Here We Go Again

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

--- Socrates

Never in the history of humanity have so many people possessed the ways and means to delve into the roots of our personal beliefs and the ethos of our greater cultures.

We all have access to unlimited data at our fingertips with computers and now smart phones.

Unfortunately, many instead tend to use this great power to simply forward memes without ever considering the roots of their beliefs.




Many people seem to have ceased to even experience everyday physical reality, choosing to plug in headphones and read tweets while walking along the beach.

Using the parlance of their "realities," they need to hit the reset button and see the world anew.

One of the best ways to do this is travel.

It actually isn't even necessary to leave the region where you've lived your entire life to explore, and many who never travel have accumulated great wisdom, but escaping the familiar stimulates our minds in ways unimagined by those trapped in a video game reality.



When strolling through ancient ruins, you can still spend all your time fiddling with your smart phone, but you also just might realize you are part of a much greater reality.

In distant lands, you will find answers to questions you should have about the roots of your own beliefs and certainly also help you understand other perspectives.  As American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

While an obvious interpretation of living an "examined life" might make you think Socrates advocated endless navel-gazing, I see it as encouraging us to get out of our own heads and into the greater world in which we each have integral parts to play.

A movie that's not exactly deep thinking --- the sequel to "Mamma Mia!" --- to some extent addresses this concept.




Despite many detractors, the original movie found many fans, including me.  I first watched "Mamma Mia!" on a flight to the Western Mediterranean ten years ago.  I watched the sequel on cable last night, and while not reality, even the classic Greek philosophers enjoyed escape in dramas and comedies that ideally expand understanding of life.

I have to say, if you didn't like the original, you probably won't like the sequel, other than it does eliminate my wife's primary objection: extended solos by her favorite James Bond, Pierce Brosnan.

In many ways, "Here We Go Again" re-traces the story of the first movie from a different perspective, and --- in answer to the question of how many more songs does Abba have? --- it also retreads some favorites from the original but in new ways.

And isn't that why we love returning to favorite places, where we can see them again from new perspectives?

After all, if we are truly living an examined life, then we are not exactly the same person we were yesterday, much less ten years ago, and the places we travel have also evolved.

But like travel, the movie concept also had some differences the second time around, including the setting, which gave something of a makeover to the Greek Isle to make it seem more like gorgeous Patmos.  It also brought to mind a special trip to Madaro.

The more we travel, the greater the distinctions we make not only between places we visit but what we understand to be truth.

And, of course, it is always fun when we see a movie or read a novel to be able to visualize actually having been there or anticipating a future sojourn.

Where have you always wanted to go or promised yourself you would one day return?

Remember, there is meaning all around you, at every step along the way, not just at the point of arrival in a dream destination.  Who you become to reach that destination is a voyage of its own.

A Book About the Greek Isles From Rome, Featuring Madaro

“I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”

--- Mark Twain, from Tom Sawyer Abroad

Traveling together often makes a relationship stronger.

Julie and I have been sharing vacations for 35 years. While we may have spats in the air port over trivial non-sense or waste precious moments in paradise on a snit over some subjectively perceived slight, we have come away with a much richer relationship. That includes plenty of shared insights and inside jokes to accompany our shared experiences in unique places.

However, as my friend Sam, on the throes of a mid-life crisis, humorously said at his daughter's wedding toast, "Some relationships last, some don't. Believe me. I know."

When our family returned to the Greek Isles in search of Julie's paternal roots, a trip on which Gina, Laszlo and their 1-year-old daughter Emma did not join us for long forgotten reasons, we successfully connected with wonderful Greek cousins who made the experience magical.

None of us will forget those special memories.  Jay's ex-girlfriend Katie, who traveled extensively before and after this cruise, recalled it years later as "the best vacation ever."

Amy's ex-boyfriend Jordan, who studied Latin, probably found the vestiges of the Roman Empire most fascinating.

As happens with many a family's old photos, I worry if sharing my old blog posts may offend someone, but below are links to the way it was back in May of 2011.

A Great Year to Cruise the Mediterranean

Getting What You Want

Hotel Corot Near Termini Station In Rome

A Day in Roma

What Will You Do There?

History of the Roman Forum: Emperor Nero

Lovely Taoromina

The Acropolis

Afternoon In Athens

Return to Ephesus

Kusadasi, Turkey: Miletus and Didyma

Turkish Bazaar In Kusadasi

The Road to Madaro

3 Ladies of Madaro

Chania Harbor, Crete

The Tim Gunn Approach to Travel

One Short Day In New York

A Book About Our Family's Greek Isles Cruise from Venice

John Megas, Sr.

It has been almost ten years since we embarked on our odyssey to find the family roots for Julie and her sisters Jacque and Cheryl, along with the next generation in that family tree.

Their brother John's family couldn't join us on that trip, but otherwise it was a wonderful chance to reunite with the John Megas Senior family on a beautiful, historic and fun cruise vacation.

Before he passed away, John Megas Senior spoke glowing of his trip to visit distant relatives in the village of Madaro, Crete, which laid the groundwork for the next generation to make their trek.

Much has changed since that trip for all of the family members, including the addition of another generation.

That trip commemorated a unique moment in time for all of us, though we didn't think of it in those terms as we experienced it.

It's fascinating to think how our lives branched out following that trip, as well as who we all were at that time.

Here are links to memories from that trip:

Arriving in Venice

Cruising From Venice

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Time at Sea

A Family Odyssey

Chania, Crete

Heraklion, Crete

More Photos of Heraklion

Capping Off Crete

Ephesus

Miletus and Philosophy

Didyma and Oracles

Santorini

Corfu

Another Day at Sea

Venice

Venice to Burano

San Marco

Flying Home

Wyoming and the Megas Diamonds

Dad's One Year A.A. Anniversary

Lest there be any misunderstanding about our Colorado Road Trip, I don't advocate drinking and driving.

In fact, those silly Coors photos were taken on our way into the brewery.

We tasted beer, but none of us became drunk in Colorado.  Coffee remains our beverage addiction of choice, but we all must be careful.

My dad was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for the final 43 years of his life, and he became much happier as well as more successful after he quit drinking, parlaying the tips he formerly spent in bars into his own beauty salon and then a comfortable suburban home.

To commemorate his good fortune of ten sober years and then twenty years of marriage, he bought us all diamond rings, including a diamond horseshoe ring and a wedding ring with a big square diamond for himself.  However, this is not the story of Harry's Diamonds.  Shortly after I graduated from high school, he made the biggest mistake of his life, divorcing Mom, proving nobody's perfect, even cold sober.

Once again I seem to have digressed pretty far from the subject, which is Wyoming and the Megas Diamonds, but there is a link of sorts.   Alcoholism, which Dad overcame, can be the ruin of many lives, and it touched Julie's family in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where we spent the night at less-than-palatial but certainly palatable America's Best Value Inn (nee The Inn at Rock Springs before the new banner was raised with the old signage still in place).

Over our complimentary breakfast, which included great biscuits and gravy, Jay and Amy finally read my blog from a couple of years ago about Julie's father John's childhood home in Rock Springs, prompting Amy to ask if I'd written about the Megas Diamonds.

I had previously left that in the domain of Julie's Aunt Myrtle, a retired head librarian who is an excellent story-teller and the unofficial keeper of Megas family lore, but here goes....

According to Find a Grave, Margaret Paterson was born in Durham County, England, in 1855, and moved to Pennsylvania with her parents in 1864.

Seven years later, at age 16, Margaret married Stephen Stewart, with whom she went on to have four children before he died in 1880.

Being a 25 year-old single mother couldn't have been easy, and one year later, in 1881, she married bartender Frank Hodge in Iowa.  The next year, Margaret gave birth to John Hodge, the rascal in this story.

Julie, Johnny, John, Jacque and Cheryl Megas

Margaret and Frank also had a daughter, but whether due to death, divorce or some other reason, Frank dropped out of the picture altogether at this point.

From one or both of her husbands, Margaret came into bereavement funds.  I would guess the inheritance came from Stephen Stewart's estate (possibly some kind of government job?), since bartenders don't tend to have lucrative benefits packages, although for all we know either might have had some sort of military pension or something.

John, Julie, Johnny (foreground) and stepmother Julia

In any case, as Aunt Myrtle tells the story, Margaret "used her widow money to buy a large livery stable in Rock Springs. She made it very profitable, supplying the town with buggies for all occasions -- courtings, weddings, funerals and drayage."

I looked up the definition of drayage, by the way, and it means shipment of goods over short distances, a field in which my brother-in-law John Megas works on the periphery doing maintenance on commercial warehouse doors, and he has also managed to make very profitable.

However, John Megas's namesake, Margaret's "son John Hodge, was considered a big drunk and a gambler.  He put away a lot of liquor and played a lot of poker."

As frequently is the case with that type of personality, however, John Hodge had beguiling allure to the fairer sex, and he managed to marry Myrtle Demerest, namesake of Aunt Myrtle Megas Cordon, who wrote:

Myrtle finally divorced him, married a railroad man from Livingston, Montana, and moved to Montana.

Margaret wanted her grandchild Ellenor to be near her, and believing neither John nor Myrtle were fit parents, she spirited Ellenor away to a convent in Nebraska until the dust settled.

Ellenor returned to Wyoming to be raised by her grandmother, Margaret.

One night in a wild poker game, John Hodge won two diamond earrings -- not quite a matched set, one being slightly large than the other.

Bachelor John Megas (far right) with Surveyor Crew 1950

Margaret managed to snatch the earrings from her drunken son and hide them in a small bag which she often wore around her neck.

Just to fill a couple of gaps in Aunt Myrtle's narrative that she wrote to help our son Jay with a school project about family lore, I'll add that the way I've heard the story told verbally over the years is that the unmatched diamonds were loose when John Hodge won them, and Margaret had them made into earrings so that she could wear them as she slept, effectively stopping John Hodge from losing them in another drunken late night poker game.

Soldier John Megas On Leave in WWII

Eventually, Margaret's granddaughter Ellenor married coal miner Nick Megas, whose boyhood home in Madaro near Chania Harbor on the Greek Isle of Crete has been written about several times in this blog.  

After Margaret died (in 1926), the diamonds were given to her granddaughter, Ellenor, who also kept them in the same small bag and would also often wear them around her neck.

During the depression years, if money were needed for rent or food or doctor bills, Ellenor would leave the small bag with the diamonds in the hands of a banker relative as collateral for cash. She always managed to retrieve them.

John and George Megas in 1928

In later years and better times, when Ellenor's two sons, John Megas (Julie's father), and his brother, George Megas, were grown men,  each was given one of the "Hodge" diamonds to become a gift to their brides in the form of a ring.

Which goes to show you, playing poker can turn out be a very romantic adventure.

Back to the recent past, we'd walked around Rock Springs the previous evening, so after breakfast we hit the road for much greener Western Wyoming.


In Jackson, we picked up some pricey but delicious sandwiches, which we enjoyed at a scenic stop on a hike in Grand Teton National Park.

By the way, if you've reached 62 years of age, you can purchase a lifetime National Parks pass for only $10 like I did.


That senior pass gives me and up to three guests unlimited free admissions to all of our wonderful National Parks for the rest of my life.

We took a $9 boat ride across Grand Teton's Jenny Lake to Hidden Falls, which proved to be quite hidden indeed, but it was a beautiful hike all the way up and then for three miles back to the parking lot.

On the road again, we continued motoring north toward Big Sky, Montana, in our snug Ford Escape.

Proud To Be a Coal Miner's Daughter



Coal Miner's Granddaughter

A running joke in Julie's family is that her grandfather Nick must have been misguided when he left the Greek Isles to work in the coal mines of Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Miner's Memorial

Proof of his wisdom, of course, lies in his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who have found prosperous lives beyond his wildest dreams in America.

Aside from the whole Back to the Future space-time rift that would stop him from meeting their Scottish grandmother Ellenor in America, which led to their exact DNA combinations, it certainly is possible that they could have been happy on sunny Crete.  We've had the privilege to meet distant cousins who prove that to be so, but America was and remains a land of opportunity for immigrants as well as those fortunate to have been born on its soil.




Megas Family Home

The Megas family home in Rock Springs still seems to be in great condition, and assuming it's the original structure, I'd guess it was a far more comfortable place to raise his three children than the primitive dwelling in remote Madaro, Crete, where he was one of eleven children (click one of the hotlinks above for photos) raised in a two room rock house with neither plumbing nor electricity.

The Railroad Put Rock Springs on the Map

Julie in front of Kenpo Karate



Remember Montgomery Ward?




As Julie's aunt, author Myrtle Cordon, could tell you, Rock Springs has an interesting and frequently off-color history, and when I first heard about the mining town when I was stationed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, it still had a tarnished image, but our recent visit revealed a charming downtown area with old buildings fronted by famous names from the past among its working class community that also includes suburban sprawl and seedy areas.

The Broadway

I won't say it seems to be a boomtown destined to lure Millennial hipsters searching for flashback perfection, but it's not nearly as bad as its reputation.

The Wrong Side of the Tracks?

Julie's Aunt Myrtle, who retired as Director of 15 public libraries in San Luis Obispo, gave us a "guided tour" by email (see below), and last summer we spent an afternoon looking at photos and listening to stories by Myrt and her brother, Uncle George, about growing up in Rock Springs, so we had a pretty good idea of what we were seeing.

The Park Hotel

Julie's Grandpa Nick worked in the blackness of the coal mines and had cried when he saw his son John, in the summer after his senior year in high school, come home with his face black with coal dust from a day in those very same mines.  Julie's dad John was the son whose academic efforts made him the natural choice to send to college with the family's limited savings, and the thought that he  might begin a life in the mines was unquestionably heartbreaking.



JJ Newberry 5 and Dime

Fortunately, that was just a summer job for John, and he started college as planned, though college was interrupted by his World War II tour as a paramedic, including the liberation of a terrible holocaust death camp, from which the painful memory of the dead and emaciated victims along with the stench in the air could never be completely be erased.  Hearing neo-fascists deny the reality of the extermination of Jews by Nazis disgusts me, so I can't imagine how tormenting that would have been for John, if he was still alive.

World War II Memorial


Uncle George was more of an entrepreneur.  He talked himself into a job, convincing a tire shop owner to let him retread tires during graveyard hours when his boss's shop had formerly been closed.  The machines ran while George slept in the shop.

George parlayed that self-created job into a recycled yard sale, trading those recapped tires that would have never been produced without his initiative to townspeople who would have never had the money to buy the tires if he hadn't accepted barter as an alternative to cash.

 Often, the goods he received were broken and in need of cleaning.  George repaired and polished the broken household goods and sold in front of the tire store in a sort of small parking lot swap meet.  At 18 years old, George made more money with this scheme than his dad earned that same year as a seasoned union coal miner with decades of experience. 



Inscribed With Names of WWII Heroes

That enterprise, however, got George in a bit of heat with his boss, who initially missed how this win-win situation had boosted tire sales by making Depression-era townspeople without cash into barter buyers whose repaired castoffs sold for enough cash to pay for the tires plus an extra profit for George.  His boss fired young George in haste, but when the store's business dropped precipitously, he re-hired the clever "rainmaker."

George also went to war, and both brothers are heroes recognized on the Rock Springs WWII Memorial. 

After returning from World War II with the GI Bill of Rights, which presumably saved his father from footing the rest of the bill for his college, John finished up his engineering degree.  One of his first post-college jobs was the Hungry Horse Dam project in Montana, another site we visited recently.

Later in the 1950s, John and George (not Lennon and Harrison) both moved to Los Angeles.  George started dating a statuesque blonde named Edna, who eventually decided she liked his brother better.  Edna ended up being Grandma Edde to our children.

Traveling with Julie as she tenaciously follows her father's roots over the years is not that different from following a novel wherever it leads.  Recently, I read the first two installments of Ken Follett's excellent Century Trilogy, the third volume of which should be coming out within days.  One of the viewpoint families for Follett's take on the twentieth century happens to be the ancestors of a coal miner from Wales, whose ancestors rise above the far more rigid class system of Europe to become war heroes and members of Parliament.  It's the same theme I find in my family history, with my wonderful parents rising from poverty to make a better life for their children, whose own parents made sacrifices for them.  Isn't it exciting to know this is possible for every free person who takes the initiative to follow dreams of a better life? 

God bless America, and the concept of American freedom that has bled into the rest of the world, which throughout most of history has been stratified to the point of stagnation, as Follett's Century Trilogy reveals in its complex storyline fabric.

Below is a quick take by Aunt Myrtle on Rock Springs, and keep in mind this is not intended as a professional writing sample but simply exuberantly sharing with her niece a bit of information about the mining town where she grew up.

Ho-- I'd love to be a tour guide for you --though I'm not sure what still be there. Dave and I were there in 1989 and George and I were there in 1996-- a long time ago! I printed out a few pictures of Front Street for you below-- the biggest memory was of the Grand Theater (movies 11 cents a pop -- Saturday matinees with Hopalong Cassidy and Dick Tracy serials -- there was always a serial to lure you back next Saturday..) And in that same block was Tom Thumb's and the Pitsitos Barber shop and the Mike Kostakis' Shoe Shine Parlor --- when we were last there it was some kind of computer store. So if you go along Front Street at the end you will see the Park Hotel (George once worked there) and you turn onto Elk St. On Elk is the WW II memorial and the names of both John Megas and George Megas are on there as Rock Springs soldiers. I took pictures of it long ago, but I can't find them now.

And 413 Soulsby -- yep and next to that is Aunt Ellen Webster's house-- We were the poor relatives so we did not interact with Aunt Ellen very often.

Bitter Creek Micro-Brewery

So if you stand in front of the Soulsby house and look to your right you should see a small footbridge crossing over Bitter Creek --which was most often called --get ready -- Shit Crick-- since raw sewage went into it. We never waded in it (!) but in winter John, and George and I went ice skating on it. The Number 3 Mine was there so the area beyond the bridge was called #3. (If you really want some vital and ugly history of R.S. google the Chinese massacre in R.S. The Knights of Labor used that bridge to murder and beat the Chinese who had built the railroad and then Union Pacific hired them for the mines--cheap labor...) And if you go back to the end of Soulsby and turn left, you will go past Pilot Butte Camp on your right -- On your left is the Slovenski Dome --We didn't go near there at night cause those people were big drinkers and very rowdy-- Further along on the left was the Catholic Church and a grave stone maker-- on the turn to your left was a fire station (still there??? Who knows?) and your Grandfather's favorite meat market on the right a ways past M Street -- (That's not likely to still be there.) On the corner of N St. is The Greek Church where I was baptized. (John and George were dunked in a galvanized tub out in Reliance. ) Across from the Greek Church was the Union Mercantile store and just before the drive-across bridge to #3 was the Miner's Union Hall where the miner's gathered and us little kids were treated to Xmas and Easter and such parties.

If you have time to go to the other side of the tracks (over the over pass by the WWII monument) the depot has a wondrous statue honoring the old time miners-- AND up the hill at the top is the now defunct Miners Hospital (if it is still there?) where I once looked for my daddy among the black-faced, coal-covered miners lying in cots along the halls when the accident I think you know about had so many injured.. Behind the hospital is the cemetery. I think they have someone to tell you where graves are located-- the Margaret Paterson Hodge stone is there --in a far corner-- with the Webster's and the Kellogs and the Hills (John once had the family tree the Kellogs worked up -- did it disappear with Julia??) There was a small wooden marker (maybe for sure gone now) that we thought might be Ellenor's and Nick's first born, Little Nick. (Did you know that Mom sold the R.S. grave plots after they moved to Turlock and sent it to Crete so Sofia and the Birakis family could buy the acres of grapes they wanted?)

Enough - though one day you must visit Reliance and Winton and go way up to Superior and Premier Camp --- I'll think of you tomorrow while yu are trekking about.... later much love xoxox Aunt Myrt