Lorry hated using a cane...so she turned the walking stick into an accessory so glamorous, people can't wait to get their hands on them!
 

"Me? Use a cane?!" Lorry Gregory asked her doctor in disbelief three years ago. A former tennis pro who now works at an air-conditioning firm, Lorry couldn't picture herself walking with a cane. But when a fall gave her no choice but to make a cane part of her wardrobe, she found a way to make it an outstanding part...

"All the canes I see look like hospital equipment! How can I feel good if my cane makes me look old?" Lorry frowned to her grown daughter Lorrae. "We'll think of something," Lorrae soothed. And a few days later, she surprised Lorry with a rainbow-striped cane made by an artist!

"Now this has style!" Lorry exclaimed - and she got to thinking: I change my purse for different outfits. Why not my cane? So she got to work, sawing and gluing until she had her first custom cane, sequined from top to bottom!

"That's no old lady cane!" exclaimed her grandson Kyle, 15. And when she took it out for a walk..."Now that's what I need!" said one neighbor. "My ugly, gray thing makes me feel awful!"

Inspired, Lorry got back to work, and soon had a star-spangled July Fourth cane, a jungle cane, and all kinds of others! I bet other people would like to see this, Lorry thought. So she called up a few retirement communities, re-named herself The Cane Lady and took her show to the road. She'd set out an assortment of canes, and soon, everyone would be laughing as they strutted with fancy canes decorated with sequins and flowers. "I feel like dancing!" one man laughed.

Lorry even set up a website (www.geomagnet.com/canelady) where people can order custom canes. But Lorry notes she's not hoping for riches - she gives many of the canes away or sells them at cost.

"But it's worth it - I love showing that a cane doesn't have to make you feel sluggish," she grins. "In fact, the only thing about my canes that'll slow you down is the crowd of people who'll stop you to admire them!" 

Lorry Gregory is raising canes to new heights of design. For about a year she has crafted walking sticks in every hue of the rainbow and every mode of whimsy. There are candy-colored canes, silver, gold, green, yellow, red and blue. They are bedecked with flowers, beads, feathers, butterflies, googly eyes, happy faces and sea shells.
 

Lorr Gregory, of Parkland, uses a cane from necessity, but her handmade, whimsical walking sticks are as much fun as functional. And to share the pleasure she gets from them, Gregory has been giving them away to those who comment favoralbley on them. On a recent cruis, she handed out about 20 to her practical works of art

"I just think it's kind of a pick-me-up," Gregory says. "If you have to use a cane, why does it have to be so drab?"

Gregory, 69, uses a cane herself. She has carried one since a fall about a year ago activated a case of arthritis. That's when the widow turned her creative juices loose on what has traditionally been a simple brown stick.

Now, with about 50 canes to choose from, the "Cane Lady" sports a different stick every day when she goes to her job as an estimator with an air-conditioning testing firm. She even has holiday-specific canes: red, white, blue and star spangled for the Fourth of July; green holly and red for Christmas; hearts and flowers for St. Valentine's Day.

"They go with every outfit. People get a kick out of them, "Gregory says. "No matter where I go, everybody has a comment to make."

Comments were heard aplenty last spring when Gregory took about 40 canes on a cruise. For the shipboard gambling, Gregory stepped up to the tables with a special model = decorated with toy money and dice. "I had a lot of fun with it in the casino," she says, laughing.

Gregory ended up giving away about 20 canes to delighted fellow cruisers, who dubbed her the Cane Lady. "These canes are in various parts of the country," she says.

Giving away her natty staffs - even to people who remark upon them - is part of Gregory's scheme. She has donated more than a dozen to people who need a cane but may not have the means to buy one. "If you have to use a can, why not strut in style?" she says.

Besides being a vehicle for Gregory's generosity, cane-decorating offers another outlet for Gregory, a breast cancer survivor whose daughter was killed in a 1985 car crash caused by a convicted felon fleeing the police.
 

"They go with every outfit. People get a kick out of them. No matter where I go, everybody has a comment to make." -Lorry Gregory

"It's good therapy for me."Gregory says. "I enjoy it a lot."

Working in her backyard gazebo, Gregory makes the canes form oaken, broom-handle-type wood bought at the hardware store. She cuts the pieces to size, drills holes for the dowels and glues the handle to the shaft. Then she applies whatever design suits her fancy, utilizing such craft staples as pearls, ribbons, spray paint and stones. "I'm always looking for new ideas," Gregory says.

Her output is about two canes a week, and Gregory estimates she spends $15 to $20 on each. It takes about 10 hours to produce each cane. But the hobby is starting to take a financial toll.

"Eventually I may have to offset some of the cost to myself and sell some,"Gregory says. But her other daughter, Lorrae Flanders, with whom Gregory lives, has another concern."We'll have to add a wing to house my mother's canes," she teases.

When Lorry Gregory, 70, was told by her doctor that she had arthritis, she accepted it. When he told her she should use a cane, she did not. "The canes were awful. I couldn't do it," she said. The plain, ordinary, functional cane was not a hit with Gregory, who lives with her daughter Lorrae, in Parkland. So, after seeking the expertise of orthopedic surgeons, Gregory started making her own canes.  Bright, colorful, unique and functional, Gregory's canes are eye-catching. She became known as The Cane Lady. Now with about 100 canes under her belt, Gregory sells them at area senior centers. "There's not a lot of profit in it," she said. The canes - glittering, striped, textured and adorned

with shells, hearts, happy faces, dice, money, blinking red lights, baubles, foil, butterflies, flowers, fruit, bows, cats, dogs, birds, beads and just about anything else Gregory can her hands on - are made of wood. Each of them usually honor a theme like Christmas, Halloween, Las Vegas, Israel, the Fourth of July, etc. Gregory began by cutting the wood herself with a saw, but has since let someone else do that for her.  She paints, glues, drills and decorates all of them herself. Her home-based business isn't exactly Microsoft right now, but Gregory enjoys making them.  Martha Kessinger, resident Services director at St Andrews Estates South, an independent living facility told Gregory in a letter, " Your cane collection is incredible...I know the residents... were pleased to see that canes do not have to be the standard black."

CANE & ABLE: Lorry Gregory of Parkland displays just a few of her many glittering canes she amkes herself.  So far, Gregory has sold about 20 canes. She usually gets orders when people see hers. "I took one with me on a cruise and people marveled." she said.  When not making canes, Gregory works for her daughter who has a Test & Balance business in the air-conditioning industry.  Gregory is a retired tennis pro. Need a cane of a different color? Call THE CANE LADY,  352 750-2316 954-254-4581 E-mail [email protected]