Folks,

Good evening Dux:

It must be midnight in Blighty? Yes, that all comes flooding back to me now. Of course it is my understanding, not yet confirmed, that Olga fled to England several times and then returned to Moscow when the Kremlin cooled to a lighter shade of crimson.

It was difficult for Old Joe to find reliable if not relatively safe companionship on those deucedly cold winter nights. After a long, hard day of purging he wanted nothing better than a long hard night of something else and Olga never failed to give it to him.

Do you recall how you were putting on that brilliant aerial display when on going inverted, an empty vodka bottle was dislodged from the open cockpit which fell to earth or rather right between Stalin's beady little eyes? That was when you were eventually shot down and your parachute failed. You would have been a goner for sure if Olga hadn't been there to catch you....remember? That was way back when she was Orthodox of course. She'd been praying for a man and she just thought God had answered her prayer when you fell right out of the sky.

We'll discuss that footlocker tomorrow.