[Irma]

Well dang, I forgot to thank you for this lengthy post, Miss M. and thanks for the flag, De.

[Miss Marple]

Here's how old I am, Irma. My son was born in an Army hospital in West Berlin. Taking the train through East Germany, we often had Soviet soldiers who inspected the train and tried to trade belt buckles and pins for cigarettes and Playboy Magazine. Our unit was on high alert in 1968, the year that Czechoslovakia was taken over by the Soviets and Alexander Dubcek was thrown in jail.

Earlier, when I was in middle school, we were terrified that we would be vaporized in an atomic bomb blast during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We had bomb shelters in our school, and regular drills. Pretty scarey when you are 13 years old.

For all of my youth and most of my adult life, the Russians were considered the enemy. And now they are turning out to be pretty good friends. All I can say is that God is indeed moving in the affairs of men, and we would be foolish not to thank Him.

[Ole Okie]

Heard this live during Rush's show, and it is also a marvelous read.

In the '60s, there was a commonly accepted story that Nikita Khruschchev sized JFK up as a weakling during Jack's and Jackie's initial European tour, and that emboldened him to put missiles into Cuba. And that led to what I remember vividly as a very tense time.

I think that Bush and Putin genuinely like each other, and trust that there will be no similar misreading between them.

Thanks for posting this, Miss Marple, and thanks for the flag, deport.