It's All Greek to Sam

We live at the point of “high tide” for the annual Ottawa Greek Fest: if there are a row of cars parked out front on any given night, then it’s a full house up at the Hellenic Centre. The neighbourhood has been a crowded parking lot these last few days, and the whirling sounds of Greek festivities have been a Siren song through the open windows, inviting us to “live a day the Greek way.”

So we took the kids up there after dinner (have you seen the food tent line-ups?) and numbered ourselves among the 70,000 people who come out every year for the fun. With Trace and Anabel looking on, Sam and Carter and I joined the Greek folk dancing lesson. Easy-peasy: hold hands, head counter-clockwise and 1-2-3-left kick, right-kick, and again…1-2-3..” We’re dancing! The boys really wanted to join the large circle of grown-ups and big kids, but I knew that we’d end up in a pile on the ground when the music tempo picked up. So we spun around outside the official circle, Greek dancer wannabes tripping over each other and laughing to the beat of the music. Opa!

Then the organizers cleared the floor for the Cretan Association, who demostrated several national dances in colourful traditional dress that Carter roundly denounced as being “not real: that’s not how dancers dress.” Ain’t no MTV. After a minute or two of looking on, tho, he asked if he could run up and join them. When we explained that this part was a performance and not a lesson, he announced: “um, ya, I wanna go now.” “Me, too!” Sam piped up. Too loud for him suddenly. Just stand and watch? Bo-ring…

So we wound our way out of the crowd in time to meet up with Jeremy, Paul & Siobhan coming out of the food tents, trays laden down. We found seats near the blow-up bouncy castle jumper and 25 foot high slide ride and took turns lining up with the excited boys. Sam soothed his "younger" cousin's fears with the classic "I'll be right there with you, Carter." One trip and they were hooked. They repeatedly rope-climbed up the slide and came barrelling down the steep incline, shrieking. How marvellous of the Greeks to give us slide rides. Coins? Maps? Democracy? Shrug. The hypotenuse in slide form? Now that’s an impressive cultural achievement. Props to Pythagoras.

As the sun set, we all enjoyed some gargantuan baklava, let loose our grips on the blue Greek fest balloons, sending them soaring into the clouds, and then ambled home for bed with sleepy and satisfied kids. I think Plato had it wrong when he said that it is the good and beautiful things in life that are hard to attain; that was actually pretty easy. The trick now is getting Sam to go to sleep despite the tantalizing sounds of the not-so-distant festival drifting over the neighbourhood.