I sent this to Martin Gardner, about 25 years ago. -- Bob M. Dear Mr. Gardner, Perhaps you get many letters like this, but I thought I would write anyway, in appreciation of your work in recreational mathematics. I always liked your Mathematical Games column, and as a kid, I would turn to it as soon as my father got Scientific American. In the sixth grade, I made a "hexapawn" playing machine, described in one of these columns, out of empty Benson and Hedges cigarette boxes and colored beads. After getting a degree in mathematics, I started a technical career in computer programming and medical image processing, but missed the fun and brightness of mathematics. I would go to the University of Michigan Library and look over the columns in the bound back issues of Scientific American. It helped to reawaken old interests in the subtlety and beauty of mathematical thought. Later, I got my Ph.D. at Michigan, writing a thesis in set theory, and now I work at Bell Laboratories (alas, not in the mathematics department). I still read your books on mathematical games, every now and then, to remember old pleasures. Sincerely yours, Bob Mayans