A Photo Tribute to Two Dads and Two Grandpa's

I first posted this on Father's day in 2011, then updated it in 2015, when granddaughter Amalia was 3 1/2 and grandson Nicolas only 11 weeks old.  By then, I wrote, my husband Nick had proved himself a super Papou (Grandfather), even to changing the occasional grandchild's diaper, something he never did with his own kids.

                                                                  Nick &; Christos 1972 
When our three children were born in the 1970’s, my husband Nick was not the kind of dad who'd change diapers, take a kid to the park or coach them in sports. But as these photos suggest, he was always an important presence in their lives, ready to offer support, advice and unconditional love when they needed it.

1. 

                                                               Nick & Eleni circa 1976

This past week, President Obama launched the “Year of Strong Families” to do something about father absence, which he experienced growing up without a father.  Nick experienced it too, because, as he wrote in “A Place for Us”, he never knew his father, a short-order cook in Worcester, MA, until he and his sisters arrived in the U.S. as refugees in 1949 after their mother was executed during the Greek civil war.  Nick was nine years old.  His father, Christos, was 58.

                                                         Nick & Marina, circa  1979

My father, Robert O. Paulson, was born in 1906 and died in 1986.  Because my parents lived far away, he was not a real presence in our children’s lives, but when we visited California in 1973 I took these photos of him showing our son, Christos, his first view of the ocean, and reading to him at bedtime.

I only met my paternal grandfather, Par Paulson, once.  He was stern and completely deaf and the only way to communicate with him was by writing on a blackboard in chalk. But my step-grandfather, John Erickson, my grandmother’s second husband, had a special relationship with me during the years I lived near their small town of Monticello, Minnesota. 

 I still have a small garnet ring that once belonged to his mother. I remember vividly how he taught me to shoot his rifle across the wide Mississippi river, and in the spring, when it was time to get new baby chicks for the chicken yard, he would take me down to the hatchery, pull open drawers of chirping chicks and let me pick out the ones I liked.

                                                                                                   Ida & John Erickson circa1952

 In the current "People" magazine President Obama wrote, “I grew up without a father around. I have certain memories of him taking me to my first jazz concert and giving me my first basketball as a Christmas present, But he left when I was two years old.”

 As he knows, even a one-time memory—choosing chicks at a hatchery, showing a grandson the ocean, reading a bedtime story or unwrapping a first basketball can be a gift that a child will cherish for a lifetime.

Now that we're celebrating Father's Day 2019, I have to add  one more Dad to my tribute:  Emilio Baltodano, the father of our grandkids Amalia, now 7 and Nico, 4.  Emilio is definitely a SuperDad, like many young fathers today.   He attends every school performance, and takes his kids somewhere virtually every weekend--fishing in Central Park at the Harlem Meer, the Brooklyn Zoo, Governor's Island, the Natural History Museum, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  Of course every SuperDad has a SuperMom beside him, and the photo above shows Emilio and Amalia at the Father's Day Brunch Eleni put together today to honor  Emilio and her dad, Nick Gage, complete with goat cheese and zucchini frittata, lox, bagels and cream cheese, mimosas, and her famous Strawberry Cake. Papou Nick loved it!

Photo Tribute to a Dad and two Grandpa’s

I posted this for father's day four years ago, but now, while traveling in Greece with daughter Eleni, her husband Emilio and our two beautiful grandchildren--Amalia 3 1/2 and Nicolas, only 11 weeks old, my husband Nick Gage has proved himself a super Papou (grandfather.) Although he still doesn't change diapers.  But he's great at telling stories to Amalia until she falls asleep.

                                                                  Nick & Christos 1972

When our three children were born in the 1970’s, my husband Nick was not the kind of dad who'd change diapers, take a kid to the park or coach them in sports. But as these photos  suggest, he was always an important presence in their lives, ready to offer support, advice and unconditional love when they needed it.

                                                               Nick & Eleni circa 1976

This past week, President Obama launched the “Year of Strong Families” to do something about father absence, which he experienced growing up without a father.  Nick experienced it too, because, as he wrote in “A Place for Us”, he never knew his father, a short-order cook in Worcester, MA, until he and his sisters arrived in the U.S. as refugees in 1949 after their mother was executed during the Greek civil war.  Nick was nine years old.  His father, Christos, was 58.

                                                         Nick & Marina, circa  1979

My father, Robert O. Paulson, was born in 1906 and died in 1986.  Because my parents lived far away, he was not a real presence in our children’s lives, but when we visited California in 1973 I took these photos of him showing our son, Christos, his first view of the ocean, and reading to him at bedtime.

I only met my paternal grandfather, Par Paulson, once.  He was stern and completely deaf and the only way to communicate with him was by writing on a blackboard in chalk. But my step-grandfather, John Erickson, my grandmother’s second husband, had a special relationship with me during the years I lived near their small town of Monticello, Minnesota. 

 I still have a small garnet ring that once belonged to his mother. I remember vividly how he taught me to shoot his rifle across the wide Mississippi river, and in the spring, when it was time to get new baby chicks for the chicken yard, he would take me down to the hatchery, pull open drawers of chirping chicks and let me pick out the ones I liked.

                                                              Ida & John Erickson circa1952

 In the current "People" magazine President Obama wrote, “I grew up without a father around. I have certain memories of him taking me to my first jazz concert and giving me my first basketball as a Christmas present, But he left when I was two years old.”

 As he knows, even a one-time memory—choosing chicks at a hatchery, showing a grandson the ocean, reading a bedtime story or unwrapping a first basketball can be a gift that a child will cherish for a lifetime.

Photo Tribute to a Dad and two Grandpa’s

(I posted this last year on Father's Day and got such good comments that I thought I'd post it again, with the addition of a brand new father who has proved over the last nine months to be a world-class Daddy.) 

                                                                  Nick & Christos 1972

When our three children were born in the 1970’s, my husband Nick was not the kind of dad who'd change diapers, take a kid to the park or coach them in sports. But as these photos  suggest, he was always an important presence in their lives, ready to offer support, advice and unconditional love when they needed it.

                                                               Nick & Eleni circa 1976

This past week, President Obama launched the “Year of Strong Families” to do something about father absence, which he experienced growing up without a father.  Nick experienced it too, because, as he wrote in “A Place for Us”, he never knew his father, a short-order cook in Worcester, MA, until he and his sisters arrived in the U.S. as refugees in 1949 after their mother was executed during the Greek civil war.  Nick was nine years old.  His father, Christos, was 58.

                                                         Nick & Marina, circa  1979

My father, Robert O. Paulson, was born in 1906 and died in 1986.  Because my parents lived far away, he was not a real presence in our children’s lives, but when we visited California in 1973 I took these photos of him showing our son, Christos, his first view of the ocean, and reading to him at bedtime.

I only met my paternal grandfather, Par Paulson, once.  He was stern and completely deaf and the only way to communicate with him was by writing on a blackboard in chalk. But my step-grandfather, John Erickson, my grandmother’s second husband, had a special relationship with me during the years I lived near their small town of Monticello, Minnesota. 

 I still have a small garnet ring that once belonged to his mother. I remember vividly how he taught me to shoot his rifle across the wide Mississippi river, and in the spring, when it was time to get new baby chicks for the chicken yard, he would take me down to the hatchery, pull open drawers of chirping chicks and let me pick out the ones I liked.

                                                              Ida & John Erickson circa1952

 In the current "People" magazine President Obama wrote, “I grew up without a father around. I have certain memories of him taking me to my first jazz concert and giving me my first basketball as a Christmas present, But he left when I was two years old.”

 As he knows, even a one-time memory—choosing chicks at a hatchery, showing a grandson the ocean, reading a bedtime story or unwrapping a first basketball can be a gift that a child will cherish for a lifetime.

And here's Emilio Baltodano, the Papi of our nine-month-old granddaughter Amalía.  He's a full-time dad. He changes diapers, gets up in the middle of the night, takes her to the park, and can hardly wait to teach her to wind-surf--all the things that fathers did not do back in the olden days when my generation was having babies.  And he e-mails us videos, so we can share in her milestone moments.  We're expecting her first steps any day now, since she cruises everywhere hanging on to things, like her Daddy's pants legs.

Happy Father's Day Emilio!

Photo Tribute to a Dad and two Grandpa’s

                                                                  Nick & Christos 1972

When our three children were born in the 1970’s, my husband Nick was not the kind of dad who'd change diapers, take a kid to the park or coach them in sports. But as these photos  suggest, he was always an important presence in their lives, ready to offer support, advice and unconditional love when they needed it.

                                                               Nick & Eleni circa 1976

This past week, President Obama launched the “Year of Strong Families” to do something about father absence, which he experienced growing up without a father.  Nick experienced it too, because, as he wrote in “A Place for Us”, he never knew his father, a short-order cook in Worcester, MA, until he and his sisters arrived in the U.S. as refugees in 1949 after their mother was executed during the Greek civil war.  Nick was nine years old.  His father, Christos, was 58.

                                                         Nick & Marina, circa  1979

My father, Robert O. Paulson, was born in 1906 and died in 1986.  Because my parents lived far away, he was not a real presence in our children’s lives, but when we visited California in 1973 I took these photos of him showing our son, Christos, his first view of the ocean, and reading to him at bedtime.

I only met my paternal grandfather, Par Paulson, once.  He was stern and completely deaf and the only way to communicate with him was by writing on a blackboard in chalk. But my step-grandfather, John Erickson, my grandmother’s second husband, had a special relationship with me during the years I lived near their small town of Monticello, Minnesota. 

 I still have a small garnet ring that once belonged to his mother. I remember vividly how he taught me to shoot his rifle across the wide Mississippi river, and in the spring, when it was time to get new baby chicks for the chicken yard, he would take me down to the hatchery, pull open drawers of chirping chicks and let me pick out the ones I liked.

                                                              Ida & John Erickson circa1952

 In the current "People" magazine President Obama wrote, “I grew up without a father around. I have certain memories of him taking me to my first jazz concert and giving me my first basketball as a Christmas present, But he left when I was two years old.”

 As he knows, even a one-time memory—choosing chicks at a hatchery, showing a grandson the ocean, reading a bedtime story or unwrapping a first basketball can be a gift that a child will cherish for a lifetime.

Wedding 10-10-10 Part II—Fires, Fireworks, Fancy Footwork & Food

(Because my own camera’s battery died shortly into the reception I have compiled the story below using photos generously shared by others. Please click on the photos to make them bigger.)

I just read that an estimated 40,000 other couples got married on 10/10/10, but none of them, I’m convinced, had as much fun as Eleni and Emilio, celebrating with 144 friends at the Corfu Sailing Club at the base of the Venetian Fortress on the island of Corfu, Greece.

After the two wedding ceremonies—first Catholic and then Greek Orthodox—and after a little Greek line dancing, the throwing of the decorated wedding bread, and posing for family photos with the fort in the background, everyone walked across the bridge over the moat and into the Fortress itself, treading carefully over cobblestoned paths and down uneven staircases to the waterside where luminarias lighted the way in the twilight to the Restaurant/Club bordered by small vessels tied up at anchor.


The newlyweds soon followed to a thundering rendition of “Today a Wedding is Happening “ (Semara Yamos Yeinete) as everyone rose to their feet, applauding.

The tables had been set by the restaurant staff and the florist, Rammos, with decorations featuring ripe pomegranates (collected by us from the trees in Nick’s northern Greek village of Lia) along with ivy, red berries and roses and tulips in the red-orangey colors of Eleni’s calla lily bouquet. On each plate was the menu that her sister Marina had designed and printed, incorporating the restaurant’s sailboat logo and the wedding’s double E logo (for Eleni and Emilio) also designed by Marina.


Despite her full-time job in California, Marina also managed to find people to embroider the logo in two colors of blue onto lace-edged handkerchiefs which were then filled with 11 Jordan Almonds each, tied with blue ribbons and decorated with a small silver sailboat to create the homemade boubounieres (favors) --a requisite part of a Greek wedding. (The “Big Eleni” put together nearly 400 of these favors—for the wedding and the engagement party-- with a little help from me. Now she’s thinking of going into the boubouniere business professionally.)


The florist had also put votive candles on each table, and before the evening was over, impromptu bonfires flared up at intervals as two handkerchiefs and one bread basket caught fire, adding another level of excitement to a generally riotous evening.

The newlyweds set things off with their first dance, carefully choreographed and much rehearsed, to Frankie Valli’s’s version of “You’re Just too Good to be True.” The more athletic lifts and spins, which some compared to the film “Dirty Dancing”, drew cheers from the crowd.


Then Emilio danced with his mother, Carmen, and Nick with Eleni, to the music Nick had chosen—the father-daughter duet by Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, “Unforgettable”.


The mezedakia courses began to arrive—Greek-style appetizers that followed one after another until everyone groaned at the sight of the main course—sirloin and pork medallions-- but we all tried valiantly to do it justice. The wines—four cases –were sent as a gift by Soteris Ioannou from the Averoff Winery in Metsovo, in Nick’s native province of Epiros—but after those ran out, the crowd drank another 37 bottles of the restaurant’s stock—to the amazement of Niko, the manager.

Shortly after the eating began, the much-anticipated political star of Greece—Antonis Samaras, the head of the opposition New Democracy party—arrived to a standing ovation. He pronounced a gracious toast to the newlyweds and reminisced about getting to know Eleni and our other children when they were small and he was a frequent guest at our house in Massachusetts.


(Earlier in the day, his rival George Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister, arrived to speak at our hotel and met Emilio. In a speech, the PM cited an upturn in Greek tourism, thanks to the film “Mama Mia”, and mentioned Eleni and Emilio’s wedding as an example.)

Nick spoke, Samaras spoke and the DJ ramped up the sound to a throbbing mixture of Greek popular music of the “Zorba” nature and such non-Greek hits as Taio Cruz’s “Dyn-o-mite” and “Daddy Cool.” Everyone (but me) discovered a previously unrealized gift for Greek dancing, and quite a few people over fifty and under five began to act like people in their twenties.



There was a pause for the cutting of the cake and then the staff brought out small individual cakes for everyone, each one topped—you guessed it—with the double E logo.



There were more toasts, most notably from Emilio, who praised the three important women in his life—his grandmother and his mother, Carmen, who brought him up, and now Eleni. At this point, many guests were using their embroidered handkerchiefs to dry their eyes.

Just before midnight, everyone was given a sparkler to light, filling the restaurant and the dock with fireworks as the newlyweds walked to a waiting boat— labeled “Eleni & Emilio’s Love Boat”—to sail away into the sea of matrimony.


As everyone waved good-bye, a rambunctious eleven-year-old named Andronikos jumped on board to sail away with the couple, waving regally to the crowd—after all, it was his father’s boat.


I learned the next day that most of the guests went on to an after- party at a Corfu bar, but the rest of us wended our way back through the fortress to sleep at the Corfu Palace Hotel, serene in the knowledge that the twice-wed-in-one-day Emilio and Eleni sailed into married life buoyed by the love of everyone around them and the luck of a wedding date they’ll never be able to forget—no matter how old they become.

They have even composed a mathematical formula to express it all:

“E squared plus ten cubed equals double happiness.”

Next: Wedding 10-10-10, the Prequel: Pomegranates, Preparing the Wedding Bed and the Island Populated by Rabbits, Pheasants and Menios.