Kids say the darnedest things. Ok, he was barely a kid, 16 or 17 years old, but it was pretty funny.

We were holding a small archery tournament in my backyard. It was a pretty informal affair, as evidenced by the fact that this young guy, who had never held a bow in his life, said "Can I join the tournament?" To which we, being abnormally benevolent in our competitions, said "Sure - why not?"

So, the more experienced slammed home their six arrows in 20 or so seconds each round, and then sat back with a drink to watch the fun. (Drinking figures prominently in all my competitions.) To their credit, they also stepped in with advice, when they felt it was warranted. After all, you don't teach someone to shoot in the middle of a tournament - just too time consuming - but you hope you can get him shooting in the right direction, with only the slightest chance of killing himself or anyone else. But there are drawbacks...

In our haste, we taught the poor fellow the standard three finger draw and release. Of course, what we gave him to use was a mongol horsebow. And arrows with real feather fletching, but glued, not tied. And, of course, he had no gloves or guards. For those few of you who don't know what that means, I will explain...

This young man was using a bow with no arrow shelf, firing arrows off the top of his hand. That means that the fletching - the feathers glued to the arrow to help direct it - keep getting imbedded in the top of his hand when he shot.

What a trooper. He fired off at least 40 arrows, with only one complaint. Plaintively heard, a small voice at the end of the archery line, about three quarters of the way through the tournament...

"If I'm bleeding, am I doing this wrong?"