A Man Who Touched Many Hearts

Welcome to the memorial site of Spyros "Sam" Vutetakis, a celebration of his life through, pictures, stories and poetry. Over the years since he passed, I have uploaded some of Spyros' family connections, writings, videos, poetry and history to open a window into a remarkable, well-lived life.  He had an uncanny gift of helping people to feel good about themselves, even with the briefest of encounters.  This was more than a personality trait, Spyros' life experiences were paired with a foundational search for good in humanity.  

A Favorite Quote

Your days are short here;

This is the last days of your springs.

And now in the serenity and quiet

Of this lovely place, touch the depths

Of truth, feel the hem of Heaven.

You will go away with old, good friends.

And don’t forget when you leave

why you came.

~Adlai Stevenson

Gifts he left under the tree of life

My father stood out in a crowd and he did so in some of the most unorthodox ways.  It was not through financial success (which he actively disdained) or boastful swagger (he avoided those kinds of people), but he was noticeable as someone who brought out good qualities in others, making them feel recognized and valuable.  As the years passed, it never ceased to amaze me how with one phrase or a few words he would bring smiles to faces.  He would say things that were borderline inappropriate, yet people almost always responded with positive affect.  He broke down emotional barriers with humor and brought a twinkle to an eye with praise.  He treated every woman as if they were the most beautiful he had met and often kissed their hand with romantic appreciation.  I knew if I were to try such gestures it would immediately bring a slap to the face, or an angry rebuke.  Not Spyros.  He was an artist with words and a master of emotional subtleties.

Lessons of human heritage and earthly and heavenly connections

Growing up with my dad was an adventure in humanity.  He was interested in stories, not just human, but of the earth—geological—environmental—biological.  He shared these fascinations with my brother and me indoors, outdoors and always with great patience.  He shared insight, irony and spiritual thought.  To live life with meaning, worthy of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Tagore, Gibran and Nietzsche was a goal.  And as years wore on, he adopted a life model of a simple Greek peasant, educated in the Classics and life, but living simply so as not to be a burden upon others.  He shared his views with us on a daily basis.

Humor- daily, spontaneous and generously kind

During visits to the hospital for his weekly shot, my father would enjoy meeting the nurses and patients, developing relationships as time wore on.  He had a unique rapport with each person, complete with specific hand gestures, topics of discussion and nicknames.  With his humor, he would steer the subject toward the positive.  Sometimes, when confronted with the negativity of racism and hatred in nearby conversations, he announced to the entire room “but I’m gay!”  The room became silent and he would break the ice by complimenting the intelligence of the negative commenter, to their delight.  this is odd and confusing.  i get it, but others won’t.  i’m not sure i would leave it in. or, rewrtite it.

After we sold the restaurant and my parents moved out to San Diego Sara and I came back to work on the 5th street house, across the street from the café, as an historic renovation project.  Every day for an entire year, people in the neighborhood and customers at the restaurant would approach us asking about him.  He left a lasting impression and every person said how much they missed him.

He learned to communicate using phrases from many languages, such as Polish, Russian, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Spanish and Japanese and would take pride in being able to say a few nice words to make the day of each acquaintance.  This in itself brought smiles, humor and, most importantly, bonding.  That someone would make an attempt to communicate in one’s own language touched many hearts and endeared him as a good friend.

Poetry in writing, speaking and thought

My father loved words.  He was fascinated by the history and one of his favorite books was “From Alpha to Omega” which described the Greek origins of so much of our modern day language.  This may sound straight out of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” (and sometimes it was!), but he was fascinated on a human level and the meaningful power each word carries with it.

One of the projects we worked on as a family was compiling and documenting his poetry.  From  the age of eleven, he composed a Mother’s Day poem each year for his beloved mother.  This tradition continued through adulthood and up to her final days.  It wasn’t a craft he learned in school but an inherent talent reminiscent of the wonderful history associated with the spontaneous Mantinades poetry of Crete.

Spyros was a humanist, but a religious one.  He honored his Greek Orthodox roots, but took my brother and me to many churches and services as we grew up.  He wanted us exposed to as many people and cultures as possible in order to broaden our perception and counteract the hatred of racism, common to neighborhoods across America.  To him, dignity was a human right, not a social or political right.  Because of this he embraced and actively supported the underdog his whole life, marching, speaking, teaching and donating generously even with a modest income.

Love- unqualified friendship and affection

Anthe, Spyros’ mother, was also a remarkable person.  Her unqualified love for her children and family kept everyone very close.  My father followed in her footsteps, maintaining loving communications with family all over the world.  The family was a direct connection to our human identity.  As with many Greeks, family was not only immediate relative, but any connection even once or twice removed including in-laws.

Most important to Spyros was his sons.  For him, time spent with his sons was the top of his world.

My father chose Marjorie Homan to be his life companion and wife.  He offered his love for her every chance he could.  They would find romance in a bird at the feeder, games of cribbage or going to local restaurants where they met people and created networks of friends.  Their love was expressive and he documented so much in recorded thoughts, poems, writing and picture which match volume of all the rest of his material combined.

Everything Greek from ancient to current

My dad lived to be Greek and the Greek lived within him.  As he was taught by his parents and their Greek-American community, he instilled Greek thought into my brother and me from the very beginning.  Important to him beyond the obvious significance of Greek history was the temperament, trials and toils of modern Greeks, our peers across the ocean.

He experienced terror first hand during his tour in Patton’s 3rd army, 71st Division, 14th Regiment in WWII and discovered unimaginable horrors and the stark human darkness from the Holocaust victims he assisted after the war.  During our numerous travels to Greece, he would learn that our family had similar experiences and documented as much as he could of the murderous atrocities by the Turks, Nazis and Right-Wing Junta.  To him, it was important for us to know how far people can stray from humanity.  He forgave, but was never going to forget.

As a middle-aged man, he began traveling to Greece.  He found energy nobody knew he had and bounded among the ancient rocks with joy.  Of the hundreds of relatives, and of the few he bonded closely with, he particularly connected to Kyriako Stratigakis, his mother’s younger brother.  Kyriako was also remarkable.  He had been mayor of the local town during WWII and was well known for his understated and calm leadership in the resistance.  He was also imprisoned for many years by the Right-Wing Junta and worked selflessly to bring common sense democracy back to Crete.  For hours on end, Kyriako and Spyros would talk, discuss and observe and became almost inseparable during our visits.  They were kindred spirits and viewed the world from the same lens.  Through Kyriako and his family, my father was introduced to Nikos and Argyro Kokovlis who’s travails have recently been shared in the documentary movie “The Was No Other Way” by Stavros Psilakis.

Birthday Appreciation

MARCH 23, 2010 

Yesterday, I looked out my window to see a hummingbird hovering just outside the window.  It was only for twenty seconds, but it was a long pause for a hummingbird.  My father loved feeding hummingbirds, he always had feeders hanging around his homes. Since his death, I often think about and see things that would be nice to share with him, just as he shared with me.

During the last few months I have started to collect and catalog the numerous writings, poems, photos, audio recordings and videos my dad left us.  It is a treasure trove of family information, human inspirations and expressions of love for the life he lived.  Hearing his voice and seeing him in these videos reminds me of what a generous individual he was.  My brother, mother, son and every friend or relative he knew experienced it.  It wasn’t always obvious, he had a way of making others feel good through humor and compliments, without pretense.

On this anniversary of his birth, we celebrate his life and the significant gifts he so generously shared. ~gv

Weed It And Reap

Growing up, I often noticed my father’s dog-eared copy of Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening laying about in handy locations with scraps of paper marking pages.  He was a devoted organic gardener who discovered the earth at the age of 30 and incorporated it into his life from then forward.  The key to his gardening was soil development.  In the beginning, most prospective plots would be full of clay, without drainage and weed ridden.  Within a year or two, each garden would become resplendent with life, full of color and supportive wildlife would move in.  For me, it was miraculous to see, and when I started cooking, a wonderful resource.  Early on, I enjoyed the simple pleasure of plucking herbs, lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini flowers and discovered the tremendous difference it made in the food.

My father saw his gardens as something more than a source of food.  He interacted with them personally, believing that a weed has the same beauty (and right) as chosen species and used them decoratively in the garden.  Perhaps this was inherited from his mother, who scoured the neighborhood every spring for wild dandelion greens and tender young grape leaves.  He also encouraged bees, butterflies, frogs and other denizens of the land to join his garden community.  He planted food for foraging animals, such as rabbit and deer, to provide an alternative to his plot without denying their natural hunger.  Over the years, his gardens turned into lush havens for both him and his friends (man and animal) and he could often be found admiring the beauty and life of the plants.  Sometimes he would speak to one of the plants, coaxing it along in a welcoming manner.  Most often he just enjoyed the contrasts in his cultivated spectacle, between light and color or scent and sound. In the last couple of years he was unable to garden, with the exception of when he was a guest—then he could often be found picking weeds in the and waxing romantically about a flower, bird or flavor.  His legacy continues in my own gardens and approach to food.  He taught me how to coax life from the earth and those residing upon it.

Not long after purchasing Inn Season Café in 1985, I was able to buy the house across the street.  My parents moved into the home to help with the restaurant as well as care for my son.  From the start, my father saw the challenge of a neglected yard and plotted the gardens.  Excited by the source of nutrients nearby (my restaurant), the first thing he built was a giant compost facility with two side by side bins holding 4 to 5 yards of soil each. Healthy development of soil relies  on recycling food products back into the earth, primarily through some form of composting.  There is a direct link between nutrients and how the soil is tended. Consulting his Rodale book, he developed his ideal “recipe” for compost and requested buckets full of kale stems, lettuce trimmings and orange peels.  Soon, his bins were “cooking” and the following spring he was able to hand-feed the garden, turning compost in the soil one shovelful at a time.  The plants quickly responded and soon the ragged yard became a lush paradise resplendent with ever changing colors and plentiful herbs.  Years later, they moved out and I moved in, dismantling the compost bins, spreading them and re-landscaping with defined plots, patio, paths and two ponds.   The soil was so rich it did not matter what I planted, everything grew resplendently.  To this day, while the gardens have changed with our historic restorations, they continue to nourish whatever is planted.

Over the last ten years Sara and I have restored and renovated many homes.  In each project,  I have taken on the landscape design and cultivation.  I learned from my father how to encourage the plants to grow and to respect the random sprout or spontaneous bloom.  Like him, I  stick fingers into the earth to feel the energy of life within. When I come across a rock, I save them, as he did, to use for decorating the garden and creating an elemental balance between the Greek earth, water, fire and air.  As gardens bloom, I view the beauty of contrasts between the verdant paths, vibrant blooms and azure sky.  And I, too, create habitats for worms, bees, ants, birds and squirrels, following my father’s directions that they are part of our life. He saw things and thought about the workings of the world in ways most people do not consider in their daily lives. He taught me to look underneath the surface, while making me feel as though I had done something significant.  Spending time with him in a garden, was a  time of meditative discovery.  Pointing to a beautiful rose with a bee busily looking for nectar among the petals, he marveled at the life of  bees and how hard they worked.  Similarly, he viewed everything in the garden with wonder and how it was part of the grander scheme.  “Doxa oto Theos” he would say–meaning “Glory to God”– as an appreciation for the wonders of nature.  In the garden he taught through actions–sniffing a flower, watching a bird, picking a weed or simply feeling the gentle breeze.  -gv