When I was younger (it seems much younger, but it was only six years ago) I enjoyed Disney pin-trading tremendously. For those of you who don't know what that is, there was a time when people would collect pins that were Disney-themed, little items from all sorts of films, events, parks, etc. Eventually, this became sort of an empire, with Disney actually manufacturing millions of pins to increase trading. They would even put little in-jokes on them or have special days to encourage trading, which was, at its base, just another way to make money. But ignoring the nature of this, for people who began pin-trading before that all got going, it was truly a wonderful experience. It was like a treasure hunt that never ended; every person had their own interests, their own kind of pins they sought after. In the parks, cast members started wearing lanyards, which were always adorned with a large variety of pins. I myself usually went for anything unusual, something I'd never seen before... I can't really explain what it was that would make me choose one pin over another, but whenever I would examine them in more detail, I usually found that they were rarer, or part of a smaller set, or not technically a Disney pin at all but considered part of the phenomenon even though they had been made ten years or more before the trend really took off. I was particularly intrigued by pins having to do with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which scared the living daylights out of me as a kid; the ride was not quite as terrifying the first time I went on it, back in the early 90s, but the sea has always held a particular fascination for me, so the nature of the story was what interested me more than any specific detail. The Nautilus, I suppose, was what I loved the most, the beautiful and somehow alien ship that was created for the film. Those were the pins I sought, along with Tron, Alice in Wonderland, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and other of the more kooky, less-mainstream materials that good ol' Uncle Walt and Co. produced. It may, in fact, simply be an extension of my fascination with the sea, and all sea life; to this day, there are sharks teeth that I found on beaches and all over the place that I collected and saved, some of them even filling a lamp that sits beside my bed now.
Anyway, the last year I went to any of the parks was 2005. On one occasion, I was with my folks and two of their friends at the former Disney MGM Studios. We were somewhere near the replica of Grauman's Chinese Theater, if I recall correctly, and we were generally discussing what to do for dinner, when I saw one of the upper-level workers with a lanyard nearby. You could tell which ones they were because they always wore pants and a button-up shirt, not a costume or uniform like the regular employees. They looks like managers in an electronics store, let's put it that way. The most important thing about them is that the upper level folks often had the best pins, for whatever reason.
I walked over to him and quickly asked if I could look at his pins. He seemed distracted, but complied; Disney employees, by then, were instructed to pin-trade if asked, without refusing, unless for a legitimate reason. They had no reason not to, and the pins didn't even belong to them: at the beginning of the day, they were given a lanyard covered with random pins put on there simply for guests, so none of the pins were ever supposed to be kept and taken home and sold on eBay or added to someone's collection (although I'm sure some were). This fellow very politely held out his lanyard and I quickly traded him for two pins (which I believe is still the limit you can trade with one person at any given time).
As I was pinning my latest catches to my own lanyard, a small, very old, African-American woman approached us. She was wearing a sash on her head, and turquoise earrings, and a purple outfit with matching shoes. She looked dignified, but at the same time casual, just someone out enjoying their day. She squinted at me, and the pins on my lanyard, and said "Young man, what are you doing?" I smiled and showed her my pins, and told her essentially how pin-trading worked. The employee stood nearby, sort of staring at me with this weird look in his eyes; I couldn't tell if he was trying to decide whether to push me away, or smile. The woman was intrigued, and said no one had told her how all this worked, but it seemed clever, and I made it sound very fun. I took off a couple of pins (ones I didn't mind losing, I'll admit, not my best ones) and gave them to her. I told her she should try trading, and see if she liked it. She smiled at me and called me a nice boy; keep in mind, this was a chapter in my life when very few people were calling me "nice," so it made me feel really good. She shook my hand, patted my back in that way that older people have, and then walked off towards the entrance of the park. The employee followed her closely, looking back at me sporadically over his shoulder.
As I was walking away, another employee came up and got in front of me, not physically trying to stop me but just making his presence too obvious to miss. I was startled, but I noticed that he had an earpiece on and seemed to be listening to it. After a moment he asked "Who are you?" I told him my name and that my family was nearby. I was a little worried, because no one likes to be questioned, by anyone, even if it's in the most magical place on Earth. I was 21, and he looked to be about ten to fifteen years my elder. After a moment he kind of chuckled and said "Do you know who that was you just talked to?" I said "No." He smiled finally, and got out of my way, and said "That was Eartha Kitt."
I am ashamed to admit that I did not immediately remember who Eartha Kitt was. I had to go home and look her up, and after I had I had the strangest mixture of feelings, sort of foolish and excited and awkward and amused all rolled up together. I had explained pin-trading to one of the most important voices in African-American history, a woman who constantly tried to change the world for the better and made her life infinitely better despite all odds. I wish I had known who I was talking to... but her behavior will always stick in my mind. I hope I stuck in hers, too.
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