Straight shooter

In the movie, “Gone with the Wind,� Scarlet O’Hara says, “I can shoot straight if I don’t have to shoot too far.� This could be my motto.

As a young man, I played a bit of pool. Fascinated by the ricochet angles, I went at it like I was in training to beat Minnesota Fats in the old movie classic, “The Hustler.� It did not take long for me to realize that I had a slight flaw: I could not hit accurately at a distance. Anything over a foot and I was in trouble. I tried shooting fast and hard, like the pros. I learned that if you undercut the ball slightly you get a nice, high trajectory and a pending lawsuit for bodily harm.

So I took up tennis. Finding an old racquet in the basement, I joined an informal group of players at the local court. Again, I was not real good at the long shots (Out!), but I was OK at doubles when I played close to the net.

Leaping and lunging, I made play after play, winning the accolades of my fellow players for my agility and quick reactions. One of them remarked that I was doing really well, in spite of using a child’s racquet. Child’s racquet? I looked at the other players’ equipment and noticed that mine was smaller, lighter and had the word Whizzo embossed on the handle. I quietly retired from tennis. I was getting tired of it anyway.

Bow and arrow requires dedication to become a good shot. The bowstring punishes the shooter in two ways. Your holding arm, the one that holds the bow, gets slapped on the inside of the wrist by the string when you shoot, and it shreds the skin on the fingers of your drawing hand. You have to wear protective leather over these parts if you want to shoot off more than a dozen arrows.  

Even if you do all of this, arrows fly funny. Slow-motion film shows the arrows wildly flexing after being fired off, and they fly above the point of aim at close range.  

Unlike bullets, arrows need to be fetched after use. This provides exercise and is super annoying. If (when) you miss the target, the arrows, which basically are sticks, fly off into the woods, which are also, basically, sticks. Good luck finding your arrows.

I think I may have found my game. It has a lot of the characteristics of pool — the carom shots, the gambling, just to name two — but without those long-distance shots.  My competition is manageable. In play I usually tower above them. Before we start today’s game, does anybody have a “pureyâ€� shooter for three cat’s eyes?

Bill  Abrams resides and considers various pastimes in Pine Plains.

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