Soviet Sal

I was about nine or ten, it was the late fifties, Kruschev era, Sputnik, cold war. I lived in New Jersey, a Republican town, all church going families, the burbs... I was very interested in everything Russian. Really I don't know why, thinking back on it now. I kept checking out a little phonograph album from the public library to teach myself Russian, and I would play the records in my room on a kiddie record player. "Nyet Nyet Nyet" I was careful to renew the album when it was overdue. Then I decided to subscribe to "Soviet Life." It was free. It looked like LIFE magazine but was even bigger, and more color pictures. But the pictures were sort of dull, young women on tractors in giant wheat fields with bright blue skies. I got interested in other things.Then summer rolled around, and two men in suits came up on the front porch to talk to my mother. They were from the F.B.I.!!! They wanted to talk to her about ME! Little Sally, the soviet spy!!!!

There's probably a record on me somewhere in Washington!

Of course in the George Bush era of "all your information is mine" this may not seem so funny, but it still cracks me up.