Sticks: Still Awesome

That story hits close to home :-P I live in Rochester, where the National Toy Hall of Fame is. I'm wondering how many people walk through now going "What the...a STICK?!"

And yes, the voting on toys for the Strong Museum is a big deal here, even if one of the nominees is a stick. All joking aside, that museum is a beautiful place, and if you live around western New York, or just visiting, consider stopping by.

Sidenote: They brought in Bob McLeod and Scott Rosema for a weekend to talk about comic books. Scott was nice enough to give me very harsh, but very constructive criticism on my portfolio. The museum also displayed a lot of old comic book merch, like toys and lunchboxes. :)

You know, in all seriousness, I can vividly remember the joy of finding that perfect stick as a kid.

Also, I would totally vote for the smooth skipping rock. You know what one of the worst feelings in the world is? It's finding the perfect skipping stone then throwing a chunker where you only get like 2 skips out of it. :(

Actually, I still have my stick...

I originally found it out by the reservoir as a bit of driftwood and took a three foot long section of it.

Over the years it's become even more smoothly polished and has even had some paint thrown on it once or twice... but, blast it, I still have it. :D

That is seriously an excellent stick they are using as example. Would that I had such a stick!

This has immediately become my favorite thread ever. :)

My "magic wand" and "magic cane" or staff (almost 6 feet long, in the style of Gandalf) are both sticks, though of varying sizes, of course. Both are very gnarled and twisted. Highly polished, they are very mysterious-looking. The wand is sassafras and the cane is wild fig which has a blood-red color.

Man, these are some pretty serious sticks [sticksite.com]

Kinda maybe cheating a little, though.

Sticks are superior by far to the flat skipping rock. With the rock, you find one, throw it once and it's gone forever. Then you're stuck searching for another one. Sticks stay with you.

Sticks also fire the imagination, becoming a trusty sword, a flag pole, a magic wand, a cane, etc. at a moment's notice. I've never heard of anyone exercising imagination on a skipping rock. It's fun but it's just a rock.

I can say with one hundred percent certainty that if I found a cool stick, wrapped it up in red paper and stuck it under the Christmas tree for my four-year-old, he would love it. We had some bamboo sticks (four or five feet long) that we used in a Cub Scout skit; he played with them for weeks, wreaking all kinds of havoc in the house. One day we hid them and he was visibly chagrined; a few days later he found them ... out of his mind with glee. Sticks.