posted by Sandy Fails
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My initials gouged into the legendary walking stick are probably getting a little rubbed down by now; it’s been years since Annie Starr presented it to me on that noteworthy birthday. I’d never heard of it before but was properly honored to join the lineage of recipients. I duly etched my name in the wood and passed it on.
A few years later I searched down the stick (via Scott, M.J., Bobby, Susan, Geo, Xavi, Cressen, and eventually Dano) to write about it for the 2002 Crested Butte Magazine. It was more homely than I remembered, bearing a passel of new names and a gold cord and tassel of unknown origin (perhaps someone’s high school band uniform?).
The 40s stick itself is hardly remarkable, though the carved, colored, wood-burned or pointillist-dotted names and initials make for some fun de-coding. What is remarkable is that a crooked piece of driftwood has been silently circulating around town for a quarter of a century.
Who knows all the hands that have held the stick or how many dramas it has witnessed or prompted. I imagine most people who’ve received it had, like me, never heard of it before. It’s not something you can earn, buy or own. Receiving it is more about luck (and who’s turning 40 right before you are), and you keep it only long enough to add your name and select the next recipient.
When I wrote the story about the 40s stick, I asked Myles (now in Salt Lake City) if in giving the stick to Billy he intended to start a tradition spanning into the next generation of Buttians. “Oh god no,” he responded. “But we didn’t intend to start the mountain bike thing either, or the Pearl Pass Tour, or any of the other things that came out of that time. They were all just jokes.”
After I wrote about the stick, which subsequently passed from Dano Marshall to Kent Rychel, I lost track of it again and all but forgot about it as I headed toward the next decade marker. Then last week a local 39-year-old left a message on my phone, asking about the legendary stick. That piqued my curiosity.
So… I’ll put the word out there once again. Does anyone know where the stick is now? If so, please let me know.
And if it’s stashed forgotten in your closet, get it out, emblazon your name upon it, and send it back into circulation. It might be a gnarled old stick to you, but to someone else it’s a legend worthy of passing on.
