Bow and Arrow
My Lucas is inventive. Dashingly, diabolically inventive. He seizes any opportunity to turn an idea into a three-dimensional object. At 8, the name of the game is hands-on.
The arrow is made of a bit of dowel and is sharpened by rubbing the tip on the concrete. The fletching is a feather from one of our chickens. The bowstring is rainbow nylon string from the hardware store. What? You have rainbow string lying about in your junk drawer, too, right?
Lucas’s bow shot the arrow beautifully and quite far.
Lucas also made a quiver, using a handkerchief he had painted during summer camp, a finger-knitted strap he made, and a glue gun.
Later on, when Lucas took his bow and arrow to show Papa, Papa helped him refine the whole thing. The original bow bent too far and it got weaker with time. Together, Papa and Lucas made a new bow with a stouter stick. Papa tipped Lucas’s arrow with a drilled-out lead bullet. Why, you ask? (That’s what I asked.) To make it safer. The arrow was originally so lightweight and straight, it flew too far—far enough to accidentally hurt someone. The blunt lead tip on the arrow ensures that it falls to the earth quicker and won’t pierce … say, a little brother, for example.
