WHY PHILIPPI? #7 REHASHING TRIP AT HOME IN KITCHEN

So now we are back in Memphis...have been home several days. We decided to get together again this morning to rehash our very 
short but very exciting trip to Greece. So it was so sweet sitting at the kitchen table with Dorothea and Beanie, my old friends from Humes High School. We are all 79, all widows, all treasure each others' friendships.

We drank coffee and passed around postcards and snapshots, commenting on everything we could remember connected with each one.


    

Then I told them I had some fresh news from Larry. Larry graduated from Humes with us. He never knew he was the class
nerd. But no matter. He ended up leading the most exciting life of anyone in our class of 1951 as a CIA agent.
 (I guess the overall winner has to be Elvis but he was not in our class but two years behind us.)

 But Ben and I got to know Larry very well on the Poland and Geneva pretend trips; he was a major character in both. So when we returned, I called him to see if he could find out anything about the victim in our bathroom in Kavala.  As I expected,  he called this morning to tell us he has found news he had gotten from his son who now is following in Larry's footsteps in the CIA.

The victim was a double agent who had been tracked down and eliminated by agents from another country which Larry was not allowed to disclose to us. The assassins were caught and arrested. 

Of course Greece is a fer piece from Memphis, but I feel safer now knowing the case is settled. However, it will be a long time before we can forget that dead body on the floor of our extra bathroom!

But the most important part of our coffee time was that Dorothea brought her love letter from her husband and shared it with us for the first time.
                                 
                                 
                                         June-1972

                                "My  beloved Dorothea,
                     I am having such a wonderful time with my
                     men's study group from church back home.
                    We are learning so much about Paul as we
                     study his mission trips. How I love him and
                     and his books in the Bible. Today we are in
                     Philippi. I find that I miss you so much that 
                     I am writing this as a love letter to you. I will
                     hide it behind a certain stone.  Some day soon
                     we will come here together and enjoy all the wonder
                     of this place and retrieve this love letter to my true 
                     love. You didn't think your old man had it in him.     
                     I love you more than I can ever say and will forever. 
                                   Always your Gleekamoo!"
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As you know already, Blog Friends, her husband died that very day from a heart attack in Philippi. Dorothea received a postcard from him  a week later, telling her he had hidden a love letter. He put an x on this postcard where it was. (x not seen)

But it had been collected and stored at the museum in one of many boxes of things gathered by the grounds keepers. 

How marvelous the three of us feel...that we FOUND IT in one of those boxes just hours before we flew home. !!!
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It was such an honor that Dorothea shared this with Beanie and me.
Now we share it with you. What could be more important than to be loved and to love.

So ends the final entry on WHY PHILIPPI?

Ο Θεός να σας ευλογεί σας

O Theós na sas ev̱logeí sas     God bless you!

With love from Beanie, Dorothea, and annie

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HANGING OUT WITH DON QUIXOTE MOVING EVER SO SLOWLY!

 

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) is the greatest novelist of the Spanish language. His masterpiece, "Don Quixote," is one of the most important and influential books in the history of the novel.

           
Yesterday I went to the library to see if I could find a copy of Don Quixote with a little larger print than the one I have at 
home. 

A young woman asked if she could help me. I told her about my mission to read the half million words of this book my husband had taught in college. 

 She asked where. I answered University of Memphis. She asked his name. I told her, Dr. William B. Brewer.  She said she had majored in Spanish and he was her teacher and she loved him. She was so happy I brought back a sweet memory for her. We had (what I frequently have) a sweet for the moment bonding!!! That was surely a blessing moment for me.

I love pretending I am invisibly traveling with Don Quixote. His exploits make perfect sense to me, because I am on the weird side myself.

I would say my own "pretend" trips helped to prepare me for this adventure, but actually pretending for fun started back in my childhood. Plike!! (Play like!) was the most fun of anything my friends and I did. We would act out the most complicated stories, making them up as we went along.

It pleases me to know that, although Cervantes was a late bloomer (around 50 before he had a success in writing) this work was enormously popular. Everyone wanted to read it!!

Maybe more, maybe not. Maybe you should just read the book for yourself. It will surprise you to see how this book written in the early l7th century delights you. (1605 and 1615!!) 
Love, annie in memphis

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HANGING OUT WITH DON QUIXOTE

                                        
With much excitement I am beginning a new project. 

I am reading DON QUIXOTE!!! Every word.


 I had always thought it would be so intellectual and dry; I find this parody is quite wonderful. And it is easy to see why it is considered a masterpiece and has sold more copies than any book next to the Bible!

Here is why I decided to do this: Beanie "made me do it!"

If you read my pretend trip to Barrow, Alaska, 

     (on annieinmemphis.blogspot.com,)

you met the friend I made up but came to love: Beanie. 

     I put her in three pretend trips:
     Barrow, Alaska, Treasure Hunt
    (Argentina) and most recently 
     Why Philipi?

Anyway she sort of took on a life of her own.

I remember standing by her looking at the Arctic Ocean. She was speaking to the memory of her late husband, Tom.

"Well, I'm here Tom, seeing this wonderful sight you always wished I would come with you to see. Now I'm here and its for you, Tom."

Perhaps somewhere in my subconscious, I put those words in her mouth...because 7 mos later I too, would become a widow like Beanie.

Ben taught Spanish Medieval Literature among other things. DON QUIXOTE was a work he especially loved to teach. I had only read excerpts, but I put off reading the whole work.

Add caption

I thought the only copy in our home was the large book in Spanish. This week I found  one in English. And in it I found notes in pencil suggesting paintings Ben planned to do (and did) from that story. 

So I am reading it now...and like Beanie..doing this tribute with pleasure.

When I can, I will post the paintings Ben did of scenes from Don Quixote. 


I will be on the blog and face book less for the time being, while I am hanging with Don Quixote!!
More later, with love, annie in memphis
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WHY PHILIPPI? #4 ARRIVING IN KAVALA

We  are actually here at this hotel!! 
The 20 hours in flight weren't horrible at all. 
Poor Dorothea.
Beanie told her every detail about out treasure hunt to Argentina. Dorothea was also friends with Carmine. And she and her then boyfriend, Paul, even met Mario...the treasure we found in Presario, Argentina.(You can find that trip in annieinmemphis.blogspot.com. ) When they met  Mario, he was a sailor stationed in Memphis.  I do admit Beanie is a good talker and she kept us entertained...and then of course we slept some too.
When we landed in Athens to change planes for the short trip to Kavala...we were overwhelmed by its beauty.

We caught a cab from airport to our hotel about nine miles away. Here is the lobby where we signed in and were required to leave passports.

 Much of the hotel is carved of ancient stone on the highest hill in Krinedes, where Alexander the Great rode his horse.

 

If you look on the right, second floor. You will see rooms with balconies. The second balcony from the end is our large room which we will share. We could have gotten separate rooms but wanted to stay close to each other. We have another adjoining room which we will use for our stuff!!

 

We ate dinner in the dining room of the hotel. The view below is magnificent. We plan to eat all our meals here and not waste time looking for restaurants.
Now we are back in our large room. are looking forward to good sleep.  
This is the other room we will use for our stuff!!

So today we arrived, toured the hotel and ate..It is night now.
Going to bed early ...Tomorrow we will tour Philippi. And we are so excited about it!! I doubt that love letter can be found, but...hoping.....!!
As we know more, we'll tell you more.
Love, Beanie, Dorothea and annie
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WHY PHILIPPI? #3 LEAVING MEMPHIS TO BEGIN 20 HR FLIGHT

So Monday has arrived....still in Memphis... A limo will take us to the airport for our first touch of luxury. 


We will leave this afternoon and arrive at our destination in around 20 hours.

The next time I write, we will be in Macedonia, Greece.
As I know more, I will tell you more.
love, annie in memphis
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WHY PHILIPPI? # 2 MAKING PLANS OVER COFFEE

This morning Beanie and Dorothea arrived to make our plans over coffee. Whenever Beanie comes into my kitchen now, she catches her breath a second as she sees Ben's empty chair.
But the three of us girls (we feel like girls) excitedly began making plans.
facsimile of Beanie in yellow blouse and Dorothea in pink.

"Where are your parents from, Dorothea?" She answered they came to the U S from Athens. But they loved America so much they never went back even to visit.

Beanie said, "You know, Annie, Dorothea knows a lot of modern Greek. The pastor at her church taught classes at the church as well as at Memphis State."  

No, I did not know that. But it was wonderful to hear because having one of us speaking the language would help so much. I studied classical Greek in college, but don't know anything now except the alphabet.

I would not have recognized Dorothea. We had not seen each other since our graduation night and senior dance in 1951. She is still pretty and so is Beanie. We enjoyed being together.
I wondered if anybody had a good idea where to stay in Kavala. 

Dorothea said her husband and the other men stayed in a dorm like place, but she has no idea of the address. No matter, we will stay at the very best, most expensive hotel in Kavala.

We found Hotel Philippeio on line; it looked like just the right place.
I slept so many nights on a Greyhound bus on my real trips in the US; but old people do better in luxury. And we can afford it!!

Then Dorothea showed us the card.

She said to look at the thick tall column on the left of the postcard.Now look at the bottom. There is one long stone and a loose stone on the right of it. There is an x (not shown here) on it.  She thinks the love letter is in a plastic sack under the loose stone???

Beanie and I just looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Thirty years? Not likely we thought to ourselves. Still this adventure is so important not only to Dorothea but to Beanie and me too.

Last night I started rereading in Acts about Paul in Philippi...I will forever find the things that happened there exciting...and can hardly wait to be there.

I have already bought the flight tickets and made reservations to leave Monday.(9/23)

We will tell you more as we know more.
love, annie in memphis
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Choir in Kavala

old7lady9blogger80@gmail.com

If only I could hear Ben's sweet voice reading this before I publish it on the blog.

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WHY PHILIPPI? A PRETEND TRIP I NEVER PLANNED ON TAKING

 I just now put down the phone; now I am sitting here quietly for a moment, trying to take in what has happened. Somehow I let myself be talked into another pretend trip. I had spread the word among my friends that I wouldn't be making any more. But I just had a request that touched my heart...and without thinking it through, I said YES!!

You remember my friend Beanie. I did a rescue mission to Alaska to help her. Also, she went with our friend, Carmine, and me to Argentina to look for a lost treasure. (These trips can be found on annieinmemphis.blogspot.com)Now Beanie has been  back in Memphis for a month and is now requesting that we make another trip...to the ancient city of Philippi.

Beanie, Carmine and I were classmates at Humes High School. 
 

Beanie reminded me of another one  of  our friends there, Dorothea Costas, whose parents were from Greece. We  were not such close friends, mostly because she went home for lunch every day.  Their house was right across the street from the school. Don't know why I remember this, but Dorothea means "gift of God," which I always thought was such a neat name,

Well, like Beanie and me, Dorothea  is approaching 80 years old and wants to go to Philippi while her health is still good enough to try it.          
 

Beanie has already told Dorothea that I have unlimited funds which can only be used for travel, (monopoly money) and I will  pay everyone's way. Although all of us are widows, we should be able to do this because we will not tackle a long, arduous trip...but a short one only to Philippi and then home again.

But why this particular Biblical city? Beanie reminded me that Dorothea's husband had died there thirty years ago, when he was on a "Paul's Missionary Journeys" trip with a group of men from their Greek Orthodox Church. He sent Dorothea a post card from ancient Philippi. It said that he had written her a love letter and hidden it for them to retrieve when they could make a trip together there some day. The card arrived after his death from a heart attack. Dorothea thinks she can find the spot from some clues on the card. 


Who knows? But we can try and can at least let Dorothea be in the area her husband loved so much and where he died. 

The nearest airport is Kavala, Makedonia, Greece.

On my earlier trips I put all the flight information on the blog, but it took up too much space. I will simply say our route is Memphis, Atlanta, London, Athens, to Kavala. First Class. 19 hours and 50 minutes.

We will travel light, foregoing luggage for backpacks as I have done on all my pretend trips. (Alaska, Norway, Argentina,Poland and Geneva.)

Tonight we are not feeling so old; we are excited and feeling young to be doing this. I am thinking about Paul and his vision.


                               :

"Come to Macedonia and help us."

Now we are going there to help our friend who was married to another Paul...the love of her life: Paul Avgeris. Whatever the outcome, I think it will bless Dorothea and Beanie and me too!! This is a trip I never expected to make, but I am looking forward to it. Will tell you more as I know more.
Goodnight with love, from annie in memphis


Example of Greek writing from Rosetta Stone.
I am wishing my Ben could read this aloud as he did all the other pretend trips before I published them.... Miss him....
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