Prince Alexis, son of Czar Peter the Great, went to Vienna because he had married the Austrian Emperor's sister. The emperor sent them for safe keeping into the Tyrol. But Czar Peter had Prince Alexander tracked down and finally the Emperor sent them to Naples. The mistress of Prince Alexander lured him back to Russia and St. Petersburg. But he left some servants in Naples. I am not certain whether the Parnoffs were among them, mainly because in those days people didn't have last names. But whatever the exact circumstances, that is how the family happened to be in Naples with a Russian name.

In Baghdad when the water pumps and the oil bearing squeaked, as they did every so often, we squirted some oil on them. We improved through trial and error as well as improvised. We also had eight cars, including a Packard, which was always overheating. I was in charge of the cars, as well as supervising a number of drivers who had worked at a British base. There was one still active base fifty miles to the west, and many of these drivers knew a little English, so I did not have to know much Arabic. Colloquial Arabic is altogether different from literary Arabic, which does not include vowels. You have to have an idea of what they are talking about. I suppose it resembles Hebrew in some way.