The CIA Agent Who Taught Me How To Make Candy
The True Story of the Most Insane CIA Cover Story I Ever Heard, And The Nice Old Man Who Used It On Us
This is a true story. I changed the names to protect the anonymity of the families involved, but beyond that, this all is real.
Growing up, a couple of my aunts and uncles lived in the Washington DC area, and so in the way that tightly-knit families who have scattered around the country pick a central “meeting point” for reunions, DC was a big part of our lives. 4th of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Summer weeks staying with cousins - all were spent visiting the DMV. And so even though we were not of the region per se, we found ourselves becoming friends with the families we met through these frequent trips to the nation’s capital. One of these families, we will call them the Robinsons, became particularly close with mine over the years.
The Robinsons were a perfect match for my family - like us, they had four children, and all the kids were the same ages and genders as me and my siblings. Their mother had gone to the same small midwestern college as my mother. My dad and Mr. Robinson were both huge baseball guys. It felt like kismet. We started going to games and dinners and museums with their family and my cousins (through whom we had met the Robinsons) - and before we knew it, we were simply doing these things just with us and the Robinsons, sans-cousins or aunts or uncles. We met in Orlando and went to Disney World together one year. It all felt normal to me at the time, but looking back I can tell that it was pretty special - having a built-in squad of friends, with no odd ducks or outliers, seems pretty rare when raising a big family.
One summer Daniel, the Robinson kid who was my age, invited my cousin and me to his grandfather’s house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This was his mother’s father, so we will call him Grandpa Kelly. Also, for the uninitiated: the Eastern Shore is kind of like DC’s redneckier version of the Hamptons - it’s where they filmed Wedding Crashers, if you need a visual point of reference. Anyways, we were immensely excited, and couldn’t wait to visit and do all the shore-house activities that the Robinson kids would go on about endlessly. I had met the grandfather in question several times at this point, and he seemed like the best kind of grandparent imaginable (I never knew either of my grandfathers, so I was particularly drawn to the man). He was kind, generous, warm, funny and of course - a retired executive from a major international candy company, so he was quick to dispense both chocolate and cash.
We arrived at Grandpa Kelly’s estate (yes, estate) about an hour and a half after leaving my cousin’s house in DC, and my jaw absolutely dropped as the stationwagon turned into the driveway. I say “driveway”, but it would be more accurately described as a mile-long perfectly-manicured pebbled pathway, lined by neatly-spaced old trees and boxwood bushes that provided a peaceful canopy upon approach to the large and stately main house. Upon entering the home, I was struck (even as a 12 year old), by how on the nose the home decor was. By this I mean to say that every possible piece of art, furniture, and knick-knackery was themed around candy.