Pete "KGB" Sandstrum

Well, well. I thought it was scandalous enough that my parents met in a bar and married in Vegas, but now it turns out my dad was a KGB operative. Or something like it.

We lived in Germany from 1979 to 1982, and my dad "fixed medical equipment." He would leave the house carrying a suitcase, a briefcase, a tool box, and wearing a long, dark winter coat. He would return a couple weeks later with wooden Russian dolls. (The kind where the biggest one houses all the littler ones, almost like she swallowed them.)

The other day my mom dropped into conversation that my dad used to "fix medical equipment" at the KGB Hospital in Moscow. What??? I knew my dad travelled to Russia a lot, but only to retrieve dolls for my sister and me. Turns out he was keeping the KGB officers healthy.

While the rest of the world was waiting in fear for the Russkies to press "the button" and obliterate us all, I was wondering how the littlest doll got in there. And by the way, the Russians didn't have a thing on us. My dad used to bring them basic supplies. He once brought them a coffee machine, which the doctors had never seen before.

Looking back, I think it was wise of my parents not to tell me, as a five-year-old, that my dad was working at the KGB Hospital. That's just the sort of thing I would have told everyone on the plane, which is the 1980 equivalent of posting it on the internet...