"STICKS" - A Cautionary Tale

Some years back I saw two young boys playing in the yard across the street. They had what looked like branches from a tree. They thrust the “STICKS” at each other in mock sword play, waved them in the air like torches, put them on the ground and jumped over them, and swirled them around like flag poles. There seemed to be no end of what these sticks could be in their imagination.

A few years later I saw these same two boys, now in shiny blue uniforms with yellow numbers and names emblazoned on them. They each carried “STICKS” about four feet long, painted the same colors as their uniform. An enormous SUV driven by a harassed looking woman pulled up and the two boys jumped in to the cheers of a mass of similarly dressed boys inside.

In the newspaper later that week I read that the local “STICKS” team was heading to the East Coast to compete for the national championship and that the winner of that competition might be selected to go on to a newly formed Olympic sports association. And sure enough the team won the national “STICKS” tournament and went on to win a gold medal in the next Olympic year.

But with victory came scandal. It was alleged that the wood from which the “STICKS” were made had been infused with a compound that made them unbreakable, that the players had been treated with human growth hormone, and that the officers of the “STICKS” association had absconded with the funds. Thus discredited the team members were stripped of their medals and the “STICKS” association dissolved.

The other day I watched two young boys kicking a “CAN” around ……….