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I haven't decided yet. Like sticks, their makers can be too green to work well, and so I am a green stick maker.

My first attempts at my own sticks have included brass or copper ferrules, brass or copper wire wraps at one-foot intervals for measuring, and embedded pins representing geological societies on one, or military units with which I served on another.

Toppers:

One has interchangeable toppers, a mount for an Abney level, a mount for a camera, and a hardwood block with a diver's compass embedded.

The other has a 27 oz. "European style" rock hammer head on top, to ensure that I win all debates at the outcrop, while "knapping the chucky stanes."

 

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A lot of my crude toppers are here: http://walkingstickforum.com/gallery/album/16-my-first-almost-walking-stick-and-more-jacobs-staffs/

I like the whiskey shot idea, but how could I mount an entire flask? ;-)

 

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Cheers! A virtual double for you, Sir!

I'm lifting a double Pendleton 1910 Rye, on the rocks, to you.

 

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So, with all due respect to everyone, I'll take the middle ground. I don't feel like I am guaranteed a weapon as a part of a "well-regulated militia" but I do believe that jurists would agree that I can own weapons, short of ICBMs, nukes, artillery, tanks, fighter jets, destroyers, anti-tank weapons, machine guns, and others. I have never been charged with a felony, although there have been times that my wife has said I'm nuts. That could be. Felons and the insane should not be allowed to own firearms, in my opinion.

As a combat veteran with a brother who worked nearly 30 years in law enforcement, I do fear those who might feel they should exercise lethal force as vigilantes in a crisis situation outside their own homes. Too many, even with police academy training, can't exercise good judgment before having significant experience.

I'd rather take my chances with a demented gang banger than a theater full of Barney Fifes drawing down and trying to decide whether and who to shoot. Just my opinion. I do have a 12-ga. pump locked away for home defence, but I can get to my shillelagh a lot quicker. It works just like a pugil stick in boot camp, and I was undefeated.

 

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A two-time Medal of Honor awardee, Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, wrote a book: "War is a Racket" in the 1930's, in which he coined the phrase "the military industrial complex." Another famous general officer also used that term, 20 years later, President Dwight Eisenhower. That lobby group still favors the sale of many currently illegal weapons to everyone, even felons. It is all about money, the Golden Calf, the new God.

 

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Cobalt, we have a centuries-long tradition of hunting. I grew up hunting quail every fall with my dad, his best friend a d the friend's son. Alongside the Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys was always a huge platter of quail.

We have an undesirable amount of home burglaries by armed intruders. We are reluctant to disarm criminals, I suppose due to the weapons lobby. So we may require a weapon to survive a home invasion. The ability to legally carry weapons in public places for the purpose of killing people is something that I object to. Hunting quail is okay. Hunting humans is something that will haunt you in the wee hours for the rest of your life.

 

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I understand that this is a controversial subject over there and i have no background of such things as never even held a weapon of any kind.

You do carry a stick don't you? well we can leave the fire arm issue behind -- all this just because I keep something other than whiskey in my cane.

Agreed Rad, too personal and controversial. Legitimate positions on all sides, and each of us is entitled to our respective views. I do like the whiskey idea.

 

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Rye flask in the stick: as much as I like the idea, I fear that I would get lost in the woods, stumble and fall over a cliff, and by the time they found me the vultures would have picked my bones clean. Then you would have a flock of inebriated vultures to deal with!