Beards of Men

Beards seem to be in fashion again.

Younger men tend to have shorter beards than older men. In some portions of the younger set it is fashionable even to appear merely unshaven for a few days. One sees advertisements, usually for women’s apparel and accessories, which show young men with three-day, untrimmed beards hanging around attractive young women looking, variously, concupiscent, unfulfilled and depressed. They usually have dark beards. I guess those with blond beards are too happy and satisfied looking.

Not too many older men currently have the long beards sported by the generation of my great-grandfathers, contemporaries who never knew each other: Konstantin Alexander Pavellas and Asbury Harpending, Jr.

The following generation of men, around the 1900s, preferred waxed mustaches which, for me, have too much vanity associated with them, as shown by my two grandfathers, Alexander K. Pavellas and George Pagonis:

I think the most attractive of beards worn by a public figure, currently, is that of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, which is on a par with that of my friend George Wegler.

I see, everywhere in Stockholm, men of a certain age displaying beards in the style of Ben and George, and I feel a kinship with these fellows, especially those with partially or fully-silvered beards. This is how I have now grown my beard, as best as I can with a few little baldish spots on my right side.

I grew my first beard upon achieving, at age 38, my goal of becoming the chief executive of a community hospital. This was in the City of Modesto, California, in the Great Central Valley. I shaved this beard after a while, thinking it not reflecting the inner Ron. Twenty-two years later I visited the land where three of my grandparents were born, Greece, and grew what I then considered a Greek beard, sort of unruly, but with the area under my nose, my philtrum, scraped clean.

When visiting Afghanistan in 2004 as a volunteer hospital consultant, I once again grew a beard and, to appease some remaining vanity, shaved my philtrum. I have since shaved it all, and now have regrown my beard similar in length to what you see below, but without bothering with the area under my nose.

If I look tired and hot, I was, and not too good in the guts, as well. It was July, 2005. Dr. Husman’s beard is a glorious thing, however, and I envy him his hirsuteness.

I feel, now, part of a fraternity of older men who are comfortable within their own skin and hair. It is a great pleasure to admire the beards of others. My only mild regret is that I never had the courage to let all my head hair grow out ‘naturally’ as did two people I admire, in the 1970s:

John Hartford and Allen Ginsberg

Notes for a Memoir: Artemis Helen Pagonis Pavellas, RIP

Artemis Helen Pagonis Pavellas (1918-2008), around age 60

[Please click on all images and links]

This is the fifth in a series of such “Notes for a Memoir.” The previous installments were about, in ascending date order:

1. An overview of the memoir I am writing about my first 21 years (1937-1958)
2. A series introducing family members and others who preceded me and who had significant influence on my life

Isadora and Raymond Duncan

One of my great-grandfathers, Asbury Harpending, Jr.

My paternal grandparents, Lucille and Alexander Pavellas

I had intended to write this time about my maternal grandparents, Helen and George Pagonis, but will preempt and delay this telling in favor of a eulogy for, and brief biography of, my mother who died at age 90 two days before last Thanksgiving.

The fates were such that my sister Diane and I were able to conduct a memorial for mom at my oldest daughter’s house in San Jose where 14 of mom’s 16 widely dispersed descendants were gathered on Christmas Eve day, 2008. Other family members were present, as well. The following is what Diane and I recited to the gathering, with some words after-added by me. After we had our say, others remembered her in their own way.
—

Artemis, right, with her sister Beatrice, at age 18 on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais shortly after her marriage to Conrad H. Pavellas

Mom perceived an afterlife. Within the last few years she said she wanted to be with her family and friends “on the other side.” She is now there and we can be grateful that she left here quite peacefully in her sleep.

Dad died in year 2000. They had been married 65 years. Mom mourned, but not terribly. It gave her a bit of freedom she had yearned for, we believe. Mom lived with Diane since then, and Diane has treated her like a queen: facials, nails and hair and clothes. Mom loved it.

After a year of on-and-off stays at various levels of institutional care for a hip replacement and some illnesses, mom suffered a stroke, larger than the small ones that had slightly crippled her dominant left hand around three years ago. Her cognitive functions continued to diminish. She wasn’t able to walk for around two years before her death—her brain and legs didn’t connect well enough.

Artemis at Rossi Park, San Francisco, pregnant with her first child, Ronald

Artemis Helen Pagonis began in 1918 as the youngest of four children of a poor Greek immigrant family in San Francisco: George Pagonis and Helen, née Diakakis.

George was then a skilled confectioner, but a failed businessman working for other Greeks in San Francisco restaurants. He might have had 6 or 8 years of formal schooling. George and Helen met in San Francisco, and both came from Astros, on the Peloponnesus in Greece. We know nothing of their antecedents.

Three years after mom was born, another girl was born and her mother Helen died from complications accompanying the birth. Florence was the baby’s name; the children were told she was adopted by the doctor who delivered her, but we believe this to be a tall tale for the sake of the other children’s sensibilities. More likely, she was taken to an orphanage.

Helen Diakakis Pagonis and George Pagonis near the time of their marriage, around 1910

The girls were at home alone during working hours for some time and survived on 5 cents a day while her father and brother Harry, aged nine or ten years, went out to make money. Harry sold papers on a corner and often waited up all night until George decided to return home from the coffee shops and card rooms where he spent his off-work hours. George hardly slept. (He ultimately contracted tuberculosis, for which he was treated, on and off, over the years until his death from pneumonia around age 65). The girls were mostly alone and Beatrice, who was 7 or 8, was the mother to Artemis, 3, and Angelina 4-1/2. Bea was made responsible for the household. She was in charge of the feeding and caring of the two toddlers.

The three girls were ultimately taken away by the County or the State of California because the neighbors complained there was no one home to care for the children. They were placed in a “horrible” Stockton orphanage, 60 miles from San Francisco. The matrons were stern and unloving. They carried sticks for discipline purposes. The girls were forced to eat and when they didn’t, they were beaten. Angie wet the bed so they put her in the basement with rats to convince her to stop. This made it worse. She claimed to have suffered permanent kidney damage from this, later in life, after she completed her registered nurse training at Mt. Zion hospital in San Francisco.

Mrs. Vroman of Portland, Oregon, beloved foster mother of Artemis, Angelina and Beatrice Pagonis

Whenever someone came to look at one or another of the children for foster care they all would act up so they weren’t separated into different households. They were all finally placed with Mrs. Vroman in Portland, Oregon, and were happy. Mrs. Vroman saw that Bea had musical talent and gave her piano lessons. The little girls were treated lovingly and got enough to eat. Mom remembered Mrs. Vroman, and their days in Green Oregon with great affection.

Mom and Dad first met when she was a baby. Dad’s father, Alexander K. Pavellas, was godfather to many of the children born to Greek immigrants in and around San Francisco because of his being well educated, influential and having been the Greek Consul General of San Francisco. Mom was about 5, and dad around 10. We were told that when dad and his father visited mom’s father, George Pagonis, mom sat on dad’s lap. They met again later when dad came to George’s home to sell newspaper subscriptions to the Greek-American newspaper dad inherited from Alexander when dad was 20.

The three sisters and dad went to the movies. He and Mom talked all the way through the movie and became engaged. It was expected he would end up with Bea, the oldest and “prettiest,” by contemporary American standards. But mom fell head over heels in love, and so did he. He found her to be real, without guile and free spirited—plus, Diane believes, very sexy. He was immediately smitten. He was in need of love and companionship; he had just lost his mother, father and uncle and was burdened with the care of his aunt Genevieve and her son, dad’s cousin Nestor.

This was 1935, in the depth of the Great Depression. Dad was trying to hang on to the family newspaper business. Dad had to drop out of his senior year at Cal because the almost simultaneous deaths of the parents and his uncle who was important to the family and the newspaper.

Artemis’s and Conrad’s wedding picture, December 1935. Conrad wore his college ROTC uniform becuase he had no proper suit

Dad was on his way to Canada to sell more subscriptions and had 25 cents on him. Mom told him he couldn’t go without her because he wouldn’t come back, so she went with him to Canada with 25 cents in a Model T Ford. At the border, the Canadian officials were not going to let them in as one had to have a certain amount of money to enter, but they told the Border Patrol they were getting married in Canada so they let them in. Dad left his watch as security. We don’t know where they got married. Dad collected on a sufficient number of subscriptions to The Prometheus to get home again.

Upon arriving to home in San Francisco, they all lived together: Mom, Dad, his aunt Genevieve and his cousin Nestor. Nestor was 11. We don’t know where they lived.

My first memories are at age 4-5 living with dad, mom, Harry, Bea, Angie and grandpa (George Pagonis) in the upper flat on 433 Arguello Blvd., between Geary and Clement. I think my parents previously lived with one of mom’s sisters, after I was born, on Cherry Street when I was first born, as they mentioned it often. When I was around two years old the three of us lived for a year in the unincorporated town of Brisbane, just south of San Francisco. I had a dog, Brownie, and had whooping cough during that year.

Artemis with her children in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, around 1946

Diane’s memories, starting in Brooklyn, around 1946:

Mom tried to protect various children who were abused. She even abducted two children in our cold water apartment building who were left alone and crying because their teenage parents were gone a lot. The Grandmother for these children came and took them with her.

Mom had to protect us from the mentally ill and deranged building superintendent’s son, because he was always trying to kill Diane and her friend Barbara Suczynski. Mom also protected Barbara’s mother from her husband by hiding her at our house. She and Dad tried to keep us off the streets by giving Ron piano lessons and Diane ballet. She went to work at a Norwegian Hospital as a nurse’ aide to bring in money.

I remember her as kind but timid in this strange and dangerous world. Her happiness was her children. She was a devoted mother and tried to protect us from the streets.

—

There were other more spontaneous memories shared, and two brief written ones from two former daughters-in-law recited by two grandsons.

What follows are some images with descriptions, generally outlining the arc of Artie’s life.
—

Artie with infant Diane, 1942, in front of 1822 Sunnydale Avenue, San Francisco. This two-story apartment was part of a new housing project for war workers and other eligible people. Dad worked at the Kaiser Richmond Shipyards

Artie with her brother Harry and daughter Diane at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Unlce Harry stopped by on his way from San Francisco to Greece to Marry Sophia Malanos. He brought Aunt Sophie back with him to visit us again on his return trip.

In 1951 the Pavellas family of four returned to San Francisco and lived 6 months with Uncle Harry, Aunt Sophie and their new daughter, Helen. In this picture we are visiting Aunt Bea and her husband, Uncle Tommy Thomas at their lagoon-side home in Newport Beach, California. Pictured, left to right are: Front, Tom Thomas, Jr. and Diane Pavellas; Middle, Ron Pavellas, Artie, Aunt Bee, Aunt Angie; Rear, Aunt Angie’s quondam husband, Eben George Smith.

Artie and Connie in the first home they owned, starting around 1960, at 62 Theta Avenue in Daly City, on the southern edge of San Francisco. They lived there until Dad retired from the typographical trade around 20 years later.

Artie and Connie after retirement. They lived their last years together at Nepo Drive, San Jose.

The now widowed Artie with her beloved cats, always present in the house, a few years before her death

What she knew best, and dispensed copiously to all, was love.

San Francisco During The Great Depression, WWII, FDR, Brooklyn, Berkeley and the US Navy

As promised in the journal entry of 6 August, I offer here a preview of the memoir I am writing of the years 1937-1958.

Before recounting my actual memories, and the memories of what family members have told me of these years, I will tell of the historical influences upon my mother and father and, therefore, upon me. The influences include relatives and non-relatives, and certain world affairs and public persons.

Isadora Duncan

Two important non-relatives are Raymond Duncan and, by extension, his sister Isadora Duncan. Two other highly influential persons were Asbury Harpending, Jr., my great-grandfather, and his son-in law George Demetrious Papageorge-Palladius, husband of my great-aunt Mary Genevieve Harpending. The other son-in-law of Asbury Harpending, Jr. was my grandfather Alexander K. Pavellas, who certainly was an influence on my father, as was Clara Lucille Harpending, Alexander’s wife and my father’s mother.

Please click on the image for greater clarity.

Both Clara and Mary were students of the Ancient Greek arts of drama and dance, as taught by Raymond Duncan and demonstrated, throughout Europe and the USA, by his sister Isadora. Papageorge was said to have been Raymond Duncan’s business manager for a certain period. Clara, Alexander and Papageorge all died in 1934 when dad was 20 years old, 2½ years before I was born. Dad was forced to leave the University of California to take over the family business in which his father and uncle (Papageorge) were partners, The Prometheus, a Greek-American newspaper for the large immigrant Greek community on the west coast of the USA.

Among other public persons I will mention as influential in the lives of my family is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president of the USA.

I was born January 7, 1937 in San Francisco to Conrad H. Pavellas and Artemis (Pagonis) Pavellas during The Great Depression. The business dad inherited failed shortly after he married mom, who quickly became pregnant. Dad was unemployed for almost a year before I was born, receiving income from his work in the Federal Writers’ Project, a program promoted by President Roosevelt, as part of “The New Deal,” to address the large unemployment in the country, around 16% in 1936 and 1937.

Dad hated to be “on the dole.” The week I was born dad got a job at $25 dollars per week in the printing department of Gerald Karski’s Motion Picture Service Company in San Francisco.

[Artemis and Conrad were married in December, 1935. In this wedding photo, taken after the fact, Conrad is wearing his ROTC uniform, although he was no longer at the University of California. He didn't have a suit.]

With historical and family background more fully described than you see here, the memoir will continue by focusing on my life from birth until I achieved age 21, immediately after having mustered out of the U.S. Navy as Electronics Technician, 3rd Class.

Here are some of the stories to tell:

First memories, including living on Arguello Boulevard in San Francisco with my parents and all of mom’s immediate relatives, in age order: Grandpa, Uncle Harry, Aunt Bee (still living at age 95) and Aunt Angie. During this period the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed Pearl Harbor. Our Japanese-American neighbors were “interned” along with thousands of others.

Ensign of the Imperial Navy of Japan, dissolved in 1947

Moving with my parents to a new housing project in San Francisco for “war workers” near the Cow Palace. Dad worked at the Richmond shipyard of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser helping to build “Victory Ships.” I start classical music piano lessons which lasted for 10 years. I discover “boogie woogie.” Dad’s activities and leadership in The Socialist Labor Party in San Francisco. Between the ages of 5 and 8 I underwent three general anesthesia operations, one for a serious infection—before the general advent of antibiotics.

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, 1908-1957

President Roosevelt dies, two Atomic bombs are dropped on Japan, the war ends and we move to a Brooklyn slum tenement so dad can work with his cousin Theodore Pavellas in the latter’s printing business. It was a terrible 5-1/2 years for all of us, but necessary for dad to achieve his union card in the International Typographical Union. These years will recount the nature of our Brooklyn neighborhood (which, we later learned, was controlled by a family by the name of Clementi), the tangential effect on our family of the U.S. Senate hearings of Senator Joseph McCarthy, my rapid advance through the grades in grammar school and junior high school, my experiences, consecutively, at two high schools in Manhattan, the street war erupting from the migration of Puerto Ricans into the neighborhood and our cross-country escape in a 1941 Oldsmobile panel truck when I was 14-1/2. During these 5-1/2 years the “Cold War” was nearing its height and the schools and other public bodies prepared us for atomic warfare with the Soviet Union.

“Korean Conflict” begins

One year of Lowell High School in SF; hanging around with social groups on the fringes of adolescent society

R. A. Pavellas, 16, Berkeley High School graduate, June 1953

Move to Berkeley: last year of high school; hanging around with several crowds, including a somewhat dangerous one.

One year of work, off-time idleness and misbehavior. There are a few compelling characters to tell about, one of whom almost influenced me into a life of crime. I escaped him and my other unsavory associates by joining the Navy and, because the Koran Conflict had not yet officially ended, I became eligible for the “G.I. Bill” that later helped me through College and university.

U.S. Navy, 1954-1958: training as an electronics technician, life aboard an aircraft carrier and travels to the Far East, including to ports in Japan, Okinawa (now repatriated to Japan), The Philippines and The Royal Crown Colony of Hong Kong, now repatriated to The People’s Republic of China. I have 30 letters I wrote to my parents and other relatives to help me recreate my perceived trials and my adventures. Our ship carried the admiral for our carrier group, so we had important visitors including Chiang Kai-chek, president of Taiwan/Formosa to which the anti-communist Chinese fled from Mao Zedong’s revolution. Another visitor was the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Arleigh “31-knot” Burke.

Emergence at age 21 as a college man and a new beginning in life

I began writing this memoir as an historical document for my descendants, my being interested in genealogy. My writer friends think I have an interesting story to tell others, as well, and this has encouraged me to expand my potential audience.

Your comments are welcome.