A spiritual connection

On a lark, bought myself an Eagle boom for an early Christmas present… wooden, advertised at 40 yards. For every waking minute since, booms have become my obsession.

I am an aging hippie, own a PR firm, and am about to turn 55. I hike and throw rocks to stay in shape and am a pretty decent racquetball player as would be expected after playing for thirty years. While my hair is falling, my belly growing, and my ankles corroding… I still have a half decent throwing arm.

To my absolute amazement, the Eagle boomerang traveled far and low and came right back. I could not get over the circular flight path and threw it again and again laughing every time it came back, catching many on even the first day. That night I lay awake and kept going over its flight trajectory in my head. I would wonder why I have never seen anyone else ever play with a boomerang, why so rare and unpopular? While I was pleased with the Eagle, I talked my sons into buying me a better boom. If a 40 yard rating is cool, 65 yards ought to be better, so I had them order a Delicate Arch SE.

The first time I threw it, I enjoyed such an ecstasy that you might call it a spiritual experience. The thing just kept going and going and going and it did a low perfect circle and came right back. I lay awake at night picturing that second quadrant, when the `rang takes that first 90 degree turn yet keeps traveling further and further away until just at that last impossible instant, at 180 degrees, its starts coming right back home.

I was in awe.

I always regarded Frisbee playing to be a contemplative experience, but this boomerang throwing was otherworldly.

For a while, I started obsessing on long distance booms. The 65 yarder relegated my 40 yard eagle to the discarded toy box. I started fantasizing about joining the "100 meter club". I wondered about the world record for distance for 55 year old bald, fat men.

When I splattered the delicate arch against a light pole at the soccer field, I searched every web site to find a 100 meter version of the Eagle and Arch that had given me such pleasure. Having 18 and 20 year old sons to occassionally throw with is very rewarding and the younger one gave me a reality check. "Dad, why do you want to buy a thin plastic thing, hard to see and hard to catch and hard to find… when those clunky wooden boomerangs give you so much pleasure.

This morning, here in Royal Palm Beach Florida, for about the tenth day in a row, I took my 80 pound, ten year old red dog and my three boomerangs to my favorite throwing location. It's an abandoned golf course with hundreds of yards of wide fairways flanked by the most amazing ancient banyan trees. There is never a soul there, and the high grass, exotic trees, and warm moist air make it feel like an African plain. The weather has been cooperative, slight steady breeze, near 80 degrees today.

The Eagle is more fun to throw now that I have accepted it for what it is. My new Delicate Arch SE, against all odds, works just as well as the first one and I enjoy using it in all wind conditions. Even had the pleasure of throwing it through patchy fog the other morning. My idea of the perfect flight is one that travels so low that occasionally it even skims some of the higher grass in the second quadrant before rising and returning.

My third friend is a Kilimanjaro. It's a big, clunky lumbering piece of lumber that is uncannily stable in flight and you can actually hear it "cuchunga, cuchunga, cuchunga" struggling through the air as if it is a slow steam locomotive under load. My wife throws it occasionally and she achieves such a slow spin that the thing looks more like a hand glider than a spinning rang.

Boomerang is my new hobby, my new exercise, my new meditation. You guys on this board are the only ones that might understand that.

Denis Eirikis - USA - February 2008

If you have a favorite boomerang story, we will post it.

Email details to us. Please include your Name, country, and Date of story.