How I Became a Professor

How I Became a Professor          

a story by Constantine Santas

Dedicated to my grandson Michael

Now that I am a retired professor, I can tell you of a small episode in my youth that changed the course of my life. Without it, who knows what would have happened to me, where and how I would have ended up, life being as unpredictable as it is. But let me tell the story.

It happened during the winter of 1941-42, the first year of the Italian occupation of our island, when my Uncle Stathis, my father’s brother, was still teaching at our high school, the Lefkas Gymnasium. I mention him, because he is the crucial character in the story. But permit me to make an introduction before I go on.

I was a student in the gymnasium during that year. It was actually called an Octataxion,[1] because it had eight grades, from the fifth to the twelfth, and it was a rather incoherent blend of elementary, middle and high school. It had been instigated during the dictatorship of John Metaxas, who probably saw it as a means of converting students from as young an age as possible to his fascist philosophy.[2] At the Octataxion, we all had to wear blue uniforms and caps during parades and we saluted professors when we met them in the street by raising our right hands. We sang national hymns, like, “Greece is marching to its new destiny,” or “God gave us the light of the 4rth of August” (the day Metaxas took over the government by way of a military coup), and other such propaganda slogans. All students belonged to a youth organization called the EON (Ethniki Organosis Neon—“National Youth Organization”) and part of the school curriculum was heavy indoctrination through special lectures. Uncle Stathis also had to wear his uniform during parades, but he was far from a fascist or a fan of Metaxas, and neither were most of the teachers—but that is a different story.

 I had entered the Gymnasium at age nine and a half, and had a hard time preparing for the entrance examinations, administered orally by one of the gymnasium teachers (I’ve forgotten his name), a sadistic fellow who liked to tease the shortest youngsters--and I was one of them--about their height. After looking jeeringly at my slight frame and babyish appearance, he asked me some questions about the animal kingdom, in particular, what species a goat belongs to, and what it is called in ancient Greek. Luckily, I knew the answer--aix in ancient and gida in modern. He looked surprised, and passed me.

           Despite my success with the entrance exams, I was a rather weak student at first, either because I was so young (I had gone to school a year earlier because of a birth certificate error) or because the curriculum was designed for the later grades and was too hard for youngsters like me. But in a year or so I had caught up with my subjects and my grades improved, mainly because of the help I was getting from my Uncle Stathis. He was a physical education instructor, and a likeable, energetic fellow, known for his fiery temper and his intolerance of any sign of “sloth” (meaning the slightest misstep during a drill). He demanded precision during exercises, criss-crossing the schoolyard like a mild-mannered madman, blowing his whistle, and shouting instructions. Once, during a parade along the bay front, he kicked a peddler who got too close to the lines trying to sell us pumpkin seeds and sesame rolls. He grabbed his basket, a shallow, round, wicker thing strapped around the man’s shoulders, with all its wares, tossed it into the sea, then reached into his pocket and gave the man a fifty-drachma bill—an overpayment.  His parades were so spectacular that crowds came from far away villages to watch them. Socially, Uncle Stathis was friendly, enthusiastic, and a big talker, especially when it came to politics—the favorite sport of nearly every Greek--arguing that while Metaxas was an ass, Mussolini was a donkey+ with bigger ears, and that that the Greeks would soon deflate his butt. But he wasn’t just all talk and no action; he had spent a summer or two in Athens before the war training in Civil Defense and had lectured to large audiences upon his return to town in anticipation of the air raids, which were to come soon enough. When the Italians invaded and took over the school administration, Uncle Stathis refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to Mussolini that was demanded by all teachers and was censored, jailed briefly, and then dismissed. He left the island and, after a rugged journey, reached Athens where he stayed never to return. But when the story I am about to tell you happened, he was still in the island.

           He and I had become good enough friends, and in fact I had developed a closer relationship with him than with my father, who was always worn out by his daily chores, having to run a sawmill plant with several employees and also manage a household with a wife, two children, and his old parents. Uncle Stathis, who rented a room upstairs, was just as busy, but for different reasons. He said he loved life too much not to enjoy it, so he did his best to do that. He was rather short, dark-haired, handsome, youthful looking (though pushing thirty), attractive to the opposite sex (he said he could prove it), and busy socializing. He was a dandy. He shaved every morning (my father visited the barbershop about twice a week), in front of a triangular mirror, broken in half, in our kitchen, soaping his face with a brush, sharpening his razor on a leather strap with wide swipes of his elbow, and holding his nose up with two fingers of his left hand while scraping his face with the blade. He almost always cut his skin in the process, for shaving in those days was not an exact art—at least not in his case. He applied tiny pieces of band aid to conceal the cuts, walking around like a patched up Casanova. He had imported several personal items from Athens—men’s cologne, hair lotion, and several other cosmetic paraphernalia for his elaborate toiletry--things unknown to the rest of humankind in that part of the world then. Tailors in town loved him, for he bought latest fashion apparel, leather gloves, silk scarves and shirts, woolen pullovers, gabardine coats and suits, a dozen of which were hanging in a closet behind a flowery drape in his room. My father, who had worked an entire day to build this closet, muttered in disgust: “This wastrel brother of mine is going to ruin the rest of us with his extravagant habits. I wish he’d pay his rent once in a while. I’m going to kick him out.” “Be patient with him,” my mother cautioned. “He’s young. Besides, he’ll help our boys, in school.” That calmed my father down momentarily. He and Uncle Stathis had one thing in common—both were in a hurry, but for different reasons. My father was always busy with his work; Uncle Stathis whirled around to meet his numerous friends and spent his evenings out in the night spots until the wee hours of the morning. My mother often found his covered dinner plate in the kitchen table, where she had placed it the night before, untouched. “This poor boy will starve,” she said compassionately and quickly dispatched me with the dish to an old widow across the street.

  My mother liked Uncle Stathis for his influence on us boys. She was not far off the mark, for Stathis proved useful, at least to me, always giving me tips on my lessons, especially ancient Greek (which had more words than the names of goats in it)—and math. For a physical education instructor he was well read, had a good grasp of geography and history (my favorite topics), and, above all, knew his ancient Greek, and a bit of Latin. The only times I could exchange a few words with him was during these shaving sessions—for he never hurried when he was fixing his looks. I sat at the kitchen table doing my lessons, and when I asked him a question, he just tossed his answer, and I grabbed it in the air—so to speak. He never tried to influence his colleagues at the school in my favor, but he did follow my progress and nudged me during meals or other occasions when he felt I fell behind.

           The war had disrupted the school schedule, and, when bombs were dropped, we had to run to the mountains, and my brother, mother and paternal grandparents stayed at my grandfather’s village for protection. But I did spend enough time at the school in town, with my father and Uncle Stathis and another guest who was renting—three men and a boy. I learned to cook, mostly potatoes and vegetables, dried codfish, or some meat. (My talents in that direction were limited, but in my mother’s absence I had to embrace some of the domestic chores.)  I wasn’t doing that great in school, perhaps understandably, because long stretches of interruptions in the schedule had made me a bit lazy. Who wouldn’t prefer the countryside, where the birds sing and the flowers bloom, to a dusty classroom and a monotonous teacher? In any case, my most difficult topic was math (algebra to be specific), and one afternoon Uncle Stathis, who had followed closely my successive failures to pass a test, sat down next to me at the kitchen table--that was an exception--and tried to help me with an equation, first or second degree—my memory dims here. He got angry at my lack of comprehension and called me a “thick skull,” and had another word or two for me. I got angry too, and told him I wanted to quit.

           “Quit?” I saw he was upset.

           “Yes, uncle,”” I said, “want to quit school.”      

           “What do you want to be, a peon? Like your uncles in the villages digging the rocks with pickaxes to plant vine trees? Have you seen any of them ever wear a pair of decent trousers, or a clean shirt? Do you want to be farmer?”

           “No, I want to be a carpenter. Like my father.”

           “So you want to be a carpenter.”

           “What’s wrong with that?” I said insolently.

           “Did you see in what condition your father comes in every evening? Dirty, sweaty, his head covered with sawdust, wood shavings curling around his ears, his feet aching so much that he can’t drag himself upstairs? Have you ever seen him enjoy leisure, read a book, or go to a club with friends?”

           “I can’t handle math. I’m not smart enough.”

           “Idiot! Numbskull!”

           He left the kitchen in a huff and banged his door behind him. I slipped downstairs, and, just like that, started running. I didn’t care where I was going; I just wanted to get out of his claws. I hated him.

           I ran for five minutes, then stopped, out of breath, trying to decide where I was headed. There was no other route for me but one, the road leading to the village where my mother, brother and grandparents lived. It was nine kilometers, and a hard climb. I knew the roads well and took all the shortcuts to gain time. I had taken nothing with me, and I was still in my school uniform. I reached the village about an hour and a half later, in the middle of the afternoon. When my mother saw me at the doorstep, her jaw dropped.

           “Did you run away from school?” she said, instantly guessing what happened.

           “Yes,” I said, feeling there was no sense in lying.

           “Why, my son? What’s the matter?”

           I mumbled something, saying I got sick, but she didn’t buy that. Practical as always, she didn’t try to sweet-talk to me—after all I was a growing youngster—but got me something to eat, seeing I was hungry and exhausted. I was in the middle of my second bite, when the door banged open and Uncle Stathis burst in. For once, I saw him not only flustered but looking untidy. His shirt was open at the neck, he had no tie on, no jacket, and his always smooth hair flew out tussled.

           He didn’t say a word; he just looked at the floor. It was full of holes, and you had to navigate your way if wanted to walk on it. Some of the boards had actually broken apart and stuck out, in bits and pieces. Uncle Stathis grabbed one of these and tore it away, making a bat out of it. He started hitting my hips and legs, which my short pants, still part of the Metaxas uniform, did not cover. He hit only the soft spots, but I squealed with pain. He went on hitting me until his face was bathed in sweat.

           My mother stood by in amazement, saying no word, for she had enough respect for her bother in law to trust what he was doing. But when things went a bit too far, and I screamed a couple of times, she grabbed him by the hand, and he stopped.

           Nobody said a word for while. Uncle Stathis placed the board back on the floor hole and, finding a hammer, he nailed it into place so that nobody could stumble on it. I sat on a chair next to the table, still moaning with the pain, and my mother warmed some olive oil and put a plaster on my legs and thighs. Then she got busy preparing dinner, and all of us sat down to eat. It was late November, and a drizzle was falling outside. My brother came back from school, and my grandparents, who had spent the afternoon at a neighbor’s, also joined us. The dinner consisted of boiled codfish with potatoes, some vegetables from the field, cheese, and homemade bread. She could cook a hearty meal, and both Uncle Stathis and I were famished. Very few words were exchanged, but when all went to bed, I saw Uncle Stathis explaining to my mother what had happened.

           Next morning, after breakfast, he and I started for town. My mother looked at me in the eyes, and I knew her wish was for me to follow him.

           I did, and my uncle and I trotted downhill. Then he started telling me what happened yesterday after I left. He said he did not know I was gone until half an hour or so later. He realized that I had run away and soon figured out where I was going. He knew the road to the village, including the shortcut paths I had taken. He asked a few passers-by going the opposite direction whether they had seen a boy about my age, and when they said yes, he knew my destination.

He talked all the way to town, occasionally looking at my bruised, black and blue legs, swollen to the size of gourds I had seen hanging in my grandfather’s trellised yard. My mother had applied a hot plaster before we left that morning and the pain had eased, but I still wobbled downhill like a drunken man.

“It once happened to me,” Uncle Stathis said, looking worried and perhaps a bit

guilty.

“Did one of your uncles beat you?”

He looked me strangely. “No, this was different. My Uncle Sotiris, who was old and rheumatic, asked me once to help him crush his grapes during the harvest. It was a rough job, and after doing that for several hours, my feet and legs got so sore they ached for weeks.”

He kept babbling along, and I don’t remember what else he said, but we picked up the pace and in about half an hour my walk was almost normal. After that, my math improved, and I passed the algebra test.

In Greek they say that a good beating comes from Heaven.[3]

[1] Eight grades

[2] Some called Metaxas a benevolent dictator, who instigated a military coup on August 4, 1936, to forestall a communist takeover during a general strike that was to occur the next day. King George I sanctioned the coup, and the dictatorship lasted until 1941, after the Italians under Mussolini had attacked Greece. Metaxas died in March, 1941, just before the Germans and Italians invaded and occupied Greece in May the same year. 

[3] To xulo bghke apo ton Paradeiso.