. Since civil marriages are not recognized in Greece, the Church, which must give its consent to divorces (and now tolerates up to three) has taken an active part in the controversy. Earlier this month Greece’s Holy Synod urged total opposition to the Government’s bill. All political parties have favoured the bill (although some Deputies believe it to be too conservative) and the Minister of Justice, Constantine Stefanakis, rejected the Church’s demand that the bill be withdrawn from Parliament.
The forces of Marital Virtue and Family Solidarity, thus beleaguered, soon regained courage with the timely arrival of Bishop Avgoustinos of Fiorina. It is not the first time that the Good Shepherd, often referred to as the Saint of Fiorina, has rushed down to Athens to save us from the jaws of the Devil. Arriving at the movie house in mid-morning, Bishop Avgoustinos was greeted by his followers who were shouting, ‘Greece is not Sweden!’ ‘Down with Freemasonry!’ ‘The Devil’s favours!’ The assembly opened with a female speaker who suggested that the true purpose of the law was to resolve the personal problems of certain members of the Government and Parliament. This was followed by the dramatic appearance of a young child announcing in Katharevousa — the purified form of Greek favoured by conservatives: Ί am one of those children who has been abandoned by his father, but my mother and I have strength and we hope that the Stranger who took him away from us will realize one day the harm She has done.’ Overcome by this emotional statement, the next scheduled speaker was left speechless.
Not so our Good Shepherd of Fiorina who rose to give the meeting a much-needed boost calling for a militant stand to protect the Family. He went on to illustrate his sermon with an anecdote about ‘five sailors: an Englishman, a Russian, a German, a Frenchman, an Italian and a Greek,’ crossing the Atlantic. ‘That’s six,’ someone shouted in the crowd. Undaunted by this arithmetic problem, the bishop continued, explaining how each sailor boasted about his country: the Englishman spoke of ruling the waves; the Russian of his country’s size; the German of fine factories; the Frenchman of his language; the Italian of his beautiful songs. The Greek sailor, with tears in his eyes, modestly volunteered, Ί have more than any of you. 1 have my family.’ The cheers that followed rocked the theatre as everyone began to shout in unison, ‘No, No, No to the law of Casanova!’ The meeting at an end, the Good Shepherd of Fiorina led his flock three blocks away to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A bugle played as he laid a wreath and the national anthem was sung. We have no way of knowing what the Unknown Soldier’s views might have been on the divorce bill, but there was no doubt left in anyone’s mind that a Holy War was under way.
Humpty Dumpty Days
HEADLINES in December proclaimed that shopowners and employees after years of fruitless negotiations were moving with disconcerting haste toward an agreement that would introduce a continuous workday applicable to all retail establishments. We have no way of knowing if such drastic measures will be implemented in the New Year, but before innocents are lulled into complacence by these announcements — whatever their final outcome — we thought it our duty to provide our readers with a brief refresher course on our shop-hour folkways, and to prepare them for what is ahead in January.
Although it may not be readily apparent to visitors to our country — or to natives for that matter — we are rigidly attached to the concept of a fixed number of hours in terms of the work-week. Whatever pattern these hours take — continuous work days, fragmented work days, or combinations of both — at the end of seven days, by hook or by crook, they total up to a set number of hours. These have been arrived at after intricate negotiations between entrepreneurs and trade unions with nudges from various branches of the government.
Cracking the code of which businesses are on what schedule on which days (let alone keeping track of the office hours of doctors and dentists who are let loose to devise their own individualistic schedules) is a full-time business in itself. Of all the dizzying combinations that exist, however, the most intriguing may well be some of the ‘continuous’ workday schedules that have thus far been adopted by various sectors of the labour force. Our favourite begins at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. and comes to an abrupt halt at three p.m. in the afternoon. Many wholesalers and some factories and service industries are on such a program. Although it is the despair of the owners, it is the delight of employees who can still fit in the siesta, thite preserving the best of the Western and the Mediterranean worlds.
As confusing as these kaleidoscopic schedules are under the best of circumstances, the chaos assumes new dimensions at holiday time when predicting the business hours of any enterprise becomes a major challenge. Protracted negotiations accompany each holiday with final decisions on shops’ closing and opening times often emerging only on the eve of the day under discussion. During this chaotic annual spell of ‘special’ holiday hours, stores that open at unusual times, such as on the Sunday before New Year’s Day, may, to the dismay of their customers, make it up to their employees by unexpectedly closing during the following week. Conversely, shops may suddenly open at unscheduled hours. At times it seems that greengrocers have no sooner finished hauling out their fruits and vegetables onto the sidewalk before they begin hauling them back in.
Christmas comes and goes with relative ease, but New Year’s Day and its aftermath continues throughout January at a casual pace as the new year unfolds. It will be some time before we are back on course. The sixth of January, which is Epiphany and an official holiday, for example, is followed by St. John’s day on the seventh, which is not an official holiday. Nonetheless, since Johns — in their various forms such as loannis, Yanis, Yanakis, Yankos, Yanos, Ian and Ion — are a dime a dozen, a good percentage of our population will spend that day offering and receiving ‘Many Happy Returns’ — Hronia Polla — selling and buying sweets and flowers, and receiving or calling on each other. Some Johns, Wives-of-Johns, and Mothers-of-Johns just call it a day and go home to celebrate. It will take at least one more day for them and their friends to recuperate.
Once the festivities subside, stragglers will begin to return from extended holidays: the proletarians from then-villages, the more affluent from skiing holidays in Austria or Switzerland. The rest of the month will be devoted to recovering from the protracted holiday season, to cutting pites—the traditional New Year’s Cake. Every organization, school, office, business, military regiment, and ministry in the nation will go through ‘ the pita cutting ceremony, preferably with television cameras looking on. (We have long harboured a sneaking suspicion that these events are carefully staggered to allow every significant and mildly-significant political figure or group with any clout whatsoever a few seconds of glory as they are shown cutting countless pites on the evening news.)
By February the syncopated rhythm of Athens should be established once more — unless of course, the latest work-week negotiations are implemented in which case we will surely face chaos as we all try to adjust to the new regime.
If this happens we have a few predictions to make. To begin with, there will be a rise in the sale of cots as owners and workers alike equip the premises for the nap-taking (essential if they are to make it all the way through to late afternoon), and a rise in the sale of gas stoves on which they will warm the customary noontime meal. In the meantime, a great number of civil servants and professionals will go hungry as they cling to the split shift while their wives go onto continuous work schedules. In what may prove to be the most significant sociological upheaval spawned by the new system, they will have to fend for themselves in the kitchen when they arrive home at two o’clock for their major meal of the day.
