something more exotic came along. I say, on average, there were three to four major romances during those unending summers, with each one starting for life and for ever after, until the inevitable happened. Time seemed to go so slowly that one is now embarrassed at how little a bite at the cherry one had with all that time on one’s hands. The first girl I ever kissed was during a hot summer evening. Marina, she was 11 and I was 12. Then came Margo, Isla, and Mary. Then came September and the kissing had to stop. It's amazing how, 64 years later, I don’t only remember their names but exactly what they looked like. Mind you, they wouldn’t recognize me now and nor I them, I’m sure. Yes, as the song says, "Summertime and the livin' is easy," with those haunting Jo Stafford songs and Peggy Lee and Joni James and Edward Hopper’s masterpiece called "Summertime," of a beautiful and shy young woman with her hat shielding her from the sun standing on some steps. Those were the golden haze years after the war, when baseball was played in flannels: players flung themselves on guard rails without pads to catch a fly ball and pitchers went nine innings. There was no trash talk in professional or college football. Everyone, rich or poor, wore a suit and a hat and every man took his off when a lady entered an elevator. Taxi drivers spoke English, Brooklynese, actually, and they were either Jewish or Italian, with a few Greeks thrown in for good measure. They wore caps, were extremely polite, and most of the yellow cabs were Packards with jump seats. Fifth Avenue went both ways and Harry Truman used to walk without the company of the secret service up and down the thoroughfare early in the morning. When in New York, he lived at the Carlyle. Through the mist of time and nostalgia I now imagine summers where doors were left unlocked, children played in the streets, crime was nonexistent (at least where I lived) and people really did look out for each other. War was central in our lives. We remembered World War II only too well, and waited in vain for news from Fräulein, who had brought us up and had left as
the Greek civil war raged to return to Dresden. When the Korean War began, children would fire imaginary machine guns in the woods, and dive bomb with ear-damaging howls into the arc of heroic death. Poor kids had wooden Tommy guns and we’d laugh at them because we were grown-ups. Wartime values, however, were still very strong. Respectability, conformity, restraint, and trust were what underpinned the Fifties. Children, especially in Athens, would walk to school by themselves, even as young as eight. No one would think of bothering them. Bicycles were left against walls unchained at bus stops or at railway stations. Parents were remote figures, especially one’s father, who was either away at war or in his office. But, come summertime, things changed. My father would take us boating, play soccer with us, and once, in Greenwich, even try to
play a strange game to him (he called it “palouki," which means a large piece of wood): baseball. No respectable girl bared her breasts on the beach, except in the South of France. Even as far back as the summer of 1952, a 15-year-old could sit on the railings in Cannes and look at barebreasted women to his heart's content. At night, young prostitutes would tease one at the Croisette, asking if one had ever been with a woman or not. “Come on, I’ll show you, how much change have you got on you?” Once, I met Olga, whose mother was a Norwegian ship owner, on the Constitution returning to New York. We had six days and secret nights together, swore eternal love and planned marriage, but once I was off the boat, I never spoke to or saw her again. X For more Taki, visit takimag.com. AUGUST 2013 89