Καλύτερα μιας ώρας ελεύθερη ζωή παρά σαράντα χρόνια σκλαβιά και φυλακή.
It is better to have one year of freedom, than forty years of oppression and imprisonment.
In English lexicon, Hellenism and Americanism are the only two words that are both a noun and a verb and recognized by Merriam Webster to mean the principals and ideas associated with Greece and the United States of America respectively. There is no Egyptianism, Italianism, Chineseism, Canadanianism. Greek-Americans pride themselves on this- on both of these nations; one rich in history and one in opportunity. For many for us, we cannot mention one without the other. Although Greece is home in the heart to many, the States are truly what gave them freedom to believe so. Xaralambos Geroulanos, or as I call him “Thio (uncle) Bobby” immigrated from Kondogenada, Greece to New York by chance and has never regretted a day of his life. Although currently settled in Brooklyn, he shares his personal history that spans far beyond New York and why he appreciates the struggle that got him to where he is today.
A watermill by the town of Kondogenada in Kefalonia where Thio Bobby grew up.
Thio Bobby was born in Greece in 1940 into a large family of 8 brothers and sisters. He recalls “my childhood life was very very happy but extremely poor. When I say extremely poor, I did not have the necessities. Sometimes I would go to bed hungry. And the feeling of going to bed hungry is unbearable.” 1940s Greece saw the wrath of German occupation and was promptly followed by a civil war, leaving the country in distress and ruins for a great part of that centaury. Thio Bobby, however, stresses the importance of appreciation. Today, we take many things for granted. Even the fact that I can go to school with shoes on is a remarkable feat. My grandfather and his brother, Thio Bobby, walked miles of dirt road to go to a room with a teacher (“school”) with no shoes on at all. “However, everyone was happy,” says Thio Bobby, “because we did not expect too much from life. Even with the little things, or usually nothing, that we got, we found a way to cope. That was my first experience in life.”
To this day, the Hellenic government drafts every man at the age of 18 into the “Strato” or into military service for their country. Thio Bobby joined the naval academy where he became an engineer for the Marines. “I was about 18 years old and I got to travel all over the world for about 8 years. I went to many many countries in the world and I met many many people of different nationalities that spoke different languages, had different cultures, different everything. That was a very big experience.” When asked if he has any stories to share, Thio Bobby replied, “I got many stories to tell you! One that marked my life was when I helped the Cuban people to escape from Guantanamo Bay and we almost all got caught by the Cuban authorities. If I was caught by them, I would have died over there in the desert. I can give you stories from now until five days from now!” But those, of course, are for another time.
The ELLINKIO STRATO (Hellenic Soliders) after the liberation of Greece.
After having completed his servitude, Thio Bobby tried to establish business in Athens, but conditional were not optimal. Instead he met his wife, an American citizen, and got married. She asked him if he wanted to come to the United States and he agreed. Thio Bobby immigrated to the States in 1968. “I started work right away, and I worked very hard but I liked it. I enjoyed to work.” His hard work affected everyone around him, including himself and his family. “Every year was very good and very successful because as soon as I came into this country I found opportunities that opened doors for me. I was working hard and I enjoyed what I was doing so I found a lot of support. I got tremendous amounts of support from the American people. I did not speak the language well and they tried to help me and they did and I am grateful.” His wife’s cousins were engineers and Thio Bobby was able to work for them using the skills he learned from the Marines. Eventually, he became his own boss, running his own engineering company. “They did it without asking for anything in return and that is the beauty of it.”
Thio Bobby looks back at his time in Greece with nostalgia and reminiscence. “I love the country that I was born, however it did not give me the opportunity to have a better life and this is the reason I immigrated to the United States. From the time that I came to the United States I love it. I make it my own country. I love it more. It gave me the opportunity to be who I am and unlimited possibilities for me to succeed anyway I wanted to.” However, Thio Bobby still tries in any way to preserve the Greek heritage. “Greece is a country of countries. The roots of democracy, the roots of freedom, the roots of success are from Greece. My Greek heritage is strong and I like to keep it strong and I like to help other people to highlight these ideas.”
Thio Bobby’s contribution to the Greek School of Plato.
On October 28, Greek’s celebrate “OXI” day, where we honor of the heroism exhibited by Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas in 1940 who responded in one unifying and immortal word “OXI” (“NO”) to the surrender of Greece to the mighty Axis powers. On that same day in 2013, Thio Bobby announced his unprecedented announcement to donate one million dollars to the Greek School of Plato in Brooklyn New York. He says, “I believe in these things. My grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, they might not speak the language as well as me, but they have to know Greek history, Greek heritage and the Greek way of life. I do the best I can to preserve.” The donation is being used for the construction of a state of the art Greek School and Brooklyn’s first Hellenic Cultural and Community Center at a newly purchased property.
We don’t know how lucky we are. Often, we take for granted what we have. Thio Bobby says “we don’t know what we have.” The often forget that the worries of this generation are trivial. To be able to truly appreciate what we have been given, that we don’t have to go to bed hungry, is a wonderful thing. The happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they learn to make the best of everything.
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