WHERE I CAME FROM AND HOW I GOT HERE:

I grew up in the coal region of northeast Pennsylvania. I spent a lot of time in a small patch of woods near our house and actually made bows and arrows, which I shot at birds, which got me sent to my room a lot. And once a girl named Debbie Cohen bet me I couldn’t shoot an arrow between her legs, and she was right. I stuck it in her thigh, just above the knee. I saw my room for a long time after that.
But, no one in my family hunted, and I didn’t start until I was in my late twenties. I’d bought a small farmhouse in the country near Shickshinny, Pennsylvania, (say that three times real fast) where I was surrounded by dairy farmers. One family, the Zagata’s, gave me deer meat to welcome me to the neighborhood and they were shocked to learn I’d never eaten it. They soon tried to teach me to shoot a shotgun, and I didn’t much like the big bang next to my ear.
But they’d interested me in hunting, and one day as I jogged a dirt road loop in the area, I came upon a yard sale. Hanging on a coat rack, its shiny blue paint drawing my eyes, a bow with a quiver of arrows caught my eye. I bought it for $10. I signed up for a hunter safety class, and started practicing with that bow.
I knew nothing about archery. It was two weeks before I could even draw it back, and I know now that the draw length was way too short for me. It was a compound bow, without sights, with a really long stabilizer. As I drew I’d keep my eye on the arrow, so I didn’t pull it off the rest, and let go at that point.
In preparation for hunting season I spray-painted the bow in shades of green. I practiced until I could shoot all my arrows into a pie plate. When the season started I missed many, many deer, even emptying my quiver on one forgettable occasion involving a clueless spike buck.
When I finally arrowed my first deer, a big doe, I had to use a library book to do the field dressing, and I passed out into the gut pile. Later that night my friend Bob would have to clean me up at the car wash with the power sprayer.
But I loved hunting, every minute of it. I may have struggled along with the yard sale bow for years and years except for a very lucky problem – I was running out of arrows. I took my bow and arrows to an archery shop and the owner shook his head, and geared me up with equipment that fit.
I expanded hunting to include other states, and added antelope, bear, turkeys and hogs to my list of bow kills. Soon everything I did was in anticipation of hunting – how I spent extra money, where I planned to go on vacation, who were my closest friends, and what I did in spare time.
I moved recently, and to make it easier, I had a big yard sale first. I had one table with some old hunting stuff, and I even carried that old yard sale bow out there and put it on the table. But just for a few seconds; then I picked it up and took it back inside.
I couldn’t put a price on it.
Lisa writes for Bow and Arrow Magazine.