I was born
December 24, 1948.
My Daddy,
Stinson Hill, and Howard Hill were all three there during my birth.
Once I had
arrived, Daddy, wanting to impress Uncle Howard,
slipped outside the small doctor's clinic located in Wilsonville,
Alabama, and took his pocket knife and cut off a small limb from a
bush that grew outside by the front door. He then came back and got a
short piece of string from the doctor's nurse and tied the string to
both ends of the small limb in order to simulate a little longbow
hoping to impress Howard Hill. The two entered the room where I lay
beside my mother, Mary Elizabeth (Tinney) Hill.
Daddy kept
the little self made longbow hid behind his back till he thought
that the right time to present it would be a perfect surprise to
Howard Hill. There I was kicking my legs and moving my arms and
hands about as all newborns are known to do, realizing that I had
entered this new world after spending 9 months in the dark, inside
my mother. All eyes of the two men were looking at me, and I was
looking at them smiling. Daddy held the little longbow over me, and
immediately I grasped the bowstring with my right hand and would not
let go. Daddy said to Uncle Howard, "Look there, Howard, he's an
Archer just like you!" Howard Hill, with a big grin upon his face,
said, "That he is!" From that day forth, I have been a longbowman
and will remain a longbowman till the day I die.
As years
passed, I never let my archery be far from me. I made many longbows
as a child for myself and friends, plus arrows from most any basic
straight stick. Even though those childhood longbows and arrows were
quite crude, I managed to kill rabbits, snakes, rats, and hawks on
the fly while crawling across our sedge grass field, shaking the
tall grass, imitating small animals, and hoping a hawk would see
what I was doing while in hiding and fly over me so that I could
shoot one of my arrows at it, making a kill, and I got quite good at
it, killing several that would come from time to time and kill our
free roaming chickens. I learned at a young age how to call birds
into our range. Crows, quail, and others, including wild turkeys, all
with the use of my mouth. Later I could also call beaver,
muskrat, nutria, plus alligator into bow range.
My bow and
arrow building, plus other archery accessories, continued throughout
my lifetime. Howard Hill, during his visits to my home over the
years, often tutored me in the art of shooting, but it was not until
he moved back to Alabama in 1964, retiring, that he spent extra time
with me, teaching me the method of how he made his shots with his
longbow look so easy. He also taught me how to build better made
longbows and arrows, which I later excelled upon, and during which
time I became the largest longbow manufacturer in the world. During
this time, my expertise was sought after in shooting exhibitions,
film work, TV commercials, and promotion of archery events
nationwide, including my own for 20 years straight, running the
Howard Hill World Longbow & Recurve Championship held in
Wilsonville, Alabama, Howard Hill's true home and birthplace, which
attracted great archers plus celebrities from around the world.
Retired now
from longbow manufacturing, I spend my time hunting, fishing,
writing, and enjoying the many thousands of friendships I have
gathered, considering them all to be my family as well.
I refuse to
sit on my butt and do nothing, so I spend a portion of my time while
retired supplying others with what they need in archery so they too
can enjoy the same success that I have in the sport of archery
during my own lifetime. I make only one request: archery broadheads,
plus archery leather goods, putting a piece of my life into each and
everything I do, not wanting my ability as to how to make be lost or
forgotten. Archery is the King of Sports, and I learned it all from
the World's Greatest Archer, Howard Hill, whom I will forever be
indebted to for choosing me as his successor to carry on for him
once he departed. He said that I was as close to him as if I had
truly been his birth son. I, to this day, consider Howard Hill to be
my second daddy.
