Archery Unlimited

You might think it is strange that "Duck and Goose" are going hunting, but that is our intention. When we consider where our meat sources from, buying it from the supermarket, hunting becomes a kinder way to interact with animals, on the whole. Why not be vegetarian? Well, the resources needed to cultivate enough land to provide for protein needs (and other nutrient needs) has a significant impact on the environment as well. A deer, on the other hand, can absorb nutrients from plants that we can't even digest, and concentrate those nutrients so that we can get by with less. We can play the part of predator every once in a while and not become jaded to the extraordinary moment of life on Earth.

So, here we are, having gone down to Outdoor World, outside of Houston, Texas. Dana has misophonia, which is a debilitating aversion to certain sounds, including many mouth-sounds, like chewing. I have some of that (not as severe), but, more to the point, I am so easily startled by loud sounds that firearms are pretty much out-of-the-question for me. The idea of igniting gunpowder in close proximity to my ear is...unappealing. So, we're walking in to this outdoor sports emporium to consider whether to buy a high-powered air rifle for shooting small game, or whether to go with the choice that Dana and I, in our romantic hearts, would prefer: some sort of bow and arrow.

It turns out that the "small game" you can shoot with a $100-$200 air rifle is "varmints" of various small size: squirrels, rats, blue jays -- none of which are quite turning into succulent mental visions of dinner, as I stand before the racks of Daisies, and Remingtons, and the like. On the other hand, a crossbow is a lethal weapon, with which it is easy for a beginner to rapidly gain accuracy. However, there's just something sinister-seeming about a crossbow; it is the place where mechanized devilry intruded upon the grace of archery. Plus, they don't require the finesse of a vertical bow, and, even though our food will depend on it, I don't think that our egos will let us get away with doing something that doesn't require hardcore skill.

In the next aisle are compound bows, devices that use cams and pulleys to offset the draw-weight of the bow, so that when you have fully drawn back the string on a compound bow, you are resisting a fraction of the full force with which the arrow will be propelled forward. Once you have ruled out crossbows, however, it is fairly easy to dismiss compound bows in a similar way. They are complex; have moveable, breakable parts; have a sight; and generally are the archery world's point-and-shoot instrument. Compare this to what awaits in the last half of the last aisle: the longbow, the bow-and-arrow in its simplest, primordial form. Also, there is the recurve bow, its modern iteration, fibreglass-backed, and with limbs that arc away from the archer (when the bow is unstrung) to add extra force in a shorter bow. These are used in a style of archery called "Instinctive," where one does not use a mounted sight to align the shot with the target, but rather trains an arrow to the bull's eye by releasing the arrow from a practiced stance while visualizing the target in a kind of Zen state.

Needless to say, an hour and half later, Dana and I are walking out of Outdoor World with a recurve bow, a box of arrows, a practice target, and the expectation that, if we practice hard for two years, as our customer service agent said, we'll then be ready to start mounting broadhead points on our arrows and taking out deer. True, this is a bow for Egon (getting him this fulfills a plan that was hatched a couple years ago and stalled out before completion), and Dana and I are just "studying," to see if we actually like this form of archery. But, in the couple of weeks since then, we have found that we really enjoy this activity (as the agent warned us we would), and I have the sense that this is going to, in some way, become a cornerstone of our lives. At this point, Dana has a traditional longbow, I have a traditional longbow, Dagny has a little, pink longbow, we are on to our second target, we have shooting gloves and tabs and quivers (I am sewing mine out of pieces of an old leather coat I cut up), we have feather-fletched arrows; and, most importantly, we are hitting bull's eyes... well at least some of the time. Upon seeing her bow for the first time this evening, Dagny blurted out, "Where are the silencers?" She has been most excited about the small pompoms, made of yarn, that attach to her bowstring and dampen its vibrations, to still what noise a 10 lb. bow does make when it is loosed upon the world. Sure is a heck of a lot quieter than a shotgun. Our Merrie Band is on its way!