My father, Theofilos, was born in a tiny village of Corfu called Zygos (in English is the same as Libra). A very poor village full of traditional and nevertheless conservative habitants, my father was born to this lucky family where they could enjoy eating meat once a week (while others could never afford eat meat). A very good student and an athlete, he was sent at the age of 14 years to live in Corfu town alone and after a couple of years in Athens, so he could go to high school. At the same time he used to train to become a professional footballer. My grandparents were so poor that when my father went to Athens he had to work in the mornings at a patisserie and bakery and go to evening school after work. Despite that, he still managed to be one of the best students of his school and be accepted to University of Athens to study Philosophy and Archeology. He was inspired by his landowner’s daughter who managed to persuade him to give up sports for the shake of education! She was the first student to get into law studies in the whole of Greece, what an achievement!
When he got his first job, he was landed on the island of Paxos, a very small but beautiful island south of Corfu island. He absolutely HATED every minute of it! He felt isolated and lonely and could not wait to return to Corfu. One of his colleagues, working in Corfu town at the time, was dating a very smart and beautiful young doctor who had just been employed at Paxos. They decided to mutually ask for job exchange so my father could return to Corfu and his colleague to spend a romantic year or two with his love at Paxos island. When the application was accepted my father was so happy that he decided to send his colleague a box containing 500 packets of condoms as a thank you!