Hello from a back porch in the Midwest. Though I live in the suburbs, I feel at home here at Celi’s site. You see, I like to think that I grew up on a farm. One that is still productive in Northern Greece.
Well, I didn’t actually grow up there, I was 30 when I arrived. But I did grow—a lot. In awareness of nature, history, and culture. Living on a farm there, I also grew in appreciation for some important things children can learn, like watching the world . . .
It was 1970. I was engaged in a two-year project in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece.
We were renting a house on the property of The American Farm School.
Each day that I went off on the half-hour bus ride to work, my wife and our three-year-old son walked the lanes and visited other families employed there.
During those two years, I discovered a significance in poetry and myth that had escaped me in my own schooling. Among other things I learned the meaning of halcyon days. It may have been an effect of the light or the always present sea.
We could see it from our porch.
We thought we could smell it, though most days it was the fresh manure from the farm animals that had been recycled as fertilizer on the field across the lane from our house.
We all grew in appreciation of nature and of the simple life. Some mornings I would be awakened by an old tractor chugging along the lane. In winter the stone house was cold, with only slices of sun breaking through the wood shutters. I had to fill the oil stove in the upstairs hall, light the wick, check the black stove pipe for leaks. Soon we could huddle in the hall, dressing, our four-year old son eager to get outside where the action was.
No matter the season or weather, Albie often followed the tractor, scattering the chickens as he pedaled down to the two large barns, one for the pigs and one for the dairy cows. Sometimes he tried to climb the small trees, like the one we sometimes sat under waiting for the ripe persimmons to fall into our plaos.
There were no cell phone cameras of course, but I have retained many images, some of which match the pictures I see now on Celi’s blog every day. I am not aware that the workers at the Farm School named their cows and pigs and cats, or talked to them affectionately, but I’m pretty sure that Albie did. Probably the students did too..
Albie loved the flowers too. He even told a neighbor lady once that he was a flower. Another time he came home with tiny white petals in his hair and on his clothes.
* * *
“Here’s my coat. I got flowers on it,”
The boy said, as if flowers were punishable, like dirt.
The blue coat was white with petal parts
that looked like snow. He must have rolled in it.
What could the father say,
Who had instructed the boy to follow rules of cleanliness,
And to report infractions.
He might have said,” Next time stay away from flowers,”
If he hadn’t realized what it sounded like.
He started to say, “How in the world did you manage that?”
–really wanting to know,
Instead, he thanked the boy, smiled, and walked away
Holding the coat close, and holding on to a dream
Of one white-haired child, crouched behind a bush nearby,
Waiting to surprise his friends with flower balls.
* * *
Backed by bare mountains, the Farm School rests on a gradual slope leaning towards the sea.
It was founded in 1904 by John Henry House and his wife, Susan Adeline. They had spent the previous 30 years doing charitable work in Bulgaria.
The first students were boys orphaned in one of the many uprisings marking the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Dr. House was known as a practical idealist, dedicated to “educating the whole individual: the head, the hands, the heart.”
By the time we arrived there, boys from villages slept in bare dormitories at night and by day followed a curriculum based on the goals and principles set by the founders. My son was welcomed by them and by their instructors, and he spent happy moments being “home-schooled” occasionally at the edges of barns, sheds, paddocks, and fields.
Albie has his own family now. And he seems to be teaching his son some of what we both learned back in those years together on a far-away farm that was also a school.
* * *
Notes:
The school has grown a lot since we were there. Some of the photographs above are borrowed from its website or from associates and friends of the school. You can tell which pictures are from our family album.
Albert.
Albert blogs and writes at Albits. Occasionally you may find other poems of Greece if you visit.
The Kitchen's Garden 
75 responses to “Guest Post: A school of Farming”
Wonderful photos, and a delightful story to go with. Thank you Albert!
Thank you, Deb. Being part of the farmy is delightful too.
Beautiful blog. Beautiful photos. I really enjoyed reading this.
Thank you. I enjoyed writing it. If it weren’t for Cecelia, the experience would have remained in my memory closet. I am inspired almost every time I visit.
What a great post. Thanks for sharing it with us.
My pleasure. Really!
Great post. It must have been a wonderful experience.
It was. And still is, now that I had an excuse to go back over it in detail. The pictures helped. And the poems that helped me save it. (I wasn’t the camera person.)
Nice to have some background behind the face. Sounds like an idyllic growing up for a child. 🙂 Laura
I sent a draft to Albie and asked for suggestions. He said, “Wow, Dad, I had no idea that place meant so much to you. My own memories are pretty vague. But I still remember the cows and the pigs.”
This touches me very much….
Just lovely, I could almost smell the sea air.
It is a very unusual place. All of Greece is. You are never very far from the sea.
Sounds like New Zealand 🙂 I could never live far from the sea, it is too much a part of me…
I do miss that. You are blessed with its presence.
I grew up in a small town in coastal Newfoundland just feet from the Atlantic Ocean very different from Greece but salt sea air is in my blood. I have moved due to work and no longer have the ocean and really miss its sound and smell.
Thank you for sharing your special years in Greece with us. The American Farm School’s pastoral setting & idyllic experiences reminded me of Gerald Durrell’s memoirs of his British family’s time in Greece when he was a child who running free in the countryside, bringing home a menagerie to his mother’s villa. It is wonderful to read of priceless adventures like yours.
Yes, I read about the Durrells while we were there., though I have to confess that I spent more time with Lawrence’s romantic novels that are set in Alexandria and other exotic places! But as you say, my own were more priceless. It didn’t take long to see that.
Very beautiful post. Thank you. And your comment about being a child – aren’t we all children again when we begin anew?
Hi Pat, yes we are! I have been blessed with many beginnings which are held together by the beautiful thread of family.
Lovely post, Albert. My mother grew up on a farm north of Thessaloniki, and they had close ties with the American Farm School. This was before the war, of course, but your photos brought back memories of all the stories she used to tell us. Aged 5, she had a pet wolf instead of a dog! I really enjoyed reading this!
I still keep in touch with that land, that part of Greece with its difficult history but generous and lively persons. In fact, our daughter is travelling there in a few weeks to visit her 1st grade teacher, Miss Ismene. I wish I could go along!
Your story, your photos, especially your poem – a remarkable, wondrous way to begin my day where I am being pelted by snow and wishing it was Albie’s flower balls instead.
Right, the timing is strangely appropriate! I did snow there occasionally, but only a little bit. The flowers made up for any part of winter in the Midwest that I might have missed.
Thank you Albert, for this post. What an idyllic place, manure and all, to have lived as a family, even for a brief time. Treasured memories, I am sure.
It definitely brought me closer to the earthiness of life, Kim. In fact I learned there how imagination and sensory experience complement each other. Prior to living there I had been schooled in intellectual activity only. That’said one big reason why I say I grew up during that experience. Travel is a great educator, and for me Greece has been a special teacher. Macedonia in particular.
How wonderful to go to Greece with you this morning! It is a place I have always wanted to visit. Thank you!
If you go, make sure to spend time in the northern part. Fewer tourist traps, more surprises. I loved the open markets, the aromas of cooking, the lively chatter, the welcoming smiles., and of course the visions.
Halcyon days, indeed. What a wonderful post.
I experienced the late winter calm, and looked for nests floating on the sea. I could have sworn that I saw them. In that setting, it is easy for imagination to enrich your days. Thank you, Charlottesville. I’m glad that you liked it.
Oh I am so sorry, Charlotte! I hurry too much, and my tablet has its own mind.
They are treasures. It was so pleasant to bring them out again to look at myself, and to share.
You called these memories ‘treasures’ and I was just thinking that as I was reading. And you, too, sir, are a treasure… at least in this posting this morning. I’ve so enjoyed the read and am hungry for more. I think that means it was successful. Thank you.
The school sounds like a very realistic setting that actually taught children how to live… as opposed to what I see in our educational system today, where practicalities are passed over too soon. Hope you have a great day! ~ Mame 🙂
I am having a great day right now, Mame. Reading your comment made it brighter. I agree about teaching children “how to live.” I’m thinking a lot about that as I collect my teenage granddaughter from school each afternoon.