I was a boarder at Athens College in the 1930s. Athens College was a boys school located in Psychico, a suburb of Athens. There were about 100 boys living in at the time, mostly Greek; some from other countries in Europe; a few, like myself, from America. The school was not strictly a college; it was basically a high school, extended by a year or two at either end. It offered the rigorous curriculum of the European gymnasium, rendered even more so by its bilingual character.

Despite the rigors of our academic endeavors, there were times when we, as boys, were boys, and, as boys, were developing a normal interest in girls. So, when the rumor spread, with the speed of lightning, that the leading girls school of Greece, the Arsakeion, was planning to build a facility on several hundred acres of land adjoining the Athens College campus, the prospect hardly caused us consternation.

The rumor of the girls school was happily confirmed. Ground was broken, construction started. The building promised to be a large one - one, we estimated, which might house a few hundred maidens. But, as it neared completion, a devastating signal was sent our way. The erection of a concrete wall to contain the entire property of the Arsakeion was begun. As the wall rose, our aspirations plummeted. When it was completed - at the forbidding height of two meters, topped off with broken pieces of glass planted firmly in the cement - we despaired. When the school opened, it became painfully clear that we would have to content ourselves with long, wistful glances in its direction, aided but not abetted by the use of powerful binoculars. As it turned out, there was no communication whatsoever between Athens College and the Arsakeion. It might as well not have been there at all.

It was, then, a welcome surprise when those of us in the choral group rehearsing for the annual Christmas carol recital were told that we had been invited to sing at the Arsakeion one night in the week before Christmas. Oh, joy! We were the envy of every other boy in the school. And, oh, boy! Did we rehearse those carols! We even threw in some traditional Greek kalanta with our otherwise English repertoire in honor of our hosts.

On the appointed evening, we bathed, scrubbed, polished our boots to a mirror shine, and cleaned our uniforms with great quantities of benzene. We fairly sparkled. We skirted the hostile wall to the gate of the Arsakeion with swallows fluttering in our chests.

The school's entire faculty of starched matrons greeted us at the entrance and ushered us into the hall where we were to sing. I remember that hall as being considerably larger than Penn Station. A long string of girls, in black and white uniforms, was ranged, standing, in a perfect semicircle at the far, far end. We were herded into the center of that lovely crescent - at the respectable distance of some 15 meters. In this spacious configuration, we proceeded to sing our well-rehearsed carols. At the end of each one - and at an unseen signal - the girls broke into a polite, measured applause. The concert lasted about a half-hour. We wound it up, strategically, with the Greek kalanta, for which we were given a veritable ... standing ovation.

Then, with no shift in positions, we were treated to milk and cookies, as was our gentle quarry on the horizon; the twain joined by furtive glances of unrequited longing. When the goodies had been consumed, we called out a hearty, "Merry Christmas!" half in English, half in Greek, which the girls returned with ardor, in Greek. Then we turned on our heels and left.

But the swallows kept fluttering in our chests all through that night.

Sadly, the Christmas encounter of 1933 was the one and only contact between the Arsakeion and Athens College in all the years I was a student there. Never again were we invited to sing our Christmas carols for the girls. We could not help but wonder about that. Had our singing been that bad? Had the girls exceeded the limits of decorum, in the strict code of the times, by applauding our kalanta so enthusiastically? We settled for the latter. The administration of the Arsakeion had obviously decided that the morals of their wards should never again be subjected to so much temptation.

Nevertheless, for us, the boys in the Athens College choral group that year, it was a memorable Christmas. For, as in ancient Jericho, our carols had brought down the hated wall between us and the Arsakeion for a brief but wondrous moment.

- Jim Panos