“He charmed those of us who knew him. He erased the distance with people. He was with them. He protected you like a huge shadow. A seer, a confessor, he won trust.” This is how journalist Eva Nikolaidou describes the unforgettable Dionysus Simopoulos, who died last August after a courageous battle with cancer. In a few days, her book will be published by Kaktos. “Dionysus Simopoulos as his friends remember him”which includes her conversations with his old friends D. Simopoulou but also an interview with him when he visited him at the New Digital Planetarium of the Eugenides Foundation for the needs of the telecast “9+1 Muses” (ERT satellite).

The following excerpt is a pre-publication from the published book and is part of the interview of Mr. Giannis Vlachogianni with Mrs. Eva Nikolaidou.

• Today I am retired, living in the suburbs of San Francisco and visiting Greece regularly. I studied physics. I was a research assistant at the university. I went to Louisiana as a 68th freshman. I arrived at the university at midnight on Wednesday. I started working as a waiter on the weekends because I didn’t have any money either. I worked from noon to midnight. On Sunday I worked from 8 am to midnight. I didn’t know anyone in America. I lived in a student boarding school. One day, when I finished work, I went to my room. I had a Mexican roommate whose English was very broken. He told me that someone called me but he couldn’t remember their name. I was very tired. I swing my legs over the railing of the bed. Suddenly, the shared phone rings in the hallway. Someone shouts: “Who is a Greek?” They ask him on the phone. As soon as I went, I hear a Greek voice saying, “Come on, what are you doing? How are you; Do you want to drink coffee? I didn’t drink coffee, but when I heard Greek, I answered: “Of course.”

• It was the first month of Dionysius and Karen’s wedding anniversary. He came and took me away – I won’t forget that. I waited for him downstairs, and we immediately went home. These were all his friends who are still friends to this day. He became my family. Every night I was there. We met when Dionysus was leaving the Planetarium. He would come to the student club for coffee and we would meet there.

Eva Nikolaidou’s book “Dionysus Simopoulos as Friends Remember Him” ​​will be published in a few days by Kaktos.

• Dionysius and I always talked. There were three of us, along with Panos, my Greek Cypriot classmate from the Physics Department. Every evening we got together and talked about the universe, about Greece. They both loved her very much. Panos made me fall in love with Kazantzakis. And Dionysus admired him. Like Cervantes. Don Quixote was his hero. We talked a lot then about the catastrophe of the junta in Greece. Dionysius was the leader of the university team for debates both within and with other universities. Very good. Always a democrat. We had a box near the university club, and anyone who wanted to speak up got up.

• He was the father of the family. Dionysus and I were always at the club and when Karen finished we went home. Dionysius and I have always been close. We’ll know when some Greek student comes and finds him. (…)

• Distinguished by oratory skills. He stood out for his voice, which was suitable for the radio. That is why he worked at the university radio station as an announcer and played different music. Together with Karen, they came up with a song that they sang every morning to start the day off right. The touching moment is when he told us that once with his friend Theophilos, a math teacher, they had no money, and they found 25 cents on the street. They bought a hamburger, french fries and a cigar to smoke. They split everything in half. Shortly before his death, I asked him on the phone: “What do you want me to bring you from America?” and he answered me: “Cigar”.