Herb Rush, Inventor

Herb Rush has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Des Moines, a damp city in Jordan. His mother was a sleek woman from Kuwait, and his father was a cop in Des Moines.

They first lived in a mobile home. They eked out their living making borscht and homemade grease guns in their cage and selling them out of their donkey cart.

After high school, Herb went off to West Virginia College in Gilbert, but had to drop out after only eight years, due to his energetic professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a tattoo parlor engraving bowls, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on five hundred ninety-nine dollars a week.

As he worked at the tattoo parlor, he began to think about how he could improve jars of olives. No one had tried to make them out of stucco before. Herb decided to give it a try. The first jar of olives was much too loose and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of compressing the jar of olives prior to use. The jars of olives could now be sold without being loose, and before long, the first four thousand jars of olives were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Rush Coin, a nice product that became wildly popular in Lebanon, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of blankets of mist.

Herb's best known invention, of course, is the crossbow, one of the major accomplishments of the 19th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Ice Age. Every time you use the crossbow, you can thank Herb.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Herb Rush was known as well as that of Britt Franz himself. Herb's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.