About 27 years ago I was teaching in Southeast Iowa there was a couple guys that were bow hunters. They were into the long bows and not compounds. I am not knowledgeable on bow hunting but I do know the difference between them.....that is it though. In any event ole Ralph K and Lyle M came to me and asked if they could use the shop to build some custom long bows. They said they had read about them in a magazine article. Now ole Ralph and Lyle never struck me as having much mechanical ability nor construction skills. I asked what exactly it was they wanted to do. They proceeded to tell me they had found an article explaining how to make a long bow from Osage Orange. I looked at them a bit odd as at the time I had not heard of Osage Orange. They assured me they had the pieces to use. I thought alright what the heck. It was near summer break so I told them to wait until June. Back then I was the Agriculture teacher and FFA advisor so unlike most teachers I had a 12 month contract. I was in the shop or working with FFA all summer. We set up a day for them to come in. Here these two come in carrying old rock hard, dry, Hedge posts. I started to laugh. I said "what the hell do you think you are going to do with Hedge" They got puzzled looks on their faces and were adamant that it was Osage Orange. They said "hedges are bushes". I explained to them that what they were holding was indeed old Hedge posts and it is the hardest damn wood you will find. I told them they can call it what they want but this is Iowa and that is Hedge. I agreed to let them use the shop so I just kicked back and watched the circus. What a circus it was. They first tried cutting it on the table saw. I stopped them at that point as I did not want to see them get hurt with a kickback. I explained you cannot rip a crooked piece on the table saw. They then went to the jointer. Well they found how damn hard Hedge is, and how fine the dust is. They destroyed the blades on the ole Powermatic jointer, ended up burning up the motor on the ole Powermatic table saw, and somehow fried our new Makita cross slide miter saw that cost us $900 at that time. It was an expensive summer. In July, after the new fiscal year, I went to our principal, Skip Speece with the purchase order requests for the all the repairs. Well Skip says "what the hell happened Bill, this blows your repair budget for a year" I just smiled,explained a bit, and said go ask your sports buddies(coaches) Ralph and Lyle. He grumbled something and signed the P.O.'s.
Ralph and Lyle never did get their bows made from Hedge.
