I would like to share with you some happy memories from my childhood in Dendron, an agricultural village in the semi-mountainous part of Corinthia, some 140 kilometers west of Athens. Dendron is a tiny picturesque village, not even printed on some Greek maps, where thirty-five families lived in the years during and after the Second World War. Our family was the largest one, as my parents were blessed with five children, myself being the second in the row. Our father was ever so proud of us, while he earned the envy of the co-villagers who had one or two children! Despite our poverty, our parents – peace be unto them – tried hard to do their best for us. I am ever so grateful for such honest and loving parents, who imparted to us great values and principles that have stayed with us to this day. My father’s name was Charalambos, meaning ‘shining with joy’, and my mother’s was Eirini, meaning ‘peace’. Oh, I adored my parents, and tried always to please them.
Let me now briefly describe the village where I had spent the first twelve years of my life. Dendron means ‘tree’ and is derived from a centuries-old oak (valanidia), the huge branches of which used to cover the whole area of the village cemetery. That tree is no longer there. Its last huge horizontal branch, unable to sustain its enormous self-weight, was torn apart from the main trunk about twenty-five years ago. The noise it caused when falling on the ground or, rather, the graves, terrified the villagers, who thought that some huge bomb had exploded in the area...
