About Leonard

We had stopped at a shady little cafe along the road from Palermo to Messina. It was June 24, 1970, my 18th birthday and I was thinking how, if we still lived in Maryland, I’d be going to DC to get a beer. But in Italy it didn’t matter and anyway I hadn’t yet developed a taste for alcohol.

“What do you want for your birthday,” Chris asked. It was a joke–gelato is all I would be getting. The little money left after paying for the ferry from Tunis had to get us to Naples where we would try to sell the motorcycle we couldn’t sell in Tunis. Or rather we could have sold it there but we could not have taken dinar out of Tunisia. So, what did I want? Anything money can’t buy, I figured.

“Leonard Cohen,” I said with a smile. That wasn’t quite a joke–we’d made vague plans to find him on the Greek island of Hydra, pictured on the back of his second album. He’d fueled our teenage angst and unleashed  our creative and emotional lives in what was still a musical desert in the late ’60’s. Sure the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, along with a few others had brightened the top 40 wasteland but Leonard Cohen spoke to us where it hurt.  We had played “That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” on guitar and recorder three months earlier at our cobbled-together wedding in Rock Creek Park. It may seem an odd song for a wedding but, having broken up for several months before reuniting earlier that year, it made sense to us at the time.

We made our way to Naples over a combination of twisty mountain roads and the new, fast, autostrada, but when we arrived, we discovered that Italians would have to pay a big tax on the bike. They weren’t likely to do that, seeing as how they had their own brand of motorcycles. We borrowed a little money from a Canadian friend and tried to sell our blood. Walking to the clinic we passed several pizzerias, pointing out first one and then another, saying, “That’s where we’ll eat!” Alas, we were both too young and they wouldn’t take our blood. Through a friendly mechanic—Johnny Rosa—we met an American couple who put us up for a couple of weeks and then, finally, a G.I. bought our bike.

We made our way by thumb, ferry, and bus to Athens where we bought leather and suede with which we hoped to make bags and other items to sell to tourists. Even though we both had some artistic talent, it’s hard to fathom why we thought this would work, considering neither of us had ever made anything from suede or leather.

Coming into the port of Hydra, buildings appeared stacked on top of each other, advancing up the amphitheater-like hill that contained most of the village.  People milled about between the shops and restaurants that crowded the port. Donkeys, the main transportation on the car-less island, clop-clopped along with whatever burdens were strapped to them, occasionally braying forlornly. We walked up stone pathways looking for a “pensione”–what we called all small hotels ever since our journey started in Spain. Cats scattered as we made our way up a narrow passageway. They were everywhere on the island, having been imported to deal with a rat problem. We loved cats and were pleased to see so many until Chris picked up a kitten he had cornered and promptly suffered a sharp bite to his pinky.

Most buildings had courtyards hidden inside the walls that bordered the pathways, as did the bare bones place we chose, which had a few chairs and tables where people could eat or lounge outdoors. The English-speaking proprietor recommended we NOT pick up the cats and pointed us to places we could get food, which usually consisted of crusty bread, a hunk of cheese, and sardines, a meal we repeated numerous times. Occasionally, we added fruit or halvah. I still love crusty bread and cheese but haven’t been able to eat sardines in 49 years.

The next day we worked hard making things until early afternoon when we took a break and went down to the port–it was always “down” unless you were already at the port. Deep awnings reached from the walls of many restaurants toward the water, across great expanses of cobblestones, shading the orderly rows of tables and chairs, mostly empty at this time of day. We sat and chatted quietly, enjoying the sunshine and sounds of the port, admiring the fishing boats and occasional yachts, and once in a while, a ferryboat like the one that had brought us.

And then, just like that, there he was, sitting outside a restaurant one or two over from where we were, deep in conversation with another couple. We were struck speechless for a few minutes and then debated what to do.

“We can’t just go up and say, ‘Hi Leonard, we came from the US three months ago and have traveled all this way to tell you how much you mean to us,’ can we?” 

“Well, we certainly don’t want to interrupt his conversation.”

“No, it would be rude. But what can we do?”

Eventually we poured all our feelings into a letter and addressed it to him,”Poste Restante, Hydra, Greece.” We continued working on the leather goods for a week or so until we finally had enough items to try and sell. We took everything to the port and sat with our backs against a building, our wares laid out in front of us. There were plenty of tourists walking around but not a whole lot of interest in what we were selling. Could be because we were scraggly-looking hippies without a proper display! One afternoon, a fancy yacht docked and unloaded a colorful group of people including some children with gypsy scarves around their heads. They made their way from one end of the horseshoe-shaped port toward the center.

‘I think that’s Donovan,” Chris whispered excitedly as we watched the procession approaching. Chris loved Donovan’s music and had learned to play a few of his songs on guitar. Sure enough, it was the famous singer riding on a donkey with the rest of the entourage on foot. We said hello and chatted a bit. But instead of buying anything, Donovan said, “We don’t have any room on our yacht and anyway, you should be giving away the things you make,” a funny comment from someone who had become quite wealthy selling his music to young people like us, who were quickly becoming ex-Donovan fans.

“He couldn’t even get off his donkey to really take a look,” Chris grumbled. Soon that faded into the background as we were chased out of the port by a policeman who wanted to see a permit, which we didn’t have. We were despondent at the seeming end of our business and gave it up for the day while we considered our options.

The next day we were back in the port sitting again in the middle of a sea of chairs. It had been more than a week since we mailed the letter.

“He probably wrote us off as just more starry-eyed kids coming after him,” I said.

“Maybe not,” Chris replied as Leonard walked up to our table.

“You’re the ones who wrote me the letter, aren’t you?” We were dumbfounded, oblivious to our adoring faces which must have easily revealed that we were the ones. He sat and talked to us for a good while, asking where we were from, what the trip across North Africa was like, etc. He told us about a fire he’d been through, how devastating it was at first to lose everything, and then how liberating it became. He seemed interested in the leather goods and asked if we’d like to have breakfast with him the next day–he would cook.

The next morning we followed his instructions to go up Donkey Shit Lane, as everyone called it, past a few side passageways and then two houses in. He greeted us at the door of this very modest house–no different from many others–whitewashed walls, painted door, wood floors and windows with shutters that worked to provide shade in the hottest part of the day.

He introduced us to Astrid, his girlfriend of the week, who was beautiful and kind. And Leonard really did cook eggs and bacon and made toast for the four of us, which we ate at his very plain wooden table. He showed us his record player and albums which he invited us to come listen to when he was gone, realizing the hunger in our eyes went beyond food. He said he needed a valise and could we make one for him. 

“Of course,” we answered, not knowing for sure what a valise looked like. Hearing that I made miniature pictures with tiny glass beads, he said he wanted a beaded medallion on the side of the valise in the form of a phoenix rising from the ashes. We were eager to make this for him and he offered us $100 which was over $600 in 2020 dollars.

“Oh Leonard, that’s way too much money” Chris said.

“Look Chris–I am in a position to pay you that amount and you should be in a position to receive it.” So that settled the matter. As we were leaving, he showed us where the key was hidden so we could come back and listen to music and play his guitar, which we did several times. He said he’d be leaving the island soon but would introduce us to George Lialios, who we could leave the bag with. George was a wonderful and friendly man himself. He introduced us to retsina, poured from his large wooden casks, and played Holst’s “Planets” for us.

Over the next couple of weeks, we made headway on the valise but didn’t finish it before George, too, was leaving, due to issues with the military junta who were in power at the time. In fact, we still hadn’t finished it after three months on the island, when we were broke again. A friend—Martin Müller—told us we could find jobs in Germany, so we rode with him in his VW bug through Yugoslavia and Austria. We found work in Frankfurt and lasted another three months, until the U.S. military draft caught up with Chris and we returned to the states after our 9-month honeymoon.

We looked in vain for notifications that Leonard would be performing near us and finally, in 1975, he came to a tiny club in D.C, the Cellar Door. At the end of the concert, we ran outside to meet him, accosting him with words, “Remember us? It’s Chris and Sandy from Hydra–we have your bag!”

“OK, OK, hang on–I’ve got encores to do!”

He took us upstairs with the band and they exclaimed over the bag, so welcoming and appreciative. Looking at photos of that bag now and learning that Leonard’s father dealt in fine clothing, I am embarrassed at the crude work we did. But Leonard had an obvious appreciation for handmade things and made us feel that we had accomplished something wonderful.

Years later, a friend bought us a copy of Book of Mercy and Leonard inscribed it, “for Sandy and Chris, I still have the bag, all good things, Leonard Cohen, Montreal April 1984.”

For a long time we made a living selling our jewelry across the country at art fairs, sometimes barely scraping by and other times living high on the hog. It’s been a gamble, especially when our children were born. But we found resilience in our early years as entrepreneurs and we’ve felt confident–between the anxiety and clenched teeth–that if necessary, we could always come up with something new. I think we owe that to Leonard.