Stick Man

That’s not a real quote. It’s not even good. But no matter, you can frame just about anything written in fancy font and it looks official. 

And this stick business, it’s real. Take my kid anywhere and he’s going to find a stick and get busy. Be it whacking at a tree stump or drawing in the dirt, if he has a stick, he’s cool.

People ask me what he wants for Christmas and the list is scant. A compass. Walkie Talkies. He did say a camera the other day. There’s been some sword talk. But in the end, give the boy a stick and well, take a few steps back.

My wife recently took a trip to Virginia Beach with our son and friends, I had to laugh when I saw the pictures. The kid found a stick and went to work in the sand. Shirtless and wet in November, here he is posing with, are you ready? A stick!

On Thanksgiving weekend, we went hiking up a mountain. We loaded up the two dogs and packed a lunch. Our son took his favorite stick. To the mountains. Of course we found more sticks, which he stuck in the belt loop of his pants (because he’s only wearing pants with loops now). He studied the hikers who passed us, because we were usually off the path, searching for, well, sticks. A short stick became a pen—or a stylus—which was used on a piece of bark to record all the details of our stick-finding-hiking adventure.

Our front yard is littered with sticks. Not just any sticks. He knows each one by name. The balancer stick, for instance, cannot be confused with the hacker stick. The gun stick is not the spear, and the spear is not the whacker stick. Duh…

There are sticks in the bed and sticks in the car. Our dogs suffer from stick confusion, baffled over what is acceptable to chase and chew. This weekend we travelled out to the country to get our Christmas tree. And there, amongst the plaid and the hot chocolate, the spruce and the scarves, he found...wait for it....a stick!

We sword fight. We hunt for dragons. We are knights setting off on noble missions. We are Kung Fu Panda, and I’m pretty sure I could just wrap up a stick and be done with Christmas shopping. Hmm, an Artisan Christmas... I'll see what my wife thinks.