The Pine Hill Hotel

In December, the ship went into dry dock and all the families had to get off. Since it was the off-season, they found a six-story hotel south of Athens where we could occupy the whole building. It sat on the coast at the base of Pine Hill, fittingly named…the Pine Hill Hotel.

The new location offered us new opportunities for shenanigans. Pine Hill had a large open area, devoid of buildings, filled with rocks and trees where we would have rock fights. It’s amazing that none of us got seriously hurt because we didn’t just toss the rocks, we gave them some serious velocity. And they weren’t small either. Every group of friends has at least one nut who does all the really crazy stuff. Our’s was a guy named Richard from New Zealand and during one of our rock fights, he did actually get knocked out.

The road by the hotel was pretty narrow with trees on both sides. At night we would take the tape out of cassette tapes, attach it to the trees and tie it across the road. As a vehicle came up to it at night with the lights on, it looked like a rope and the person would freak and slam on the breaks. We got a kick out of that.

The hotel was near the water with a rocky shoreline. One of my friends and I would make simple ships out of styrofoam and play for hours, moving them around with sticks in rocky harbors. The shore ended in an outcropping called lover’s point where we used to spy on couples that came to make out.

We played a lot of ping pong at the hotel. My brother and I used to get very angry when we were losing and hit ourselves on the leg with the paddles. But as I continued to act that way, I began to see how ugly it was. In the Bible, Romans 12:3 reads, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” NIV. 

We often get mad at ourselves with sports because we think we should be doing better because we think we are better. Usually we aren’t and I wasn’t. I saw that my brother and I were making fools of ourselves and I determined to change. I learned to keep myself under control. I learned to stay more even-tempered and it helped me to be consistently better.

There was a small island about a 45-minute paddle out in the bay near the hotel. Somehow we obtained a blow up boat and decided to paddle out to it. The island turned out to be pretty bland but on the way back, the trip turned into an adventure when the boat developed a leak. We had to constantly bail water as we paddled. We headed for a closer spot on the mainland and somehow made it. It just turned into a longer walk back to the hotel.

We would also go on walking adventures back into some barren hills away from the coast. That was where I found my pet tortoise. We would find tortoises just walking along the back roads, most of them big. But one day, there was a little one that I took back to the hotel and named him Fred.

There were some artificial beehives we used to pass at one spot on Pine Hill. One day we took it into our heads to knock them over and see if we could outrun the bees. I’m sure the beekeepers weren’t very happy about it.

It was during this time that I got to play in snow for the very first time. Some of the adults took the kids on a bus trip to a mountain. We formed two teams, built big walls and had a huge snowball fight.

On the way to the mountain, I had one of my life’s funniest incidents. In Greece, they had individual milk bottles made out of plastic with thin aluminum tops. I had one between my legs on the bus and I thought I would poke a hole in the top. As I did so, the milk came squirting up at me. I wasn’t sure what was happening so I panicked. I put my hands over the hole to stop it hitting my face but it just kept squirting out, hitting my hand and splashing everywhere. Someone yelled to loosen my legs. I did and it stopped. I had been squeezing the bottle between my legs and as I panicked I only squeezed it harder, sending the milk all over the place.

While my sister had had some rebellion in Hawaii, now it was Samuel’s turn. One day he disappeared. For most of the day, no one could find him. Finally that night, someone called from the ship to say he was there. He had hitchhiked all day. Once again, my father let us know that he was willing to move back to New Zealand if that’s what he needed to do to keep our family strong. They must have worked through the problems because again, we stayed.


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