by Tasou D. Volti
published in the Faris Newsletter No. 66, July 2017, page 11
Author Note:  In issue 64, there is an interesting retrospective on the old means of road transportation. There, testimonies and memories are mentioned concerning the appearance of the first automobiles in our village, Xirokampi. To this valuable account and presentation by Stratis S. Solomos, I will add some of my own references with supplementary details on this fascinating topic of that era.

The late Vasileios Kountouris, a remarkable and restless individual with an entrepreneurial spirit, was among the first motorists of the 1930s and 1940s. He had bought the first small passenger car of the FIAT brand.

I remember my late uncle, Lampros Sakellariadis, who later became a judge at the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos), recounting an incident involving that car. Kountouris had driven the FIAT up to the village cistern to wash it. With him were my uncle Lampros—then a teenager—and Kountouris’ son Kostas, who was younger. During the washing, the handbrake came loose, and the vehicle rolled off the edge of the rock and plunged into the ravine, above the path leading to the Rasina bridge. It suffered severe, irreparable damage. After the difficult recovery, it remained in a corner of the large sandlot at the village square, the “Chortarakia,” just below the barbershop of Yiannis Sykiotis. The famous “Chortarakia” was our exclusive play area. And here the saying “nothing is more permanent than the temporary” held true, as the car—according to its owner—was to remain there for possible repair. But it became permanently immobile. Kountouris’ repeated efforts and shouted threats failed to deter us or drive us away from the car, which we had now turned into one of our favorite playgrounds. Uncle Vasilis eventually gave up trying to remove us. And then, our destructive tendencies—more so driven by curiosity—gradually left only the skeleton of the FIAT!

Kountouris later brought another small car—a kind of jeep—which had the starter button on the floor. It was always parked outside the gate of his house, next to the notary office of my grandfather Kostis Sakellariadis. That jeep aroused our curiosity and, approaching it cautiously, we would press the starter with our hand—resulting in, to our great satisfaction, the jeep making little hops, as the gear lever was jammed. No matter how much Uncle Vasilis threatened us, we had fun.

I remember one time Uncle Vasilis stopped me on the road—strangely, he wasn’t angry—and, with fluent expression in his Katharevousa eloquence, he told me something I still remember today: “Even though you are the son of a professor, you are no different from the other street urchins by taking part in such acts of mischief. A pity!”  It has stayed in my memory—as if I can still hear him. I was ashamed and never again tried to go near the car.

Here I will also mention the small car of Kostas Feggaras, which ran the route: Xirokampi – Kaminia – Potamia – Goranous. The older folks will remember the unfortunate incident when a drunk passenger, standing and holding onto the door, fell out and died on the road to Kaminia. That incident brought serious troubles for Kostas.

I also remember the small truck of Gavvaris, which we children admired so much when he first brought it to the village. His son Vasilis, who later became a professor of literature—one of the finest in our region—asked his father, I recall, and received permission for us to climb into the truck bed for a ride to Agios Vasileios. Holding on to the truck’s railings, we jumped with joy. And I remember a phrase from Vasilis, who, excited by the speed of his father’s new vehicle, shouted: “It flies—it’s flying! These little cars fly!”

As for the large truck of Giannis Kakagiannis, we were so full of admiration that we opened our eyes wide and stood still watching… its ten wheels—tires that seemed to us something completely new and unimaginable.

All this may seem… funny to today’s youth. But to us children of that era, when transportation was a novelty, everything was magical. No matter how insurmountable the difficulties were, we loved everything that amazed us, even if it seems so distant today. Those were our most important years—and so they remain in our memories, despite the passage of time.