Nothing beats a good walking stick ~ October 26, 2005
David Heiller A couple weeks ago I asked Mom if she still had any red cedar for making a walking stick. Mom of course knew exactly what I was talking about, even though the subject of walking sticks hadn’t arisen in the old homestead for about 10 years. “Yes, in the far corner of the basement, by the furnace;” she said. David with his walking stick and his sister Jeanne walking through the hills of Brownsville. Sure enough, there they were, just as I had left them after a stick-gathering walk in the woods a long time ago. Maybe 20 years, not 10. I hefted several of them, and found the right one. It’s going to be a Christmas gift for a certain someone. I’ll call him “Alex.” (I always like how the advice columnists put names in quotation marks to hide their identity.) Alex is a lot like me, although without a 52-year-old girth. So I figure if I like the stick, he’ll like it. I took it home and could hardly wait to peel off the cedar bark and trim ...