Back when I was a kid, we didn't have much to play with, but we still had fun with sticks. We'd have pretend swordfights, and stickball was a favorite when we could find a good rock. We played games like "Whack the other guy's stick" and "Chase the cat." I had wrestled one special stick out of a wild berry bush of some sort, and I had accidentally left it in the back of the closet for about a year before I used it. It must have been toughened by that long drying-out, like the timbers of Old Ironsides, because it never broke. For a year or so, I dominated Whack tournaments, and It was the best stick for stickball, even if the rocks dented it a little. I fended off "Rooster," the eight-grader with a mustache who tried to take my lunch. After a couple of major bruises on his kneecaps, he decided there were tastier lunches in other brown bags.

That was such a great stick. I used it to draw in the dirt that made up our yard, and I never had any backtalk from my little brat of a brother. The stick was just the right length to hide down my pant leg, or I could stick it down the back of my shirt with the end just behind my neck. I used to practice a quick-draw -- I'd have pretended I was a ninja if I'd had ever had heard of such a thing.

That summer, I decorated the stick, carving my best imitation of an Apache pattern and inking the carvings with colored clay and ashes. My mother wasn't happy when I tied a stone onto the end using some of the string I always had in my pocket. It looked a little too much like a war-club, I suppose, so I told her it was a golf club. I spent an afternoon in the yard using it like a driver, trying to hit rocks. It didn't work too well, but I think I persuaded her of my peaceful intentions.

I'm not sure what happened to that stick. I do remember September when I'd had to really work to keep my kid brother in line -- I caught him trying to steal my prize chestnut. One morning, we came down to the first hot breakfast we'd had in months. My mother hadn't asked me to bring in any firewood, but she had a good fire going in the stove. We had pancakes and eggs and bacon, and she even let me have my first real coffee -- I'll always remember that breakfast. After we were done, Paw rousted me out to start the hayin'. I guess I was so busy for the next month that I didn't notice that I hadn't seen my stick until school started and Rooster came over with a sneer to take my lunch on the first day at the schoolhouse. By then, I was working on my own mustache, and, a couple of broken desks and chairs later, him 'n me were BFFs from then on.

I guess that stick was the last toy I had. I sure miss that stick.