A Little History, Part 5: Moving the Range

After a summer in Washington and away from archery, I came back to San Diego in the fall of 2005 for my senior year at UCSD. While I was away, they had moved us off of our out-of-the-way, marked, protected range, and onto a new space that was unmarked and open to a cross breeze. I found out later that they had paved the old range and turned it into a parking lot, but for the moment all I knew was that we had been moved to a new setting. It was unfortunate, but we still had a range. Elisa and I were still around, and maybe one other person from the spring quarter, but everyone else had given it up. Archery attrition at UCSD had begun, and the quarter began the way spring had ended: Wednesday afternoons shooting at hay bales and targets.

One quick story from the quarter (that doesn't rate its own post). I found one of my favorite trinkets in a hay bale on the range. After we had finished an end of arrows, we walked up to the hay bales to collect them. One of my arrows didn't want to come out, however. After finally pulling it out, I noticed that the arrow was jammed up inside an old arrowhead that had broken off in the hay bale. I pulled the head off of the shaft, and put it in my pocket, thinking that it would be a cool little souvenir to have. I promptly forgot about it until that night. Playing poker with some friends, I was about even when I noticed something odd was in my pocket. Remembering the arrowhead, I pulled it out and started using it as a card protector, making sure that my cards were not accidentally mucked if I wasn't paying attention. The very next hand, I nearly busted a pretty good poker player when I ended up with four 10s. I still like to have the arrowhead with me when I am playing poker, although now I just leave it in my pocket unless and until I find an opportune moment to pull it out and tell the story.