I used to take Leo into North Hollywood every Saturday for his Russian language school. Before our adoption of him was completed, we had to jump through hoops and over all these hurdles placed before us to make it official. It went from no one wanting him, to, ‘You’re too old’, or, “He needs his culture!” Huh? A culture of starvation and hospital stays in unheated homes? O.K., if they said so, we did as told…Now, at this ‘school’, I did meet an interesting fellow. A former Soviet Nuclear Sub commander. He had one of those screwy eyes that worked just fine, but, seemed to be looking off to the right. Also, his eye brows looked like he brushed them. A very bright fellow though. I played him about fifty games of chess and never came close to beating the guy. Not that I’m any sort of great chess player. I’m a Scrabble man. He told me a couple of interesting stories…When the Soviet Union collapsed after Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ broke their backs financially, he told me he didn’t eat fresh bread for almost a year. All the formerly ‘Friendly’ states, were right back in the 1800’s as far as getting along was concerned. Long suppressed hatreds and fueds that had been simmering but hidden, popped out everywhere. He said it was like you lived in Burbank, but you had to go to downtown L.A. then up the coast, then, over to Newhall, then, down to Sylmar, just to get past the goons in Burbank wanting to shoot and rob you. It was like this everywhere…The worst thing of all, was the stealing of equipment and black market moving of radioactive cannisters and handling gear. No one was getting paid and it was all the officers could do to not get shot themselves once in port and docked. It was everyman for himself…Now, he also told me another story of a Russian sub accident. I can’t remember the Captain’s name, but, I remember the gist of what happened. Oh, it was a sub with just a number. K-19? Look it up, it has to be on the internet somewhere. Anynow, this sub was captained by a former class mate of his, so, he heard the lowdown from the cat’s mouth so to speak…His story: “There had been a fire in the cooling system section of the sub. No cooling, you have a good shot at a nuclear event. All subs are sectoned off in case of such emergencies to the crew members in these portions of the vessel. The Captain himself went to the section experiencing the ‘accident’. It was bad. Way worse then anyone would ever know past the propaganda machine writers’ lies and untruths. What they never told, was when the Captain asked the fifty or so odd men in the section for volunteers to go into the nuclear spill area to shut down some valves and reroute the cooling system, ALL STEPPED FORWARD. It was a death sentence to go inside that room. All were young men. Each man that went in, staggered out after doing as much as he could, then, another man took over, until he too collapsed. Seven died within days, twenty more died in less then two years. All horrible, painful deaths!”…He broke down in tears and sobbed so hard, his daughter came over to take him into the bathroom…
