Atlanta Greek Festival, 1987
Atlanta Greek Festival, 1987.
That's me standing at the bottom of the picture.
The girl beside me is Katherine, and her brother Dimitri is at the top. Next to them are Perry, Toula, and Petro.
They were all cousins.
I wasn't.
At least not by blood.
The funny thing is that I didn't know the difference at the time.
Growing up in the Greek community, we were all treated like family. Their parents were my Thea and Theo—my aunts and uncles—and every kid my age felt more like a cousin than a friend.
Looking back, that's one of the things I miss most about growing up Greek style.
We weren't just part of a church.
We were part of a family.
Some of my earliest memories are from Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Atlanta. In fact, my first memory is falling asleep behind the organ during Easter services while my mother sang in the choir and Baba stood at the chant stand singing.
For more than fifty years, Baba's voice filled our church.
As a child, I never thought much about it.
It was just Baba doing his thing.
Church wasn't somewhere we went on Sundays.
Church was our life.
Our friends came from church.
We went to Greek school together.
We went to Greek camp together.
We learned Greek dancing together.
We celebrated holidays together.
And every year, all of those worlds came together at one place.
The Atlanta Greek Festival.
For most visitors, the festival lasted a weekend.
For us, it lasted all year.
The practices.
The preparations.
The dancing.
The costumes.
The friendships.
The anticipation of seeing thousands of people walk through our church grounds and experience a little piece of Greece.
This photograph captures more than a group of kids on a staircase.
It captures an entire way of life.
A time when church wasn't just where we worshipped.
It was where we grew up.
It was where lifelong friendships were formed.
It was where traditions were passed from one generation to the next.
And without realizing it, it was preparing many of us to carry those traditions forward.
Years later, those memories would inspire the creation of Baba's Bakaliko.
But that's a story for another day.
For now, I'll leave you with this photograph from 1987.
Five cousins.
One honorary cousin.
And a group of kids who had no idea they were living through some of the best days of their lives.