Lovely Friendships 49

Lovely Friendships 49

Two years have passed and a group of friends along with her daughter Alexa have come together to plan Agatha Terzi’s ninety second birthday. Alexa had just turned eighteen and she took to calling Agatha Mummy. Her brother and sister also loved Agatha as their adopted Mother but Alexa was happiest to call her Mummy. She and Agatha often spoke French when alone. Agatha had a glow about her and a new spark in life when

Basil, Maia and Alexa came into their lives.

During the past two years Arthur’s granddaughter Hilda permanently moved to Ikara immersing herself into a small tailor business. She also had a new male interest in her life. Nikos Stamatis was a quiet man but could start a dull crowd laughing until they cried real tears.

Kosmos and Letos twins, Cate and Oliver, were quite the active pair. They discovered they could climb zig zag hill quickly to see Grandpa Moraitis and Grandma Jocasta quickly but were not able to scramble down as fast. They took to rolling down n their sides laughing all the way.

Adelpha La Scola and Aristotle Mitzakopoulo opened a small artist shop for the locals. They worked with students to create colorful roadside shrines with small glass doors adorned with a photo of a saint and a candle. The top might be crowned with a cross or Greek letters. Often the shrine is  to provide the traveler with a moment of rest and prayerful reflection or to represent a place where a loved one had perished in an accident. If the candle was out the visitor will light the candle again after prayer for another to stop and reflect.

Adelpha and Aristotle were so proud of their young men and women of Ikaria to carry on the tradition of their elders. Many of these students would leave Ikaria going to the large cities for work.

The older local business men and women of Ikaria encouraged the younger adults to stay in Ikaria. They even taught them their trades hoping the younger adults would stay.

Many did leave but in a few years returned to the home of their birthplace as the big cities with the fast pace and their paychecks were used for larger expenses occurred in the big cities. The ones that did stay became shop workers and beginning small business owners themselves. They actually liked the slow pace of their town.

Demetrius and Endora Mitzakopoulo were one of those younger couples that had planned on staying in Ikaria. Three years ago they were married and both had worked hard saving their money to purchase a house on a plot of land. Demetrius indeed was successful in the construction business with a very large crew of men. He was tough on them but fair. You had better show up for work, well fed, not drunk and ready to work hard all day or you were fired. He paid them well so rarely was there a shirker.

Endora worked for Saalima Amaratha for years. She was the right hand of Saalima and could be trusted to handle any problem at the Fabric shop. Endora was the one who hired the workers even tho Saalima had final say.

Saalima had met Tomaso Ambrosia a few years before and they were living together in her little Polish house. They were both workaholics and suited for each other.

Tomaso started out running a small Cafe in the other half of the Fabric shop. He finally started teaching a few of the local young men how to make the hand held foods they sold at the Cafe. One young man had gone to a bigger city with his parents and said to Tomaso they called the foods there fast foods!

“Well there will be no fast foods here! Do realize all the nasty old grease they fry the hell out of the food. The next day that grease kills your gut and you splat it out as fast as you can get to a toilet if you’re not used to eating that garbage. I NEVER want to hear about fast foods in this Cafe again!” he boomed.

The shop was pin dropping silent for an hour and the subject was never brought up again.

Melina and Cicero Ambrosia, Tomaso’s parents lived outside of town in their vineyard. It would soon be producing more wine. They had come from America and never would go back except for business.

They hoped that Tomaso and Saalima would get married but chose to stay out of their sons business. They loved Saalima as a daughter-in-law and that was all that mattered.

Finally Leto came in with Kosmas. “We had to wait for the sitter for a short time and while waiting Kosmas wrote another poem.”

Kosmas stood up and recited:

The World

The world is so beautiful

enjoy every minute of the world

the black and white

all the colors of the rainbow

the smell of flowers

and evergreen trees

ring memories in the forests

seashells on the beach

sand between bare feet toes

sounds of sea gulls

the world is so beautiful

for each living being

love you and all

for happiness

©Julia A Knaake