Modern Archery for Life: An Autobiography of an Archer

By Jake Veit

It was the spring of 1951 when Jake Veit’s father, an avid outdoorsman, decided he wanted to learn to bowhunt. As Jake picked up his father’s enthusiasm for archery, he began shooting in tournaments and bowhunting small game, and ultimately helped his father found an archery club.

While intertwining his entertaining personal experiences while growing up in Ohio and beyond with insight into the ancient sport of archery and accompanying images, Veit provides a fascinating glimpse into all the ways involvement in archery can positively effect its participants. As he leads others through his experiences and the history of a sport that has helped man survive over time, Veit details his tournament experiences, the mental and physical control that he and others had to refine to be successful, how to properly execute a shot sequence and other techniques, and much more. Throughout his presentation, Veit reminds us that archery is a life sport that provides exercise and fun while demonstrating that no one has to win to feel accomplished.

Modern Archery for Life shares personal experiences, insight, and images that shine an intriguing light onto an ancient sport that can be enjoyed by all ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jun 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665744812

Jake Veit

Jake Veit has been engaging in archery ever since he was a boy growing up in Ohio. His father enjoyed helping new archers and new archery clubs and as an adult. As an adult, the author began an archery club of his own when he moved to an area east of Columbus that did not have one. He is also the author of The Secrets of Modern Archery.

Book preview

MODERN ARCHERY

FOR

LIFE

by JAKE VEIT

Titlepage.jpg

Copyright © 2023 by JAKE VEIT.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written

permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed

since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not

necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4483-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4482-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4481-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023909746

Archway Publishing rev. date: 06/27/2023

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MODERN ARCHERY for LIFE

An Autobiography of one Archer

Modern Archery for Life is about my memories

and collected material over the years

I took all the pictures myself

Over the years shooting around the country

I have met many dedicated archers,

shooters and workers at the local level but

they didn’t have an interested in traveling to compete.

I don’t remember and can’t thank everyone enough

who has helped me along the way

It is not the skill you have in archery that counts

but your effort to develop that skill that counts

Thanks to the NFAA, Barebow Fraternity and USAA

This is to the Unsung and Unknown

promoters of our sport of ARCHERY.

Thanks to my wife, who has put up with me and archery.

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Idaho Dec. 1985

Chapter #1

Lets Get Started

Archery has been a part of my life since the age of 10. But lets start at the beginning. I was born Jacob Veit Jr. September 11, 1941 at Mount Caramel Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. To Jacob Jake F. Veit, Sr. and Betty Veit (Donavon). From what I can find out they where living with my fathers Mother at the start of their marriage. There are pictures of my grandmother, Tina Veit holding me as a baby in 1941 but I don’t remember her. I was baptized Jacob Fredrick Veit Jr. in the Catholic church, but I don’t remember that either. All my relatives called me Jackie, go figure I was a kid. My dad’s father Otto Veit died when he was 10, in some kind of an accident. My father left school in the 3rd grade to help support the family, he was the youngest of seven. My dad, Jake Sr. grow up near St. Mary’s Catholic church in the south end of Columbus, Ohio. He worked as a youth and young man at a Sheet Medal shop owned by his Brother in Law, Edward L. King. Who was married to his oldest sister, Mildred L. My mom must of lived in the same area as my father, they met in their teens. My mother, Betty was a stay at home wife. Jake Sr. got a job working sheet medal on damaged aircraft in 1942 at Wright Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio.

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In caring for me at home my mother gave me orange juice as a supplement to the milk. They never made the connection right off but after I had the orange juice I would break out in hives. I would scratch until I bleed. They put mittens on my hands and feet to keep me from scratch. After taking me to a doctor, it turned out I was allergic to orange juice and diagnosed as having Bronchial Asthma. Of course this limited my exertion in any physical effort but I learned my limitations and lived with it, not much choice. In 1943 my father received a draft notice from the Army. By this time he had a family with Jake Jr., his wife and a baby on the way. He gathered paper work from Wright Patterson that he was needed to work on damaged aircraft. At the recruiting office in 1943 he was told they needed foot soldiers. They didn’t even look at his papers, the sergeant just tossed them in a waste can. He was to report to a training center in Florida. My mother was carrying my brother Tom, so we all moved to Florida for his training, I assume. We stayed in Florida while my father was sent to Europe and he came back in 1946. He never talked about the war. I remember my mother’s sister Phyllis staying with us in Florida. My mother and her sister had an old car, a Chevy Coupe, picture on page 3. I think it was just to get around in, I don’t remember any trips. One day my brother, Tom and I where playing in the car. It was right there in the driveway, he was 2 and I was 4. The driveway had a slight slope to it, my brother was behind the steering wheel standing on the seat. I was on the floor playing with the pedals. I pushed the clutch in and the car started moving. My brother started jumping up and down with excitement. We rolled to a stop at the end of the driveway into a tree. No damage to anyone or anything. But I remember my mother was really upset. The car was locked all the time after that. I remember a hurricane, I don’t know why I was outside at the time. But I could lean some 45% into the wind and not fall down. There where bushes and tree limbs blowing by me. Going home I saw a Stop sign embedded in a tree. Never thought about anything hitting me? Our family album has photo’s of us at the beach and other places in Florida during that time. I remember very little but have the pictures.

My father was discharged from the Army in Florida where he had been in training. My parents decided, mostly my dad, to buy a 16’ house (camping) trailer and travel some on the way back to Ohio. We traveled around through states along the East coast for about a year. Dad wanted to see some of the country before going back to Ohio I guess. Going through the Appalachians some of the roads where steep and we where pulling a trailer in an old car. The old Coupe pulling the trailer uphill was working hard. Going up one hill a dog ran out into the road barking. My dad couldn’t stop on the hill with the trailer. We would never get up the hill from a standing start and it would be near impossible to back up down the hill. He hit and killed the dog. We got to the top of the hill and he pulled over and stopped. My dad went back to the dead dog and picked him up. He took the dog to the nearest house, it was their dog. He explained what happened and apologized and we went on our way. His concern for the dog and his owners stuck with me.

Another time we stopped at a trailer park in Massachusetts that had an old abandon rock quarry next to it, full of water. This was told to me; my dad decided to go for a swim. Before supper he put on his trucks and went over to the waters edge on a steep bolder. This quarry had some sheer sides most of the way around it. He went over to a 30’ rock ledge and dove into the water. As he surfaced he saw me jumping off the ledge after him with my clothes on, I think I was five. He was right there so nothing bad happened. But when he told my mom what happened, she got upset. It was in the New England area somewhere we were eating supper in the trailer. Spinach was on the menu, I didn’t like it. I was told I was going to stay there until I eat the spinach. I sat there for a long while, then my father came over and held me down. He held my nose closed and every time I went to breath he put some spinach in my mouth. You know today I like spinach. At one location where we parked the trailer, my dad caught some frogs, big frogs. My mom was cooking them, added some salt as they where cooking and the legs started moving, that was cool. We went through most of the states East of the Mississippi River. I’m sure we went to a lot of places I don’t remember. There are a lot of pictures in the family album, I just don’t remember most.

When we got back to Ohio I remember parked in a empty lot next to my mothers uncle’s place in Bexley, Ohio just east of Columbus. I remember walking down a road with no curb holding a big man’s hand. I seemed to know him, so I was relaxed. We went down the road to a store to get some candy. I didn’t know who he was until much later. He was my mothers father, my grandfather. Who passed away shortly after that. I remember going to a kindergarten in Bexley one year, I didn’t like nap time. So we must of been at that place almost a year living in the trailer next to my uncles house. We moved into a duplex house on Gates St. in German Village in the south end of Columbus. The trailer was gone but there where other kids in the neighborhood our age. Most of the houses there where Duplex’s. German Village then was a low income neighborhood and today it is very different, it is desirable condo’s area now. Our house was a fixer upper, my dad did work on the foundation and other rooms but it seemed nice as I remember. We at least had more room then the trailer. That is when I found out I was Catholic. We went to mass at St. Leo’s about three blocks from our house, almost every week. I started 1st grade at St. Leo’s in 1947. There was another Christian church almost across the street from us. My brother and I attended bible class there in the summer when we were out of school, it was not Catholic. I assume my mother made my brother and I attend Bible School just to get us out of their hair during the summer. The house was facing south, we lived on the East side of the duplex and my Grandmother, Dort (short for Dorothy) lived in the West side of the duplex. I don’t know if my grandmother helped with the house payments or not. My Grandmother lived alone and she worked at a shoe store near downtown. She had a garage built in back and put a fence around her yard. To keep us kid and animals out of her yard I presume. All her furnisher had that plastic on it, you know the noisy kind.

The house was a two story with two bedrooms up stirs and with a full basement. The basement had a large coal furnace next to a coal bend. There where four air ducks leading from the furnace to outlets in the first floor. No heating ducks went to the second floor just rising heat from the first floor got there through small vents. Before winter my dad ordered, I don’t know a ton or two of coal. They would dump it at the curb in front of the house. We had a wheel barrel and had to push it up a three foot incline to the coal shout in the side of the house going down into the basement coal bend. With the furnace you would have to start a fire with wood and paper and add the coal by hand a little at a time for more heat, don’t even think about air-conditioning. The kitchen was in the back of the first floor. My brother and I had bunk beds in the back bedroom upstairs and my mother and father slept in the front bedroom. Being the oldest I slept on the top, I never fell out but I liked to jump. This was the situation for some eight years. Living here and going to church and school.

My Grandmother worked at Gilbert’s Shoe Store in Columbus. I remember going there to get shoes, I assume at a discount. The shoe store had an x-ray stand where you could put your feet into it to see if the shoes fit. Really cool, did that a lot. I don’t know way my father didn’t get back into sheet metal but he did what he had to do I guess. He did tell me how he got into carpentry. He applied for a job at a construction site. There were a lot of men there also looking for a job. A man on a stage up front asked Who knows how to build staircases. The man assumed anyone answering knew how. My dad raised his hand, he didn’t really know how. The man hiring told him to report to work tomorrow. My dad went out and bought a book on carpentry. He had just read about building staircases that night and had some idea of how to get started the next day. There was a two story building that needed staircases to the second story on the outside at both ends of a building. One man was told to start at one end and my dad was to start at the other end. He started framing the stairs and when he had trouble, he took a break and read the book. He came back and continued until he finished on the second day. He wanted to know how he did compared to the other carpenter? So he went down to the other end, took a look and the guy was just over half way done. He said he felt good about himself. My Father partnered up with two Army buddies and started a repair and remodeling home business. They eventually where contracted to do a whole house. He said it was a challenge but came out really nice. Building in Ohio is a fest or famine situation. Good work in the summer but not so much in the winter.

As mentioned I started 1st grade in 1947 at St. Leos Elementary, grades 1 through 8. I had gotten use to my limitations with the asthma. With my birthday being Sept 11, I was the youngest in my class. I didn’t like school, everybody telling you what to do and when. I was good at math but catechism was just memorizing, not really teaching us why. I was taking allergy shots every day at a local doctors office. After school every day I went to the doctors office to get my allergy shot. Back then they would place a single drop of fluid containing a food or eliminate about one inch apart on your skin. I had drops on my back and both arms. Then they would pin prick each dot of fluid at the skin. If it turned red or swelled up you where allergic to that. At one time I had some 60 items I was allergic to; mostly foods, dust and molds. Penicillin was the worst. I took allergy shots (less often) until I was 14 years old.

My dad as an outdoors guy joined a conservation club. The Southeast Conservation Club had a camping area and a 48 acre lake to fish in just outside of town. The lake was an active quarry on the other side of the lake from the club property. The club had a cinder block club house that had room for 100 people or so with a large kitchen in the back. They always had someone cooking something, especially during meetings and on weekends. Behind the club house there was an inland about 60’ off shore. They brought in sand and made a sand beach for a swimming area. The swimming area was roped off. My dad made my brother and I took swimming lessons at the YMCA down town before swimming in the lake. Then at the YMCA swimming was in the nude. A male seamed normal but it felt a little strange at first but everyone swam naked, boys only. At the conservation club in the lake we had on bathing suites, confusing to me.

The club would have game fish like catfish and bass stocked in the lake once a year in the spring. It was great watching all those fish being released into the lake. You couldn’t fish for two days to let the fish acclimate. When you did start fishing you wondered where did they all go? My brother and I went fishing during the summer before we started school and on weekends after school started. Mostly from the docks and shore. We would go fishing on weekends with our dad, don’t remember mom fishing much. One year my dad got a canoe to use on the lake. I wanted to paddle, you know young and? So he let me paddle, he would say keep the nose pointed at those trees. We would get there and we turned around and he would say keep the nose pointed at those rocks. Of course everything he had me paddling to was on the other side of the lake. It took me some time to realize I was his motor to troll the lake fishing. My brother and I did a lot of roaming on our own around the neighborhood, along the Scioto River and conservation club. The club had a lot of activities for youth; fishing and hunting clinics, camping and hatchet throwing, BB gun shooting, safety classes and conservation clinics. There was a lot to do with the outdoors, we loved it. There where a lot of small fish in the lake; bluegills, sunfish and the like. The club members convinced themselves these small fish were eating the food of the game fish. The small fish where the food for the game fish but no one seemed to listen. Anyway they stocked four Great Northern Pike in the lake to eat the small fish. Well they didn’t eat the small fish, they eat the game fish, go figure. I caught a 3 lb. catfish with half a tail. Sometimes the Pike looked like a log flouting in the lake. Of course they tried but could never get the Pike out of the lake.

I think my mother tried to distract me from being to wild or give me purpose with some drawing lessons. My father would draw Popeye on napkins all the time, looked good to me. My mother had a cousin that gave drawing and painting classes, art lessons. I learned how to use the sq. block system to draw an existing picture. You find a picture you like, put a 1/4 sq. grid on it. Now you get a larger piece of paper or canvas and make a 1 sq. grid or larger if you like. Now you draw exactly what see in each of the 1/4 sq. into the same 1 sq. on your paper. Now you have the same picture four times larger and in proposition. Propositions are easier in a one squire at a time but you had the same picture and it looked great, neat. The drawing lessons lead to oil painting lessons during my second year in taking classes. Basic stuff; fruits, flowers and scenery. When I was in the second grade the school was holding an art contest. It was held in the basement of the school, the kitchen and lunch area. The nun’s where nice enough but strict. In my art class I had found a night scene of pin trees with snow on the trees and ground at night under a full moon. I was told it was to hard for me but I liked it. That did it I had to paint it, so they let me try. It took me just over two months to get it the way I wanted but I did it and I thought it looked great. As timing would have it I entered that picture in the schools art contest. Now by chance I had to go to the restroom on the first floor. While I was starting to come out of the restroom I heard the three judges, all teachers at the school talking in the hall. I heard one say lets give the Veit boy second place. I don’t think he painted that picture. After I heard that and they left I went home, didn’t stay for the awards. I never painted in oils again until I was in my 70’s but we use acrylics’ now, much easier. With oils you had to let it dry before putting on the next coat.

When I was entering the 3rd. grade my brother was entering the 1st grade. At this time I was taking an allergy shot five days a week. At that time the test for allergies was the same put a liquid drop of different foods, molds and the like on your skin one inch apart. Now you had one drop of each item on your skin and they pricked each drop with a pin. I had drops on both arms and my back. I was allergic to 64 different item to different degrees at that time. Mostly Penicillin and other molds, Lintels, house dust, animal dandruff and some other foods. I still walked to the doctors office ever day after school to get an allergy shot made for the things I was allergic to. Each day when I get out of school I walk 8 blocks to a doctors office by myself, prearranged. I would go to the side door and knock. A nurse would come to the door and say Hi Jackie. She would go back in and come out with a needle and give me a shot. She would say were do you want it today? the shot, generally in the arm. Then I would go home. Later in 6th grade it was just three times a week. I didn’t play much with the other kids, I got out of breath to quietly.

When not in school and during the summer I would go to work sites with my dad and help clean up, sweep and carry scrape wood out to a pile. My dad had added a small room to the back of a house for a lady. I’m sweeping the floor and I hear two people arguing in a strange language, later I found out it was German. I look around the corner and there was my dad, he was one of them arguing. I didn’t know he spoke German and he never taught us, we were the be Americans.

Chapter #2

Summer Vacation

1950

Near the end of the 3rd grade an Aunt and Uncle was visiting from Florida. Uncle Alex was the uncle we had lived next to in the trailer when we first got back to Ohio. They had arranged to return to Florida, where they lived then, some three week before school ended. My uncle was flying back to Fl. he had business to complete and our aunt Glades was going to drive back in their car. She wasn’t happy about driving alone and didn’t want to wait long before going back. She suggested she take us boys with her for the summer, me and my brother. I remember my dad saying he had talked to a teacher at school and he thought he had arranged for us to take our final test when we got back, before school started again. I where excited until we started driving, a long drive. It took us five days to get to their house near Miami, no freeways. I got car sick driving so long, no fun. My aunt stopped at many roadside tourists traps to entertain us. The restaurants we stopped at were local shops with a local food, very interesting sometimes. There where no national restaurant chains then. One location in Tennessee that we stopped at, the whole area smelt like rotten eggs (sulfur). The locals didn’t seem to smell it, we did. You can imagine the great scenery going down through the Appellations’ into Georgia for young kids.

There house, like most Florida homes was a one floor ranch with a large screened in porch. The foliage was typically tropical and they had a pool in the back yard with a large garage and shop at the end of their driveway. My brother and I had our own room with the run of the house and yard. With local kids our age there were so many new things to check out. It was hot and muggy but we didn’t care. There where lizards and frogs everywhere. One morning I got up and went into the bathroom, turned on the light and there was a pair of eyes looking up at me, a frog was in the drain in the sink. They actually had a chameleon in their kitchen, they told us that it eat the insects. My uncle being an independent contractor didn’t work every day. My aunt was a realtor and gone most of the time. We spent most of our time with our uncle in his work shop or on a work site. There were other kids in the neighborhood we played with, some had dogs to play with. We went with our uncle on some small jobs. Plus they had their grown children in the area that visited. Our cousins would baby sit us sometimes. On one small job, putting a roof over a patio. I would hand my uncle shingles for the roof. Made me feel good and my brother piled scrip wood in the yard as they were tossed down into the yard. A young man, older then us, came into the yard and was taking some of the larger pieces of wood. My uncle yowled down, Hay buddy leave that stuff alone. The young man stop, looked up with a blank stare and said How did you know my name was Buddy?.

Our uncle liked to fish, you can’t hunt anything during the summer. One day he said, we are going to fish from a bridge. He had all the fishing gear we needed. So on our way he stopped for bait, Shrimp! I said I would rather eat the shrimp, he just gave me a funny look. The bridge was in the Florida keys. There were parking areas at both ends of the bridge. The bridge was just two lanes wide with a 3’ sidewalk on either side with railings. We had to walk out several hundred yards onto the bridge carrying our gear, bait and a cooler. That was walking past other people already fishing off the bridge. We just went around trying, very hard to stay on the sidewalk. When we found a spot, I looked down. The water was some 40 or 50 feet straight down, your kidding me. Our uncle told me to hook the shrimp from teal to head, which we did. You couldn’t cast the bait out so you lowered it into the water and let the current carry it out. It didn’t take very long and you got a hit, a little tug would set the hook. The thing is you never knew what you caught until you pulled it out of the water. All different colors, most of the fish we through back in our uncle said to small.

When I was told the fish was to small, almost two pounds I was confused. We kept that size back home. It was amazing I noticed most of the fish we through back in, entered the water head first almost every time. But most of the fish we got on the line got off before you pulled it up to the bridge deck. I would let my line down to about three feet off the water. Swung the bait until it went way under the bridge and let it drop. I was dropping my bait into the Golf of Mexico and the current brought it into the Atlantic, cool.

My uncle hooked a Tarpon, must of been 80 to 100 pounds, boy did it jump. When you hook a big fish on a bridge like that you have to work your way through or around other fishermen to get to shore, mostly under and around other fisherman. They would help, knowing you had to get to shore with a big fish. Anyway the Tarpon got off the line before he got to the end of the bridge. Your fishing from the bridge and someone yells Truck. My uncle said hold onto the railing. A tractor trailer went by at 50 miles per hour and your on a 3’ sidewalk. You could feel the wind pulling you thourdes the truck, no cool. We kept 4 fish, about 9 or 10 pounds each, don’t know what they were. On the way home my uncle said a few fisherman had been killed by trucks on that bridge over the years, now he tells us. When we got home my uncle let us clean and scale the fish. If you’ve never scaled a large fish you don’t know what a mess it creates, scales everywhere. Then he put them in the freezer. All in all that was a great fishing trip!

Another time we went on a party fishing boat of about 15 people. We didn’t really party it was just to fish. It was a big boat to us. We went three to five miles out into the Atlantic. Sometimes you couldn’t see the shore. There were 20’ to 30’ swales. That is a big wave to us and were told it was a calm day to them. I could see a boat way off in the distance. It’s hard to judge distance on open water. Our boat would go up on the wave, I could see the boat and then the boat went down between the waves. I couldn’t see the other boat. I lost sight of the other boat going up and down. I got sea sick, I mean I had a hard time standing up. The boat moved to different locations until the fish started biting. Then I would grab my pole and catch a fish and go back and lay down. On a fishing boat like that the hands would bait your hook and take the fish off the line for you. That was OK with me. In one area my uncle brought in 1/2 of a Dolphin fish, sharks we where told. My brother got a shark on after it eat the whole fish on his line. He had that shark on his line now and he loved it. A deck hand come over and cut his line, time to move on he said. My brother was mad he couldn’t try to catch the shark. That is the way it was. Again you never knew what was on the line until you brought it in. The crew cleaned your fish and put them in an ice chest for you. We went home with about 40 lbs. of fish.

At the end of the summer my aunt & uncle drove us back to Ohio. My brother, Tom and I had a great time. We also went to local tourist trips in Fl. while there; an alligator farm, monkey jungle, coral gardens and the like. When we got back my dad went to the school to arrange for us to take out final test. He was told we couldn’t take the test. That we where told wrong in June to leave, what? We both were held back a year. Now I’m with kids my age in my class. Still having some trouble with my asthma, taking just three allergy shot a week. I thought I wanted to be an alter boy. I talked to some friends that were alter boys. One told me if I did, not to serve mass with a certain priest at an early mass by yourself as the only alter boy. I didn’t understand but I joined the choir instead. We went to mass during school time on certain occasions during the year. Most of the time the choir sang at them. I was confirmed into the church, adding Norman as a middle name. I rarely use it. I made a lot of friends but was mostly by myself on the playground and with my brother after school. Sometimes a little brother is a pain. Always hanging around when you wanted to do something. One time I got mad and pushed him down and told him to go home. My dad heard about it and I got a whipping. I was told never do that again, you never hurt family. I didn’t play any team sports in school or in local games around the neighborhood. We will get back to school later.

When we got back from Florida I wanted more money then my small allowance. We had chores to do around the house for the allowance. I could get a paper route but I needed a bike. My dad said if I found a used bike he would pay for half but I had to pay him back I was 9. I was looking for a bike when I got one for my birthday in Sept. 1950. It was a big Swan, it was a girls bike with the low center bar but I didn’t care. I got a morning paper route with 49 customers to deliver papers to before school. The pickup area for the papers in the morning was on a corner about nine blocks from my house. It was in front of a store with a setback front door. A truck would drop off a bundle of papers for several routes, the right amount for each of us. We would pull the papers back into the setback area to get out of the wind or snow during the winter. I would role each paper up by folding one end back into itself. Worked good, they stayed rolled up so I could throw them onto each porch as I road by on my bike at each house. I would get up at 5am, pickup and rolled the papers and put them in a large burlap bag on the front of my bike and delivered them before school every day. Now I had to collect the money from each customer and pay for the papers out of what I collected. Any money that was left over was mine, right. Some people didn’t pay and some where hard to catch at home. Sometimes I didn’t make anything. I didn’t like that so I canvassed my route to build up my customers. In a year I had built my route up to 99 customers. I was happier but then they cut my route in half and I quite.

I then got a paper route to deliver papers in the afternoon after school. They had a drop off point to pick up your papers. A collection center if you will, it was a shack in an empty lot. There must of been a dozen or so other boys that got their papers there. Sundays paper had to be delivered in the morning, I was used to that. This next part is hind sight; on one Sunday morning some boys were wanting for the papers to be delivered to the shack. One boy had his dog with him, he said his dog was an attack dog. So the manager of the shack, a college kid said OK have him attack the next boy through the door. You guessed it, it was me. All I saw was this dog running thourdes me barking. I slammed the door. The dog was still barking and the boys were laughing. I yowled out for them to give me my papers. They where all laughing and didn’t answer me, so I went home. The shack manager called my house and wanted to know were I was. I told him to drop dead, he said I could loose my route, at that point I didn’t care. I told my dad about what had happened. He drove me in his car and helped me deliver the Sunday paper on time. I carried papers until I was 12.

Chapter #3

Starting Archery

It was the spring of 1951 my dad decided he wanted to learn to bowhunt. We had a place to fish and we hunted on farmer club members property but no place to shoot archery. We had a very small backyard at the house. You think it is hard to find a place to shoot archery today. There wasn’t any sporting goods stores that carried any archery equipment in all of Columbus. My father had an army buddy in another state that bowhunted, he helped us find the Ohio Archers, OA. Through some conservation members my dad found a local bowyer and we got a bow and some arrows. His out of state buddy was a member of the National Field Archery Association, NFAA. He told us how to get in touch with the NFAA and we were off. My dad asked permission to set up one target in the back of the conservation club property, they agreed. Now he had a place to practice. We knew nothing about archery but in shooting at the club and information from his friend, we learned to practice. There where other members around that saw my dad shooting. Well they wanted to try shooting as well. So he setup a few more target butts. He helped them get some archery equipment. Now we had a growing group. They seemed to think we know what we where doing, NOT.

More members in the club wanted to learn to shoot archery. My dad helped them and they shot with us with three more targets set up. My dad approached the conservation club to help him teach archery with some inexpensive equipment. They paid for some inexpensive fiberglass bow and some cheap arrows for him to teach with. Now every Saturday he gave archery lessons for anyone interested. Club officers seemed to like the idea of archery. We set up five bales to shoot at up to 50 yds. Mostly we shot very close, to keep from missing so much and looking for arrows. We had straw bales on the ground about 15 yds. behind our target bales we where shooting at, to stop missed arrows. My dad was left handed, it was harder for him to find archery equipment. He had to have a bow made just for him after a year or so. Of course I wanted to do what dad was doing, I started shooting that first year (left handed) and as the group grow I help teach. Through the NFAA he found out if there weren’t any archery clubs in the area. So he affiliated our little archery activity with the Ohio Archers, OA & NFAA as an archery club. They send us information on the NFAA and then told us we had to join the Ohio Archers as individuals. The OA was the NFAA state affiliate and joining the NFAA you where also affiliation with the OA. But they, the NFAA or the OA didn’t have much information on how to shoot the bow and arrow? We were on our own and we learned everything the hard way, trail and error. Since my dad started the archery club within a club, everyone thought he knew what he was doing. The classes got bigger and I started to help teach with him at the age of 12. Now we are going to some local archery Field tournaments and getting more information and involved with the OA.

There were people, not conservation club members that wanted to learn to shoot archery. They were not allowed to shoot with us on conservation property. My dad or someone found some wooded property north of Columbus along Alum Creek where we could shoot. State land, no lease they just let us use it for our archery. With some new archery club members we built a 28 target field range for our club activates. Now we where a regular archery club and anybody could shoot with us. We started hosting Field tournaments to make some money and enjoy shooting with other archers. We supported other archery club by going to their shoots. We called our Field tournaments shoots. I guess because we went and shot. My dad and myself would go and help new interested archery groups in the area to learn what archery was all about as we know it. Some formed their own archery club and most affiliated with the OA/NFAA. In joining the NFAA as an individual, you also had to join the OA as well. It was a dual membership for individuals and clubs. As an individual you could only join the NFAA/OA through an affiliated OA archery club. I felt this was to force or encourage new archers to join an NFAA. Many joined a club just to shoot in OA/NFAA tournaments. Not really active in club activities’. In any organizations official tournament you had to be a member of that organization. Field archery was all we know. Most new archers felt they needed to join an archery club to learn which is good. But some new shooters just to shoot in tournaments and didn’t help their local club. It is not the same today you don’t have to be a member of an affiliated archery club to join the NFAA or the state affiliate. The NFAA was trying to build membership to show each states Department of Fish and Game or Department of Natural Resources that there was an interest in bowhunting to help get an Archery Only Hunting season, if the state didn’t have one. But at first we had to bowhunt during gun hunting season.

If you wanted to hunt deer with a bow at that time in Ohio, you had to hunt during gun season, no chose and kind of scary. We were in camouflage to get close to the game for a humane shot. We couldn’t take a 150 yard shot with our bows and hit anything. We didn’t want to wound and cause undue suffering. We petitioned the Fish & Game for an Archery only season. But they felt such a primitive weapon was inefficient for a kill on big game, deer. It didn’t seem to matter to them other states had a Archery only season to hunt. We had to convince them with a larger membership group of interest in bowhunting. We thought it would help and a larger membership was needed. We set up demonstrations with and for them. In a safe area we set up a galvanized bucket full of sand with a piece of glass behind it. We would ask one of their officers to shoot into the bucket of sand with his hand gun. He would shoot and sand flow everywhere but it didn’t break the glass. As a young archer I would from the same distance shoot an arrow with my target bow. It shoot through the bucket and break the glass. The gun has shock, the bow has penetration. I believe it was in 1955 that Ohio established an Archery Only Season to bowhunting.

We started getting a lot more bowhunters into our clubs and the OA state archery organization was growing. No one knew that the archers in Ohio had supported the NAA back in 1879 when is started. But I found out later some individuals from Ohio where involved but not as a state archery organization. The NAA only accepted archery club affiliations not an individual membership. It seems that most new archers in Ohio wanted to join an archery club to learn before going bowhunting. Good idea even today. But most don’t join any archery club or activity today. They just bowhunt. I feel maybe because it is hard to find an archery club. You can buy archery equipment almost anywhere now. New bowhunters today can get their equipment before they look for an archery club, if they do? New bowhunters hear of archery but can’t find an real archery shop or club. So they feel they are on their own just like we did in 1951. With the Web you have something, if you know what question to ask? and what to look for.

There was NAA archery competition in Ohio when we started but we didn’t know of it. The vast majority of Field archers were practicing to bowhunt not really target shoot. New archers would have to find an archery club, get their bowhunting equipment and then learn to shoot their bow for bowhunting. Most of our bowhunting was as a club group. Someone knew of a good area and we planned a hunt, of course during our hunting season. We would station archers at an outlet area when deer could be driven or scared into moving. A few archers would start a drive a half mile away. Pushing any deer to the stationed archers. You rarely got a standing shot, practice at moving targets was very popular and needed. Today most sporting goods stores sell archery equipment including tree stands. Few archery groups have drives today. Archery equipment is sold in stores to bowhunt with, but they don’t carry competitive archery equipment. There is a difference. Very few sporting goods stores that sell any archery equipment know how to set up a bow to the individual. Fewer have archery classes even today much less know where there is an archery club.

Archery has been apart of my life since the age of 10. Through the years my Archery experience has been more than a pleasant pastime. As a kid shooting in tournaments it was just fun. Of course we couldn’t bowhunt big game just small game. We didn’t know what serious practice or shooting competitively was. Archery has been a personal educational experiences that I have transferred over into my everyday life. It took a while for my dad and I to realize how important the dominate eye in shooting really was, but we learned. We knew nothing about a good release and then everybody starting used a finger release to shot. Of course we started our shooting with Longbows and wood arrows. Shooting was a personal effort. It didn’t seem to matter much witch eye you shot with instinctive or who won something. Looking back we didn’t have very many good shooters around but we didn’t know what good was. Many new archers shoot with the wrong eye and enjoy their effort at archery, it can be done. Many left handed shooters shot right handed. They did so because it was hard to find left handed equipment. If you had to aim three feet to the right to hit the target, that is what you did. Using a sight was more of a problem with techniques and was harder. It is harder to aim off to the right with a sight, the sight is suppose to be on your target when you shoot. Through the OA annual shoot schedule we had small groups from our club going to Field archery tournament in our OA District 5 and some went to the OA State Championships. We had something to do offseason.

There was very little indoor archery shooting that we knew of except club shoots for fun for many years. At that time there was only Men, Women and youth classifications for Field tournament competition. The recurve bow was becoming popular, compound bow where still a dream. My dad found an old quintet hut a club member was not using. The NFAA had a Flint round that was designed for indoor shooting that simulated the outdoor Field round in the mid 50’s. Our club started shooting during the winter in the quintet hut. Straw bales were just set on the flood. As outdoors the adults would shoot regulation distance and let the kids shoot closer. A few of us kids didn’t like that. We kids convinced the adults to let us shoot regulation distances. It was just for club practice in the winter to start, no leagues at this time. A lot of the accessories we have today didn’t even exist. It was in 1955 at an OA state field championship that I first saw my first sight on a bow. Recurve bows were starting to replace the longbow and aluminum arrows were starting to be used. This was a new game in shooting, indoors and close. With these accessories they were shooting much better scores and shooting with sights and with the smoother shooting recurve bow. The NFAA and OA had a problem, the competition wasn’t fair, accessories started to increase scores. A new class was established for the sight shooters, separating them from the instinctive and point of aim shooters. At this time some of the instinctive shooters started developing aiming methods of their own without a sight. Point of aim was first then came string walking later. I’m telling you a truly instinctive shooter doesn’t have much of a chance in scoring better then one using one of these methods of aiming. Instinctive shooting is hand eye coordination with the subconscious brain active to judge and shoot, no real sighting. The older instinctive shooters couldn’t compete with the new aiming systems without a sight. So the NFAA and OA changed the name of the Instinctive class and called it Barebow. So as long as you don’t have a sight on the bow you shoot together as barebow. So the bowhunter shooting truly instinctive no longer had a place or have much of a chance to win in the new barebow class. The NFAA didn’t want a third shooting style, to many awards. Many of the older shooters just dropped out competition and just bowhunted. They had an Archery Only hunting season now. They felt competition unnecessary, who wants to be a paper puncher? Instinctive shooters just can’t compare scores with stringwalkers. Organized archery didn’t want another classification in their competition. Field archery was originally developed in the 1930s for bowhunters to practice with your bowhunting equipment. This interest spread through NAA club members around the US in those years. Field rounds had up to 20 targets from unknown distances to start.

The NAA tried to incorporate Field archery into their National Championship. It just wasn’t easy and they helped the National Field Archery Assoc. to form in 1939. Our Field archery had become a competitive sport over the years, shooting just for score. A bowhunter had a place to practice to start but didn’t care about competition in scoring. Not that much fun for them, then or today when score seems the only purpose for shooting. That made bowhunters that didn’t want to be competitive to drop out, true bowhunts felt uncomfortable with NFAA Field competition. The NFAA started bowhunter awards for their members so you could earn awards and recognition outside of a competitive round.

This is a good place to describe the three Field Archery rounds shot on the one Field course. Field archery was developed through National Archery Association, NAA clubs early in the 1930’s. The NAA was the only national archery association active in the US shooting old English archery rounds, developed for warfare practice. There archery rounds were all long distances, not conducive to practicing for close range bowhunting shots. After years of bowhunters experimenting with the Field around the US. Field ended up with a 14 target unit in a wooded area with every target being a different distance giving diversity to each target shot, from 20 Ft. to 80 yds. There was an official distance for each of the 14 targets. They were all unmarked to start and not always in the same order or rotation on a Field course because of the terrain. It takes about 10 or 12 acres’ to set up a field course properly and safe depending on the terrain, of course in a wooded area. Because of the terrain being different almost everywhere the rotation of the targets was different but safe and challenging. But all the 14 targets were there and at regulation distances but just in a different rotation or order of shooting. You shot four arrows at each target with four shooters in a group. Never less then three shooters to a group during a tournament. You had two score keepers and a shooter calling the score. One archer was assigned as captain of the group to give a final decisions on any rules. Some times the group would pick the captain.

They used different size target faces for the different distances. There was a small 8 target face with three rings, a Black aiming spot with a white ring scoring five points and a black outside ring scoring three. On what they called the bunny, 35’, 30’ 25’ & 20’ distances with one arrow being shot in a vertical line from each distance shot at a different target. Each of four archers had their own set of targets making 16 target faces on the target butt. From 15, 20, 25 and 30 yds. you shot a 12 target face with each archer having his own target face to shoot four arrow into, making four target face on the butt. Generally there where four archers per group, shooting two archers at a time. First two archers up always shot the bottom targets first. The second two shot the top targets. From 15, 20, 25 and 30 yds. you would shoot four arrows at your target. This was because arrows in the top targets if shot first would cast a shadow on the bottom targets. At 35yds, 40yds, 45 yds., 45yd. walkup (45, 40, 35 & 30 yds.) and 50 yds a single 18 target face was used with all archers shooting their four arrows into one target face. The 35 yd. distance was a fan, 4 different stakes at the same distance. Sometimes two target faces where set up. With the 45 yd. walkup you shoot one arrow from 45yds., 40yds., 35yds. and 30yds for the walkup target. Now the 55yd., 60 yds., 65yd and a 80yd walk up (80, 70, 60 & 50 yds.) targets where shot at a single 24 target face each archer shooting four arrows at the same face. In the first round on a Field round, the same two archers shot first for the round of 14 targets. Then on the second Field round the archers who shot second the first round would shot first for this round. Today generally two rounds are shot for a field competition, 28 targets. This rotation was the same for the Hunter round. The Hunter round was generally more odd distances unlike the even five yards for the Field.

Not to confuse anyone but there were two other rounds shot on the same Field course. The Hunter round and the Animal round shot separately. I don’t feel a need to completely explain them here, each round had different colored shooting stakes and distances; Field has white stakes, Hunter has a red stakes and the Animal round has a yellow stakes. Most state championships today are a two day tournament format. 28 Field targets being shot the first day with one 14 Hunter and one 14 Animal shot the second day, a total of 56 targets shot. When we started in the 1950’s we shot 56 targets in one day in the same time as 28 targets are shot today. Most everyone shot instinctive, we shot 28 targets in the morning, broke for lunch and shot 28 targets in the afternoon. There was generally novelty rounds being shot during lunch just to keep archers who finished early occupied. The novelty round mostly was a moving target of some kind being shot. When bowhunting shooting deer during a drive, you generally didn’t get a standing still shot. In the novelty lunch time shooting you would have 4 to 6 shooters at a time on the line. All shooting one arrow each for a quarter apiece at the moving target. The best hit got all the money. Bow birds where popular at the time. This was a 16" cardboard disk thrown into the air, you shot flu-flu arrows at it, they didn’t go very far. When I was 14 I could hit 9 out of 10 bow birds thrown into the air, easy money. Today there just doesn’t seem to be room for such novelty rounds and most archers don’t like to shoot at moving targets.

Being Catholic we went to the 6am mass and then went to our archery tournament on Sunday. Most archery tournaments were held on Saturday then unlike today. By 1960 the Ohio Archers had 81 archery clubs affiliated in the state. The OA divided the state into eight distracts with each district having their own tournament schedule within their district for that year, to avoid tournament conflict of dates. The NFAA had also divided the US into eight Sections for more localized competition for their members but a much larger area, maybe six or seven states in each district. Each district or section held their own NFAA Field and Indoor Sectional Championships. The national championship was held at one location each year but moved around the US. In Columbus we lived in OA District 5 with seven to nine archery clubs in our district, yes it varies over time. We where in the Great Lakes NFAA Section. Today there are championships in Field, Indoor and 3D under NFAA rules.

In the OA District 5 in the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s we had one weekend a month reserved for each club to host there own club tournament or other club activity. Some times in our club every family would bring a side dish to the range for a potluck lunch. We would shoot a field round and when everybody was finished. All the scores were listed highest down; not men, women and youth but just scores. The highest score got the pick of what was on the table. This helped each club build a strong bond to help keep the club active. As a kid I was never picked last. When we went to other archery tournaments in the district we went as a group. We car pooled and had our club T-shirts to wear. My dad had a light jacket he wore that had some 18 archery patches on it; NFAA, OA and a patch from clubs where we had shot at.

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Our club was called the Southeast Archery Club, the same name as the conservation club. Well the state of Ohio built Hover dam reservoir. It’s water covered the land we where using to shoot on. The reservoir just north of Columbus wasn’t good for us. As