LEVINE:

This is Janet Levine for the National Park Service and I'm here today with Andreas Papadopoulos at his home in Mattituck, Long Island, New York. It's July 18th, 1992, and Mr. Papadopoulos came through Ellis Island from Cyprus in 1930 when he was nineteen years of age. I'm very happy to be here, and I'd like to say that I know you have a very interesting story. So why don't we start at the very beginning, and you tell me your birth date. What day were you born?

PAPADOPOULOS:

I was born September 25th, 1910 in a village that's called Sanida.

LEVINE:

Can you spell that?

PAPADOPOULOS:

S-A-N-A-D-I. Sanida. A, I mean.

LEVINE:

And were you living in Sanida until you left for the United States?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. Eleven years old I used to, we moved in a monastery. It's called St. George a la Manu, near Limassol, the capital of Limassol.

LEVINE:

Limassol. L-I-M-A-S-S-O-L?

PAPADOPOULOS:

That is correct.

LEVINE:

Well, okay. Do you remember, what are your memories up to the age eleven of the town? Was it a small town that you lived in?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, a very small town. And from the monastery to a small village called Monagurli. I used to commute with my donkey to go to school. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

How far away was it?

PAPADOPOULOS:

It was about three miles. And I have a donkey. I get up Monday morning, go to a village, it's called Monagurli. And I fed the donkey. I used to go to school. We finish up, take my donkey, come back to monastery. My father was a priest, see.

LEVINE:

Now, was this your own donkey?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes.

LEVINE:

You had your own personal donkey.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes. My father, we had a donkey, we had a horse, and we have chickens, just like a farm family, you know. And the donkey was trained so good nobody else could get on his back but me.

LEVINE:

Oh. Did he have a name, your donkey?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. Just call him Sidara.

LEVINE:

Can you spell it?

PAPADOPOULOS:

S-I-D-A-R-Y. No, sida - A, A. Sidara.

LEVINE:

And what does that mean?

PAPADOPOULOS:

That means the color of the donkey.

LEVINE:

Oh.

PAPADOPOULOS:

It's black and white, mostly white. They call him Sidara. And I used to take him to school and back and nobody else could sit on her but me. I had a cousin. He says, "I'm going to ride this donkey." I says, "I won't let you!" So he says, "Don't worry." He was a big, tall fellow, you know. And, so he sat on the donkey and put his legs under. You know, it was a small one, under her belly, but the donkey didn't want him. So she started kicking, went down and rode up over him. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Now, did you have brothers and sisters?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes. Family of seven.

LEVINE:

Oh! Now, how about starting with your mother and father's names, and then all your brothers and sisters.

PAPADOPOULOS:

My father is called Papa Dimitrios Christofe. My mother was Christina Christofe.

LEVINE:

What was your mother's maiden name?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Christina Christofe. Both my father and my mother, they had the same name from their, you know, Christofe. And seven in the family. Four sisters, three brothers. Anna, Elizabeth, Christopher, Siodolo and then Andreas is me, and then Maria and Lenny. Seven of us.

LEVINE:

Were you closest to any particular family member?

PAPADOPOULOS:

We all, we were very close. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Always close. Very close. So when I left for the U.S. my mother took it very hard. Two of us, two brothers. My first brother came here first and he send us the proper papers to immigrate over here, you know, because he had to have some kind of invitation to immigrate to the United States.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Well, did your brother, when you were still in this small town, before you turned eleven, was your brother in Cyprus at that time, your oldest brother?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. The oldest brother was here.

LEVINE:

When did he come?

PAPADOPOULOS:

In '26, 1926. He sent me application, me and my two brothers, to invite us over to the United States because to come over here, don't worry about it. You'll get a job, you'll make good. See, Cyprus was a good place, but England, they had them behind the curtain. Nobody knew England. When I was in the army, in the, I was to be furloughed. So I asked my colonel, I wanted to go, where you want to go for furlough. I told him, "Cyprus." "Cyprus? Where is Cyprus?" I said, "You don't know?" He says, "No, I don't." So I went to get a map and I showed him. "Oh, yes. That's under British protection." I say, "Yes. It's a British occupied you know." So England, he won't let us immigrate. He want everybody, you know.

LEVINE:

When you wanted to come to the United States you were not allowed to immigrate because of British rule?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Right, right. But then years, and three years I've been waiting for this application to come through, you know. And then finally the word came in, quota, so many from Cyprus, quota. So it happened to be me and my brother.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Before we talk about that, let's talk about the little town where you were until you were eleven years old. What else do you remember about that place?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, poor people. It's the village, small village. You have to go in the well to bring your water, to water. There's no running water.

LEVINE:

Now, would you go to the well? Who would go to the well?

PAPADOPOULOS:

My mother. I was too young.

LEVINE:

The women went.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. Women used to supply all the necessary, you know, the water, food. See, my father was a priest and he didn't have much time to do all this. But my mother, my grandmother, they helped, you know, and we get along fine.

LEVINE:

Now, your father, as a priest, what were his duties? What did he usually do?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, he serviced a church, you know. Church services. You know what I mean? Christening, baptizing, what they call, and different things for the church, that's all, you know. That's all. And he was really farming to go, to make his expenses, the farming, the wheat, and the corn, the vegetables.

LEVINE:

He would farm?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah, for our own use, not for commercial, you know, our own food. You raise your own chickens, you raise your own pigs there, you slaughter them and you fix them so you have all year around, you know, they prepare them, you know.

LEVINE:

Would your father do that?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no. We have somebody else to do that. We have laborers do the job. You see, he have one man to take care of, take care of the donkey, the horse, and whatever you have, you know, feed the chickens and all that stuff, you know. We got somebody there to take care of that, you know.

LEVINE:

I see. Now, would each of your sisters and brothers have gone to school on the donkey?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, I was the only one. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Who are you? How come you got to go?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Because the donkey was my own, my own donkey. He didn't want nobody else. He wanted me to go in, and nobody could sit on his back but me. He took on me, beautiful animal.

LEVINE:

Now, what do you remember about school?

PAPADOPOULOS:

School, well, it was pretty good. You know, we learned good. They teach you good. They was all right. The teacher was very strict.

LEVINE:

Was it a religious school?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no, no, no. It was a public school. But these teachers, they want you to learn. They don't fool around. If you don't, open your hand. ( he gestures ) ( he laughs ) You don't know what you doing, punished. You had to be very careful there. They discipline nice. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They teach you, you know, the right way. You don't go here, you don't go there. You hang around in the corners, you go home. You do your homework, you do it. They're very, very strict. Teachers are very strict.

LEVINE:

Now, how about, now, you were Greek Orthodox. Your father was a priest. And were the Turkish people on Cyprus? Were they also Greek Orthodox?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah, they were Turks, but the friendly Turks. They were very friendly. There were no problems there, was good. No, the Turks, see, next to our town is a small village that's called Bendacomo. And they have the Turks and they have the Greeks. They're fine, no problem. They're very good. My father goes, and they have the coffee house, like a club. It's called a coffee house, you know, called cafeneum. You go up there, a cup of coffee, and they get together, talk and so on. So the Turks come to my father, give what they call this Turkish Delight for the children. See, they call it loukoumi. So my mother comes in, put them on the paper, take them. ( he laughs ) A pocket full of loukoumi. Turkish Delights, they call it, you know?

LEVINE:

How do you spell loukoumi?

PAPADOPOULOS:

L-O-U . . . ( voice off mike: L-0-U ) K-O-U-M ( voice off mike: I ) I. Loukoumi.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh.

PAPADOPOULOS:

It's a small, square piece like, you know.

LEVINE:

Like a candy?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. A candy, like, you know. But it's made with flour and sugar and things. It's very tasty. They have them here, you know. Very good. Loukoumi. My mother comes in with small ones. "See? My friend the Turks. They treated me." She used to come in, you know. But they were good, they were good friends, you know. We have no problem at that time. England was ruling. But half of the Turks was English side. They treat them better, the Turks than the Greeks. They took sides, you know.

LEVINE:

What was it like for you under the English?

PAPADOPOULOS:

They didn't bother me. They, no, no problem. We have no problem. They was all right. They treated us good, no. But the government, they took many, you see, like police officers, mostly Turks. In the office inside, mostly Turks. That's why the Greeks, they want their independence. They lean on the Turkish side. You see what I mean? And people weren't happy. That's why they revolt against the British. They didn't build no highways. They didn't improve, just take the money, take the taxes and go away. Now, remember, the wheat, when the season comes in for the wheat, you know, the farmers, they used to, you see, they have no machine, they're all by hand. So they wait for the wind to separate the wheat from the, what they call this?

LEVINE:

Chaff.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. So they blow it by the wind, and they make a big pile. They have the man coming, men who come in and stamp, make a big pile like this, stamp, stamp, so you can't touch it. You can't touch. If anything, it's moving, not to steal any if you ever steal, because if you do you're in trouble. See? So all the villages, summertime, they get together and they, what they call it, up in the air. They throw the wheat up in the air so it separates the wheat from the what they call it, you know. So they go around and check around and see what's going on. Nobody steals anything. Oh, yeah. But then years after they loosen it up they let them go, you know. They didn't, you know. But remember it was a small one. They used to sleep night time out there to watch the wheat, nobody can go and mess up those stamps and have problems.

LEVINE:

What did they stamp it with?

PAPADOPOULOS:

They have a big stamp all around, see? See, like make a pile like a big pile, up high, all your property there. So they go, they make like this ( he gestures ) and they stamp it all around so nobody can take even a handful of wheat.

LEVINE:

Because you would see that the stamp mark wasn't on it?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes. And the top of it marked. If you take somebody you're going to see right away you've been cheated, you know. ( he laughs ) So they take ten percent. The government takes the best ten percent that comes in. They call it, you know, I used to call it corgi, some kind of a name like this comes in with his bushel. Measure, ( he makes whooshing noise ), one here, ( he makes whooshing noise ), one here. And then it's for the government. He takes so much for the government right there. They put the seal on, they can't touch it. They deliver it to the town. They're supposed to deliver that, you know.

LEVINE:

Now, your family had grown wheat enough for your family?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes.

LEVINE:

So you would take it, you would take your wheat to this place?

PAPADOPOULOS:

That's right. You've got to make your own up there, you know. During those days you have to, you know, the wheat you have to make, you know, have the men working for us, and then you hire some men to plow, you know, the ground, to seed it and take care of it, and then you cut them up and fix them up, and you have enough to get you all year around. But if you not you buy flour. The flour they used to bring from Australia, flour. England would not let from the United States. Nothing, no. You can send the train from England and get it to Cyprus. But you couldn't get it direct from the United States. Nothing come from the United States direct in those days.

LEVINE:

Well, could you get it from Australia direct?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes. Flour, flour.

LEVINE:

Why was that?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Because they have surplus, I guess. So, you know, because, you see, Cyprus is an island and depends on outside nations for more food and more things, you know.

LEVINE:

But I wonder why England didn't make it necessary for Australia to send first to them and then . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

That's a good question. Australia would supply the flour. Remember it was small one, get the flour from Australia in emergency, you know, get it from Australia. And it was all right. I mean, I was happy-go-lucky, the old days. You know, I never worry. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Can you describe yourself as about a ten or eleven-year-old little boy? What were you like?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Plenty of pep. With pep, a smile. They tell me, "What you smile for?" I said, "Why not?" And I was an athletic. I was around very good, you know.

LEVINE:

What kind of sport did you play?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Everything. We called, we have four, you know, call it legri, legri. It's a stick like this, like a broomstick, and they build with the stones a little, what you call it, see? And they have one piece of stick. Lift them up and hit it. ( he laughs ) Nobody got to catch the baseball here. Like you're playing baseball, you got first base, second base, third base, so on. Up there call it legri. So you got to hit. It was far away and can make a home run, like. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

And it wasn't a ball, though.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. No, no, no, no.

LEVINE:

What was it?

PAPADOPOULOS:

A piece of stick. A regular stick. A good stick, you know. A broomstick, like. And you go like, you know. So we used to play with that, play football and handball. We used to go swimming. The ocean is not very far. The Mediterranean is beautiful. The sea is clean as can be. You don't know, when you look down you see the fish next to you clear as can be. No pollution, beautiful. We take our lunch, our big lunch. You know, big lunch, you know. A piece of bread, a few olives, an onion, some cheese and a tomato, a piece of cucumber. That's lunch. ( he laughs ) And we go swimming. The sun is very strong. You have an umbrella. If you don't, you know, you get blisters all over you. The teacher, when I was small one, and our teacher took us, you know, day out, and we went to the beach. It was so hot, and everybody got sick, the hands, you put after a few days, you know. It was so hot. The sun is strong, very strong. And you know, there's no solution there, no suntan solution like this. We didn't know to put on oil. So we sunburn so much, everybody. And you feel your skin, you pull it off piece by piece, you know, takes a few days, you know, and it really gets you sick. We didn't know what's going on. Small, we don't know. I got very, very, new skin all over. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

What kind of a house did you live in?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Just a small house.

LEVINE:

Was it, what was it made out of?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Uh, made with stone and dirt. You know, when they, after you get the wheat, they chop down all that, what they call this?

LEVINE:

The stalk?

PAPADOPOULOS:

The stems, the stalks. See, they have this, they chop them and then they put them in red dirt and they mix them up by hand or by shoulder, you know. They make it squares.

LEVINE:

Oh, like clay.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Like clay, yeah. And some of them build with that. Let it in sun dry, and they dry, they build up a house, and you put the roof on the top.

LEVINE:

What kind of roof?

PAPADOPOULOS:

It's wooden, all wood, that's all. No metal, no nothing like this there. It's all, you know. And it's nice. It's cool inside in the summertime, and in the wintertime you light the stove, get together. There was no heat there, no steam heat, no electricity.

LEVINE:

So did it ever get cold?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Not too cold, no. It's warm weather, just like Florida. It's a nice climate, beautiful climate. A beautiful country. It's beautiful. And we get together and in the wintertime we used to get nuts. What they call him, hazelnuts or different nuts they put in there, you know. Other thing, you get together.

LEVINE:

On the fire.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. There is no movies there.

LEVINE:

Did people play musical instruments?

PAPADOPOULOS:

We have, yes. In the weddings they do play. They got violin. They got this, uh, what they call a big, like kazoo, but it's a big one. What they call, uh, Laouto.

LEVINE:

Could you spell it?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Laouto. L-A-O-U-T-O. Laouto. It's like a guitar, but it's a round one, a big one. And a violin is, the weddings, they go, they have a good time there. They know how to live. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Did you speak Greek?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, I did. And then my father sent me to school, a private, with a teacher. I spoke some English.

LEVINE:

How old were you when you went to that school to learn English?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Eh, about, well, I, about sixteen, seventeen years old.

LEVINE:

Oh. Uh-huh.

PAPADOPOULOS:

I went to private school and I spoke some English, but I had no one to talk to to improve then.

LEVINE:

Well, back in the little town, what's the name of the first town where you lived?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Sanida.

LEVINE:

Sanida.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Sanida

LEVINE:

Sanida. Did you . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

It's a village, small.

LEVINE:

How many rooms in the house? Was it one big room?

PAPADOPOULOS:

One big room. There is your bathroom. There is your kitchen. There is your living room. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

So it's all together.

PAPADOPOULOS:

It's all together, but we have outside, about three or four different places for the animals, you know. For the pigs, for the cows, for the horses, for the donkeys, you know. It's a big line outside, you know. We have some place over here. But, oh, we have one upstairs, too. We have another bedroom upstairs, don't forget. We have upstairs bedroom. So my father and mother upstairs in the bedroom and the children downstairs.

LEVINE:

Now, as a family, your father being a priest, were you considered sort of high up on the status, social status in the town?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, we got more respect. Some priests you got to be, you know, we feel that we are, you know, you got to be more careful to mix up with different people. We're supposed to be, you don't get off the road, you don't hang around corners. Stay on the right track. See, my father was very strict.

LEVINE:

See, so you had to feel sort of responsible because you were the son of a priest.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Son of a priest, yeah. That's right. He's exception. The priest, the doctors and the schoolteachers, they're exceptions. They, you know, they have a better, you know, quality or, you know what I mean, education, yes. They do.

LEVINE:

Okay. So then how was it that your family moved?

PAPADOPOULOS:

The family, in this monastery, St. George a la Manu, there were some monks, four or five monks. The story is a long story. So they got a lot of archeological places up there, the place we came from. Five thousand hundred years ago, so five thousand years ago. So one of those, what they call them, here they call them cowboys, the men who run the sheep, I mean, the cows and all the things, you know, what they call a shepherd, a shepherd. He discovered some archeological cave. So he got this, he dug out, found a big cave inside full of gold, pots and many things there, you know. But the gold, when I was in a place, was restricted. They're not supposed to go. See, between our village we can have gold. I know, you know. On the other side they're not supposed to have gold. A big fine for the shepherd. So he went to get the, he went to get the gold, to bring them back, the flag, to bring them back, and he say, "You're not supposed to go in the cave, the one you open up, because there's no air in there. You might get sick." So he wanted to bring back the sheep, and he said, "Tomorrow." But the monks, they notice something's going on. It was already in front of the monastery. And they went in there and they found the cave. They pick up the gold, the big pot full of gold. So they went back to the monastery, and wanted to hide it. The monastery is a square wall all around in a place where you put all the dirt, like the manure, they pile it up outside. They call it Copripia.

LEVINE:

Spell that, please.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Copripia. C-O-P-R-I-P-I-A. Copripia. So they mark the wall four different spots, no somebody get wise and see something hide from them. It's some kind of, what they call, a marking. So they build there in the copripia. And a few more days, three or four days later, they decide to leave the monastery, go to Greece from island to Greece where there were more monks. So they went up about three or four miles, they forget about the gold. So they went back to the monastery to pick up the gold. They saw them, the people, they saw them. They dug in the copripia. They got a big pot full of gold, they went away. So when this shepherd went back in the cave, gold is gone. But he got those pots, beautiful pots, you know. So he put some and took some and other people took them. Well, anyway, the monastery was nobody there. They left. And the bishop, he knows my father, he's got a family man. He says, "Bring your family to St. George Monastery. You stay there. You take care of it. You perform services." Because people were very religious. Every Sunday or every holiday go to monastery, you know. They pray. "But you take care it. I know, you got seven children, you got a big place there, you got so many rooms, you got so many, you take care it." So my father did, see? That time I was eleven years old. And we went there to do services. All my brothers was the cantor, we sing in church, we help all around, and we get along fine. It was beautiful. END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE

PAPADOPOULOS:

And then one of my sisters, she went to, she wanted to get married. So we have some relatives in Egypt, in Cairo. He says, "Send Anna over here. I got a husband for her." In those days it was by introduction. You know? So finally convinced my father they got a good man for my sister. So he took my sister, went to Cairo, she got married there, she raised family, came back to Limassol. Three, four years she come back to Limassol. See, Limassol's a good town. It's about twenty-five, thirty thousand people. And he wants me to go and help him in the, he opened up a place, it's called Zahara Blastion, a sweet shop. So he wants me to go to help him. There is no money. ( he laughs ) As a volunteer. I worked for him, I think 1927 up till 1930. See, I helped him out there, and I used to live with him in Limmasol. That's when I make my application, 1927, application to come to the United States. And I wait for three years.

LEVINE:

You worked three years for no pay?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. No. ( he laughs ) No pay, no pay. Three years.

LEVINE:

What kind of a man was your brother-in-law?

PAPADOPOULOS:

He, well, he was what they call it, he used to run a big confectionery store in Cairo, Italian place, and they got a lot of all kinds of a confectionery. He knew what it was all about. He opened up the business in Limmasol and he make. He got a bagel, he make a lot of sweet stuff, and also bring from the, from outside. From England, from Germany, for, you know, different sweets, you know. He was very good, you know. But money, forget it. You don't get a penny. You're a relative. You don't get paid.

LEVINE:

Was he making money?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Not exactly. He have money but, you know, he pay his bills. He was happy. He had his family of four. See what I mean? And then 1930, yeah . . .

LEVINE:

You lived with them?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, oh, yes. They give you, they buy you clothes, they give you food. They take care of you, but there's no money. No cash. Forget it. Cash you don't get. You used to work.

LEVINE:

Was that unusual there, or it wasn't that unusual?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, no. It's usual. They don't pay. I mean, they pay, stranger people you pay, get paid, but they don't pay much. They, what they give, four or five piatsas? That was British pound. They make five dollars American money, that time. One pound is twenty shillings. And I think how many piasters twelve piasters a shilling, something like that, you know. So what, they give you a couple of piasters to go and buy some outside. You know what I mean? You don't get no monthly payment, weekly payment, no. ( he laughs ) But now I think they changed now. There, you know, I'm talking about sixty years ago.

LEVINE:

Well, tell me about the religious life. How did your family observe?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. My family, the generation is all priests. Priests would have an (?). He was in Athos in the Greece. It's a Mount Athos where all the monasteries there, with no women allowed there. And, you know, one of my uncles was working there, you know. I have another uncle, also he's a priest. See, they all went bye-bye.

LEVINE:

How about like your father's father? Were there priests in earlier generations in your family?

PAPADOPOULOS:

It must be. Yeah, it must be, it must be. In fact, I don't remember that, you know, but it must be. My father was very, very religious and a very good priest, you know. No, you know, everything, don't want to accept any money. You do anything, christening or something. They didn't get paid, the priests. What they got, six shillings a month? ( he laughs ) A dollar a month. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

They were given a place to live. Is that the way it was?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no. They had to raise the farm. They do that because you're obliged to the religion. There's no money involved. That's the reason they got no money. See, they give you something to, you know, to go buy, but not enough to support a family. So my father, we have our land, we have people who work for us and they, you know, bring home many things that were necessary. See, in summer, the month of August is season for these carobs. You know carobs? They call it harupia. They make sugar with.

LEVINE:

Oh, carob. It's like chocolate. ( a voice can be heard speaking off-mike )

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. It's, carob is like a string bean, a giant string bean.

LEVINE:

Oh.

PAPADOPOULOS:

On the big trees, you know. See?

LEVINE:

Oh, uh-huh.

PAPADOPOULOS:

And these, in the month of August you go, we have, what you call them, eh, what they call, wine, not wine, what you call, you got the grapes. What you call them?

LEVINE:

The harvest?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Harvest grapes. Oh, you have three different from big places. Oh, yeah. You get the grapes, then you get the carobs, and that's income coming in, you know, from the carobs and, you know, they produce sugar. They got merchants, they buy them, they send them different places. Oh, yeah, it's a big business. But now they don't bother no more. Now (?), he electrified the whole island, electricity. Who wanted electricity in the old days, no electricity. No nothing. No highways, no roads. England didn't do anything for it.

LEVINE:

You had no running water. No electricity.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. No, no, no, no. No running water. You got to make your own, you got to go in the well down about eight, ten blocks. Or if you have, we dug, my father dug well in our, you know, home, we have, you know. And you pull in things there, you know. And no, it wasn't convenient. But now they got refrigerators, they got televisions, they got radios, they got electricity everywhere. Every little small town and small village. But England wouldn't do that. That's why the people, they didn't care. England didn't care. They only take the taxes and leave alone. That's why people lately they have trouble with the British, you know. Back in 1954, '55 they told them, "Do something for us." They do nothing. They have no highways. They have highways, but no good. It's one, like, uh . . .

LEVINE:

One lane.

PAPADOPOULOS:

One lane highways. But now (?) has built four lane highways. It's like going on the New York Thruway. Beautiful highways now. We went there. We went with the family. See, we coming back to the United States. I come over here, so my brother was here, before he sent us invitation he happened to be in the hospital. But he sent our friends to receive us in Ellis Island, from Castangari. Castangari the (?) to get real. ( he laughs ) But anyway, it wasn't bad, it was all right. We came with Saturnia. We see the Statue of Liberty. The dock, I think it's on 44th Street someplace, 44th and 45th. And Hudson River. So the next morning have breakfast. They put us on a barge. Oh, it must be a couple of hundred people, and we go up there. The guards were, the security, they've got to watch you. "Hey! Don't get off your line." ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Well, before we get to Ellis Island, first tell me, what was your father like as a person?

PAPADOPOULOS:

He was a very pleasant man, very. He had some nice personality. He had, I'm telling you. When he goes in the coffee house, the club, they call, everybody stand up. You go in the court house, you say "George," everybody gets the attention of my father. A very respectful man, oh, yeah.

LEVINE:

Do you remember any experiences back in Cyprus with your father that kind of show the kind of person he was?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, he did many things for the town there, he did many things. He, when he was living, he was living there in the town, the village, he would do a lot of things for them, you know. For me, I remember I wanted a bicycle. "You're not going to get it." "Why?" "You're going to get hurt." So I insist I've got to have a bicycle. So finally, so one guy came to America, he left the bicycle, he says, "I want six shillings for it." ( he laughs ) That's a dollar, a dollar and a quarter, so I can buy it. ( he laughs ) So I go up and down, oh, yeah. And he bought me a brand new suit one time, you know. And I went on the bicycle and I fell from the bike and I cut, you know. I think it's, my, you know, he didn't worry about my knee. I ripped my pants. ( he laughs ) I ripped my pants. Oh, yeah, yeah. What you call it, for taking up on that thing. Brown pants, you know. And that's the trouble. But I was very well, I was an athlete. I was a good athlete. And I wanted to go in the, as a runner, he always said to me, "I don't want you to do it." The shoes, oh, the shoes. The shoes, my father was a good hunter. He was a very good hunter.

LEVINE:

What would he hunt for?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Pheasant, if there's any. Rabbits. Rabbits were big, rabbits big. And what they call a partridge, a lot of partridge. I used to go and hold the bag. We call it voulga. I got one to show you. You never seen before. What is a voulga? It's in the garage, uh-huh. They call it voulga. See, I put it on my shoulders like a pack, and the shoes. He order shoes for me. The shoemaker come in the house, take a measurement. Goes in town, make the shoe, come back two weeks later. The shoes don't fit. "Father, the shoes no good." "You've got to wear them. I pay for them, you got to wear them." "But no good." So my toe is like this now, you see? ( he gestures ) See, I got a pain, so I walk like this, you know. Sideways, and still my, but what can you do? My father was too, he didn't want to annoy, you know, the shoemaker, so he says, "You've got to wear them. I order them for you." I said, "But it don't fit, I can't." I said, "I'll walk barefeet." Because I couldn't wear no shoes. And then next pair be better, repair it. So we've got seven different, you know, in the family, you've got to give shoes for them and everything else. So my feet now, my toe's like this. ( he gestures ) So, anyway, he was all right. He was a good hunter. He used to come in. He used to bring more different call it, "Papa Dimitri. We're going hunting today. Yeah, we're going hunting." But he was a good, a good shot. He would never miss, you know. The other guys said, "How he does it? How he does such a good job?" If anything goes, boom, down. So one time we had chickens, and the chicken hook something and grabbed the chicken, take him away. So not too many chickens left. So one day . . . ( someone enters room carrying the voulga ) This is what they call the voulga. See the voulga?

LEVINE:

Oh, my goodness.

PAPADOPOULOS:

See? It's an antique. They don't make them any more. See?

LEVINE:

It's made out of leather.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah, yeah. Goat, goat skin.

LEVINE:

Goat skin with, what, beads on the strips of leather?

PAPADOPOULOS:

See, it's an antique, it's an antique. See? They call it voulga. They don't make it any more.

LEVINE:

How do you spell what they call them?

PAPADOPOULOS:

V-O-U . . .

LEVINE:

Voulga?

PAPADOPOULOS:

G-A. Voulga.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. And it's worn like a backpack.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes. You see? That's voulga. See, this is one. You can't get this. They don't make them any more. You see, they make them in the old days, so it's happened to have a souvenir here, see, that's nice.

LEVINE:

Now, is this used very much?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, every time you go out.

LEVINE:

It looks so, well . . . VOICE (off mike): See. They put everything in here . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

See? Any time you go hunting you put you, you know, you put your lunch in here, too, you know. You roll them up, put them in here. Yeah, uh-huh.

LEVINE:

Now, did your brothers and sisters go hunting with your father too?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. I was the only one. I was the hunt.

LEVINE:

It sounds like you were the favorite.

PAPADOPOULOS:

( he laughs ) Yes, I was. I was.

LEVINE:

Now, tell me about your mother.

PAPADOPOULOS:

My mother was, she was very good, she was very good. But the only, you know, my father used to bring a lot of guests in the house all the time. She used to be cooking all the time.

LEVINE:

What were some dishes that she would cook that you remember?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Eh, roast leg of lamb, roast loin of pork. Stifada. You know, stifada is like hasenpfeffer, stifada.

LEVINE:

How do you spell it?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Stifada, see. Yeah, stifada. This is like hasenpfeffer. If know any one of those dishes, you have stifada. Uh-huh.

LEVINE:

Now, how would your father, because he didn't really earn money as a priest.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no.

LEVINE:

How would he buy, like, shoes and suits and things for seven children?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, in summer time we got this carobs, carubia. And you get, you know, these. And once in a while, you know what I mean, the church. See, after the service is over, see, they give to the people in the church, a small square piece of bread. They call it antinerol. And the priest is entitled to get a tray, see, and they give him, even today they give in church antinerol. But no, that was his tips he make, that was tips. You know what I mean? She give me, after the service is over, you go and get an antinerol, and they have a tray next to that. That's for the priest. That's his tip. He make a dollar, a couple dollars, maybe, sometimes. And sometimes, you know, somebody says, "I want you to say prayers for my such-and-such." They offer some money. You know what I mean? That's the answer.

LEVINE:

So your mother was cooking a lot.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, very. Oh, she was always guests in the house, always.

LEVINE:

And what would she cook on? What kind of a facility did she have?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Eh, wood, wood.

LEVINE:

An open fire?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Sure, open fire, that's all.

LEVINE:

In the house?

PAPADOPOULOS:

In the house. No, we got outside, too. We got outside, no outside. Outside you got, what they call this? VOICE (off mike): The yard.

PAPADOPOULOS:

The yard. Because you don't, it's too warm to be in the house. We build up some kind of a, we also, we throw in water. When we wash ourself we got a tank with the faucet on it, we fill it up with water, and in case you want hot water too, put hot water in there, yeah. And cook outside. And wash clothes, wash clothes. The dust, after you cook, that dust, pick it up, put them in a big, what they call it? VOICE (off mike): Scaffa?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no, no.

LEVINE:

A basin?

PAPADOPOULOS:

It's a big, when they put the wine in there. They call it, what they call it?

LEVINE:

A trough.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, it's a good-sized small pot. Pissari. VOICE (off mike): Pissari.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Pissari. Call it a big, it's behind the garage, big. Yeah, pissari. VOICE (off mike): Great, big, earthenware pots they used to have.

PAPADOPOULOS:

And they put water, they don't need no soap. They don't need no soap. They put this for the clothes. It was soap for hands only. You put the dust from the cooking.

LEVINE:

Like it would be like charcoal from the wood?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes. The wood, like charcoal becomes dust, you know. And put them in that big . . .

LEVINE:

Ashes.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Ashes, ashes. Put them in, and it makes nice clothes washing. Oh yeah, yeah. The wash. VOICE (off mike): It whitens the clothes.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. And that's why they, you know. All by hand.

LEVINE:

And then how would they dry them? And then what would they do, hang them?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Dry them in the sand, in the sun. Sun dry them. No machine. They have no dryers. On the sun, they put a clothesline and put them up there, you know.

LEVINE:

Now, did you have grandparents that you remember?

PAPADOPOULOS:

My grandfather was a hundred and nine years old, a hundred and three years old before he died.

LEVINE:

Who was he, your mother's?

PAPADOPOULOS:

My mother's, yeah, yeah, yeah.

LEVINE:

And did you spend much time with them?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. Well, he explained to me what the Turks, they treat him so bad, the (?) Turks. They never happy with the Turks. The Turks used to come in, the policemen used to go in the coffee house, in the club there, they used to stand around. Garoul! Garoul, they called them Garoul. Garoul means, eh, you don't believe in a, you call them . . .

LEVINE:

Oh, like a heretic, a non-believer?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, like a servant, some kind of a low, you . . .

LEVINE:

Oh, a peasant?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, worse. That's a worse name for it, you know. They call them.

LEVINE:

Like a slave?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah, something like that. They pick up his horse, they want horses, to walk them around, around and around till he do his duty, to relax, and then bring him back. They pick up anybody. They used to pick them up too, you know, the Turks. He told me he suffered too much when Turkish, you know, occupation. The Turks were there for many years. They make them, they tell me stories, you know, they suffer with the Turks, yeah, yeah, yeah.

LEVINE:

I'm not clear on, in other words they would take somebody, and then they would walk him around?

PAPADOPOULOS:

The horse. He sit on the table, on the chair, the policeman. And the man, he pick up anybody. "Hey, you! Come on, walk the horse." So they walk the horse around till, what you call it . . . VOICE (off mike): The policeman was ready to leave.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no, no. Just till the horse, when he goes to the bathroom, that means relaxed. Make sure he goes to the bathroom, the horse goes to the bathroom, and then he comes back, okay, the horse, and he goes away. But they treat them very bad. Oh, he was complaining. He tell me they go in the house, they take the women, any one they see they like they grab it, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

LEVINE:

So this was in your grandfather's time.

PAPADOPOULOS:

That's right.

LEVINE:

When your grandfather was a young man.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes, yes. He would tell me all these stories. But so many years, you know, you tell me a lot of stories against the Turks, they suffered a lot. Oh, yeah. The women, they couldn't go in the street, they got to watch them in the house. They're afraid to go in the street. Women, no, afraid. Oh, they grab them, the Turks, they punish them very bad, you know. Yeah.

LEVINE:

Now, were your mother and father related? They had the same last name.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, they didn't. No, they didn't. My mother comes from Sanida, and my father comes from Acaplum, different village.

LEVINE:

Because I didn't know if that was the usual thing, to marry your cousin, or something like that.

PAPADOPOULOS:

See, no, no. The marriage appeared by introduction.

LEVINE:

By introduction.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Those days you went to see, you have a daughter and I have a son, we get together. You may sign an agreement. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Now, what would be the basis for the agreement?

PAPADOPOULOS:

What you got to offer? See, the woman had to buy the husband.

LEVINE:

What would it be that a woman would have?

PAPADOPOULOS:

I want you to give me a piece of land such as that place. I want you to give me the, what you call it, vine. What you call it?

LEVINE:

A vineyard?

PAPADOPOULOS:

A vineyard. I want you to give me a horse, I want you to give me a cow. I give you so many chickens. ( he laughs ) They sign, they come to an agreement, and then get the wife, get the husband. They were not, the women up there, you have to have money to marry your daughter in those days.

LEVINE:

I see. So in other words a daughter was, in a way, a liability. I mean, you had to have, you had to have something to get rid of her.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes. That's right. You have to buy the husband.

LEVINE:

Well, okay. So say an agreement was reached. Then what would happen? Would the daughter go off to the husband's family, or would they go to the wife's family, or they go off by themselves or . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, they get married, and it's up to them they decide to go to. But most of them stay with the family, with the father or mother, who got more . . . VOICE (off mike): Room.

PAPADOPOULOS:

More room.

LEVINE:

Whichever had a family.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes, yes. Stay together. You know, you keep the family together. You know what I mean? Don't go a different town. No, no. Got to be in there, close there, you know. They live happy. They're all right. They, you know, they don't know what's going on. But now they change. We were there twice up there. Different. My village, one person I know alive, after sixty years. I mean, I was, two years ago we went there. Two years we were together. I met one person. The others, they went different places. One to England, they went to Australia, and this Africa. They went every place, but one person came that I remember, that's all. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Wow. Well, tell me this. When you put in your papers to come to the United States, were many people leaving at that time to come to the United States?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes, yes. Quite a few of us. But five was the group. We were five of us. We were together all the time. First stop, I remember, was . . .

LEVINE:

Tell where you left from. Where did you . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

We left from Limassol, the port of Limassol.

LEVINE:

Okay. And then where did you go?

PAPADOPOULOS:

We went to Porsyte. That was the American consul to give the visa. See? I've got my passport in my pocket. Get me my passport, yeah. So from, we stayed a few days out there to get a ship to go to Greece. We went to Piraeus. In Piraeus, do different actions and things, you wait, you've got to wait, so we spent a couple of weeks in Greece, you know. And then from, in Athens. And then we went to Patras. That's where the Saturnia comes. Two ships, the Saturnia and Volcania, two sister ships. So we got Satunia from Patras. Then we come over, you know, yeah.

LEVINE:

What did you expect, when you were leaving Greece to come to America, what did you think you were going to find here?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, a better world, a better world. Get away from the British. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

That was the motivation to leave.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes. Because I see, (?) bread is very hard, life is very hard there, in life. Struggle, struggling. You know, they got the wheat in summertime, they got vine, you know, vineyards. They've got to cut the grapes, you know. They got the carobs, you know. They've got it going with the helpers. We've got helpers. We got plenty of helpers there, you know, they help us a lot. We didn't, my father used to rent people. Here's my passport, see? ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Well, now, how was it decided that you and your brother would come?

PAPADOPOULOS:

My brother, well, everybody talks about America. America is good. Go to America, find a good life, go to America. I'm going to tell you a story about America. Like this. They got it in Chicago. ( he laughs ) You know the story. See, his men, it's not exactly a joke. No, it's true. VOICE (off mike): That one.

PAPADOPOULOS:

During the days Al Capone was in power in Chicago, this Italian fellow, he says, "Ah, I'm going to get out of here, go back to Italy. It's no good here. People kill people in the streets." So he got his family and went back to Italy. So the neighbor asks to him, "Tony, what are you doing here? America, don't you like America? Why come here?" It's the American I like, Chicago no good. ( they laugh )

LEVINE:

Okay. So you and your brother came with five other, with four other people.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Five people, me and my brother together, and three other people. One went to Washington, DC, another one to Texas, and one to California.

LEVINE:

And they all were from your town?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no. Different, around the neighborhood there, you know. But we never contacted them. You know what happened to them? I never see them, never again. They all went different directions, you know, I guess.

LEVINE:

I see. Now, what was it like to board the Saturnia.

PAPADOPOULOS:

It was very good. We had a good time there. It was all right. They were nice. But I got seasick for two, three days, were very sick. And they had a priest there. He was a priest from Chicago. He was here before. He gives services on Sundays at the dining room, and I helped him out. He was so pleased, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was very pleased.

LEVINE:

Were you, I don't know if it's called an altar boy, but were you helping in the church?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, I did, yeah. I sing for the church, in the church. My father, you know, make me, "You got to sing. You've got to sing in church. You've got this." He gave me all the hymns, what to say, and so on, you know. And I help him out. He was so pleased, he says to me, "You know, your father must be a priest." I say, "Yes, he is." But I forget his name, though. A nice man, a very old-timer. And he was very pleased. And we had a good time and the boat was all right, you know.

LEVINE:

Were you in steerage, or were you in a cabin? Were you down . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, cabin, cabin, cabin.

LEVINE:

How many in there?

PAPADOPOULOS:

I think it was four of us. Four in the same cabin, four people. Up and down, up and down, four. It was very good. The service was nice, and the food, after three days, I got so sick. I think it took us two weeks to come over. Two weeks.

LEVINE:

And did you go to the dining room for dinner, for meals?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes. We went to the dining room, we got served. They give us good food. You know, it was all right. But after two or three days sick, you don't even want to see it, you know, you don't want to go near the place, you're sick. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

So do you remember coming into the New York Harbor?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes. Everybody told us, "Hey, get up! Come on and see the Statue of Liberty! Come on and see Brooklyn! Come and see Ellis Island!" They knew, people who had been here before. They orient us, you know.

LEVINE:

Oh, the people that were coming back and forth.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes, yes. "This is Manhattan, see?" They were building, the Empire State Building wasn't built yet. It wasn't built. I remember when they built it, 1930. I was, you know, I came over there, all the drills, you know. ( he makes a drilling noise ) Rockefeller Plaza wasn't. You know, I remember these places, you know. So we came up. It was very nice. And we have a pile of newspapers, all kind of newspapers. New York Journal , what they call, The Sun , New York Times , World Telegram , another Telegraph . A pile of papers, all the papers you want, didn't pay him, you know.

LEVINE:

Where?

PAPADOPOULOS:

On the boat. On the boat you can make it up, free, you know, giving the people, you know. Yeah, people take a paper, where you want to go, and read it. Yeah.

LEVINE:

You mentioned before you had private tutoring, or you went to a school and you learned English.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes, yes, yeah.

LEVINE:

How much did you know of English when you came?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, I wasn't experienced too much, but I could get along. I get along, see. I wasn't very, you know . . .

LEVINE:

Fluent.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Fluent, yes, yes.

LEVINE:

But you managed.

PAPADOPOULOS:

But I spoke a little English and they liked me. I'm the only guy that spoke English. You get along fine. See, on the boat was Italian waiters and so on, but I spoke to, you know, and we get along, was fine. I had a good time on the boat. Very good. We going to New York. We don't care what happens. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

And can you say what your impression was when you saw the Statue of Liberty?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Oh, yes. Very beautiful. I seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We came in, it was the Statue of Liberty. But my brother happens to be in the Friends Hospital. On 30, I think it was on 33rd Street, or 32nd someplace, you know.

LEVINE:

Your older brother.

PAPADOPOULOS:

And they wouldn't told us. And they told us that, "Your brother is working. We came to take you." Somebody to receive you. So they asked you, "How much money you got in your pocket?" I said, "Five dollars." ( he laughs ) A little money. "Where are you going?" "On 44th Street. I'll give you the number." On West 44th Street, you know. My brother used to live there. So, "Okay." And then the boys, one of the fellows came in and took us away, you know. They signed, accepted, fine. We went to South Ferry and got the Ninth Avenue Elevated. Put that nickel in, they give us some money, nickels, to put in there, you know. We got off on 42nd Street. And then my brother used to have the rent on 43rd, an apartment. He was expecting us. But he, he was in the hospital. They told us, I guess, they say he's working. And then he says, "All right. I'll tell you what happened. Your brother have the appendix taken out. He's in the Friends Hospital. Don't worry. He'll be all right." So right away I went to see him.

LEVINE:

Uh-hmm. Well, tell me first, when you went to Ellis Island to be examined.

PAPADOPOULOS:

They examine you, sure. They examine you when you leave Cyprus. They examine you in Porsyte. They examine you in the . . . VOICE (off mike): Ellis Island.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no. In the, what you call this, uh, Patras, before you get in the boat. Big examination. They examine on the boat. You come over to Ellis Island, strip you. "Take off your clothes. Put on the bench. Sit on top of them."

LEVINE:

You sit on top of your clothes.

PAPADOPOULOS:

On top of your clothes. And you wait for them to call your name. You go in for examination. Yeah, oh, yeah. VOICE (off mike): The men were separate from the women.

PAPADOPOULOS:

They were separate, oh, yeah. I remember, I remember the places. It was, I told the men out there, you know, I'm checking my footsteps. He said, "You were here?" I said, "Yes." He give me the form, fill them out. END OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO

LEVINE:

What do you remember about Ellis? How did you experience it?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, they were rough on us. You know, it was rough. I mean, the treatment was, you know. But we didn't mind it. We didn't care. You don't care what they do to you. You're young. I had to let them go, pass them, that's all. Yeah, the guards. "Hey, get over here!" You can't look any place. You can't look around. You've got to be in line. See what I mean? They've got three or four different guards, and they watch you like cattle, you know. In the barge they wait. But look, you know, if we got out, we didn't stay very long. Half a day, a day, something like that. I don't remember getting any food. I don't know. I don't remember what happened.

LEVINE:

You didn't stay over night.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no. No, no, no, no. It was physical. Thank God I was healthy.

LEVINE:

Were you afraid at all that you might be sent back?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no, no. Never afraid, never. I was never sick. You know, it was willpower. ( he laughs ) Never give up.

LEVINE:

So, now, how long was it from the time, how long had it been since you'd seen your older brother?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Eh, he came here and he left in '25. He was in France. From France he came over here. I think he came '26 over here. Four, I think about five years, five years between there.

LEVINE:

Now, what was the meeting like with him when you did see him?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Of course, you see somebody, you know, after so many years. You know, the only, ( he laughs ) we're strangers. But we had good reception with the other people. They knew me. They knew me, they knew my father. You know, the Greeks had coffee houses, you know. See, the Greeks, they got to have the church, and the cafeneum. That's tradition. Right away you go, first come the church, and then next to the church is cafeneum with the club, like, sit down and have a cup of coffee.

LEVINE:

So it was a Greek section, there were a number of people from Greece and the islands.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes.

LEVINE:

Right in this 44th Street area, the 42nd Street area?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes. 44th, it was on 40th Street and 8th Avenue, you take on 39th Street up to 44th was like a Greek colony. All the Greeks would get together and live there, you know. Yeah. So anyway my apartment there, my brother got an apartment, and I got a job right away. I went to the agency on Sixth Avenue, employment agency. They say, "What can you do?" And I did busboy job. "Okay. We got a job for you. It pays sixteen dollars a week. Seven days, twelve hours a day. You go to Yankee Stadium. It's a cafeteria, it's called Excelsior Cafeteria. You go there." So, ah. I got a few ( he laughs ) a couple pennies in my pockets, nickels or so. So the guy says, "You've got to pay me in advance." I said, "How can I pay in advance? I don't have any money." I pay you when I get work and I come back and pay you. See, I was only extra. "Okay, I know, extra, you don't come back looking for another job." So when I worked there, so one day in the night he didn't show up, the night busboy didn't show up. So the boss says to me, "Can you stay for tonight?" It's 24 hours shift. So I said, "I won't sleep, I'll come in." I stayed. So this bus boy, the night man, was a veteran from World War I, see. So he had some money. He wants one business. And when you go to the bathrooms he had a pie case with the pies. It was a busy place, a very busy place. It was Yankee Stadium. Babe Ruth was playing there. And at that time was a fight. Sometimes were fights and so on. They had big help there, you know. So he had money to buy a business for himself. And I seen the pie case there tilt. What can it be? So I move the case and I find a roll of papers and I opened, dollars. I went in the bathroom and I went to see what's in it. Twenties, twenties, tens. Must be over six hundred dollars. I say, "Big money here!" VOICE (off mike): It was a lot of money then.

PAPADOPOULOS:

So I took the money and went to the boss. I said, "Hey, boss. This money I found in the pie, behind the pie case." So to me I never steal anything. I don't know. He says to me, "Where did you find it?" I say, "Went in the bathroom, there's a pie case outside there where the pies are that was tilted, it wasn't straight. And I know what that was to me. It's that night bus boy. He didn't show up tonight, but we give it to him the next day." So the next day I went to work, he says, "Hey, why you take my money?" Instead of thanking me, he's accusing me of taking his money. I said, "I didn't take your money. You stupid?" I say, "You put the money right there. Anybody can get wise, wise, you're not straight." See? ( he demonstrates ) So, anyway, so that man liked me so much, I went to work steady for him. It was steady, right here. So I stayed there and fooled around for a while. And then, there was three of us. Then from then, I don't know, somehow happened, I got a job someplace else as a waiter. From a waiter, condiments, so on. We learned the trade through the restaurant business, and we wind up on 44th Street. We seen a place was closed, out of business. Depression days, 1933. Three years now, it was three years after, you know. We have a few dollars, save a few dollars, you know. And a sign, "Store For Rent." So my big brother, you know, was in charge, and he took us over there. He says, "I'm going to find out, the three of us. We're going to go in business. You got three hundred dollars, I got four hundred dollars, he's got two hundred dollars, we're going to go in business." So I went to Mr. Friedlander on 142 West 44th Street. He used to be Dezions, Dezions. I think they still have business on 34th Street. Nice fellow, nice, Mr. Friedlander.

LEVINE:

So, what did you say? Dezions?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Dezions, yeah. Dezions Fabrics. You know Dezions Fabrics?

LEVINE:

Oh.

PAPADOPOULOS:

He's on 33rd Street. VOICE (off mike): Very well-known in the theatrical.

PAPADOPOULOS:

On the East Side. Nice fellow. So he says, "No." My brother went and asked him, "We'd like to rent the store here, we'd like a restaurant." He says, "You're too young. You're not going to make it. Because I rent this place a couple of times, you know, and they go, and nobody pays me, and I don't want you to lose your money." The Depression, you know. It was bread lines out in the street, you know. There was a bread line out on Times Square. VOICE (off mike): Selling apples.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. Apples, five cents an apple. There was a bread line on, eh, what they call it, Columbus Circle? Was a bread line on 14th Street, yeah. So he says, "Too young. Better you don't waste your money because you're going to lose it." So anyway, we didn't. He wouldn't give it to us. We kept working. Somebody else run the place, and must have went out of business. He lost it. We tried again. He said, "No, can't do. This guy lost it already." So third time they went out of business. We went there for the third time, he says, "All right. Okay. Your rent is hundred and fifty dollars a month." See, it was a big place, nice, good diner. And give me a month in advance, deposit. A month, you know. He give us a month free. They give you bonus, you know, to get situated. So anyway we, you know, made connections. The milk man give you money. They give you, bread man gives you money. You know, supplies. And they give you money, so much money. The coffee man gives you money.

LEVINE:

They gave you money in order to use their service?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes. To establish. To establish, yeah. You buy the product, they give you money, they give you cash. See, the pie man gives you so much money. All the, puts you in business, you know. And we open up. It was pretty good, you know. We were there for thirty-three years. ( he laughs ) VOICE (off mike): Pretty good, huh? ( she laughs )

PAPADOPOULOS:

We enlarge it, we fix it. We used to call it Dew Drop Inn. There was a gambling joint there. We didn't know. We didn't know about it. So it was a good story. This is a good story, I tell you. I was a tough man. It was a tough neighborhood. Nobody could work there. They beat them up. I used to go to the YMCA on 64th and 63rd. And I was a good physique and I was good strong. So they wanted to close at night time. I said, "No. I want to open it. I'll be here in night time myself." Me, a cook and another, and a dishwasher, and a counter man. There were four of us. So the place got to keep twenty-four hours a day. So we had the first night in business we made seven dollars. ( he laughs ) Second, twelve. And fourteen, and fifteen, and then it started going up. But it had a bunch of, at the time was Irish men drinking. They go in the restaurant, they don't want to pay. Yeah. They used to call you different names, "You so-and-so and so-and-so." And I had three guys that come in and make trouble for me all the time. So, yeah. Yeah, they come in, they order pork chops, they want food, dessert. "I'm not going to pay you!" "Why not?" "No! What are you, tough? I'm not going to pay you." So two or three times. So there was a man, a show man. A nice fellow, he was named Eddie Leonard, a (?) man. He was a very big style, a big star. He was my customer there. So he says to me, "Andy." I told him, "I'm going to close the place at night time. No more." "Why?" I told him, "They come in at night time, they give me a hard time, they don't want to pay. They eat and don't pay." He says to me, "I'll tell you what you do." I say, "What?" He says, "Tell him you're from Chicago, south side Chicago. The only killers come from south side. Don't be afraid." So I'm going to use that. So he come in, two o'clock in the morning, drunk, freezing. "Pork chops." I said, "Are you going to pay?" "Don't worry. Give me pork chops." Three pork chops, pies, cakes, and all this. Eat and eat and fill up, you know. They give me a check and was, it wasn't very much. Pork chops were twenty-five cents a plate. It was about a couple of dollars, for three of them, see. "I'm not going to pay. I'm not going to pay you." I said, "Hey, just a minute. I'm dealing with many kinds here. I got here to make a living, too, you know. "Nothing doing." So I went in the kitchen, I got a big knife, up on the table. "I'm going to tell all of you, I'm from Chicago. South side. You understand that? South Side." "Hey, hey, we, no, no. Hey, this guy from South Side Chicago. Oh, no! We're going to pay him." ( he laughs ) Yeah, so they pay, and the word went around. ( a telephone rings ) ( break in tape )

LEVINE:

Okay, we're resuming now after a short break. And we were talking about the restaurant on 44th Street.

PAPADOPOULOS:

114 West 44th Street. And around the corner used to be a theater, a big theater. It used to have the subways in there and the seven day bike. They had the stroller, they had the highlight. I learned to speak Spanish for them, you know. The Hippodrome Theater. There was the Hippodrome Theater between 43rd and 44th, Sixth and Fifth. That was a big place. Jimmy Durante used to play there. He used to come in.

LEVINE:

He came into your restaurant?

PAPADOPOULOS:

He come to my place, yeah, yeah. He used to have company in the hotel, 44th Street hotel. He come in, "Andy, send your man such-and-such place. See what she wants. Send her food. I come, I pay you later." ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Now, were your two brothers and you . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

There were three brothers, three of us. I was the night man, the two brothers in day time. And I build up a nice trade in night time. I had the wrestlers coming in, all the big, heavy wrestlers. I had the hockey players, the, what they call, the Rangers. All my customers come in before they go and play, had a nice piece of steak and a Greek salad, special. Oh, they all come in and eat, and they go play in Madison Square Garden on 48th Street and Eighth Avenue.

LEVINE:

And this was called the Dew Drop Inn.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Dew Drop was before we took the place, it used to call the Dew Drop Inn, but it was a bad reputation. There's a big room in the back. It was a gambling joint. They got tables, poker games and had slot machines. So when I got the place we refused, didn't want them. So the man kind of shook me down. He told me, "Hey, you'd better keep the machine here, because." My brother said, "I don't want it." "You'll find your brother in the Hudson River," he says. "You'd better keep that machine here." I says, "I'm not afraid of you. Get the machine out of here." Slot machine, you know. So he took it out. It was a lot of arguing. He don't want to do it. And we got them out. No problem. It didn't bother me or nothing because I stand up for my rights. I'm not afraid of nobody. You know what I mean? Yeah. It was the right thing. And it runs nice and smooth. We remove all the things he had there for gambling, the (?), everything out. And then we enlarge the place, put them back. We had a nice business. On the corner of 44th Street and Sixth Avenue was a hotel they used to call Florence. Jackie Gleason used to live there. They had a partner by name Jackie Wellin. They had the girls, the chorus girls, all this, uh, burlesque girls. They had the strip-teasers, Gypsy Heart, Gypsy Rose Lee, Margie Heart. Another one is four, four, five. They have five shows. They got one in Coney Island, three in Times Square, one in Harlem and one in Jersey City. All the crew, all the dancers, and all the used to live in the Florence Hotel. Very cheap. Fifty cents a night you get a room there, fifty cents a night. By the week I think it was much cheaper, you know, yeah. And they used to come and eat at my place. I fed them all very good. They had a good business, you know, yeah.

LEVINE:

How did you, who cooked? Did you . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, I had cooks, I had cooks. I had cooks, oh, yeah. I had chefs. I didn't pay them much. In those days you didn't pay much the cooks, you know. Everybody work for peanuts like we did. A cup of coffee five cents, a piece of pie ten cents. We had a special, ham and eggs, home fried potatoes, juice and coffee twenty-five cents. I had a menu to show. I had a menu. I don't know what to do, I had a menu.

LEVINE:

Now, who bought the food?

PAPADOPOULOS:

They come to you. We have man coming, they call you up. The butcher called me up, the fish man call you up, you know. The vegetable man call you up. They come in and deliver. "Here's your money." You pay, you know, pay cash, pay less. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

And how, what did you call your place?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Oasis. That's the Oasis. See, you have big, newspaper men, reporters coming in looking for material. "What did you see today, Andy? What did you see?" I (?). ( he laughs ) Lots of information. Anton Cook, the World Telegram , before, many years ago, gave me big, a whole page. What the name, uh, Elia Kazan used to come in the place all the time. Oh, yeah. Two boiled eggs, four minutes. Nobody could make them. We make his eggs. He was very . . .

LEVINE:

What kind of a man was he?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Very good. He was a good guy. He was all right. A nice fellow, yeah. I told him, we became famous, when he made a picture, "the Hustlers." Some of my customers, L.J. cobb was my customer. It's another by name, uh, Shoe. Shoe they took in my place. They took and made that picture in Jersey City in a bar. So the rest of them come in, he says to me, "Andy, talk to your friend." He was a good friend of mine, Kazan. "Tell him to give me a job, make the picture." I said, "Go ahead, tell him I sent you. Go ahead. Go and see him in Jersey City." So he convinced him, he went up there, he just opened the door in the bar. "Get over here and get a glass," he told him. Kazan tell him, "Get a glass of beer." He get him a glass of beer. "Hold the glass up." He took a shot. "Okay, go and get paid." Twenty dollars. Twenty dollars used to be the fastest money I ever made. Twenty bucks in one shot. See? A glass of beer in the hand. That was in there. Yeah, yeah. See? And I got a lot of the cast to come in. They used to have the March of Dimes. Do you remember that? You don't remember, eh?

LEVINE:

Oh, the March of Dimes.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, March. Terry DeCorsia, he used to talk about Mussolini. From Mussolini took over, they used to go to Hirohito. For all them guys, he used to voices. His name was Terry DeCorsia. He's a nice, good friend of mine, very good. And they come in with the, two or three taxicabs. "How many people, Andy, how many people are here?" Okay. They filled in, take them to Astoria Studios to make the March of Times. Yes, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

LEVINE:

Well, you know, Elia Kazan is still alive.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, I know. I sent . . .

LEVINE:

Yeah. And did you know that he came through Ellis Island?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Uh-huh. Yeah, he did? He used to come. He very good spoken, nice spoken. But when they became famous and the reporters came in and they, I told them, you know, "Elia, Elia." Very papparazzi man, they told them they want to take a picture and they talk to them. You know. "No, no, he don't want to talk to anybody." Like this, "No, no. No, no. Don't want to talk to anybody." Yeah. ( he laughs ) But he was all right. He was, every day, come in the place, have breakfast. Two boiled eggs, four minutes. Not too soft, not too hard. They got to be just so, you know. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Okay. Well, let's go ahead. You know, you never mentioned your younger brother. What was he like?

PAPADOPOULOS:

He, no. He's older, older than I am.

LEVINE:

You have an older?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah, the big one. Not the one where he, he came the second, the other brother

LEVINE:

Yeah, that one.

PAPADOPOULOS:

That passed away a couple, a few years back.

LEVINE:

What was his name?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Theodore.

LEVINE:

Theodore.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Theodore, yeah.

LEVINE:

What kind of a person was he?

PAPADOPOULOS:

He was quiet, very quiet. I went to Florida, 1938. I bought a car, one of the best all, you know, coupe. And a friend of mine, he then was, he was a furrier. Misel, his name was Misel. Jerry, say Jerry Misel. And I wanted to go to Florida. He says to me, "Andy, I'll go with you. We pay the expenses, fifty-fifty." I said, "Why not?" I didn't know. I never went to Florida before. Just bought a car, a new coupe Chevy. I think about six hundred dollars.

LEVINE:

What year was this in?

PAPADOPOULOS:

1938, 1938. So we took a car. First stop, Washington, DC. He says to me, "Look, I've got only one leg." You know, we slept in the same room, double room, you know. "Don't get scared." Some people say I don't know, the man, you know, from the knee down he got an artificial leg. He says to me, "Don't get scared." I says, "No, don't worry. It's all right." You know. So we got a (?), and the next stop was Georgia and then Florida and then we're going to Miami. It took us three days to get down there. I had a nice time there, a very nice. You know, fine. My brother, the one you said, so he called me up. "You'd better come back. I can't stay here. They're very rough. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

They what?

PAPADOPOULOS:

They're rough people. He couldn't handle them.

LEVINE:

At night, you mean.

PAPADOPOULOS:

At night, at night. Because when they see I'm not there, they took a free hand to do what they want. He says, "You better come back. I'm not going to stay. I'm going to close the place." ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

So, in other words, during the Depression you were doing all right.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, I can't complain, because I worked. You work. See, they give you a dollar to tag, everybody work, that's all. At least in a restaurant you eat. We eat, and you go in the street, buy you five cents an apple. All the veterans, World War I, they sell apples in the street five cents, cold winter, you know. And you see them guys in the bread line, shivering, cold, snow, to get a cup of coffee and a sandwich. And oh, you know, it makes a chill come through you. You know what I mean? On every corner you see a vendor with a big apple box, opposite, five cents an apple, good apple. See what I mean? But thank God I have no complaints. I can't complain. I make good. I work, I work my head off seven days a week. And then we started loosening up. We pay all the debts. And Mr. Flanders was so good. When I went to the army . . .

LEVINE:

Now, when were you called into the Army?

PAPADOPOULOS:

1943.

LEVINE:

And were you married at that time?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no. I was a single man. I used to live in the hotel, 142, Dezion's building, Dezion. The one who owned, you know. He says to me, "Come down, I've got an apartment. Rent it." It used to be one of the Gimbel brothers used to live there. A governor of Jersey used to have a room there. At the time, I don't know his name, but he was, years back, you know. He used to stay in my place. He used to go to the Astor hotel and send the bellboy, "Go to the Oasis and get me a couple of club sandwiches. Ask Andrew to fix it for me." ( he laughs ) He says to me, "The bellboy said to me, 'You must have good food,' he says, 'because the governor sent me over here. They got so much in our place. They have a big restaurant in the Astor Hotel, you know. And they send me over to you.'" "Well," I say, "I treat them good." Yeah, yeah.

LEVINE:

So what happened when you were called into the army?

PAPADOPOULOS:

I go in the army. I went for induction. I went to, first time I went to Governor's Island. We were two of us. I have an actor with me. His name was, we were good friends. You know, because, you know, yeah, we were together.

LEVINE:

Was your brother called too?

PAPADOPOULOS:

My brother went before me. The first, before you were here before, he went right away, right away. And I think it was on '42, when it started, right away he was the first one to go. So we went this fellow here, Governor's Island, examine, pass everything fine. And then I asked what . . .

LEVINE:

You must have, excuse me. You must have become a citizen then.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Oh, yeah. In 1938 I become a citizen. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. A citizen, I got my papers right away.

LEVINE:

Was that a thrill for you?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, '36. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. You knew who made me a citizen? Two detectives. Two detectives were good, give it to me good. I told them, "You'd better help me here. I'm in trouble." I was working on 59th Street and Ninth Avenue. There's an elevated, the Ninth Avenue Elevated, before I went to the Oasis, before I bought the place. So up there was trouble, black people. Trouble. Drunk. Come in, they don't want to pay. So I say to one, see, this man says to me he had a cousin there, tough guy. He didn't want to do it. "Andy, you take over? Take the night time, night manager. You take on night manager and take care of the business, get the money and so on." So I stayed there, but I had trouble. So detectives, I met them up there. I told them, "Look, boys, I'm not going to stay here no more." Them guys (?). Talk with them every night. "Don't worry. Take care of you." They had an outside sign, see, blinking sign. Captain's Luncheonette, what they call it, you know, see. A small place. And I says, "Cruising around the detectives at night time." He says to me, "Any time you're in trouble, shut the sign, shut the sign." So I did it, and they helped me good. They helped me good. I kept my job. And they says, "I want to make you a citizen." I told them, "I'd be glad to." So in 1936 I become a citizen. Five years over here.

LEVINE:

Now did you have to go to classes, and did you . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. No, no, no, no. I went to, Christopher Street was the I-A, what do you call?

LEVINE:

The immigration?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah, yeah. Christopher Street. But no, they don't ask no questions. And the judge asked me a few questions. One question I didn't know. He says, "What President was killed in office?" "Uh, eh . . ." I said, "McKenzie." "Yeah, McKenzie. Good." ( they laugh ) It was all right, yeah. So . . .

LEVINE:

Now, did you pick up English better?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, I was very good.

LEVINE:

Just in the course of you living and working.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, business. Yes, business, and then in the army. And I, you know, very good, you know. People to talk, you know what you're talking about. You learn English and nobody to talk, it's no good to you. See, we learn, sometime up there, I know a few words to get around, but not freely, you know. But it was all right. Make out good, Chicago. American life in Chicago. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

So you were called into the army.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes.

LEVINE:

And then where did you go?

PAPADOPOULOS:

I went the first stop, Camp Hampton. Camp Hampton, right here on Long Island, Camp Hampton. Now it's, now it's, uh, eh, what they call this observatory? What they call that? Not very far. Camp Hampton, came by train down here. All my help, they come in to the station, Pennsylvania Station, goodbye. I was up there like a pawn shop. Actors coming, actresses, chorus girls. "Andy, I need five dollars, I'm broke. I got my radio." So I give them five dollars. "Andy, I need money. Give me." I got about twenty-five radios. And nobody came back. So what I did, I give it to my help, because we establish our business. I give all the radios to my help because what I'm going to do with them. I have no, there was a man, a sick old man, used to live in the hotel. And I had a cousin, I give him my information, I put him on my, you know. So the restaurant, listen to this. I had a man to buy it. Another fellow who had a restaurant on Sixth Avenue says to me, "Andy, I pay you $25,000 for your restaurant." "Okay, I accept it, I take it, because I'm going into the army." So he waited till the last day. He comes in, no, one day he says to me, "I can't buy it." I said, "Why not?" He says, "No, I changed my mind." I said, "Did you wait till the last minute? Why you do that?" He says, "I'm sorry. You want me to run it for you, I run it for you, but I'm not going to give you that money." "Get out of here." So I went to my landlord. I told him, "Mr. Flander, I'm going to the army." He said, "My boy, he had to go to the one before me. There were two of us. So I'm going to give you two or three months in advance. Keep the place." Close it, for me, I'd close it, you see. Keep the place, when I come back, if I come back, it's okay. If I don't come back sell the place and get your rent, what's coming to you. But he said, "Nothing doing. I don't want no money from you. You're going to the army for a good cause, don't worry about the rent." I make a check for $500 or so, and I put on his desk, see? And when I camp to Camp Hampton, I found it. He says, "I put that money in the bank for your name. I made a check." He says to me, "I don't want a penny for you." A nice man. (?) And from Camp Hampton I went to South Caro, uh, Camp Cloth. I think it's North Carolina or South, South Carolina, one of those places. I think back in North Carolina, yeah, Fayetteville. And I got my basic training there, my basic training. So I get along fine there. Good. To me, I got friends everywhere. No trouble. I used to get the chance, "Come on, you guys, we're going to go. I know a Greek restaurant. Taking thirty, forty guys." He says, "I can't help them." ( he laughs ) There came the whole company. They were very good. He was good.

LEVINE:

So then did you see action?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Plenty, oh, yeah.

LEVINE:

Tell me about that.

PAPADOPOULOS:

I don't want to talk about it now. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

You don't want to talk about that. Okay. But you received a lot of medals and . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

I saw plenty of action, yeah, but I don't want to talk because . . .

LEVINE:

Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay. How did you feel about serving in the United States Army?

PAPADOPOULOS:

I'm very happy, pleased. Very good. Good. They're good. I was at the kitchen, I was a rifleman. First I was a combat man, then they put me in the kitchen. I had a hard time, too. They got some wise guys in the Army, you know. They tell you, "Hey, I'm the boss." So I'll tell you a story what happened one time. I never want to hit anybody. But, see, I was hurt and they sent me to the hospital. Hospital, hospital, hospital, hospital. And I wind up in England in a place, they had rehabilitation hospital and I spent about thirty, forty days, to come to, you know, my troubles, and all that. Combat, you know. So after discharge from the hospital they sent me to a place it's called a Placement Depot. It was near Salisbury. It was a big depot, a big place, you know. So I always wanted to put my name KP. So KP, you know, wash the dishes. But I never put a KP washing dish. I went to the cook, I say, "I want to cook. I want to help you." "Good, good. Stay with us. See, stay with us." So we never saw fresh eggs in combat. You don't get no fresh. Everything is canned or powdered and everything else. So I see fresh eggs, fresh chopped meat. I make myself a nice omelet. So an officer comes in. "What are you doing here? Are you going to eat this?" "Yes, I do." "Is that on the menu?" I said, "No." "Well, you're not supposed to eat it. You eat everybody what's on the menu." I say, "Look, my stomach is bad, I volunteer for the job, I'm not here to stay, I'm going to eat what I like. What you have I don't eat." Bla, bla, bla. So I told him, ( he laughs ) I told him to get off my back, leave me alone. But anyway, same place I was helping the cooks, I think a couple of weeks. So they had a Captain Crenshaw. He was in charge of the mess hall, and he was a very tough man, drunk all the time. He used to bother the cooks. And if I don't do this job, front lines. A lot of guys got killed, got killed on account of him, you know, they told me. So, but my papers said, "Do not send overseas, limited duty only." Because I was hurt already. They won't send you back for a second time because, you know. So he came in one morning, one o'clock in the morning. I just fall asleep. "Hey, wake up." "What for?" "I want you, for me and my company, you're going to make some pork chops, potatoes, salad." I said, "I'm not going to do it." END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO, TAPE TWO

PAPADOPOULOS:

"Why not?" I say, "Not now. I go in the morning, six o'clock. I'll be there at six o'clock. Not now." He says to me, "You obey. You don't refuse an officer, you know."

LEVINE:

An order.

PAPADOPOULOS:

"Orders." I said, "This is not in line of duty. It's private. You get somebody to do that for you. I won't do it." So anyway I never did it. So six o'clock I went to work. I fixed (?). And twelve thirty finish up, one o'clock I finish up and I went to the order in the room, and I says to top sergeant, "I want a pass. I want to go to London. I want a pass. I want to get out of here." "Fine," he says, "Go ahead." "I want to shave and clean up. I got to pass inspection, see." So the captain comes in, right in the bathroom, when I was shaving. "Hey, you!" "Who you calling 'you'?" "You're a combat man?" I say, "Yes, I am. What do you want to do about it?" He says, "I'm not afraid of you. I want to fight you." I say, "Will you leave me alone? I don't want to fight." I say, "I'm going to go to town. I got a pass." "I want to fight you." I says, "All right." So I finish shaving. It was one flight up, you know, like a hotel, you know, the camp. British, British, you know, camps, you know, and so on. So I called the first sergeant. I called, "Hey, you guys, come over here. You want to see me fight the captain."

LEVINE:

This is Captain Krenshaw?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Captain Krenshaw. So I told him, "You remove your jacket, you remove your hat, you remove your bars, because I respect them, but I have no respect." I say, "Remove your bars. Put them over there." "Okay, sure, sure." ( he gestures ) ( he laughs ) ( he gestures, re-enacting the fight ) Get up, bop, another one. The guys go, "Yea!" They love it, they like it. ( he laughs ) He says to me, "You're serious." I say, "You want it? You ask for it? I give it to you, that's all." "Go ahead. Call them. Call the marshall." I said, "Go ahead." I call the marshall. "What are you afraid?" He said, "Nothing." He didn't say nothing to me no more. Finished. Didn't bother me at all, no more. I stayed a couple of weeks. And then I said, "I can't stay here no more. I can't. I want to go. Send me any place else." They sent me in Southampton, a place called Kidworth, G.I. barracks, and I was there for a long time. I was there for, and I went, I have points to come home. But my major in charge of the camp, he won't let me. He says to me, "Andy, you've done a good job, stay here. Why do you want to go home? What you want to go home for? You're all right." So, yeah, I listened. He was a good man, he was good. Captain, he, major. Major, uh, yeah. That might be his name, too. He used to love him. But he got killed the same way Patton got killed, by jeep. He's, because they used to send me letters over here from Virginia and we used to, you know, correspond. And then his mother or somebody write to me. He says, "I'm sorry, but he's not with us any more. He have an accident." He died, you know. And he was good to me. So he says to me, "Don't leave. Stay with us." See, because I used to run officer's mess. Where you send the, when the war was over you send officers, you discharge them. They come through our mess hall, they go to Southampton, get a boat, and come home. There was the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and different other ships, you know, to bring them home. There were no planes at that time, you know, no airfare at that time, you know, see? So anyway, after we send the officers we send the G.I. brides. See, the guys got married in England, they bring them over here. They stay in the camp. We fed them, we take care of them. And I had a KP, a Puerto Rican boy. He says to me, he used to do PX, because they see a nickel, a pack of cigarettes, five cents. He send GI brides, you charge them more money. Charge them a lot of money. He used to sell it. So somebody went to the major's ear. He call him, "Hey! Come over here. What are you doing? You sell cigarettes to these ladies over here?" He said, "My cigarettes." "No, no. Not your cigarettes." Yeah. So, anyway, ten days bread and water. ( he laughs ) He was a big, chubby boy. So in ten days came back slim as can be. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Well, now, how did you feel when the war was over?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, you feel, you know, you feel good. You know, because war is not a joke place.

LEVINE:

No, no. And then when did you meet your wife?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Uh, my wife I met in my restaurant after the war in 1946. I got a gal in '46. And I had a friend, a relative or so, he brought to his wife, and this one here, in my restaurant. We made a date, you know. We make a date, went out, we got together, you know.

LEVINE:

Did you court her for a while?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Huh?

LEVINE:

Did you have a long courtship?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. Well, about six months we were together before we got married, you know. For six months we used to go out here and there. And, I don't know, nice. You know, she, yeah. Always, always have the car, take them different place you want to go, have a good time.

LEVINE:

And then did she, did she work in the restaurant at all?

PAPADOPOULOS:

No. No, I wouldn't let her work in the restaurant because, you know, she got all kinds of people up there, and they say, "Why don't you give us a break to somebody else?" You never want people to say that your family working in here. You know what I mean? Give somebody else a break. People, they need the job. I don't need anything. See? So she stayed home and I hired people. I hired three or four girls, a couple of dishwashers, three cooks. You know? You want to run it smooth, nice. A had three different shift, you know, all the time, you know. No more seven days a week, seven hours a day. Seven days a week, yes. But, you know, eight hours and eight hours and eight hours. You know, fine.

LEVINE:

Now, did you have children?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah, I got three, three.

LEVINE:

And what are their names?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Eh, Dimitri, Gregory and Christina. They're all married.

LEVINE:

Do you have grandchildren?

PAPADOPOULOS:

I got five grandchildren. ( he laughs ) Yeah. Eh, the biggest got two, a boy and a girl. Gregory got a son. Christina got two, a boy and a girl.

LEVINE:

Great. Well, you may have great-grandchildren before too long.

PAPADOPOULOS:

No, no. See, my wife had problems, she had trouble. She lost two of them when we got married. We don't know, ten years after we got married she had the first. No, she had two miscarriages, she was in very bad trouble, trouble you don't know. And she walks like this, you know. She had a bad operation. The doctor was no good. The doctor must have been drunk. I can still say she cut the spinal cord. That's why she drag herself, you know. The doctor, he don't know. She spent six months in the hospital. She almost died, you know. She almost died. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In St. Francis Hospital three months, and three months in what they call, another place down below. You know, she, you know, three month rehabilitation. I bring her home, she was like a vegetable. She couldn't, I walk. He says to me, the doctor say, "Keep her busy walking up and down because she's going to freeze up and you won't be able to." So every day up and down, up and down all the time, keep her busy, you know. Thank God she's walking, but first she could not. I had a nurse to take care of here, you know. She couldn't walk. She couldn't, you know, like paralyzed. Thank God, little by little back, you know. See, you know, now she walks but she's got to hold on me. Not by herself, you know. She got to hold on to me in a place. She cannot, you know, she can't hold it.

LEVINE:

Now, you and your wife remain a religious, Greek Orthodox.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes. We got to church, yeah. We christened our children, you know, according to our tradition are our responsibility. Yes, yeah, yeah.

LEVINE:

What traditions do you think you've held on to from Cyprus? ( Mr. Papadoupolis laughs. ) What kinds of things did you not give up to become an American?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, the story is this, I told you up there, I had to get away from the British in the first place. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

First you got away from the British, right?

PAPADOPOULOS:

( he laughs ) And the second, you're looking for a better world. You heard so much about America, America is good. Come to America. Everybody writes this, they're over here. Come over here, America. Yeah. Later on I'll tell you a story about America, you know. But not now. A good story.

LEVINE:

Well, I'll tell you, we have a few, we have maybe as much as five minutes left, so I'd like you to tell anything you would like to tell. ( they laugh ) Especially since your wife's not here if you can tell whatever you wanted to.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yeah. Well, see, actors, next to me is the Lambs Club. I don't know if it still exists now. I don't know. See, my building came down in 1946. They tear down the building.

LEVINE:

In order to build a high rise?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, yes.

LEVINE:

Now, what was next door to it?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Lambs Club, where the actors. There's the hotel next to me, and then is the Lambs Club where the actors. All the big actors used to come to my place. They come in, you know. I had a big (?) now. A bottle of ale, ten cents. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

What?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Ale, ale.

LEVINE:

Ale. Uh-huh.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Scotch ale, used to call beer ale, ten cents a bottle. A bottle, no cans at that time, a bottle. A bottle was ten cents. You see, you know, it was the Depression, no money. And it was twenty-two, from Sixth Avenue to Broadway, twenty-two eating places. Luncheonettes and hotels. Oasis left, my place. Because I undersold them, I'm telling you. I used to give good food. I had good food to come in. I had a friend from the Lambs Club. He brought his brother from Minnesota, or was something. He was a bank president. He came in, sat at the table. He's demanding, "Two breakfasts, please." That's all he had to say. So I told the girl to half a grapefruits, bacon and eggs, home fried potatoes, toast, coffee, and I serve him. He don't have to order anything. So he, after they ate come here, he says to me, "So good." He says to me, "Like home. You're like home." ( he laughs ) He didn't have to order anything. See, I know exactly what everybody wants. And I take care of them very good. I really had a good, a big star you see on television, I fed them. Many were broke and didn't have a dime. I fed them. They didn't pay me. So many times they didn't. There was a fellow by the name, he had a television program of his own after, you know, after. When the war declare all those guys, 4Fs, they went to Hollywood, they made success. They couldn't get no jobs here. The three people sleep in the same bedroom, they come down, hang around in my restaurant at night time, they want coffee and the paper maybe. One guy sleep, they exchange, the other guy would sleep. It was Depression. Things were bad. I feel sorry for them. I fed them. Nobody went hungry. You come to the counter, you eat. "Don't worry, don't pay me." And I fed a lot of people. Believe me, I fed a lot of people. No money. So this man here, he had this public defender, Reed Hedley is the name. He used to give me a quarter to go to Radio City Music Hall to see a show. He give me ten cents on 42nd Street to see a show. It was a dime on 42nd Street on the morning, and twenty-five cents at the Radio City Music Hall. I used to give him money to go and see a show. Oh, yeah. He would come back and thank me so much, but he never paid me. Only money, I don't care, you know. ( he laughs ) But a lot of them actors, they owe me money. I fed them. I don't care, because I was in business. One night a sailor came in in wartime before I went to the army. He was a regular customer. He came with his girl. He wanted something to drink. He comes around, counter and tables, everywhere packed. He come on, "Andy, what did we here? Plain people?" ( they laugh ) I said, "What's a matter? You hungry?" "Yes, I'm hungry." I said, "Okay." So I took them in the kitchen. I got a big place in the back. I fed them in there. One more thing, I wanted to be sure to tell you. He was a young kid, a sailor. He says to me, "Andy, please do me a favor." I said, "What do you want?" He said, "I'm in love, and I've got a girl. I want to get married. Can you stand still for me? Can you pay the expenses?" So he brought the girl. I say, "Yes." So I put my girls, my waitress, as a bridesmaid. On 74th Street, there's a church on 74th and Broadway, they got married. I brought them down 42nd Street. There was a restaurant there, a Greek restaurant. I think about fifteen or twenty. I got all my personnel, he had some friends. And I told the man, "Take care of everybody and I'll pay." You know, and I'll treat them. He thanked me so much. I don't know if the kid came back, he died, I don't know. Before the war, wartime, you know. So he went to the army and I lost touch with him, you know what I mean? But I think that's this thing right here. He was so, thanked me so nice. "I have nobody here and I have to have somebody to pay, you know, to get married." So I did. I helped him out. You know, a young kid. He was in love, you know. He says to me, "I cannot." He come from down west some place. I don't remember exactly, but I took care of him.

LEVINE:

Tell me, what do you think your life would have been like if you had stayed in Cyprus?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Same, you know. You can't get anywhere there. You cannot, no chance. You born rich, you stay rich. You born poor, you stay poor.

LEVINE:

Well, you were born not rich, but . . .

PAPADOPOULOS:

Very good. I wasn't, you know, I was very good. My standing was good, my father was good. You know, he, he was all right. He had people working for him. You know, he was, you know, he never do out on field work.

LEVINE:

Did you stay in communication by letter after you came through with your father?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yeah. Write the letter. My father was here in 1957. President Macaris came over here, brought him from, he came to get him from Athens. He met him in Athens. ( he knocks on table ) But, Father Dimitri, he says, "You're going to New York with me." He said, "No, I'm not going to shave my beard." He says, "Take my calimachi." To have my, you know, because the robes. They got to wear the robes, they got the beard. It's on the picture."

LEVINE:

Spell calimachi.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Calimachi. It's calimachi.

LEVINE:

That's the hat?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, the hat. Calimachi. Let me write down, because I don't understand. Yes, he says to him, "You have to do it. It's okay." ( he pauses to write ) Calimachi, see?

LEVINE:

Okay. And so he came with him.

PAPADOPOULOS:

He came over here and we were not the what they call, he, Kennedy Airport. At that time used to be the Idlewild Airport. And when the CBS and they interview (?). I got films. I got pictures there, yeah. And my father was there, and I brought him home with us to stay with me. He stayed for three, no, two months. He said, "My son, I can't stay. I can't stay here. I have to go back to my people." He didn't speak the language.

LEVINE:

What was it like to be with your father in New York?

PAPADOPOULOS:

It was a pleasure, sure. Feel good, feel good. Somebody, you know. Yeah, feel good. He, you know, he was all right.

LEVINE:

And was he proud of you?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Very, very. Very proud, yeah. He was good. But he says to me, "I can't stay here." He says to me, "I don't speak the language." I took him to the subway, to the Statue of Liberty. ( he laughs ) I show him the Castle Gardens, Ellis Island. My first place was over here, see. And I show him all around the city. We drive to Coney Island and drove me different places, you know, Brooklyn, everywhere, you know. Yeah. Different places.

LEVINE:

Tell me, of all the things you've done, which are many, of what are you most proud?

PAPADOPOULOS:

My family, my family. Yeah, we have a nice family. Here ( he laughs ) I serve my country. I give my, I play my part, how most of the years in the army are good, I would say good, I believe. I got honorable discharge, and I got lots of, made a lot of friends. I got a book, I got a book out, I got forty-six dates, different people. I have a book, I have forty-six dates, different people. I got it in my book.

LEVINE:

From the army?

PAPADOPOULOS:

From the army, yes, yeah. Except in Nevada I couldn't get anybody.

LEVINE:

Where?

PAPADOPOULOS:

In Wyoming and Nevada we don't have anybody. ( they laugh ) But the other places, I was in Camp Croft, you're going overseas, so you follow from Brooklyn. He says to me, "Andy, I need some money. I want to go home, I don't have any money." You know, I have money all the time. My first pay I donate to the American Red Cross. I had money, I don't care.

LEVINE:

Your first pay, your first job.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, when I went to the army.

LEVINE:

Oh, in the army.

PAPADOPOULOS:

If one more thing happens to me, when I was on 44th Street to go overseas, they give you ten days furlough to see your friends. You never said goodbye. You never come back, right? So I went on 47th Street. A cousin of mine had a restaurant there. And I seen another GI sitting up there. Me and my brother, two of us, me and my brother together, came home from the air force. He came to see me, went away. So this guy looks as me like this. "Are you Greeks?" I say, "Yeah." "I hear you speak Greek. I'm Greek too. Where are you from?" "Cyprus." "Yeah?" He comes over. "What are you doing here?" He said, "I'm going overseas." I said, "I'm going too." Yeah. He says, "My name is John. What's your name?" I said, "Andy." He says, "You know, I got problems." I say, "What's the matter?" "I have no money. Can't you buy something to eat?" I say, "Why not? What you want? Pork chops? What you want? It's taken, what do you want?" See, in the meantime I went to the bank. They call Athens Savings Bank, something like that, Athenian Bank on 34th Street, and I got three hundred dollars to spend. I had money in the bank, but I didn't want to spend it. So I paid whatever you want. Here's a couple of dollars to spend. Don't worry about it. So, he says, I don't want to know. He says to me, "I better not." I say, "Don't worry. Come on." "John," he said, "Thursday." That was Monday. "Thursday I'm going to Fort Dix." "That's where I'm going." "We'll go together," he says. I say, "All right." So we left there. The next day, go, he's out there by himself again. He says to me, "Andy, I'm still hungry." He's got a mother over here, but he didn't go. He was deserted, and I didn't know that. So I fed him, but in the meantime my brother went back to the army, back to the air force in Ohio. So he says to me, "I have no place to sleep tonight. I know you have a big room there in your hotel. Can I sleep in the bed where your brother is?" I said, "All right, John, go ahead. It's okay." So I went back in the hotel and I told the clerk, "This man will be here tonight. Put him in there." ( break in tape ) My brother, you know. He says, "Okay, fine." So two nights he slept. The third night I wondered if some people was going away. There were some people up in Jerome Avenue, I got some friends there. I came back, a few drinks or so, you know. So I remove my watch, put it on the table. I went to sleep. But he was awake. He was awake. I said, "What's the matter, John?" He says, "I can't sleep. I can't sleep." I say, "What's the matter?" He says, "I don't know, I'm nervous." Well, anyway, I fall asleep and I get up about one o'clock, because I didn't go to bed till six o'clock in the morning. So I look for my watch, I can't find it. I can't find my watch. I don't see what happened to it. So I go down to the desk, I call the desk, I say, "What time is it?" He says, "It's barely one o'clock." So I want to get dressed, I look for my money, no money. The money is gone. Three hundred dollars. He took the money, he took my watch, and he was gone. So I went back to the restaurant. I asked the girl, I said, "You know, you know this guy here." Because you told me, I took this to me, you know. You know him well. So I asked her, I said, "What's his name?" He says to me, "His name is John." "John what?" He says to me, "John Stefano." Stefano, fine. I went to the police station on 47th Street and I told him, I figured we were robbed. But not a GI. He says to me, "Go upstairs to the detectives." ( he laughs ) So I went to the detectives and told them the story. He say, "I know his name is John Stefano. He is a GI." I didn't know he was a deserter, you know. He's going to Fort Dix next Thursday, we're going together. So anyway, "We try to give the report. If we get it we'll let you know." So he goes to get the waitress. He beat her up, took her money, he left. So she went to the police and complained the same thing. Went to the MPS and she complain, such and such a man. So in two or three days they got him in Coney Island. They caught him. So they called me up. I was in Fort Dix before I went overseas. "Come identify the guy. See if it's the guy that took your money." So I came over. They took me to the Harmon Third Avenue someplace in the jail. "It's a shame," I say to John, "you take my money. Where is my watch?" He says to me, "Here. Get it at the pawn shop. Go and get your watch." He says to me, "The money, I spent it. And I pay you, when I come out, I pay you. But now I don't have a dime." So what can I do? So I got my watch. A nice, expensive watch, you know. And I went back. The waitress complained that he beat her up and so on. So they didn't want to join for him, they send him back to the army. Took him to the army, went overseas. Well, the story is when I came back, like, I look for him. I got to find him. So there was a lady in our church by the same name. I said, "You know anybody Stefano? Are you related to such?" "Yeah," he says to me, "we were together in the army. Glad to see him." I didn't tell her he robbed me and so on. He says to me, "On 48th Street and Eighth and Ninth Avenue, such and such a number, with his mother. So, and then we asked his mother send somebody, you know, (?) from me. The boys, so on, and the guys, go and find him. Take care. She told me he works inside Sal's restaurant on 47th Street. So he went up there and talked to him. "Hey, Andy wants to see you." ( he mumbles ) We said, "Okay." "Here's five dollars. Give it to the teller man." "It's your money, twenty." He says, "Okay, give me five dollars. Now, someone's making supper for me." So, because, well, he work here. He come back, he may come back, "Andy, five dollars." You know, he's going to pay you. So I told him where he was, and I went up there and I find the guy. I said, "John, it's three hundred dollars. Are you going to pay me, or what?" He says, "I'll pay you every penny of it." So he paid me about twenty dollars. I lost it. I never find him. So when I bought the house down here, and when I was in the hospital, I met this lady. I told her, "John, you know, he's not there no more. Where can he be?" You've got to see me because I didn't see him yet. We were in the army together. Buddy of mine." He says, "He's in Holbrook. Yeah." I say to him, "Give me a phone number." So he give me a phone number and I call him up from here. I say, "John, remember me?" "Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to pay you." I said, "Wait a minute, John, you say that fifteen years you're going to pay me. Where is the money?" So he says, "Oh, I'll pay you." So ( he laughs ), he paid me. He paid me fifty dollars a week. You could count it, it was all right, though. Yeah. But I never see him, though. I never see him. He got married. He had a family, he told me, he got two children. But what happened to him, I don't know. I never see him. I don't know. But he was off his, you know, he was, you know. He wasn't well, mentally, like this, you know, yeah. Things that happened to me. You don't know the stories.

LEVINE:

Tell me this. When you first came, and for those initial years, did you encounter prejudice against you because you were a greenhorn?

PAPADOPOULOS:

A Greek! A Greek, Greek! They want to say to you, "Greek. You're Greek." ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

What kind of experiences did you have like that?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, you put it in one year, take it in the other. You don't care. It didn't bother me. It didn't bother me.

LEVINE:

But that has changed. Do you feel that it's changed?

PAPADOPOULOS:

It's changed a lot. See, they call you, you Italian so-and-so, you Greek so-and-so, you so-and-so-and-so. They call you all kinds of names. But not the (?). What are you going to do? Fight them guys? Nah. Sometimes maybe you don't hear. By the . . .

LEVINE:

Now it seems as though it's an honor to have come here as an immigrant and made good and helped make this country strong.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Yes, I'm very happy. I'm very happy. I'm very happy, this country. See my flag. ( he gestures )

LEVINE:

Yeah, right, right. You've got all the signs of getting anxious.

PAPADOPOULOS:

I got to feel like outside, the flag, the big flag. It starts here, all the time, because I like to go in the nighttime too, you know. The flag, yeah, yeah.

LEVINE:

Okay. Well, is there anything else, in closing, that you would like to say about having come to this country?

PAPADOPOULOS:

Well, I'm very pleased. I can't complain this country. I'm very happy.

LEVINE:

Well, I'd like to say that it's been a pleasure talking with you. I've enjoyed all your stories. I'm sure you have many, many more, but it's been a pleasure. And this is Janet Levine, and I've been talking with Andreas Papadopoulos in his home in Mattituck, Long Island, July 18th, 1992. And I am signing off.

PAPADOPOULOS:

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for coming.

LEVINE:

Thank you.