Greece…
Greece, the birthplace of democracy… it’s good to be back with history… yes I know there was lots of history in Italy… both Ancient Roman and more modern… but having been born in Egypt… and having lived most of my life across the street from the Museum of Antiquity in Alexandria… antiques are a sign of history… and history is life…
The Greeks live their life with history omnipresent… with any act they may perform… they always remember history and mythology… it is fascinating to be surrounded with history people… all the time…
With the possible exception of the French (and the Bostonians)… the Greeks are the only people who believe that they “are history”…
Other than admiring the beauties of Greece, as in feminine beauties… I started looking for work… and through some persistence and good luck, I found a job with the Univac agent… as a computer operator… which, in those days was very important… After a month or so of doing nothing… I finally was given a “very important work”… I needed to print a list of all Greek owned cargo ships… to collect the data I was given two books, which contained about half the data… the other half were hand written notes… and newspaper clippings…
The first part was data collection… to create a punched card for every ship… and then there was the various tables of data to print…
I was told that the work was needed in ten days… I said impossible… I’ll need that much just to punch the data… so my boss intervened and assigned me two typists for that… so I figured that I would try and make it…
During that job, the customer (working for an insurance company) was keeping putting pressure by asking me is it ready… is it ready…
On the review date of day twelve I decided to surprise both my boss and the customer by presenting him with the complete work…
I remember saying to him… “I hope you are satisfied” he laughed and said
“Yes thank you, but I meant thirty days when I asked for ten days.”
I had just finished reading Exodus by Leon Uris… and for once I felt something inside me… Zionism…
I quit my job, and took the first ship to Haifa, Israel.
Greece, the birthplace of democracy… it’s good to be back with history… yes I know there was lots of history in Italy… both Ancient Roman and more modern… but having been born in Egypt… and having lived most of my life across the street from the Museum of Antiquity in Alexandria… antiques are a sign of history… and history is life…
The Greeks live their life with history omnipresent… with any act they may perform… they always remember history and mythology… it is fascinating to be surrounded with history people… all the time…
With the possible exception of the French (and the Bostonians)… the Greeks are the only people who believe that they “are history”…
Other than admiring the beauties of Greece, as in feminine beauties… I started looking for work… and through some persistence and good luck, I found a job with the Univac agent… as a computer operator… which, in those days was very important… After a month or so of doing nothing… I finally was given a “very important work”… I needed to print a list of all Greek owned cargo ships… to collect the data I was given two books, which contained about half the data… the other half were hand written notes… and newspaper clippings…
The first part was data collection… to create a punched card for every ship… and then there was the various tables of data to print…
I was told that the work was needed in ten days… I said impossible… I’ll need that much just to punch the data… so my boss intervened and assigned me two typists for that… so I figured that I would try and make it…
During that job, the customer (working for an insurance company) was keeping putting pressure by asking me is it ready… is it ready…
On the review date of day twelve I decided to surprise both my boss and the customer by presenting him with the complete work…
I remember saying to him… “I hope you are satisfied” he laughed and said
“Yes thank you, but I meant thirty days when I asked for ten days.”
I had just finished reading Exodus by Leon Uris… and for once I felt something inside me… Zionism…
I quit my job, and took the first ship to Haifa, Israel.
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