"A man once came to rent our store and told us: I'm going to make it into a café, it will be modern, I'll even put some marble. I'm going to rent it for two million drachmas. But we didn't accept. We have owned the store since 1947 and we are emotionally attached to it. Besides, if we left it what would we do to pass the time?"

The rarest things

Katie Georgiou owns an old-style threads and wool store*, situated on Vrilissia square in Attica. Even though she has been offered a lot of money to rent it, she doesn't even want to think about. The nearby stores have thousands of euros in revenue per day and but insists on selling threads, caps, wigs, canes and countless other rare objects.

People come from Athens to buy gloves and the special sweaters worn by students in parades, which can't be found anywhere else. The store insists on quality and carries items like Butterfly threads, Praktikakis and Molokot wool, Kithara fiber and Petratos shirts.

"A man a lot like you once came into the shop and bought a hat. I asked him what his job wasbut he avoided the question. I later learned from his wife, who was also a customer, that he is an IRS officer. He avoided telling who he is so that people don't think he is taking advantage of his position. One day he struck up the courage and told me: please, do not ruin the store, I like looking at it very much".

Clothes that last 

Women often visit Katie's store in order to buy trousers for their husbands. "A lady once came to buy shorts for her husband who was a clothes merchant. He used to import luxury clothes from Italy, but he couldn't find a proper pair of trousers for himself. One time he was at the airport and he flashed his underwear to the world after bending down and ripping his pants. He ripped his Italian clothes all the time, but never ours".

One time Katie, had seen a woman shoplifting some hair grips for girls. She said nothing and when she came to the cash desk to pay, she discreetly charged her a bit more, without offending her.

Another time, an old man came into the store desperately looking for a shoehorn. "Come here my dear, I will give you one of those", she told him. She will never forget two men who placed a bet on whether they would find something in her store. "She has it I'm telling you, one of them said. No way, the other answered. And yet I did".

Resisting the Sirens

When Sakis, her husband, opened the store there was nothing around, only the old small church of Ascension and the school, back then housed in a café hall. Back then, Vrilissia was where Athenians vacationed for the summer renting rooms and paying by sovereign. Sakis was very busy all day distributing mattresses and camping gaz bottles.

The mayors used to whitewash the sidewalks and kept the streets clean. Parents had their children help with the cleaning at the town hall, so they could earn some money and not waste their time. Boys used to wear caps that they used to lower on their forehead because they were embarrassed.

Mrs. Katie, who was much younger back then, used to wake up very early in the morning and let her children sleep in. As the shop was close to their home, one day her young daughter woke up and went to the store wearing her pyjamas. She passed through a hole made in the fence around their home so that the hens could pass, and fortunately she wasn't injured.

This hard working woman has resisted the Sirens of the modern world and easy money. Even if some day she is forced to close the store driven by fatigue or other needs, no one will blame her and everyone will nostalgically remember her. Just like they remember her husband, who unexpectedly passed away recently.
TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS
SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com

  *These shops were very common in Greece a couple of decades ago. Apart from wool, thread, ribbons, needles and embroideries customers could also find rare novelty items and all sorts of brick-a-bracs. Some even sold clothes, gloves, tablecloths and kitchen towels.

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