Gia Sas...The goal of this blog is to share with the world the stories I share regularly with family and friends about my boyhood in Newark, New Jersey filtered through my status as the grandson of Greek immigrants. It will be an insight not only into an individual Greek-American experience, but also an intimate glimpse of the special status that the much maligned city of Newark holds in the hearts of those who knew her in her "golden age," the period from the 1920s through the 1960s. This was a time when Newark boasted five major department stores, a dozen downtown cinema palaces, two concert halls and many fine restaurants. She was a city of neighborhoods, each one distinct from the other, with tree-lined streets, well-maintained parks and a transit system that linked them all. There were first-rate hospitals, hotels, houses of worship of all denominations and a top-notch school system whose teachers were the highest paid in the state. Her location only twenty minutes from Manhattan, an hour from the famed Jersey Shore and a like distance from the recreational sites of her mountain lakes made Newark a very desirable place in which to live. Add to that an excellent manufacturing base and a strong service industry and the nostalgia former residences feel for the city becomes readily understandable. As for her citizens, Newark was highly diversified before the concept evolved into the politically-correct buzz-word it is today. There was a strong African-American presence, a lively Jewish community and, of course, a substantial immigrant population; this, in addition to the long-established British-German-Irish "natives." Their relationship was for the most part harmonious and mutually respectful; this was reflected by the fact that Newark's streets were safe from gangs, drive-by shootings, drug-dealing and most of the social ills that plague many of the once-great cities of our country. With that in mind, I invite you to be a part of my own memories and observations of the city where I took my first breath. (Please be aware that I shall not restrict myself to the above! Every topic of importance to me is fair game, since, as a friend of my daughter once told me very insightfully, "It all goes back to Newark.")