Some friends who lived as missionaries in Russia several years ago were telling us how people always identified them as Americans.

"We would wear Russian clothing, coats, hats, shoes, but it didn't matter. People always knew we were Americans."

"Did you ever find out how they knew?" I asked. "Did you ask anyone?"

They said they were meeting someone new at a park and when they reached him, he said, "I could see you coming three blocks away."

The husband asked the man, "How could you know out of all these people when you'd never met us?" After all, they were in their Russian clothes and shoes, and he hadn't seen their straight, white American teeth that far away.

"You walk like you're free," he said.

The day after my friends told their story, I came across this in the newspaper:

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060224/LIVING/602240317&SearchID=73236759887681