{"product_id":"9781891885730","title":"Because Memory Isn't Eternal: A Story of Greeks in Upstate South Carolina","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1895 Nicholas Trakas left his village in southern Greece, boarded a steamship for America, and made his way to another southern village, Spartanburg, where he became the South Carolina city s first Greek resident. He opened The Elite one of the finest candy kitchens in the South, built a house on a lot he purchased for $44 and a pet parrot that could cuss in Greek, and began a wave of immigration from his home country into the burgeoning Upstate area.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA century later his grandson, Deno Trakas, a writer and a professor at Wofford College, explores the peculiarly Southern version of the Greek-American story in \u003ci\u003eBecause Memory Isn t Eternal\u003c\/i\u003e. By introducing us to four generations of Trakas family members, their remarkable friends, and their hard-working business partners, he tells a greater story and reflects on how these complex, larger-than-life characters have preserved the best of Greek culture down South. This intimate and often humorous memoir brings us stories of Greek-American marriages, food, language, restaurants, and religion, including the day two Trakas boys accidentally burned down the family s church.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt Greek funerals there is the constantly repeated refrain:\u003ci\u003eAionia i mnimi\u003c\/i\u003e May his (or her) memory be eternal.  More often, Trakas tell us, memory is painfully, annoyingly short.  His loving, illustrated tribute to Greek-Americans assures that these stories and this history will not be forgotten.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hub City Writers Project","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47050480124144,"sku":"9781891885730","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781891885730_p0.jpg?v=1763609667","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781891885730","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}