A try for Howard Hill
Verfasst: 07.01.2013, 23:35
A try for Howard Hill, Manuscript by Peter O. Stecher, 2007
In the 1950s, Howard Hill got USD 5,000 for a 30-minute-performance. A fortune, even today, when you think how much he earned per minute.
At Grant Park in Chicago, he was performing in front of 35,000 spectators. After the archery shooting exhibition, the crowd tore the shirt off his back and also took his bow and arrows for souvenirs.
Hill’s characteristic shooting style has influenced generations of archers. He made reasonable, serious people, until then regarding the bow and arrow as kids’ stuff, buy a longbow, don a back quiver and shoot at really, really big animals. It was Howard Hill who made the longbow, as serious hunting weapon, popular worldwide. Pope, Young or Bear were no showmen of Hill’s caliber; he really knew how to present himself, how to make the most of his shows. I think Howard Hill was the only one who soley made a living doing archery, without being among the major archery manufacturers.
Hill epitomized the perfect sportsman, typical for his era. An adventurer able to enthrall others, a gentleman and a tough guy at the same time. One might meet Howard Hill at a Hollywood party, surrounded by movie stars fascinated by his Alabama-slang-Hill-stories, when he was catching a bear in Wyoming with the lasso or killing that dangerous shark, such a devious beast, with the longbow under water, using his home-made diving equipment, with Errol Flyinn at the pump. One could also meet Hill on Catalina Island, preparing “Hill stew” at the campfire for his hunting chums after a bloodcurdling wild boar hunt. In order to play a joke on his fellas, he also cooked a fox which he had taken before. A typical Howard-Hill-joke.
Even today, lots of archers worldwide use the straight-ended longbow. Custom bowyers and major manufacturers, for example, Martin Archery, have this bow type in their program; whereas, at the same time, the development of the modern longbow goes more and more into the direction of “hybrid bow”; that means a heavy, long middle part, often with recurve handle, and strong reflex-deflex limbs, using arrows as light as possible. Today’s Hill-stye bows (with fiberglass) go back to the 1950s.
What is it that makes Hill-style bows so attractive? Purely rational and objective arguments will not give a watertight explanation why these simple, straight, plain bows with the deep, usually straight handle, still represent the Nec Plus Ultra in bow making for countless “Hill-disciples”. What is it that makes these archers smile at modern longbow material?
------------------------------> Read the complete manuscript:
http://peterostecher.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/legends-in-archery-a-try-for-howard-hill/
In the 1950s, Howard Hill got USD 5,000 for a 30-minute-performance. A fortune, even today, when you think how much he earned per minute.
At Grant Park in Chicago, he was performing in front of 35,000 spectators. After the archery shooting exhibition, the crowd tore the shirt off his back and also took his bow and arrows for souvenirs.
Hill’s characteristic shooting style has influenced generations of archers. He made reasonable, serious people, until then regarding the bow and arrow as kids’ stuff, buy a longbow, don a back quiver and shoot at really, really big animals. It was Howard Hill who made the longbow, as serious hunting weapon, popular worldwide. Pope, Young or Bear were no showmen of Hill’s caliber; he really knew how to present himself, how to make the most of his shows. I think Howard Hill was the only one who soley made a living doing archery, without being among the major archery manufacturers.
Hill epitomized the perfect sportsman, typical for his era. An adventurer able to enthrall others, a gentleman and a tough guy at the same time. One might meet Howard Hill at a Hollywood party, surrounded by movie stars fascinated by his Alabama-slang-Hill-stories, when he was catching a bear in Wyoming with the lasso or killing that dangerous shark, such a devious beast, with the longbow under water, using his home-made diving equipment, with Errol Flyinn at the pump. One could also meet Hill on Catalina Island, preparing “Hill stew” at the campfire for his hunting chums after a bloodcurdling wild boar hunt. In order to play a joke on his fellas, he also cooked a fox which he had taken before. A typical Howard-Hill-joke.
Even today, lots of archers worldwide use the straight-ended longbow. Custom bowyers and major manufacturers, for example, Martin Archery, have this bow type in their program; whereas, at the same time, the development of the modern longbow goes more and more into the direction of “hybrid bow”; that means a heavy, long middle part, often with recurve handle, and strong reflex-deflex limbs, using arrows as light as possible. Today’s Hill-stye bows (with fiberglass) go back to the 1950s.
What is it that makes Hill-style bows so attractive? Purely rational and objective arguments will not give a watertight explanation why these simple, straight, plain bows with the deep, usually straight handle, still represent the Nec Plus Ultra in bow making for countless “Hill-disciples”. What is it that makes these archers smile at modern longbow material?
------------------------------> Read the complete manuscript:
http://peterostecher.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/legends-in-archery-a-try-for-howard-hill/