Gary Greene’s Memories from an Old Hunter….#36
As a Franklin Physical Education teacher for 32 years, I taught a lot of archery classes. Teaching 175 students a day, I was constantly dealing with a few students who had the potential to be unsafe. One day around 1990, during the same time as an archery class, the high school marching band was practicing on the football field. Our archery range was about 200 yards from the band and the field, and set up in the opposite direction with a hillside behind the targets. Suddenly, one of my male students turns toward the football field and fires an arrow at the band. Luckily for all concerned, the arrow landed safely in the middle of the unknowingly targeted and still unaware marchers. In today’s society, I believe the school district would have treated this situation more severely than it was at that time.
In 1957, I was proud to be the only one in our neighborhood to have an archery target in my backyard. My dad went to Mayer’s farm over in St. Martins and bought several bales of straw. I remember him driving his car through our yard and he had the bales tied in the car’s trunk. I was just six years old, but to me all of that was exciting and memorable.
My dad purchased targets with the multicolored circles and more importantly, he also purchased targets with full color pictures of squirrels and pheasants. The game targets were far more exciting to shoot at. He also cut up old coat hangers and bent them to keep the targets on the bales.
My dad used his 1953, Fred Bear, Cub model, 47 pound draw, “Glass Powered” bow. He had his arrows custom made by a lady that went to high school with my mother and owned an archery store in Bay View. I still have his bow and most recently I have used it to shoot carp in Rice Lake near Whitewater. My bow at that time, I have no memory of it and that disappoints me. My first memory of a bow was my 1960, wood lamented recurve that had a 49 pound draw.
My future hunting partner Mike Swan lived across the street. At age nine, we were told we were just a little too young to hunt on our own, but without supervision, we were allowed to use the archery target in my backyard. My dad had instructed us with all the correct techniques and do’s and don’ts with the handling of our archery equipment.
My dad's 1953 Bear "Glass Powered" Cub bow.
We were good kids, but one afternoon, Mike suggested to me that we try shooting an arrow straight up into the air above us and watch it come down. My dad didn’t cover this technique in his safety rules, but I knew it was wrong. To this day, I can still feel the tension that I sensed from that suggestion. I somehow agreed with Mike’s plan and he fired an arrow straight up into the air and we both stood there watching the arrow stop in midair and change direction and quickly return to earth. We both saw the arrow, then we kind of lost it in the sun, and we ran in opposite directions as the arrow planted itself in my backyard.
We were very scared young boys and we were breathing heavily, shaking and sweating as we returned to pick up the arrow. Mike suggested we do it again and I did not disagree, but suggested it be the last time. Mike fired that arrow upward again and as we scattered, my mom was looking out the kitchen window and had seen what we did. Like an Olympic sprinter and already at top speed, she came running out the kitchen door. I recall her hurdling a bush or two. The entire distance from the house to us, she never stopped screaming and she was using tough language especially for Mike, who came from a strict Baptist family. Mike was sent home and my bow and arrows were hung from a beam in the garage. Needless to say, Mike and I never again came close to even thinking about that skill set.
Mike and I went on to shoot thousands of arrows at squirrels and pheasants. Mike and his brother Monte were witnesses to the only pheasant I shot in midair with a bow. It was about 1965, and my mom took a picture of the three of us and the pheasant and I lost that picture. I have written that it still bothers me that the picture doesn’t share my office walls with my other hunting memories. We shot a moderate amount of squirrels with our bows, but each one was a reward for our perseverance.
My dad's bow has the leather grip and a double sided arrow rest.
Good kids make bad choices, part two. I had just shot an arrow into a squirrel just prior to it going into the den of the tree. The Squirrel fought hard to shake that arrow and finally as it was making its way into the den, the arrow worked its way out and dropped to the ground, and the squirrel found freedom. In disappointment, I lost my temper and threw my bow onto the ground, and the bow shattered. I was devastated as I picked up my bow and saw that it was split the long way, almost the entire length of the bow.
As I made my way home with broken bow in hand, I was planning on what I was going to tell my parents. With several fake stories going through my mind, I decided to just go with the truth. I said: “I feel horrible, it was a stupid and careless thing to do, I will never do it again, and I am sorry.”
After hearing my statement, my parents agreed that I would never do that again and they bought me a new bow in a relatively quick fashion. 50 years later, it still is the only bow I own along with my dad’s Bear bow. In dealing with this situation I created, my parents treated me with patience and respect. It was a learning experience and I was not punished. It helped me grow into the outdoorsman that I am.