Originally Posted by Doug Fattic

I might be the only American cyclist to notice that Claudia is holding 2 sticks that I assume are tools to play a game I've come across in 2 areas of the world. The long stick is the equivalent of a bat and the short double tapered stick is like a ball that can be hit with the "bat". My mother grew up in a Danish farming community in Iowa more than 100 years ago. They played a game with a long and short stick she called "stick". When I was going to an international high school in northern India in the 60's, we played a similar game that in the Urdu language was called "gilli danda". It is described in Wikipedia. When the pointed short stick is hit while on the ground, it pops up and then can be hit again for distance. If the little stick can be bounced on the bat before being hit out, the batter gets more points. The further it is hit the more points can be earned. I'm going to assume some version of this game was played in Italy. Has anyone else ever come across some version of this game somewhere?