Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Greek-American Gambler Wins Precious Bride Hands Down


Dad may have returned flat 
Broke to Greece in 1936 
But he was still 
An ace at bluffing: 

Whenever he finished 
Dancing at village fairs, 
He’d dig into his pockets 
And throw a handful 

Of pennies into the air. 
Everybody thought 
He was flush with cash, 
Mom’s poor parents, too. 


5 comments:

  1. Your father a card, your mother a queen,
    a priceless scene, for pennies on the dollar.

    ReplyDelete
  2. reminds me of:

    that Every time it rains it rains pennies from Heaven
    song by who? Red Nichols &The Five Pennies

    It now costs about 7 cents to make one penny
    maybe more

    even the penny has gone the way of the Penny Candy

    pretty soon even "a penny for your thoughts won't be worth a
    plug nickel

    ReplyDelete
  3. The outcome of the deception can't have been all bad.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, the rich Americans coming home to the old country. Vivid scene. Funny, too, after it being sad. Funny how one can be a king in a small way. Who cares, celebrate anyway, however you can.

    ReplyDelete
  5. As the poem states, Dad had very little cash with him when he came back in 1936 so he couldn’t return to America with his bride; they made it through the German Occupation in utter poverty together with the other destitute Greeks and it was only in 1947 when my father (a naturalized American citizen and WW1 vet) wrote a letter to President Truman, asking for a loan so he could get back to the US with his family—a loan he finally paid back sometime in the early 50s because I remember seeing some of the treasury stubs. Though my father was only a blue-collar worker, when he and Mom returned in 1959, they were well-off by Greek standards and it was then that Dad could truly celebrate by doing all the dancing he wanted, tipping the musicians handsomely in Greek drachmas. Ohpa!

    ReplyDelete

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