In the Beginning...

Originally posted on my old blog, on May 20 of 2012...

 

It was Christmas of 1981 when my dad gave me my first bow.  A small, red fiberglass bow from Bear Archery to be more precise.  It came with a black hip quiver made out of cheap plastic, but nonetheless I thought it was cool.  The quiver held three yellow shafted arrows and I still to this day remember the white rubber fletching.  Our parents were divorced and Dad was enlisted in the United States Army.  We didn’t see him much, but he sure left an impression this particular Christmas!  Dad gave both my brother and I matching bows that year.  I can still see the packaging that the bows came in.  Once we unwrapped the gifts, it wasn’t long before we were dressed and running out into the snow covered front yard at Grandma Olson’s house.  Dad leaned a small box against the big tree in the yard so that we had something to shoot at.  I didn’t know then that this was the birth of a lifelong passion of flinging arrows with a bow in my hand.

That same afternoon, Dad took us across the road from Grandma’s, into the large open field, to go on our first “hunt”.  Dad told us that we were going to try and flush some rabbits and we were pretty excited.  What an adventure for two boys, ages 11 and 9!  We walked that field, the three of us spread out and checking brush for bunnies, for a little bit when all of a sudden a rabbit flushed right at my little brother’s feet!  As if it were yesterday, I can hear Dad yelling for my brother to shoot.  But little bro was too awestruck to do anything more than stand in that wind swept field and watch the cottontail flee to freedom.  I don’t remember how much longer after that we stayed in the field, but I seem to recall the cold’s icy grasp took hold of us boys and we headed back to the warmth of Grandma’s little house.

There were more adventures with those little red bows, including the chasing of one devilish chipmunk and the near fatal experience of pissing off the neighbor kid’s mother when we made plans to run away from home.  But we survived and nobody was hurt in the making of our boyhood memories.  But then the world was a different, and much better, place for a boy to grow up.

Damn I wish I could re-live my boyhood.