Editor’s Note: The Customs We Keep
Posted on November 1, 2014 by bob in EdNote
The holiday countdown has begun, but I’m way ahead of schedule. My mind’s been filled with thoughts of family, festivities and traditions for weeks.
Why? A cousin’s upcoming wedding that’s got big, fat and Greek written all over it. Opa! I can hardly wait. The preparations in Atlanta have been going on for months. For my part, I baked trays of Greek biscotti to share with my first cousins in honor of their daughter’s marriage. As I baked, my thoughts drifted back to a time, 35 years ago, when the bride’s grandmother (my aunt) and my mother endured a weeklong marathon of cooking savory cheese pies and honey-sweetened pastries to serve guests attending my wedding.
As a young girl my friends and I lived for these giant parties that brought friends and relatives from across the country together to whoop it up and appropriately honor the bride, groom and their families. We’d dance the night away to live bouzouki music that replicated tunes we’d all listened to at home. (While my mom played Fats Domino on our hi-fi, dad was loading up Aegean Dance Party. Can you say musical schizophrenia? It was nothing if not lively.)
Years have passed and subsequent generations have come of age. Bouzouki music is no longer the dominant format played at most Greek wedding receptions, although time is still reserved for the circle dance. A floor full of people anxious to participate in the storied hora is strong testament to a tradition that is still enjoyed.
When my dad left Greece in 1934, he brought with him the old country traditions he’d been raised with. There were the fun ones, like the weddings, but also more serious notions like the ones expecting young boys to take on adult responsibilities at an early age, or those requiring girls to unquestioningly accept the role of quiet, stay-at-home wives. As Pop quickly learned, transposing those island values to his own nuclear family in post-WWII America was anything but easy.
Add to that the fact that my siblings and I were not an acquiescent brood. We were far more interested in the values of our birthplace, America, than Dad’s old-time ideas, which, to us, seemed as ancient as the Parthenon.
Like the live Greek bands at a wedding, some of the traditions Dad (and Mom) tried so hard to instill have faded away, victims of practicality and modernity. But the ones that mattered — honesty, hard work, love and respect for family – took solid root.
Holding our two-month-old grandson in my arms earlier this week, I wondered what values and customs he and his big sister will cling to, and which they’ll simply toss away as symbols of a time long gone-by. My bet is the ones that mattered to us, and subsequently to their parents, will persevere
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, surrounded by the people and traditions that matter most to you.
Sandra Polizos, Editor
