Dear Mr. Neaves,
We are all looking for that Magic Bow. It is out there, traveling its circles as we travel ours. I ran into it one year at ATAR. It shot dead center at the target butts, and the next arrow shot a half inch away, and the next an inch. The fellow selling it was manning a booth for a vendor, and this was his personal bow which he was trying to sell. I didn't quite wed to the finger grooves on the Centaur, but it shot well enough to ask the price. A lot of money. I reluctantly left it there, but the Centaur stuck in my mind.
I bought one in the TG classifieds, not a double carbon as the first was, but in my weight range. The grooves did not fit, and I found that I could miss with it. I sold it to a club member, it was #15 in your site's gallery.
I just found another Magic Bow, in New York. I fear that the owner will not part with it until he is in the ground, especially since I so glowingly waxed rhapsodic about it to him. The grooves fit perfectly, and the bow shot every arrow in my quiver to wherever I looked. Embarrassing, when my eye wandered at the last moment of release! It is a double carbon, 58" and it was around 45# at 28". My fingers had to be pried away from the grip, as they felt so at home there.
It was serial #00146.
I think.
It belongs to Larry Marshall. The stingy curmudgeon. I want one just like that, a pound or two more in draw weight would be fine. You have one just like it in stock? No? GOOD! That gives me time to save up for it. How long is the wait on your bows?
(yaddayaddayadda,)
Kathy
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This letter was penned on the cusp of February and March of this year. I had spent the previous two weeks vainly trying to wheedle, strong-arm, sweet-talk and cry a bow away from a curmudgeon whom I had the misfortune to meet in All-bunny, NY. I was fine, having the Magic Bow on the back burner of my brain kept me alert and anticipatory, eagerly perusing the classifieds and eyeballing used bow lists. That all changed when I went bunny hunting.
I met the bow. The scene is an ice-covered flat of ground, with motley clots of archers slipsliding arrows into 3D targets and shattering shafts on a steel plate. I was bombarded with the faces and handshakes of old new friends, folks with whom I had chatted and shared hearts' journeys with yet never seen before, and those whom I was meeting for the first time ever.
Tables nearby were stacked with donated prizes and bows for all to try. I heard a voice. I turned around. There was a table with a bow that glowed black as the pits in Satan's eyes.
I innocently asked, whose Centaur is that? Satan sneered and triumphantly hissed, "That's my bow, go ahead and try it!"
One arrow...hit! Two arrows, dead bear! Three, four, all the arrows in my quiver, ash, aluminum, cedar, all were killers save the last one, where my eye wandered as the fingers slipped the string. It hit where I looked. Not just a few, but all of my arrows, two quivers full. People were watching, I went to put the bow down. My hand hung over the table, immobile as I commanded it to open gently and lay the bow down. It heeded me not, until I drew upon my last wisp of will and used the other hand to pry open my fingers.
Larry leered triumphantly. I had to ask. My offers were spurned. I memorized the serial number.
For two weeks I bargained with the devil, and all that he would offer was paired with parting me from my newly acquired Morrison, (just the riser...just the heart!) No way! The Cheyenne had rekindled my hopes of one day becoming a true archer, and I would not bargain with that dream. Finally, I realized that Larry would never part with the bow that Killdeer loved, and one that he had taken one of the elusive JLMBH bunnies with on that historic hunt.
Front and center:
See the triumphant leer? Look at him...NO! Don't look at his eyes! You don't want to know what's in there!!!
Poor bunny.
Yes, two weeks of pestering and suffering that smug smiling smarmy visage posed next to the noble weapon was all I could stand. I wrote the above note and sent it to Mr. Neaves, my would-be rescuer. I sent him two tracings of my hand, because I am compulsive and the first tracing was of my hand which had only been washed twice, so i washed it some more and retraced it. I also sent him a sizeable check to show how brave and earnest I was. I want curly koa, please, Mr. Neaves.
It will be done in May of '09, he said. Will I live that long? Will he keep his hands out of the bandsaw? I have grown old enough to know that a lot can happen in a year and however many months that is. It would be worth the wait and the expense to be able to thumb my nose at the devil and his temptation, though. I would sleep well and wait, knowing that waiting, self denial and the overcoming of whim and wistfulness builds character and nobility.
Beer break. Tea my aching aspidistra!
Killdeer
My Baby!
Topic: The Magic Bow (Read 1284 times)
