Father: Paul Nick Pappas, born in Akron, Ohio second child of Charles and Esther Pappas ( grand parents, both born in Tripoli, Greece)
Mother: Despina Anne Pappas, born in Akron Ohio, second child of Theodore and Harriet Fundukos (grand parents, born in Aretsou, Turkey)
God parents: Leonard and Mary Thomaris
Siblings: Esta Lippard (married to Tom Lippard), Theodore Pappas (married to Thekla), Tom Pappas (married to Tammy), Leah Pappas (married to Quinn Porner)
Born: New Orleans, Louisiana
Graduated from high school with honors, Chippewa High School, Doylestown, Ohio June
Early childhood: Greg had a happy early child living in a number of places where his father was pursing his medical training. Those included New Orleans Louisiana, Bloomington Indiana, Indianapolis Indiana, Cleveland Ohio, Youngstown Ohio, Memphis Tennessee, Cuyahoga Falls Ohio, and Doylestown Ohio. Despina worked at various jobs to help support the family early in his childhood and later spent full time as a mother and home maker. His father, Paul Nick Pappas, completed his medical training with a Residency in Plastic Surgery in Memphis, Tennessee then returned to his home in Ohio to set up a practice. Both his loving and devoted parents are still living.
The Pappas family remains closely tied through customs of their Greek heritage and affection.
Here is some poetry I have written over the years.
Dear friends,
I am on the boat leaving the island of Andros for Athens. I spent two days with my dear friend Maria who is in decline. She made the terrible mistake of moving to a lovely island where she has no friends and now finds herself painfully lonely. I am working with her daughter to convince Maria to shift to the mainland near family and friends. Maria has moved me to write this poem in which I remember all my friends who are so dear to me. It is also a memorial to Jamshed Malik, who dead recently. He was my driver in Pakistan and a true friend. The “poet of Persia” mentioned in my poem is of course, Omar Khayyam, who wrote of a Prince Jamshed. We all know his line “loaf of bread, glass of wine, and Thou singing in the wilderness” but that Victorian translation is only vaguely similar to the original which is more direct, and modern in tone. I recommend the Emami translation.
Also see another poem I wrote a couple of years ago while visiting Andros, an inspirational place but lonely.
Remember Prince Jamshed
Is it the wanderlust in our Greek blood that propels us to lonely places?
Or is it entropy, spinning us out
and into the same grave so soon, or later?
As the poet of Persia reminds us,
in the stem of the glass out of which we drink that wine
is dust of the nose of a Prince Jamshed, long ago dead
and never even known to anyone west of the Andros.
For those us of waiting, or not even waiting
the undeniable reality,
we have the loaf of bread, glass of wine, and Thou.
But we have to watch the carbs and the wine
makes me even more maudlin about the whole thing. So
there is Thou.
Sing to me my dear.
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Andros November 2007
Tourism
I never visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa but
I did see a lean-to in Mumbai once,
a home to seven.
I never made it to Machu Picchu either.
Werner Herzog said that tourism was a sin and
that walking was divine.
I did not feel so dirty drinking my Green Chai Latte
after I walked down from the Great Wall of China.
Travel does weird things to the body and soul.
What kind of tourism is going on in Iraq
so that a few can control the price of oil?
But we can’t leave!
There could be a civil war.
Or the Turks will jump in.
Or the Iran Iraq War will start again.
Then who will be left to see the Ziggurats?
We could just walk out.
That would be divine.