A Cane I Gave Away

Trying to evaluate the values in life is often tricky. In a Western culture where most things seem to be valued by its final cost, we seem to ever fall into the pit of evaluating worth by the cost of materials, the manufacturing costs, sales margins and then the ultimate value in the final sales. I have made thousands of canes, given many a dozen away, and enjoyed the reality that I designed canes and sticks that still sell throughout the USA by the hundreds of thousands every year. I passed that business along. I hated the thought of owning a mass-making business. 

A few years ago we made the video series on making a walking cane. In some ways that was one of my success stories. Designing a cane and making a living from selling them throughout the USA, to provide for my family. Yesterday any elderly man walking through the supermarket trying to locate his lost cane. I've known him as Doug for about two years, since I moved to Abingdon. I said I have just the thing, Doug, a cane! So today he came in and I sized the cane to his 6'2" frame right there in the car park. He was thrilled and it was a double blessing for me seeing him walk away with the delight on his face. Being a craftsman, an artisan, is always about improvement. It;'s about improving life for others but then improving your own life by giving and selling what you make to enhance the life of another. This may be a boast, I'm not altogether sure, but I was delighted by the delight of another.