When I ran across the post below about the Bois D’arc tree, it conjured up a memory from more than 60 years ago.

We were living down on the creek out of Jollyville. Cec, our dad bought a 3/4 Chevrolet Pickup. It had been a Texas Highway Department truck in its first life. So it was yellow with the huge logo sanded off the doors. Later on he even painted it green. Not a green anyone else on earth would have chosen for a pickup truck. It was something of a mint green, but not a true mint green. It had to have been paint he got a bargain on. Mostly likely a paint store had some paint left over that no body was ever going to buy. In fact I bet they had 2 gallons of different shades of green paint on the shelf and he mixed them together to come up with the most putrid of color of green.

That ended up being the truck that Kenny, Jimmy Palmer (we affectionately called JP) and I would go on to haul lots of hay on over the years. Some of those hay hauling events ended up becoming a thing of legends.

Now the thing about this pickup, since we had no stock trailer, it had to have a set of sideboards. That’s how we hauled the Shetland’s over to Paleface to the racetrack or how we took the pet milk cow to the slaughter house when she quit giving milk and otherwise was on her last leg.

Cec went to the lumber yard a bought a sufficient supply of lumber to build this set of sideboards. I guess he was looking ahead because he made these sideboards about half again taller than anyone else’s. He was probably anticipating that we were going to still be using them when we transitioned to full sized horses and maybe we’d need to haul a brahma bull in the future.

Cecil Lewis never did anything in a conventional way. He bought some wood that had been cut out of a Bois D’arc tree. Let me tell you that was the hardest and sappiest wood imaginable. He cut and drilled and lag bolted it all together. But trying to keep a drill bit sharp enough to penetrate that lumber was a challenge of its own. Of course back then you didn’t throw away a drill bit when it got dull like we are accustomed to doing nowadays. And we sure didn’t have any fancy drill bit sharper either.

So after every hole, with that bit hot and smoking, he’d have to stop and take a little rat tail file to the bit and get it sharp enough to make another hole. Cecil wasn’t a very patient man so he’d be cussing and fuming the whole way.

But when he finally got those sideboards built and dragged out under a big oak tree so he could hoist them up to back under them, it was a glorious time. I remember that they set down and fit in the standard holes perfectly, which thinking back on it, that was a miracle in itself.

I’m not sure whatever happened to that pickup, but that set of sideboards are probably still sitting out under a tree somewhere, where they were last hoisted off of the old 55 Chevrolet 3/4 ton. It’s not likely that they rotted away.

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Here is what I found about the hardness of the Bois D’arc.

“The wood of a Bois D’arc tree, also known as Osage orange, is known for its exceptional hardness. In fact, it is one of the hardest woods in North America. The Janka hardness rating for Bois D’arc wood is around 2,040 pounds of force, which is extremely high. This makes it highly resistant to wear, impact, and denting. It is often used for applications that require a durable and sturdy wood, such as tool handles, fence posts, and even archery bows.”