The object at hand is a cane — slender yet strong, gleaming black, its handle widely arched to fit a big hand. The perfect accessory for a man with gracefully silvered hair, strikingly black eyebrows ...

Thomas Jones methodically felt his new hand-carved wooden cane, inch by inch, from its eagle-head handle to its red, white and blue shaft. “It feels real nice,” said Jones, 82, who lives in the Glen ...