The walking stick.

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.
• Position: Parting Thoughts - Column

THE ONCE POPULAR WALKING STICK is out of style. Some say it is anachronism, as dead as the dodo bird. It certainly is true that we no longer see it on the Silver Screen--diamond-knobbed, accompanied by a flowing scarf and shiny silk top hat, a la Fred Astaire. However, I have hopes that, like a phoenix, it may rise again from its own ashes to delight once more in the glories of its halcyon days. One reason for this optimism is the increasing number of senior citizens gracing our population.

I am not advocating that the elderly regard the walking stick as a crutch. There is nothing beautiful or aesthetic about that device. It is an ugly duckling that will stay so. A necessary evil on occasion, it produces constant underarm pain in doing its good work of allowing mobility. All crotches look alike, suffering from a bland sort of sameness. The crutch has one function and one only. Its purpose is to prop up and support a person in need of it. One only can make an ungainly hop with a crotch and only the permanently disabled would want to own one. That is why crutches mostly are rented.

With a walking stick, however, one does not hop, nor even walk--one strolls or saunters. Of course, a walking stick may serve as a support aid, and is generous enough to do so on occasion. However, this is the least pearl of its largesse. Indeed, those who call a walking stick a cane do it a disservice, demeaning the benefits walking sticks have conferred upon humankind and mistakenly associating its use in the expression of someone "raising cane." To use a walking stick in such a manner clearly shows that one has no control over his vessel, and no awareness of the equivocation between "cane" and "cain."

The walking stick is praised by no less an authority than the Good Book, a foundation for all wisdom. In Psalms, it says, "Your rod and your staff are there to hearten me." The walking stick has been the possession of the lowly and the holy, as we observe in the staff of the shepherd, the gold crosier of the Bishop, as well as the mace of royalty.

Among other attributes, it serves as a mark of distinguished gentility. This especially was true in the haute couture of Victorian society. Neither a dowager nor a gentleman would be without one. One would as soon dispense with the cherished and chained pocket watch whose fob hung gracefully from a vest pocket. The walking stick attests to this and much more about its owner. One has but to recall how much Sherlock Holmes...