Well, I might as well tell you that I was easily influenced by movies
when I was young. When my brother and I watch a sword fighting
movie, we would pretty quickly knock together some passable replicas and
get to work trying to have an awesome looking sword fight. We watched
a movie called 'The Young Robin Hood' about a boy who uses crude
medieval peasant weapons to defeat evil in the form of the sheriff of
Nottingham. We were so riled up my the possibilities of defeating
evil with weapons we could manufacture that we got right to work. I
made a 'quarter staff' which is a middle English term for
your-mom's-broom-handle. Matt made a bow out of a curved branch and
some string and an couple of arrows from some dowels my mom had
graciously used as stiffeners in her curtains but no longer kept
strict count of. They were of a size that perfectly fit into a pencil
sharpener that we had mounted to the wall of the utility room for
just such a task of putting a point on a dowel. Maybe it wasn't just
for that, but it worked. Then I, outfitted with a stick just like
Little John and Matt outfitted with Robin Hood's iconic bow set off
to find evil. We looked for some of the back yard neighbors but they
were not to be found. Then we looked for a kid named JD or JT who was
supposed to be fairly evil, also no dice. We practiced our skills with
our weapons a little bit but what we really craved was battle to test
our new powers. I got too bored and decide to give Matt a little
practice whack with my quarter staff. He felt like that had not been a good
idea and chased me around threatening to do me grievous bodily harm.
I once again took a page out of Merry Men's book and ran to a really
big tree that was in our front yard climbed up to a crotch that was 8
feet off the ground and began to mock my pursuer and try and poke him
hard in the face with my stick if he tried to climb up. I was sitting
up in the tree laughing at him with my legs hanging down but out of
reach when he threatened to shoot me with his bow and arrow. I knew
from my previous attempt that using the bravado bluff did not work
but I decided to see if that was really true and I told him that he
didn't dare shoot me with his bow and arrow. He dared. He 'oh
yeah-ed?' me, notched and arrow and shot it into my calf from about
10 feet away. The arrow was well aimed and swift and stuck deep into
my leg. That hurt. I cried and screamed until my mom came out to see
what had happened and the whole time Matt was 'I told you so-ing' me
in various ways. When my mom got to me she helped he out of the tree
and pulled the arrow out of my leg. Luckily we had not developed the
technology of barbs and it pulled out fairly smoothly. I was
whimpering and demanding justice when Matt came around unrepentantly
telling my Mom some crazy story about how he was hit hard with a
quarter staff. Somehow my mom interpreted that as me starting the
whole thing and getting what I deserved. I think we played Robin Hood
more times but I don't remember turning the weapons on my brother
ever again. I definitely never tried to bluff him again seeing as how
the first two times turned out so poorly. Oh, and I still have a
perfectly round scar halfway up my left calf.
