Summer Journal 2012, August 28

Today begins our last week in Greece.  Stell is doing some final touches on the Parent's Temple.  He's going to have the name inscribed in marble, and he has secured some stain glass discarded from the oldest church in the village to construct the window.  I will go to the lykee, although I am am not much of a shopper, but I need to purchase a couple of tablecloths as wedding gifts.  Tonight we are going to take Maria and her boyfriend, Timos, to dinner.  Maria is one of our niece's twin daughters.  The family seems to think this is a serious relationship and are quite proud because Timos comes from a wealthy Athens' family - so everyone seems to be doing their best to impress him.  All I know about him is that he has a brother who is a financial planner in Boston with Cambridge Associates, and he, Timos, is identified as a writer of folk songs.  My first impressions are that he's very nice, and I will learn more about him at dinner tonight.

I've finished Cully Clark's The Schoolhouse Door, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Civil Rights history.  It is an accounting of the activities and the struggles that led up to the integration of the University of Alabama.  Since I personally have strong connections to U of A, it was very meaningful to me.  Stell said this morning (he's reading The Warmth of Other Suns) that it is likely that no progress would have been made on racial integration or affirmative action if the federal government had not intervened.  I believe it.  I'd forgotten Kennedy's speech on the occasion of the integration of U of A.  It was magnificent.

Now I'm 50 pages shy of finishing Tony Judt's, "Ill Fares the Land."  It should be required reading for everyone who knows how to read.  I like this quote he includes citing Upton Sinclair:  "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."