“The New Poverty”

Ruminant With A View

by Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

SANTORINI, Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—10/25/10—This morning (a heavenly one, here in the Cyclades), I stopped into what my grandmother would have called a “notions” shop, here in the island’s main village, Fira, to buy a large snap.

The term “notions” will be alien to most of my readers. And they may well wonder what a “snap” might be, as well.

Notions are sewing supplies; and a snap is a fastener one may actually buy to repair a Velcro closing that’s gone the way of most five-year-old Velcro closings: kaput!

The elderly Greek woman who runs the notions store told me that, next year, she’ll be closing. “No one knits any more. No one sews. No one crochets. No one can tailor or repair anything. Why should I stay here?”

I commiserated, though I’m one of those dinosaurs who still knits, sews and repairs torn or damaged clothing. I also paid for those extra-large snaps (to fix an ancient Kipling backpack) with change. My husband’s. (This year, in Greece, we’re so poor I didn’t even bother to bring along my single credit card: too dangerous. Dean came up with the two euros for me.)

“Tell me,” said the shop-keeper. “Do all Americans pay with credit cards? For everything?” Since I’d just handed her some analog euros, my response was a little disingenuous.

“Yes,” I said, categorically. “But very few of us budget and pay off those credit card bills at the end of each month, as my husband and I do. We’re also bizarre for our generation, and our times, in that we own our own house. And know how to sew . . . .”

The solid little Greek matron was quite exercised by this point in the conversation. “We’ve ruined the next generations!” she extrapolated, grasping my arm. My own grown children worked hard, but their children sit around and expect everything to be handed to them . . . and they can’t actually do or make anything! Is the situation as bad now in America?” (Like most Greeks of her generation, my own, she uttered that last word with some reverence.)

I had to admit that, in some ways, it was worse in the US. I thought of my own circle of friends and acquaintances: a pair, homeless; some, working three jobs; others, “artists,” holding on by the slenderest of threads; and many entering their 70’s and 80’s without pensions, adequate health care, or extended family to care for them. In America, some of our “experiments” in economics and life styles seem to have gone terribly awry.

“How do you afford to come here every year,” asked my henna-haired friend. (The Greeks are many, many things . . . but never subtle.)

“Well,” I said, “it’s not because we’re rich Americans.” I held up the snaps and my faded, Kipling bag. “It’s because I’ve been writing guide books about this country for about 30 years, and the people I’ve recommended for so long, the businesses I’ve ‘put on the map,’ feed and house us every fall, virtually for free. Otherwise, we couldn’t do it. They know we write about them and keep a complicated, huge Greek website up and running out of sheer madness, and they take pity on us.

“However,” I added, “next year, we may not be able to come. Even the air fare and the incidentals may have got too expensive for us. The US dollar’s in the toilet [I used a Greek idiom she’d understand], and China owns us all now, I’m afraid.”

I then told her that, over the winter, I’d broken my back, could no longer work and, though my insurance had picked up the tab, the surgeon’s bill had run $180,000. and just one day in post-op Critical Care had cost $75,000.

The little lady just stared at me. “But, surely, you two have pensions?” (Ah, what a quaint, European notion!)

“Neither of us does, in fact, and we’re both still about five years from Medicare and/or Social Security, for what they’re going to be worth when we get there.”

I think my new friend was now in a state of shock. OK, that Greece (Ireland, Spain and Portugal) might be up the financial creek without paddles she could grasp. But the television coverage of Americans being evicted from their homes, facing long-term joblessness, and utter financial ruin was beyond her. America, for her, still ‘represented something.’

I don’t think I’ll find snaps, needles and thread on Santorini next fall. I’m not even sure—in fact I’m very, very unsure—I’ll find myself on Santorini next fall.

Ironically, all the Greek hoteliers and restaurateurs and yachting companies and wineries I’ve written about for decades all seem to be thriving. I’ve always made it a point to recommend only the best of the best here: the best value for money; the most reliable and empathetic of merchants; and the folks most likely to succeed and/or ride out a recession. No fly-by-night listings in my guide books. My travel site* should go right on being up-to-date: its author, however, may be stuck in New Jersey for the foreseeable future, trying to figure out how to make a buck or, preferably, a euro or a yuan.

*www.GreeceTraveler.com; “Elizabeth Boleman-Herring’s Greece: The Thinking Traveler’s Guide to Hellas”