"Look, Mommy! I'm a diplomat!"

For all those thousands of Valley folks who entertain, feed, host and attend school with foreign students and visitors every year, take a look at this heartwarming story of the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who brought his entire security detail of a dozen men to the home of an elderly Novato woman.

He's here on official business to see the governor, but first he wanted to meet with his host mom, who changed his life when he stayed in her home as an exchange student 40 years ago.

Here is an excerpt from the Marin Indepedent Journal:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon came to a quiet Novato neighborhood Thursday with a personal, rather than diplomatic, agenda. Joined by a dozen security men, he came to see the Marin family that hosted him as a student more than 40 years ago.

"It's my second home where I dreamt of returning as a diplomat," Ban said of the blue two-story house at 817 Reichert Ave. where he spent eight days with the Patterson family in 1962. "Coming back as secretary-general of the U.N. I cannot explain how much I'm feeling."

For his first trip to California in his new United Nations role, Ban will meet with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and address a crowd of a thousand at a forum sponsored by the World Affairs Council.

But first, he came to see Libba Patterson of Novato.

Patterson was working for the Red Cross at Hamilton Field when she was offered the opportunity to host an 18-year-old exchange student from South Korea. She and her late husband Robert kept in touch with Ban over the years and even visited him two years ago.

"Can you believe she's 90 years old?" Ban asked a throng of reporters. "You look so pretty and young."