Our trip to Athens started in Bari as a jumping off point from Italy to Greece. We crossed the Ionian Sea by boat.

I don’t remember Bari very well because I never really saw it. We were just passing through. The train brought us there, and we waited for the ferry.

A funny thing about memory is that it can mix things up. I seem to remember asking the ferry boat captain for a recommendation for a good place to eat in Bari. He told us where he usually eats, and led us there. It was a little place on the street along the harbor.

But that can’t be right. We were going to Greece, not coming from it. So how could we know the ferry boat captain unless we knew him going the other way? I try to curate my memory, but I give up.

I think that travel is like messages in the brain. The stops along the way are like ganglia. Bari was a ganglia, a synoptic relay station between neurons, and the peripheral nervous system, trains in Italy, the boat across the Ionian Sea, carry nerve signals, me, to and from the central nervous system which, I guess, must be Athens, waiting for the message to arrive.

I don’t want to press the metaphor, because like all metaphors, it breaks down when pressed too far.

Suffice it to say that we had a nice lunch in Bari, never saw the rest of the town, and took the boat to Greece.

I look at the map and say, “No wonder it took so long.” I have fleeting memories of the crossing, at night. I seem to remember that we could have booked a cabin for sleeping. That would cost extra. We were young enough to be able to stay up late, to walk around the deck, to visit the commissary where food was laid out for the taking, an arrangement for which I heartily approved since there seemed to be no limit on how many times you could go back for more, and there were deck chairs everywhere with pillows and blankets so we could sleep as needed half sitting up. So we did.

There was mostly not a lot to see, you know, night. We passed some islands in the dark, stopped at a few, like Kefallonia, to let people on and off, like a train that stops at little stations for locals.

We saw a congregation of lights through the darkness, advancing, getting closer, larger, then moving shadows as some few passengers disembarked to go home on their island, and we thought yes, people do live on islands, and then the ferry backed away and continued through the dark toward Greece.

I remember the waking morning, approaching the Greek coast, and we, like Odysseus along the same route, were greeted and accompanied by dolphins shepherding us, leaping in graceful arcs on both sides of the boat, probably hoping for scraps I had left from the buffet as garbage was dumped overboard, but to us, the dolphins were messengers, harbingers, greeting us, leading the way into the harbor. We felt epic as we rode the ferry into Patras.

And then the harbor, Patras, the great shipping port of Greece which made us think of Onassis and tragic Maria Callas and the usurping Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and shipping magnates who show that greed knows no boundaries, and a smallish country of only former consequence can nonetheless harbor a billionaire.

And we never saw Patras either, because we got right on the train for Athens.

The trains in Greece run on narrower tracks, so the trains from Europe do a lot of stopping at the border, getting off and getting on, transfers, documents, all that. We bypassed all that, got right on the narrow gauge, and headed east.

The train was crowded. Overcrowded. It was summer. School was out. Greece is a destination. Tourists from around the world know this. They congregate like gulls flocking or sharks following blood, and cram their backpacks into the smaller passenger cars. The aisles are jampacked. There’s nowhere to sit, you sit in the aisle on your luggage. Or stand, if there’s room. Bodies press into the mass. Impatient teenagers, or young early twenties, said, “Forget this!” opened the windows, threw their backpacks out and followed them from the slow-moving train, going on foot to Athens and arriving ahead of the train.

The train stopped it seemed every few feet but it was actually miles, every little justification for locals to get off going home, or adding new recruits toughing it out to Athens.

Then arrival. A station again, big, and tourist windows who would tell you where to go, literally. We had our guidebooks, picked up local maps for routes and bus stops, and made our way to Aunt Mary’s street, got off at the corner, and dragged our luggage two doors up to the multi-story apartment house where Aunt Mary lived, and which she owned.

Aunt Mary was Shirley’s step-father’s older sister and had been born in Greece. She came with the family to America where Jimmy, Shirley’s step-dad, was born, and later, his younger brother Mark, bestowing American citizenship on both by birth.

Mary looked after her younger siblings, mothering, and when the father remained in America to make money, she returned with the rest of the family to Greece. I don’t know what happened to the birth mother, I suppose I could find someone to ask, but Mary raised the boys to young manhood, through the German invasion and occupation when they both fought with the resistance, then after the War the boys came to America to make their way.

Aunt Mary stayed in Greece and never came back to America, because she was afraid of flying and/or the long ocean voyage. So we never met her before. We loved her at a distance through stories and the occasional letter we were allowed to share.

We were going to meet her at last, the Big Main Reason for our Europe trip, and she opened the door and there she was. Short, plump, smiling, like a little doll with joyous open arms. We rushed to each other and hugged without stopping.

She had a room prepared for us in her apartment, and we settled in. She fed us, pampered us. We immediately filled a lonely corner of her life, and she found ways to entertain us and keep us there. There was no division of “step-relative.” We were family. And because we brought joy with us, that’s just the way we are, love filled all the rooms of the house.

Aunt Mary owned the whole building, all four or five stories of it, and the neighbors were long term tenants, she was the land-lady, but none of them thought beyond friends, even when they paid the rent. The rent was enough to provide her a life, and Aunt Mary deserved it as that native branch of the family made its way up the ladder.

It hadn’t been easy for Aunt Mary. She was old now, had emphysema, difficulty breathing, used oxygen as needed from a heavy cylinder she dragged around. Her life was a history of overcoming. She early on became an unwed mother, raised her bastard son in a disapproving neighborhood. But she was like a saint, endured the pain, kept her nature cheerful, her heart generous, and neighbors calmed down to grudging, to acquiescence, then acceptance. She was that irresistible force against which no objects are immovable.

And, of course, she owned the property.

I was given a little job. I was to water the plants of the upstairs tenant who was away on vacation. The plants were in strategic pots arranged around the upstairs terrace, and there was a coiled hose and a bucket. I watered what I was sure must be enough. I think I may have overtightened the faucet, but I decided not to say anything about it. I’m not courageous.

Aunt Mary got us playing canasta. She loved the game and was thrilled to have competition. I was a pretty good player, and gave her a run for her money. Shirley was less accomplished, her interest less sustained, it just “wasn’t her game” and victory against her was less satisfying. Aunt Mary took her to task. “Bah! You play like you don’t want to win!”

I liked singing to Aunt Mary. We had a record at home of “Brigadoon” and I knew some of the songs well enough. I liked the emotional and beautiful “Come to me, bend to me,” but she preferred the story song “Go home with Bonnie Jean” with the lines, “Hello to married men I’ve known, I’ll soon have a wife and leave yours alone.” I think it struck a chord with her own life, but I didn’t ask.

Aunt Mary wanted to keep us at home, but she also wanted us to get out and see her city. We had our maps and guides, and she supplemented them.

Athens is a big city of concrete, too few trees, and the summer sun keeps you inside in the middle of the day. Aunt Mary warned us. She said, “Everyone sleeps now. The streets are empty. The shops are closed. Lie down now, take a nap. I’ll wake you later.”

Her English, by the way, was so good it was virtually perfect. She had taught English in Greece for a living, and was proud of her mastery. No need for translation.

Shirley and I didn’t believe her warning about the heat and the consequent mid-day siesta. We snuck out into Athens in the middle of the day. There was no one anywhere. The streets were empty. The shops were closed. Not even tourists ventured out to brave the heat. The city was shuttered and abandoned.

We found an open-air restaurant, sat under an awning, noticed a couple of staff people hovering inside, waiting out the afternoon. They were aware of us but paid no attention, didn’t speak, didn’t come over. We had violated the sanctity of their afternoon.

We slunk back through the empty streets of the deserted city, crawled into bed and took our nap.

Of course at the right times, Athens is a great city. We rambled and verified the fact.

We roamed the ruins of ancient Athens where the pride of civilization’s birth is preserved. Broken columns, paved walkways, the memory of empire, actual weeds growing through the pavement somehow without apparent water, and cats. The famous cats of Athens. Everywhere, especially in the ruins of the agora, the ancient marketplace where broken marble kept the memory of history, and the cats, everywhere, all colors, owned the land, approached only if they thought we might bring something worth investigation, an offering, and then when not, they turned their backs and strolled away, always in control because it was their city, cat city, and if we brought them nothing and didn’t play their game, we were merely interlopers and were dismissed.

Our imaginations reconstructed the agora, and we saw rise from the ground the stalls of merchants offering their goods and wares and food for dinner, the marketplace thronged with Athenians, and we were there among them, buying and bartering, living history.

That’s what travel is for, to go places and live another life, as many lives as you can manage.

We went to the Capitol and saw the changing of the guard. Tradition is everywhere, and tourists line up to crowd and see the tall young muscular specimens of Greek manhood, evzones, flaunt their funny costumes, their crazy little poufy pants, the big ball of fluff on the end of the poised foot, the measured steps of the raised held leg, lowered, one step, the other leg raised and held, crossing back and forth, guarding the entrance. They were dressed traditionally silly, but they didn’t look silly. They looked strong, assured, dangerous, even fierce. And they carried guns that said, “Don’t mess with us.”

We heard we have a cousin who is an evzone, a member of the Capitol Guard. We looked closely, but since we’ve never met or seen him, we just couldn’t tell. Still, it’s a mark of family honor. Maybe someday, when he’s off duty…

We wanted to take advantage of what Athens has to offer, and went to the Acropolis. A tour led us up, but it was partly closed for repairs. We saw everything we could. We loved as much of the Parthenon as we could get close to, those amazing columns! What a temple! And the Theater of Dionysus where they still give performances and the audience sits on stone and arcs around the stage. They really filled that hilltop.

We booked an evening son et Lumiere where we could watch from a nearby rise, the projected light, images and sound, giving the history and importance, bringing as nearly as possible the past to life. We had seen a similar such presentation in Paris, but that was all Napoleon, and this was better. We were sitting among tourists and felt just a little smugly superior that we knew more than they did.

If you haven’t seen one of those performances, you should. I recommend it. There’s a special disconcerting effect, looking through the images projected in the air, and seeing behind them the Great Temple of Athena illuminated by floodlights, columns glowing. It was more than three dimensions. The Temple with its past, the floating projection, and, with the miracle of time to allow several existences at once, us, in the present, sitting on the hill, part of it all.

Travel frees the mind. So of course I thought back to those former days when I taught fifth grade at Longfellow School in Pasadena and, because the curriculum allowed it, I would tell the stories of ancient Greece. The students would write them down, a composition exercise, and illustrate them, as curriculum included art.

I invented a way to construct a Greek temple out of paper, and we cut and pasted and taped the steps and columns and cornices and lintels and roof, and proudly displayed them at Open House, with the hand-written booklet of the illustrated myths, and the parents said, “Ooh!” and “Ahh!” and the children said, “Yes!”

Decades later, they still come up to me and say, “Remember when we made Greek temples and you told us the stories? And I wanted to hear more because it was so exciting and then I read about it in books. Remember?”

And I would say, “I remember.”

So, remembering again, because we were actually there in Athens, the Greek Capitol City where it all happened and took place, looking at the temple, that Parthenon we only got close to but couldn’t go in because it was closed for repairs, of course I thought of the Origin Story of the Name.

The Greeks were always smart and clever people and that became their trademark. They liked to say they invented everything.

They thought a lot, and invented mathematics, and philosophy, and and and. Other people had their own Origin Stories, but the Greeks got so good at telling theirs, became Dominant, and don’t you forget it!

So they invented and constructed and built a city and a beautiful temple at the top of it. They used geometry to get it just right, even to this very day.

They looked at what they had done and said, “We need a God. Our own special God to be our Patron God and rule over our magnificent city that we built ourselves with our clever Greek hands. Let’s have a competition.”

So the word went out. “Splendid City needs Patron God.” Everybody came from miles around, Gods, demi-Gods, Titans, young and old. They all wanted to be The One. If there had been TV in those days, they would have made a competition series that have become so popular these days, like “God’s Got Talent,” or “Choose Me.”

The Greeks were the judges.

The Greeks were so smart, as they keep telling us, they knew they had gone through stages of civilization, from “God creates man,” to “Man creates God,” and then trying to juggle both and hope they made the right choice.

The competition narrowed down to two: Poseidon and Athena.

Poseidon stood up powerful and proud, raised his mighty Trident, and struck the ground. He split the rock, and water rushed forth.

The Greeks cheered. “Wow! Our own spring! We always need water, the rocks are so dry…”

Then they tasted the water. Salty, of course! Poseidon was God of the Sea and sea water is, you know, salty.

They said, “Thanks a lot, but not so much. Next!”

Athena stepped forward and handed them a stick.

They said, “What’s this?!

She said, “It’s a stick.”

They said, “What do we do with it?”

She said, “Stick it.”

They said, “Where?”

She said, “In the ground.”

They did. The stick grew and grew and was an olive tree.

They said, “Now what?”

She taught them. “The tree is wood. You can cut it down and make things. Like weapons and cooking utensils and chariots. You can cut it into logs and make houses you can live in. And walls and palisades and sharpen the end. You can cut the branches into bows and arrows. You can cut it up and dry it out and make fire. Remember fire? You can cook with fire, and get warm when you’re cold, and it makes light so you can see when it’s dark, and you can smelt metal and have a whole age of bronze. And the tree has leaves that make shade, because, you know, it gets pretty hot here, and then the leaves fall down and you can feed them to animals so you can fatten them up and eat them, delicious, especially when cooked over the aforementioned fire, and stuck on a stick like souvlaki that some people will come to call shish ka bob.

“But wait, there’s more! Look how those little roundy things grow up like fruit. You can call them olives because it’s an olive tree. The roundy things get bigger and go black and fall off the tree onto the ground and you can pick them up and gather them and put them in a barrel you make from the tree wood, and soak them in brine, thank you Poseidon for the salt water, Gods actually can collaborate, and you soak the bitterness out of them like a disease you can cure, and when you’ve cured the olives, you can actually finally eat them. You can make them in different flavors, depending. They’re really good. Try some. And they’re food, and they’re filling and you can carry them around and even dry them up a little so they’ll last on journeys. What a deal!

“But wait, there’s more!

“Look at this! You can squeeze them, and oil comes out. Try it. Pretty good, huh? You can use the oil for lamps so you don’t have to burn up all your wood, and you can see in the dark, and then there won’t be any dark. And when you press them for oil, that first pressing is the best, and you can charge more for it. You can call it virgin olive oil, virgin like me because I never, in a long line of virgins like the Virgin Mary and, way later, the Virgin Queen who never either.

“But wait, there’s more! After you mashed out the oil, you can take the mash and feed it to animals and fatten them up, like pigs, and eat them, after you cook them maybe in olive oil which is also good on salads. Ever had a pork chop? I’ll teach you how to cook them right. You’ll love them.”

And the Greeks said, “Double wow! We’ll make olives our national tree first thing! They do just about everything! You win! You’re our Goddess! Athena! Our Patron! We’ll name our city after you. We’re all Athenians now. We already have your temple built. See? There it is. Now we’ll make a big statue of you so you can stick around and look over us. We already know you’re smart. You’re the Goddess of Smart. Of course you are, because you got born right out of your daddy Zeus’ head, don’t ask me how that works, but you also look fierce, so we’ll give you a spear and a helmet and shield as our Warrior Goddess so people will know not to mess with you or us, you really mean business. And we’ll make your statue out of gold so we can have a Golden Age. How’s that sound?”

And she said, “Sounds fine.”

And she said, “Anything else I can do for you?”

And the Greeks said, “World peace.”

And she said, “I’m workin’ on it.”

So I sat on the hill with Shirley, looking across at the Greek Temple, and I remembered the famous old joke about the shipwrecked sailor downing in the gulf below, raising his arms to Athena, crying, “Help me, Athena, or I drown!”

And the great statue in the temple on the hill turned her head, looked down with her flashing eyes, and said, “Move your arms.”

So we walked across Athena’s city. We strolled through the rich district they told us about, like Beverly Hills or Bel Air back home , and we saw inequality manifest. It was like driving along Huntington Drive through East L.A., and the instant you cross the border into South Pasadena, suddenly everything is better. The houses are bigger, the street itself is broader with a planted divider and trees everywhere and green wasn’t just money. It was like that.

And we passed the track and stadium like where the Olympics were born.

And Plaka, the famous street one over from the Acropolis, where the agora was reborn and shops and stalls line the streets, people walking up and down looking and buying. Shirley especially liked the matya. Those are little ceramic eyes, white with a blue iris and a black pupil that looks at you, the basis of much jewelry, necklaces, bracelets, finger rings, earrings, lapel pins, or just something to carry in your pocket because they are like evil eyes with the power to ward off the evil eye, so they’re protection devices if you choose to interpret them as such. They were jewelry that came with a warning, “Watch out! Don’t mess with the wearer!” Shirley bought a lot of them to give as gifts to friends, and wore her share.

We were walking through the Plaka where gypsies roamed, accosting tourists and attempting to sell them anything for money. Shirley was dressed like California, wearing barefoot sandals almost like flip flops, and a gypsy woman rushed up to her trying to sell, following her, becoming a nuisance, and Shirley turned to face her, the gypsy’s eyes went wide, saw her jewelry eyes, and ran away.

In a little shop nearby, the young woman proprietor was laughing and said, “You really scared her!”

Shirley got reactions a lot, so often making an impression, and not just because she was gorgeous. She dressed Californian, and people would say admiringly, “A real California lady!”

Everybody in Europe knew California. It gave us instant cred. When Europeans would ask, “Where are you from?” we didn’t say, “The U.S.” or “America,” which could trigger a negative reaction because, you know, in those days, world domination and empire. When we said, “We’re from California,” we got the instant positive response, “Oh, yes, the Promised Land, I have a cousin who went there…” and, “Hollywood!” We were instant celebrities by association.

Aunt Mary said, “You should go to the beach.”

She told us how to get ready. “Wear your swim suit under your clothes. Don’t take your wallet. You can’t trust those Greeks. Just take the money for the bus. Here’s the lunch I packed for you. Take towels. Meet the bus at the corner at exactly 8:00 a.m. sharp, it’s a special bus marked for the beach and it will bring you back at 5:00 sharp, don’t miss it. Have fun.”

So we went prepared, joined the crowd of beach goers, mostly locals who knew the routine, and rode up the coast to the beach of choice, looking at everything, and got to what felt like the family local beach. We blended in, spread our towels, swam in the warm Mediterranean, sun bathed, dozed, ate, had a great time, caught the bus exactly, coming back to our own neighborhood, and thanked Aunt Mary for knowing us so well and taking such good care of us.

Thinking back, I don’t remember what swim suit Shirley was wearing, I think white, two piece with frills, because it was Europe and we had been to France, though most of the Greek women on the Greek beach wore more modest. I think I don’t particularly vividly remember, because nothing eclipses the memory of that famous blue bathing suit, one-piece off one shoulder, that Shirley wore at the High School Senior Beach Party, after which I saw and thought of nothing else.

We had been maybe a week in Athens and had seen and done a lot, even on limited money. Then Aunt Mary said, “Pack up. We’re going to Kamari.”