It's uncle Willards Fault!!

[Jim-Iowa]

Thomps post got me to thinking about how I got interested in sticks and canes. So will tell my story and hope to hear yours.

My Great Uncle Willard was born in SE Kansas in the last decade of the 1800's and moved to SE Iowa as a boy.
A Frugal bachelor of Scot decent he following his retirement would milk goats and sell the extra to the local hospital, for people who needed the medicinal benefits which he deliverd in a two wheeled cart pulled by his goats.
He had a perfectly good popcorn stand on a 1940 Chevy pickup he could have used but why burn gas when the goats ran on free grass?
In all the years I knew him I never saw him in his leisure time without a pocket knife in hand a whittling away.
When I was somewhere between 5-8, I remember him saying he had sold a mess(no clue how many that is) of canes to the hospital for paitents.
Dad asked him how he got the crooks in the canes? To which he got a number of cloth strips about 2-3 ft long. We walked out along the road ditch and he selected a Hickory sapling about as big around as his little finger.
Cut off all the branches for about 3-4 ft up the shaft and left the crown.
He then bent the top down towards the ground in a nice crook shape(taking car not to strip the bark in the process) and tied it back to the trunk.
Said in 4-5 yrs that would be a cane and once a year he would prune off any branches that came out below the crook.
From that point forward I have been facinated with sticks, canes and carving!

[Thomp]

that would work as well...
my post on another thread link here
talked about working from the other end, its been 2 years since i weighted them down,
i have some of the limbs with a full twist and nearly a loop, tied with nylon zips..

i hope i dont walk out the back door one day and catch a flying brick when the zip ties break...
i dont want to start any long term 5 year projects with my health record of the last 5 years., im just not sure id be here to harvest them efforts..
be my luck my son would take pity on the old man and clean up the brush about the 4th year... ha!

i havent tried it yet, but boiling the sticks on the curve end should allow you to bend them, something i want to try...one day...

[Ron T]

Hi Jim,

A very special story and from the way you tell it, a very special man. You and Thomp are both lucky you've got your own supply of sticks, but then again, I don't have to clear any brush off my patio so maybe it breaks even.