A portrait drawn in text characters: an older man with a close-cropped white beard and a bald crown, head tilted slightly up, half-smiling.

ΜΛΜΤΩ

Baba read constantly, and only ever non-fiction. He spoke well, wrote better, and thought in ways I’m still catching up to.

He was the funniest man I’ve known. He also promised he’d live to 120.

He’d carry my sister and me on his back when he took us fishing. He’d buy us a croissant each, then eat half of hers and half of mine.

He came up with ΜΛΜΤΩ, an acronym for μην λες μαλακίες τέτοια ώρα (don’t talk shit at this hour). He used it often. He was usually right.

Nikos G 1960–2021

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