JANUARY 28, 2025 – One day when I was a young kid, my sister Elsa came home from school reciting the name, Ponce de León, the explorer and conquistador who in 1513 led an expedition throughout what is now the state of Florida.
Two hours later, Elsa remained enchanted by the name of the early 16th century Spaniard. While our mother was preparing supper, Elsa skipped through the downstairs rooms of house, repeating an endless loop of Ponce de Leon, Ponce de Leon, Ponce de Leon and laughing at her own Spanish accent, infused with exaggerated flourish.
I soon fell under the same spell and followed her as if she were the Pied Piper, except never having laid eyes on the actual spelling of Ponce de León, I pictured it as a single name, spelled and pronounced, Ponsaydayleohn.
Later, over the dinner table, Elsa told us more about the man, namely, that his main claim to fame was his search for the Fountain of Youth—ironically appropriate given that the territory would become a state known for having lots of old residents. Dad, having an encyclopedic knowledge of things historical, filled in the blanks—namely, that Ponce de Léon was a “konkeisterdoor” who led an expedition throughout the place we now call Florida; that neither he nor anyone since has found the Fountain of Youth.
Since that dinner conversation back in the very early 1960s, historians have debunked the notion that Ponsaydayleohn was, in fact, searching for the Fountain of Youth. But what’s another myth piled atop lots of others that back were treated as gospel?
None of the myth-busting, however, has discouraged me from conducting my own search for the Fountain of Youth. Yesterday, at the age of nearly 70-½, I’m delighted to report that . . . I FOUND IT! I FOUND THE FOUNTAIN!
How? Aha! I found it exactly in the simplest manner one could reasonably expect: I went back to college. Despite my advancing chronological age (70 ½), I felt like a 19-year old again the instant I entered the classroom. I sat at one of the relatively new student desks with drop-down tops. Eight or nine young undergraduates would ultimately join me, and when I stole furtive glances, some of the kids . . . er, very young people . . . looked as if they could be the slightly older cousins of our nine-year-old granddaughter. Did I say I felt 19? Make that 18. The Fountain of Youth was no myth. Moreover, I’d discovered it just 6.9 miles from our driveway.
Okay, alright, fine. In the spirit of full disclosure, much about the Fountain of Youth was quite old, starting with the 91-year-old professor, Theofanis Stavrou, who’s been a fixture at the “U” since about the time that my sister Elsa and I first heard of the Fountain of Youth. More about Professor Stavrou below. Some would say the subject matter as revealed by the (six) weekly, two-hour course title was also “ancient”: The History of Russia Since the Time of Peter the Great. And joining those “eight or nine young undergraduates” . . . and me . . . were two middle-aged guys and . . . drum roll, drum roll . . . my good friend Matt, my age, and also a life-long student of history.
Back in December Matt had told me about the course for which he’d already registered. Surprised that the good Stavrou was still alive, I responded enthusiastically to Matt’s suggestion that I too register for the course.
What transpired yesterday was the most enjoyable and scintillating live academic experience I’ve had since college; actually, including college—for reasons I’ll later explain. The subject matter, of course, has always held my attention, starting when I was nine years old . . .
Nine years before I was born, my mother, an aeronautical engineer during WW II, was studying for her masters degree in social work at the U of M. She became good friends with a fellow student in the program, Mary. Mary later married Warren Ibele, a young professor of engineering, who would later become Dean of the U of M Institute of Technology, a post he held for many years before retiring. Mary and Warren went on to have four kids who lined up in age with my three sisters and me. When we were all quite young, a tradition started whereby Ibeles would host us Nilssons for a big dinner a week or so before Christmas, and we Nilssons would host the Ibeles for a big backyard picnic in the summer.
On the occasion of our Christmastide get-together in 1963, after dinner, Warren entertained us with a slide show featuring his month-long cultural exchange trip to Russia the previous fall. I was mesmerized by his pictures of the grand architecture of (then) Leningrad and Petrodvoredts, and the center of Moscow—Red Square, the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral, the GUM department store. I decided then and there, seated cross-legged on the living room floor, that one day I too would go to Russia and see those sites firsthand.
Before yesterday’s class session got underway, Matt and I introduced ourselves to Professor Stavrou, who is eminently approachable. I asked him if he knew Warren Ibele. He did! I told him the above anecdote and appended the sequel: mention of my 1981 two-week journey on the Trans Siberian Railway from Moscow to Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East—and all the way back[1]. In 1992, it turned out, the 100th anniversary of the Trans Siberian, Professor Stavrou had taken a three-week trip aboard that famous train, except he rode a special version of it—one outfitted in the style of 1892.
Once all the students—about a dozen—were accounted for, Professor called “All aboard!” From the very outset of his mesmerizing lecture—replete with lots of “parentheticals,” as he joked about his digressions—I felt the same delight that had swept over me in October 1981, when the Trans Siberian train rolled slowly out of the Yaroslavsky Station and headed east on its long journey to the opposite end of the Euroasian land mass.
For every minute of yesterday’s two-hour “ride,” Stavrou was in complete command of the track, the locomotive, and the carriages. As clear as a train whistle, his mind imbibed from some miraculous Fountain of Youth. In short order I realized that I was in the presence of an extraordinarily gifted human being, whose sincerity and love for teaching and learning matches his remarkable intellect and curiosity. His advanced age hadn’t dulled his senses; age had refined them. Age had carried him to the pinnacle of his powers of insight and perspective.
Stavrou is a Cypriot Greek by birth, who came to the United States wanting to become an actor. To improve his English, a friend told him to read and study the works of John Steinbeck. Stavrou devoured them. As fate would have it, however, the young Theofanis veered off into academia, specializing in modern Greece, Eastern Orthodoxy, Modern Greek studies, religious history in modern Russia, Russian history, and the Russian and Ottoman Empires.
In 1963 he was engaged in post-doctoral studies at Leningrad State University. When President Kennedy enlisted Steinbeck to participate in a cultural exchange with Russia in 1963 (the same one, possibly, in which Warren Ibele had participated), the famous writer readily agreed. Though Steinbeck had visited Russia twice before—once in 1937 and again in 1947—he was deficient in the language. Being exactly at the right place at the right time, Professor Stavrou was recruited to serve as interpreter for his literary hero. (Cont.)
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
[1] It was that experience, together with time spent in Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Moscow and Leningrad, that piqued my interest ever so deeply in Russian history and culture. I began reading extensively about Russian (and Polish) history and gave serious thought to putting my law degree in a drawer and returning to graduate school in Russian or Slavic studies. As I write this, I imagine whimsically what would’ve happened—over what rail line I would’ve traveled—if I’d met Professor Stavrou at that juncture instead of half a century later. He could very easily have twisted my arm to “go for it”; go for an academic career. Who knows where that could’ve, would’ve wound up.
