Stick Up

Even with mostly being home this year, I have tried keeping up on doing videos about how I do daily life. This week, I showed my attempt at helping decorate my Christmas tree and the different type of mouth sticks I have used.

One of my dresser drawers has become the collection point for everything stick related that I find. It has extra pads for my mouth grips that get replaced every few months. I also have an abundance of tips that rarely replaced, and a few brand new sticks in case of some unforeseen disaster. However, it also contains relics of times gone by.

Over the years, I have tried, and used, an abundance of different types of sticks. Early on, my parents made them from arrow shafts and molded plastic that I used to grip. It was with these that I learned stick skills while playing with toy tractors, trucks, and building Lego structures. Most were just straight rods, but others were more specialized.

In order to help stack blocks, I had a suction stick that was hollow and had a rubber suction cup on the end. I could plop it on a flat surface, suck, and pick up the item. Another allowed me to push on a button, extend a gripper, and pinch an item to pick it up. Still more had the same button, but would just add more length to the straight rod. However, the button would constantly rub between my teeth, so I didn't care for them very much.

More specialized sticks were available that could hold a pen or pencil and allow writing. By the time I received it though, I had already mastered writing with a pen in my mouth. Finally, after participating in a mouth stick study, I received a stick made for use with touch devices such as tablets or smart phones. It's so heavy though that it is very hard to use.

After a few decades of being tossed around, not all of the archival mouth devices have all of their parts. However, they still provide memories of what God has allowed me to do over the years and even with new technology, a simple rod held by mouth still works best in this quad life.