Uh, Oh....

A car like this 1969 four door Plymouth is going to stop in my driveway.  Two guys wearing hats and carrying FBI ID cards are going to call on me if the Russians continue to be more than 50% of our readership on this blog as they are again today!

The last time this happened to me Russia had bought one copy of my 30 title filmstrip set I wrote and produced for Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, EBF, and copied it for their 25,000 plus secondary schools.  They were captioned and one EBF editor said, "...tersely worded" as I intended for teachers to present them and use my captions as little more than cues, but sufficiently substantial to function for the occasional student seeing them through a viewer.  

While it complicated the writing considerably it gave me a best-seller and small fortune in 1960's royalties, but only $20 from the USSR for the one set sale and not the $50,000 I had expected. They do not honor copyrights. 

$50,000 was ten years of my annual income at the time.  Many Soviet teachers wrote to me with questions and each answer was costing nearly $3 in postage, but I answered every one.  The FBI wanted to know what all my USSR correspondence was about. They never leave you saying, "OK, that's all..."  They do glances over the shoulder that say "We'll be seeing you again."  That was not my first brush with "Federales."

When I was in my last year of undergrad I got home from my last lab one day and the phone rang as I came in the door.  "Hello Adrian, this is agent Smith from "the company."  Jim says hello.  I want to meet with you now at the new subdivision, 230 Smith Drive, just come in the door." (click)  

I had a "scientific personnel" deferment that had been arranged for me by a close friend who was working for the CIA as I had dropped out for a year and lost my student deferment and this could mean they were calling the game so I went to the address post haste.

On arrival I saw a four door Plymouth in the drive, the house front door was ajar and a hatted man was walking around the yard.  He pointed at the front door as a voice from inside yelled, "Come back here!" I entered a large room to see a folding chair in the middle of the room.  A hall ran off from one corner, I went down that to an open door and there was a guy in white shirt, shoulder holster, 38 Special in place, a paint roller in hand, putting paint on a wall!  He spoke to me in Spanish!  I tried to carry on a conversation with him, but it was loaded with idioms I did not know.  After a few minutes it was clear to me I flunked the test.  The conversation ended.  I left and resumed my life in the lab.  

Apparently they were looking for someone they could hire for a gag in Central America and where they had given me a draft deferment to get a degree were ready to call the bet.  Sometimes it is good to lose.

Adrian Vance