Olympic Pins

Diane Wedner’s “ ’84 Olympics Pins” (So SoCal, June 22) reminded me of an experience I had “doing” pins. I had gone to the monthly Rockwell Open House to load up on space shuttle pins to trade. One evening, I ran into an Asian man who wanted a space pin badly. After some negotiating, he offered me two Chinese team pins in exchange for one shuttle pin. Considering that fair, I did so, only to find out later he was the Chinese gymnastics coach and that the “Red Chinese” pins were second only to 14-karat Saudi pins in being difficult to acquire.

What I remember most, however, was this gentleman (in every sense of the word) being so excited about getting something that to me was a mundane item. I spoke no Chinese, and his English was bare essentials, but to this day I think I made a friend simply because I wasn’t trying to hustle him and get his pins for nothing (although I felt guilty--the shuttle pins cost only 50 cents each).

I learned later that those Chinese pins were going for $1,000 each, but I never could have sold them. I wound up giving one to a friend, who also had no intention of selling it, and kept the other for myself, along with the lovely memory it brought.

Rita D. Ractliffe

Van Nuys