Rooting for "Michalis"

By Cathy Booth/Pelopi

The family house no longer stands, and there are not even any relatives around to reminisce. But in the little Greek village of Pelopi (pop. 800), everyone knows "Michalis" Dukakis, son of a local boy who made good in America. "For the son of an emigrant from our little village to be President of the United States would be a great honor," beams Villager Maria Stephanou.

With slight smiles of bemusement, the locals in Pelopi show off the property where the Dukakis house once stood, the village register where the Dukakis births are listed, and . . . Well, that about sums up the tour. Pelopi is an unassuming village, not given to ostentation over potential Presidents -- at least not yet. "If he wins, and I don't die first, maybe we'll put up a plaque for him," wisecracks Iacovos Manolis, 81, who built his house on top of the ruins of the Dukakis homestead.

Dukakis' father Panos left Pelopi for America in the early 1900s. Dukakis' second cousin Elli Petridou, who lives in nearby Mytilene, confides that Panos, then 15, left Greece against the wishes of his father, who had a store just across the water in Turkey. "Michael's grandfather sent a telegram to my father telling him to tie Panos up so he couldn't leave for America. Instead, my father got him an English teacher," she says conspiratorially. The rest is history: Panos became a doctor in Massachusetts and married a girl from the Greek town of Larissa, who became a schoolteacher in America.

Pelopi, so far as roots go, is a presidential biographer's dream: tucked away in the mountains on the island of Lesbos, it is connected to the outside world by a dirt road that winds past valleys with olive trees and shepherds tending goats. Red-tiled roofs of the village houses spill down the mountainside. Everybody waves, smiles. Pelopi is as famous for its hospitality as for what the Greeks call sovaros, or seriousness. In American politics that may translate into dull and dogged, but on Lesbos, sovaros is high tribute indeed, and the people of Pelopi have it by the barrelful. For just that reason, Pelopi's President Constantinos Stephanou says he foresaw a bright future for Dukakis even back in 1976 when the Massachusetts Governor paid the village a visit: "I knew he was going somewhere, because he's very serious. America hasn't had a serious President since Kennedy."

Of course, one can go too far with the Greeks-for-Dukakis bandwagon. Even Dukakis' half dozen or so second cousins who remain on Lesbos are too sophisticated to expect much from any American politician. Retired Schoolteacher Alexandros Chiotellis tools around in an old Honda with a DUKAKIS FOR PRESIDENT sticker in the rear window. Now employed in a lottery shop, Chiotellis gives a wry look when asked what the Duke will do for Greece. "Absolutely nothing," he says. "He will look after the interests of America first. We expect justice from him and nothing more."

But no matter what Dukakis does, the home folks are rooting for their favorite son. "We would like to have two Michaels running the world: Michalis of the United States and Mikhail of the Soviet Union," says Stephanou. "And, of course, if he becomes President, I will go as president of the village to America for a summit of the Presidents."