My first interest was nothing to be proud of, but I was at the time. I broke or sawed (I don't recall which) a limb from a huge, and ancient, weeping willow tree belonging to the girl next door. I trimed the branch and formed the ends to accept a commercial string which I either stole from Sears or I stole the dollar in change from my mother's purse and purchased the string. I remember that I purchased three wood arrows with metal target points and feather fletching from the same Sears store. The walk to and from Sears to my house was quite some distance in my recollection, no telling how far it really was.

I remember bending the willow bow to put the string on with fear that it might split and hurt me, then the excitement as I prepared to shoot the very first arrow from it. I had no finger tabs, there were no arrow rests, no sights. It was raw excitement until my forefinger joint became raw, my forearm became raw and my string fingers became raw. I could only shoot for a short time at first. Eventually I think I convinced my mother to buy me a kids long bow with an arrow rest on the handle, that was heaven.

I remember going to a YMCA-YWCA summer camp and taking an archery course. I thought I was the best archer at summer camp; I don't know if it was true, but I recall thinking it.

My next archery memories come from purchasing a real bow at a discount store. It was a beautiful composite wood and fiberglass recurve that cost like $20-$30. I was purchasing hollow fiberglass arrows by that time and was hitting the target most of the time.

There was a grass covered alley between the apartments my mother and I lived in and a block of garages where I set up a sisal target. I shot hour after hour, isolated from the world. I remember once I missed and put an arrow into a rain downspout that came off the roof of the garages. I was really afraid that the maintenance man might make me pay to repair it.

I befriended the caretaker of the nearby Jewish Community Center and found out that he was a serious archer. He had an indoor setup in his multi-room basement. We would stand in one room and shoot through another room at a target in a third room. I shot with him all through one winter that way and with his coaching was getting my score into the 240's out of a possible 300. He fashioned a sight for me from straight pins and masking tape and I began to really improve quickly. My bow was all of 24 pound draw I think.

By high school, I was pretty good friends with a fellow that went to the same church I did, who was also into archery. His father would come and pick me up and the three of us would go to the YWCA every week to shoot indoors. You had to be either a YM or YWCA member and I was neither, so I had to join. Since the only cards they had at the YWCA were for girls, I may have been the first young man to join the Young Women's Christian Association. I remember being proud of my weird status as a card carrying YW member.

My friend's father included me nearly every time he went to an archery event, which was at least once a week I think. We shot indoors in Pennsylvania, and outdoors in New Jersy and Philadelphia. I remember joining the Philadelphia Lawn Bowling, Cricket, Archery club and winning lots of second and third place pins and ribbons. My friend usually took first place. He was shooting with a much stronger bow which was less susceptible to windage than my bow. I remember my friend teaching me how to fletch arrows and purchasing my first set of aluminum arrows as a used set from him.

When I lived with my father in Las Vegas, I used to walk about a half hour to an indoor archery range. I shot in a league and was shooting in the high 280's on good days. I remember one time my Dad was giving me a hard time about using a sight, out behind his apartments. I had set up a target in the desert and was rarely if ever missing the target. My father told me to take the sight off and shoot some. Giving in to the pressure, I shot one without the sight. It careened off the top of the target, crossed the desert and a street and went into the bathroom window of one of the apartments we lived at. My Dad lied to the lady saying it was his fault and my recollection is that he actually got a date with her out of it all.

Eventually, I returned to Delaware to live with my mother again. I had a paper route at the time, but made very little money from it because I hated to go collecting payment for the papers. My friend's father promised to secure a loan for an Hoyt Pro twin stabilizer reflex wood and fiberglass bow. This thing was a real work of art. I think it cost over $150 at the time (1969 I think). Once I got used to the new 32# bow, my score crept up to 297, 298 out of 300.

My friend and I signed up for tournaments all over. He had his driver's license and a car and would come pick me up to go to these tournaments. I remember we went to all the state finals and even drove all the way to Detroit Michigan from Delaware for the American Indoor Archery Association's national tournament.

I did quite well, but rarely would score higher than my friend. I remember one time that I placed higher than him and he threatened to make me walk home for hours and hours of the drive home. It was some tournament in New York or Connecticut or somewhere so far away that I had no clue where we were. My friend began to experiment with compound bows and was drawing in the 40-50 pound range which made his arrows nearly impervious to wind. I don't think I ever again scored higher than he did.

I remember in 1970 that the National Archery Association and the World Federation archery championships were held in Valley Forge Pennsylvania. My mother agreed for me to go with my friend. We drove up and spent a week or two there, staying in a hotel each night. We shot in the Nationals and kept score for the Worlds. I took second in the nation in intermediate division clout that year. The "Clout" was 180 yards at a 32 (100?) foot target flat on the ground. The range was nearly the limit with my 32# bow. I had never even shot clout before that tournament. I had to put a masking tape sight down on the lower limb of the bow and arc the bow way into the air. My friend took first in the nation. We were very proud of our accomplishments, even if there were only four of us entered into the event that year. We took home a trophy and a claim that sounded impressive to anyone that wasn't there.

When I applied to colleges, I applied to Arizona State University which had the national collegiate archery champion title I think. I got a small scholarship, but ended up at New Mexico State University.

My wonderful Hoyt bow was sold in a whim of boat fever, trying to raise every cent I could to purchase a 35 foot sail boat in San Diego in 1981. Many times I have regretted that sale. So many memories, so many achievements were wrapped up in that bow.

Update: March '09

After finding a 1970 Hoyt Pro Medalist for sale on Ebay in 2004 for $300, I resumed shooting archery again. I managed to take the 2007 Florida Indoor title for my class with a (268+259)/300, but shooting Olympic recurve style proved to need more practice time than I could devote. I placed 2nd in the Sunshine State games FITA with a 995/1440 but that shoot convinced me I wanted to enjoy shooting archery with less sweat.

In March '08 I defected to the more modern compound freestyle with the purchase of an Hoyt Pro Elite compound bow. I am still settling into the new form required for shooting a release and a string peep, but my NFAA indoor scores are up to 295/300 and my NFAA International is 282/300 with shooting once a week.

My archery equipment list is:
'08 Hoyt Pro Elite, 49#, Hoyt rest, Best .010 blade, NanoXR 530 arrow at 332gr, 246fps, FlexFletch175, OneStringer wraps, Cartel X-pert sight+507 4x scope, 3/64" Tru-Peep, Carter EmberII 3rd finger pull, SKB-4306 soft case