I guess it’s only natural that our deepest longings for sweetly
remembered innocent moments come amid the most unsettled current times. Greeks are no exception to that phenomenon
and my good friend and cataloguer of all photographs Mykonian, Dimitris
Koutsoukos, has just the antidote for troubled times.
Fifty-one years and two weeks ago today (June 10, 1961 to be
precise), America’s first lady, Jackie Kennedy, set foot on Mykonos for the
very first time.
She’d escaped the whirlwind publicity of her visits to
London and Rome for a promised not harried visit to Greece, courtesy of the
invitation of Greek Prime Minister Constantine Karamalis and the hospitality of
the Nomikos Greek ship-owning family.
Here are photographs by Life
Magazine photographer James Burke documenting Jackie Kennedy’s arrival in
Mykonos harbor off the yacht Northwind
and her first steps of what would prove to be many on the island. They also record Jackie’s first meeting with
one who would prove to be a love of her life. I’m talking about Petros the
Pelican, and when he passed away twenty-five years later it was the then Jackie
O who gifted a new pelican, Irini, to the island. But that’s a story for another time.
Jeff—Saturday
