LONLEY
TEARDROPS!
Does
anybody else miss the teardrop?
by Art Champoux
 I
am crying lonely teardrops. A famous line from an old fifties song? Yes
and no. There was a song with that line in it but I am referring to another
line. The bow string.
Without the string, the stick is a spear or club. I think I was there when the first cave man looked at the vine and stick and made the first bow. He said," ugh, ugh, ooh, ooh, agh uh, yop, ugh, ahh, oomh. Translated that means, "I just made an improvement." he sold the pattern to Turok son of stone for three fish, one bison horn and three clam shells with further residuals later on. Some historians say the use of the bow and arrow goes back at least ten thousand years. First there was THE LONGBOW -- long, sleek and cosmetically pure. The string was attached, and still is, to the ends of the bow. The countries that rose and fell depended on the bow. Thousands of years have passed and modern man still uses this ancient weapon, the longbow. Many millions of animals were harvested (being politically correct) with this simple stick and string. Being subject to the barbs and arrows (excuse the pun) they did this without the aid of wheels, peep sights, hydraulic stabilizers and open on contact broadheads. On occasion I shoot -- he he he -- the longbow. When I actually hit exactly where I want to, I jump up and down with my hair and beard flying in the breeze. It makes me feel like an ancient cave man. I only have one problem, my wife will not let me draw pictures on the wall and she says she can not boil the bark off the tree that I hit either. THE RECURVE. They came in all lengths from 50 to 70 inches!!! Again no wheels, cable guards, and no teardrops. Except when you miss a deer, usually due to your bow's lower limp hitting a branch, or a stick getting wedged between the limb and string -- guess I forgot the brush buttons. That makes the teardrops run down my cheeks, big globs of them. Many famous archers used recurves. Any one out there heard of Ben Pearson, Fred Bear, Jim Dougherty or G. Fred Asbell? The short recurve some say was intended for horse warfare. No, no, no. They were used for fighting from running mustangs. A short amusing story. Walking through a pro shop I over heard two novice archers talking. Pointing to longbows and recurves they were discussing how those bows could not kill anything because they could not shoot fast enough. Again, no, no, no, with the stick and string millions of animals have died. |
Now we get to the Teardrops and Hollis Allen. Who is Hollis Allen you
might say? Inquiring minds want to know. Good question. I was not there.
Never met the man, never knew the man, he is probably the one of very few
men in archery I have never talked to.
Hollis Allen. It all began when he missed a deer because he could no longer hold the bow string back. Now there is a friend of mine!!! Hollis decided to do something about it. Using a pulley system, he figured he could get some some draw weight off the bow and consiquently hold it back longer. He also found out this pulley system made his arrows went faster. Tom Jennings and Hollis were partners at one time. How did he build it? With strings, cables, pulleys, wood, metal and a conglomeration of nuts, screws, and other hardware. Sounds like my compound after I fix it with parts left over. And Teardrops. Actually it was an S Hook.!!!! The Teardrop/S Hook joined the string and cable together. HURRAY, I think? Now, how to change the string? When you pulled on the string the distance between the Teardrops became shorter. So if you afixed a short line on the teardrops, it held the cables out and allowed the string to be taken off and replaced. So you had to step on the bow, pull the string up, put on the changer, take the old string off, and put on the new one. How simple, right? Yes, Virginia there is an engineer in every archer. Before long double teardrops made this even easier, most of the time you did not even need a bow stringer. Step on the bow handle, pull the string put on the new string, take off the old. Within two minutes you were back in action. With a 4-5 inch longer string then what came on your bow you could change draw lengths or strings in the field very easily. Many times I have shown customers how to do it standing in my pro shop! Recently, when I inquired about buying a bow with teardrops, one major archery mfg. told me it was antiquated technology. I politely informed him the founder of his company never hunted with a compound. I probably own every archery mag ever put out and on its pages you can see Frank Pearson, Terry Ragsdale, Pete Shepley and Chuck Adams shooting with teardrops. Now one can hardly find a bow with a teardrop. I do not know if some of the greatest compound shooters of the last thirty years miss tear drops … but I am shedding tears over no teardrops. |