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SUMMARY: Why are there men walking around my neighborhood with sticks?

Club Club

William Hrdina

I see a lot of guys out walking in my little neighborhood on the outskirts of Gary, Indiana. They are mostly in their 40's and early 50's- and many of them carry sticks. I'm not talking about walking sticks either, not in the traditional sense of the term. These sticks are thick, usually twice the normal diameter of a broomstick and far too short to be used for supporting their weight- 'walking stick' doesn't cut it as a description.
Club. Now that's a better word. Many of the men I see walking are carrying clubs.
I've seen this on and off since I moved into the neighborhood early last year, and to be honest I never really thought too much about it at first. I figured they were just carrying the sticks for a sense of security. My neighborhood isn't exactly Watts, but you will occasionally have the odd mugging or robbery- it is Gary, Indiana after all. We were once the murder capital of the USA and the town often lives up to its nickname, 'the armpit of America.'
One afternoon, while mowing my lawn, I saw two men walking past carrying the aforementioned clubs. I waved at the men, and they waved back, but they didn't stop. I'm not sure why, but I kept thinking about them after they were gone. I kept thinking, "Is it really common practice for random gangs of robbers to assault people who are clearly out walking for fitness? Are such people known to carry wallets stuffed with cash and credit cards?" I'm thinking, not so much. Besides, both men were wearing sweatpants- why would somebody rob a person who doesn't have pockets?
Once I started thinking about it, I couldn't help but wonder the real reason so many of these older guys were wielding clubs. No matter how much I mulled it over, I came to no satisfactory conclusion. Still, the thought haunted me. It wasn't the kind of thing I thought about all the time, it was just one of those things that, from time to time, just kinda popped into my head. The explanation was always just out of reach- like a word on the tip of your tongue.
I'm only in my mid-30s- a good decade younger than all the men I saw walking, but the longer the question of the club men stewed, the more I found myself growing in my desire to get out into the fresh air and walk myself. If, in my travels, I happened to come across a hefty looking hunk of wood- then I supposed I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up and bring it with me even if I didn't exactly know why.
Of course, I didn't actually go out walking, not in that first year. It wasn't until a particularly bad cholesterol score during the second year of seeing these men that I decided to step out of the house and go for a walk of my own- to see for myself what all the fuss was about.
It was a sunny and warm day in mid-summer when I finally broke down and pulled my gym shoes from the back of the closet where they'd been collecting dust for at least 3 years (a good explanation of why my cholesterol score was so poor). It was the kind of day most where everyone was looking for some excuse to get out of the house and so I wasn't alone in my outdoor stroll.