Toysday: Archers Icons

     I learned that I had a taste for the art of archery early on, before the age of 10: My brother had a small recurve bow (in Creamsicle orange fiberglass color) and some arrows and he taught me how to shoot in the back yard. I continued on through High school with a recurve bought at a thrift store with a crack through the riser that no sane archer would shoot with. My first Bow bought as an adult was an old Ben Pearson 45# target bow with brown fiberglass. What I shoot now is a Green Mountain Longbow at 65# draw that I have had for 25 years or so. I Alternate that with an Appalachian archery recurve at 64# draw that is just beautiful. I have a compound bow, but to be honest, it's no fun to me. Not my style of archery.

The old Pearson recurve- she may be older than I am, but still shoots great

My Appalachian recurve. Black locust limbs...

Cocobolo riser. such a beautiful bow

My longbow. Maple riser...

Elm limbs

     What's it got to do with toys??? Well, I have always loved the toys I could find of my icons, and of those things that are a part of me.

     Oliver Queen...Clint Barton...Legolas, Prince of the woodland realm...Robin of Sherwood...Katniss Everdeen...All of them using archery as their primary skill-all of them inspiring some fan to pick up a bow. Real world icons like Fred Bear...Howard Hill...even Ted Nugent, though he has managed to fall far for me with his politics.

     I Love toys with bows. To me Archery has always been more of a draw to me than guns. I know each has it's own high level of skill involved. But to me, the bow has always been the thing...

My name is Oliver Queen. After five years in hell, I returned home with only one goal: to save my city. But my old approach wasn't enough. I had to become someone else. I had to become something else. I had to become the Green Arrow.

Hey, look at me. It's your fault, it's everyone's fault, who cares. Are you up for this? Are you? Look, I just need to know cause the city is flying. Ok, look, the city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense. But I'm going back out there cause it's my job. Ok, and I can't do my job and babysit. Doesn't matter what you did, or what you were. If you go out there, you fight and you fight to kill. Stay in here, you're good. I'll send your brother to come find you. But if you step out that door, you are an Avenger. All right, good chat. 

Mastermind Creations Elita-1 with a short Energon bow

Rodimus got his Energon bow in his brief stint in the Animated show-
 this is Masterminds version of him,
and I LOVE THIS TOY

Medicom Toys Miracle action figure Reideen. Bought him years ago at a comic shop that is now no more...

     Oh... Side note- if I ever see anyone make a huge technical mistake with a bow in a movie, or in an illustration, it fouls it up for me... big time. So if you are going to shoot it, shoot it right!

League Assignment: Cool Story Bro

     Our Tale Opens....

    on a middle aged man, somewhat thick about the midsection but trying to lose weight and get back in shape...

     A man with a single desire on the night our tale unfolds- a desire to put carbon arrows into paper targets, pull them out, and put them in again. I slung my battered old compound bow into the trunk of my civic and started the car.

     Seems easy enough, I suppose. But to be interesting, the story has to have conflict, and this is a story of MAN Vs. THE ELEMENTS

     You see, this night was a night of late season snow in Colorado, and late season snow on Colorado doesn't mess around. and my Civic, while very reliable, tends to turn into a sled once snow gets above the bottom of the car. The bottom of the civic isn't that high off the ground, either.

      I made it three blocks before I started getting hung up badly. This was a heavy, wet snow, like trying to drive through Jell-O. No wimpy powder snow here, this was snow with a vengeance. so I turned the car around and started back up my street. I live on a cul-de-sac, on a hill, and winter weather and gravity and grade are not friends to my car. I got about 25 feet up the hill before the car started to hang and slide. I backed back down and retried, to no avail. So I parked on the avenue and decided to hoof it back home. Abandon the car, abandon the bow, abandon the journey.

     We take an aside here, to cover how I'm dressed. I'm wearing:

• a wool pea coat- good choice
• a hat- good choice
• khakis-indifferent choice
• no socks-pretty rare I wear socks anyway
• moccasin-style loafers-not a good choice

     So I start hiking up my street, seeing people out doing things with their cars through my badly snowed up glasses, seeing people I don't really recognize, but I don't often see my neighbors anyway. But I slog through the slush and snow to see...the other avenue, not the houses at the end of the cul-de-sac.

     What this means to the layman, (someone not familiar with the topography of my neighborhood) is that I have just spent somewhere between 10 minutes and an eternity walking up

THE

WRONG

DAMN

STREET

 

I parked the car further along the avenue than I thought, and went up the wrong block

 

     I toyed with some choices at this point. stay here, build a snow shelter, raise sled dogs...or start walking. I walked, because I'm not sure where you even get blubber from. I walked down the hill, down the avenue, and back up the next hill. I found my house almost at the summit, I shed my snow-matted coat and hat, peeled off my snow-crusted shoes and went and put my feet in a warm bath. And when I could feel them...they hurt.

 

 I walked down and recovered my car the next day-no one had hit it in the snow, the bow was OK for having been in the trunk overnight. It took a little work to drive it up my hill, but I made it.

 

     So now I'm much more careful about the weather when I am planning on going to the range

Update: Links Begin!
GI Jigsaw tells the tale of painting of the 2nd Engineers
Achievements in Gaming gets taken to school by his son
Geeky Vixen shows us her true fangirl colors
Jathniel tells how a family relationship was "transformed"
Brian of Cool and Collected spins a tale of Rocky and the land before Spoilers

and the others yet to come
 

 

Not My Shot...(But Interesting)

     I like the fact that the arrow actually pierced the fluorescent tube without shattering it. it must have been fired from a very high velocity bow, to have gone through the wood and still been moving fast enough to kill the light fixture. I would not call this a good shot, but it is a unique one worth sharing. I imagine the range owners were none too happy, when they had to extract the arrow