There was something strange about this man. The rugged man spent his time walking around Sumas with a bundle of sticks under his arm. Often I would see him at the abandoned Texaco gas station on Cherry Street. There he would set his sticks against the wall of the station and carefully carve and examine the fine wood. I heard from a couple of people that those sticks that he carried around were actually walking sticks and that he sold them for ten dollars each. Curious to get one of the sticks, I always wanted to talk to him, but I was scared of the man and his appearance. His hair was grey and old. He has a mustache that reaches to his chin in length and its all covered in white and grey hairs. He looked like a bum. He wore the same clothes everyday and he just scared me. But I knew one day I would have to confront him.

I woke up to an extreme brightness shining through the window to my eyes. The heat in my room was hot and humid, I needed to get up and shower the sweat off my body. Saturday mornings in the summer are probably the best days to go and skateboard around the boring a** town of Sumas. So after I shower down I put some clothes on, grab my board, and hit the streets for an intense skate sesh. I pushed myself on my board down the street, as I did that I thought about what spots in Sumas I was going to skate. Sumas had about five abandoned gas stations with something I could skate, so I decided to go to the station across from the Texaco gas station and skate there. I was pretty much wrong when I got there because there was nothing to skate or ride my board. The ground was covered with broken shards of cement and rocks. When I saw this I was really mad, it took me ten minutes to skateboard there and I come to the spot finally and there’s nothing to skate or ride. Eff my life. I sat there in despair, but something caught my eye…across the street sat a rugged, old man. It took me a while before I found out who this person was. A lot of people always talk about him and his walking sticks. As I sat there staring at him carving his sticks and examining them after every carve I wondered what was his name.

And where did he come from, and why he was in Sumas? All of a sudden the man looked up and spotted me across the street with my skateboard staring at him. He stopped carving his sticks and set his carving utensil on the sidewalk of the gas station and began walking towards me. I was scared out of my mind, was he coming towards me with anger because I was staring at him with such curiosity? He crossed the street and at this point I didn’t know what to do but stand there and wait for whatever was going to happen, to happen. We were two feet from each other now. He smiled at me with a smile that wasn’t to convincing and a grunt type greeting noise to go with it.

“Hi”, I said.

I didn’t’ have much to say. He continued on to the Super Duper gas station. So he wasn’t going towards me, but to the station. It was a big relief when he walked right by me with only a smile and that grunt to go with it.

After that day all that went through my mind was “The Walking Stickman”. I wondered so much about him. I always wonder why he was in Sumas selling sticks. Did he have a home and family? What had happened to this hopeless man that he had to be selling sticks in the street? My day came when I met the “Stickman” and ever since then he is nothing more then a mystery to me, a walking mystery wondering the streets of Sumas with a bundle of sticks under his arm looking like a bum.