As most sexagenarians (60) and septageneraians (70) can attest that childhood adventures stick in our brains and are clearer than what happened to us yesterday.

We used to play a game called "Skelly" on the sidewalks of the East Bronx. The necessary items were: 1) a bottle cap (usually filled with wax from Sabbath candles; 2) a piece of chalk; and 3) a square of New York City sidewalk. All these items we had in massive amounts. The game was played on your knees and you shot the bottle cap through a series of numbers. I forget now how you actually won but it took up a lot of our time and energy while we were growing up.

It was during World War II when this little incident occurred.

Four of my friends and I were playing Skelly and every day this little man would walk past the game on the sidewalk carrying a briefcase. He was not a very unusual looking man, rather small, slightly built but he had one distinguishing feature. He had a moustache that was the spitting image of Adolph Hitler's moustache.

Immediately my friends, Georgie, Shimmy, and I declared that he was a Nazi spy - living in the Bronx. To be good American citizens, we decided to trail him every day that he walked past our game.

This entailed a great deal of pressing yourself against apartment buildings, hiding behind cars, whistling and looking casual. Every night we trailed him down the block and every night he walked harmlessly into his apartment building and into his apartment.

Nothing ever came of our patriotism or our spy tactics in defense of America and we soon lost interest. After Skelly, we went directly into the "Immy Season," which was a season for marbles. Soon the little man with the briefcase was all but forgotten.

Somehow, however, that moustache still sticks in my mind!

(Nostalgic? email shgreenbug@aol.com)