Super Spy Nearby

As I was driving around the past few weeks doing my errands my memories of my childhood were stronger than usual. Now, let me point out that I still live where I grew up so there are lots of places where my nostalgia kicks in and I find myself reminiscing.

Like when I was a kid, my friends and I would run around our neighborhood and play army or play kickball in one of the cul-de-sacs or run through the sewer tunnels (oh yes, sewer tunnels were the coolest because they took a certain amount of bravery, peer pressure and ignorance...ok, stupidity, to get through) and sometimes pretend we were spies, hiding behind hedges. Appropriate as spies lived in my neighborhood but I didn't find that out until years later.

I discovered one of the most famous spies of all time had lived right behind us. He was the second owner of the house. The first owners were the ones I knew well, the ones who's kids were my playmates, whose pantry I ate my first (and last) dog biscuit on a dare, who's bathroom I, well, you get the picture. When I found out years later that the spy had lived there I was devastated. I mean, why couldn't someone as notorious and cool as that have been there when I actually hung out at the house?

Don't get me wrong. I've heard his spying compromised many a secret mission and put lives in jeopardy but in all honesty, to a kid, how cool is having a Super Spy nearby? My friends and I surely would have at least snuck in and stole the last role of toilet paper or put something really memorable on those cameras had the CIA asked us to.

Oh well, I have my memories and the knowledge that life was not so quiet on a quiet suburban street in America.