What is a golden age? A golden age captures the best and greatest virtues of human achievements. These accomplishments, however, must have the potential of uplifting humanity to a higher plane of living and be sufficiently moral for building civilization.  Greece had two golden ages. Their legacies, especially in science, made Western civilization. The first Greek golden age took place after the Greeks defeated the Persians in early fifth century BCE. During the fifty years between the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, Athens in particular shone with a flourishing and confident Greek  culture: democracy, building of the Parthenon, philosophy, science, classical architecture, theater, athletic games, and military strength.  These signs of frank speech, prosperity, and confidence were the pillars of a golden age.  The second golden age was the result of another Greek military victory over the Persians. This happened in the second half o...

Bull by Franz Marc, 1911. Public Domain. Growing up in a village I was born in a Greek village where land and food self-sufficiency were everything. My father had a few strips of land where he raised enough food for his family and the family of his brother who lost his life during the war years of the 1940s. My father cultivated wheat, barley, lentils, vine grapes for wine, and olive trees for oil. Animals made our lives possible – and easier. We had a mule, a donkey, goats, sheep, chickens, dogs and cats. I learned to respect and love these animals. I could not conceive life without them.  My most interesting agrarian memory comes from our harvesting of grapes during the heat of Summer in late August. My sisters and cousins would fill wicker baskets with ripe bunches of white, blue and red grapes, load them on the donkey, and my younger cousin, George, and I would take them home. We would unload the baskets and pour the grapes into the linos, a rectangular ...