It was early '63 and I was traveling the 'government approved' road about 20 miles outside Moscow. Party officials stressed over and over ad nauseum that I was not to stop, that I was to average 50 miles per hour, and under no circumstances was I to talk to anybody. My knowledge of Russian was only passing anyway, I felt much more comfortable speaking Moldovian. I felt for the huge pack of rubles in my pocket, and pulled out the pale and wan visages of the evil empire, the red sycthe against a blood-red field which signified the determination of the Russian empire to harvest it's own people. I began the long drive in a '58 Chevy Saturn, a car built with the help of a pyschic. The long road to Siberia was not paved with many good intentions - the struggling peasants looked bovine and desperate, a combination I'd scarce imagined. Every cow I'd ever seen looked satisfied and not in the least desperate. My assignment was simple, albeit fraught with complications. I was to marry a young Russian woman, an 18-year old with hairy armpits and vodka-spiked breath. She was a vocal critic of Kruschev, even to the point of organizing rallys at the local grocery mart complaining about the fact that they only had one choice of peanut butter. She said she would die to choose Jif, but instead they sent her to Siberia. However, before her re-education could begin in the ol' gulag, a defense minister was passed a note in between saunas that explained he had a illegitimate daughter from an indiscretion many years ago. Needless to say, this was a bit impolitic and after a hurried conference with General Shavosligiv, second in the Communist Party apparti, a plan was hatched to give her a new identity and make her an American citizen. The wedding was a bit much. All her siblings were named either Galina or Boris and they all slobbered over me in endless toasts. Most of them were drunk by the time are vows were said. I'd insisted on a "Western" ceremony for appearance' sake, and I felt like I was at a movie where the audience talks back to the screen.

"Do you, Jeremey, take this woman to be your-"

"Uhgam si oterek but verify!"

There were so many indescipherable shouts from the gallery that the priest finally hurled a 1960 Olympics commemorative shot glass at them, catching one of the brutes upside the head. A medic came - he got stitched while I got hitched.