…and fruit flies like a banana.
But right now I have a different kind of arrows on my mind – the kind you shoot from a bow.
Thanks to Brave and The Hunger Games, archery is gaining a reputation as an acceptable pursuit for young women. And I say yay to that!
(Let’s be clear here. I’m talking about shooting arrows at non-living targets. Ted Nugent can have the bow-hunting, as far as I’m concerned.)
It would be wrong to say that archery is my favorite sport. It is, in fact, if not the only sport I like, pretty close to it.
I was introduced to archery pretty early. A man who lived down the street set up a target in front of his garage and shot at it from the end of his driveway. The neighborhood kids, including me, gathered to watch. It was way more interesting than watching someone’s dad practicing putting.
My father, being a proponent of target shooting (with firearms in his case), approved and supported my interest. In fact, he bought me a bow and some arrows.
It was a child’s bow. In point of fact, a girl-child’s bow. Pink-swirled fiberglass like a candy cane, with a red handle. And though pink was never my favorite color, I loved it.
I practiced with it and actually improved. I acquired accessories: a shooting glove and an arm guard. (The arm guard is to keep you from whanging your delicate inner arm with the bowstring. Doing this will result in intense pain, bright redness, and ice packs. And then you get an arm guard and make sure your arm is bent just a little at the elbow.)
My mother, who was given to sewing and whimsy, made me (at my request) a forest green wool cape and jaunty matching hat. No, no pictures exist.
When I got to college, I discovered that students were required to take four semesters of gym. One of them had to be swimming, which I faked my way through, but among the other offerings was Intermediate Archery. There was also Beginning, but no Advanced. So I took Intermediate. Twice.
It was lots of fun. On rainy days we stayed inside and learned to make arrows – one, a fancy kind that would fly a certain distance then suddenly turn straight down with its point embedded in the ground so you could find it easily by the colored streamer-like fletching (feathers).
If you know me, you know what came next. I had my mother send me the cape and the hat, and wore them to class. The teacher, who after two semesters was used to me, just rolled her eyes and said not a word.
But for one brief hour, I was Robin Hood.
But I Digress . . . 