Fiberglass Backing Debate Tears Apart Local Archery Club for Third Consecutive Year

The Meridian Traditional Archery Club's annual general meeting descended into its third consecutive year of chaos Saturday when the topic of fiberglass-backed bows was raised during what was supposed to be a brief discussion of the refreshment budget. The conflict, which club secretary Marian Broadhead describes as 'our Vietnam,' began when member Tom Sinew asked whether fiberglass-backed bows should be permitted in the club's upcoming selfbow tournament. What followed was forty-seven minutes of escalating hostility. 'Fiberglass is a crutch,' declared purist faction leader Vernon Heartwood, rising from his folding chair. 'Our ancestors didn't wrap their bows in plastic. They used skill, patience, and the honest labor of their hands. If God wanted bows to have fiberglass, He would have grown fiberglass trees.' Modernist faction leader Sandra Laminate countered that 'performance is performance' and that 'fetishizing wood purity while shooting arrows at foam deer is exactly the kind of cognitive dissonance this club is known for.' The meeting was formally suspended after Heartwood called fiberglass 'the participation trophy of bow-making,' prompting Laminate to hurl a Three Rivers Archery catalog across the room. The catalog struck no one but did knock over the coffee urn, which several members interpreted as 'a sign from the bow gods.' Club president Rita Nocking has proposed that next year's meeting be conducted entirely in writing.