There is a nice story about this gold tie tack. When my son Kent was graduating from the 9th grade in Saudi, he asked to borrow the tie tack I had just made. I agreed but told him to be careful with it. It was so small that it had been difficult to carve. Graduation in Saudi is a big deal for the kids, since school can only go through the 9th grade and after that they must go out of Kingdom to high school in the States.

We went to graduation that night and afterwards Kent came up to me and threw me his coat and tie. "I'm off to the party", he said. I looked at the tie and asked where the tie tack was. He turned white. He had come out of graduation and in a fit of exuberance, pulled off the tie. The tie tack must have gone sailing into the crowds. We looked and looked, but in the crush of people of course couldn't find it. Even if we had, I was convinced that it would be crushed into a unrecognizable nugget. It was of 21 K gold and was very soft. The louse ruined Kent's party (so he said) and didn't help my disposition either. But lost was lost.

A week or two later, we were looking at the community bulletin board and my wife saw a card in the lost and found section.

"Found at Graduation--tie tack or ear ring. Call and identify".

We rushed to the phone and called. After describing the tie tack as a little solid gold face, the man agreed that it was ours. When we went to retrieve it, I asked how he had found it at graduation with all of the hundreds of people stomping out. He said, "I didn't." He had gone to graduation that night and then gone home to bed. The next day, he got up and dressed and noticed something shiny on the bottom of his shoe. There, stuck in the hollow of his heel was my tie tack embedded by the prong. He had unknowingly stepped on it and worn it home.

The tie tack had landed prong up and the first person to step on it did so in the only place that would not have damaged it. It did not have a single scratch on it.

But the miracle is that the person that found the solid gold object was honest enough to try to find the owner. I wish I knew his name.

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