Tales from the Range: Chapter Zero

A few years back I got really into archery. Well, back into archery. 

I was always enamored with the Robin Hood stories as a kid, and both the Errol Flynn and Kevin Costner movies made it seem like a dashing, dynamic skill that a even a decidedly un-athletic kid could conceivably master. My parents bought me a red fiberglass youth bow one Christmas and for a couple summers I practiced with a cardboard target in the back yard. Eventually a new set of subdivision bylaws were released and explicitly banned this kind of "dangerous" sport from our suburban enclave. A more stubborn version of myself would have asked my parents to push back or at least find a range where I could practice, but I had probably moved on to some other micro-obsession by then anyway. 

Then in the mid 2000s, seeking an outdoor activity in my recently adopted city, I bought a handsome wooden recurve bow off the internet. I was making some money at my first real job and had recently seen The Weatherman on DVD, in which Nicolas Cage takes up the sport as a form of meditation at the center of a chaotic professional and family life. I recall a couple of soliloquies from Cage that made the practice seem very empowering and appealing, and it had the effect on me that The Hunger Games apparently had on thousands of youths several years later. 

Either I didn't look hard enough for a place to practice, or such a place wasn't accessible to me at the time. I forgot about my bow for a full fifteen years or so until some deep pandemic de-cluttering unearthed it from somewhere in a basement storage room. Initially I began searching online for some local place to sell or donate the bow, but several results for public ranges in the area appeared, some in public parks that were familiar to me. 

Somewhere where I could shoot this thing? Where I was supposed to shoot this thing? I could go this afternoon. Why not?

In retrospect one reason 'why not' is that I have a tendency to dive deep into any new or revived hobby or interest, spending hundreds of dollars and amassing a full compliment of tools and accessories before it's really clear whether I'll stick with something. 

Within a few weeks of my first visit to the public range I had already also purchased:

• new bowstring
• new bowstringer
• two dozen new practice arrows
• handmade leather arm guard from Etsy
• 3-finger archery gloves
• new shoulder quiver
• bag of plastic screw-in arrow rests 
• hand-braided leather wrist strap
• new cargo pants and hiking boots (my everyday clothes were getting too muddy during arrow retrieval)
• arrow puller tool 
• extra needle-nose pliers (just in case)
• a fanny pack that I attached to the quiver strap to hold all my little bits and bobs

I'm sure there's more. I also watched dozens of videos by Youtube's NuSensei, a young Australian guy who made the sport seem accessible and fun, but also took it seriously enough to seem legit. 

For two years I'd go to the archery range almost every week from the late summer until late autumn when it would be too dark for me to visit after work. I got pretty good at it, got lots of fresh air and even a modicum of exercise. I'm not quite sure why I stopped, except that I also later joined a local pool and became similarly obsessed with seasonal outdoor swimming. I can only keep so many tabs open at a time.

But this is a blog about interactions I have with strangers, right? Well, this is CHAPTER ZERO of Tales from the Range because I wanted to set some context for interactions I will recount in the future. I encountered a broader spectrum of people than one might think, and each interaction probably deserves its own entry. 

For now I'm going to try and remember where I put all my archery stuff and decide whether I want to be a guy that does this during the dead of winter. That seems like a particular kind of guy, and I don't know if I'm him.