Ray Incorvaia reached into a row of chairs behind him Saturday and held the hand of his wife, Dawn, just as an instructor told the class of hopeful archers that it didn’t really matter if their arrows struck a bull’s-eye.
“It’s Valentine’s weekend,” Summit Metro Parks naturalist Meghan Doran reminded the group. “So give lots of compliments, lots of love.”
Temperatures at Firestone Park on Saturday morning hadn’t yet climbed out of the single digits, and snow was falling again as men and women gathered in the warmth of the Coventry Oaks Pavilion for the Metro Park’s first archery class, indoors, for couples.
The Incorvaias of Cuyahoga Falls heard about the class from friends Chad Harvey, 38, and Nikki Lenke, 34, who also signed up.
“When Chad asked me to do this, I asked him if he was going to wear a diaper and a sash,” Lenke said.
Harvey conceded he hadn’t considered the class was the day before Valentine’s Day.
With a nod to Cupid, he quickly offered that he does remember their first date: “It was June 7, 2014.”
Lenke smiled, tilted her head and told him, “I could never remember exactly when.”
Archery in Cupid’s mythological time wasn’t as complicated as it is today.
When artists portray the winged, chubby cherub, he’s almost always flinging an arrow mid-flight without concern for shooting out his eye (or anyone else’s).
But half of Saturday’s archery class was devoted to the finer points of the bows and arrows and to safety. Before students left their seats, they learned about arrow rests and nock indicators and fletching.
They discovered it doesn’t matter whether you’re right- or left-handed in archery. It’s all about which of your eyes — left or right — is dominant.
And they picked up archery commands. When naturalist Doran squeezed a handheld whistle twice, it signaled the archers to get a bow; one whistle signaled them to shoot an arrow; three whistles signaled an all-clear to retrieve arrows they had shot; and five whistles meant stop, someone is in danger.
Ray Incorvaia, 30, said the last time he shot an arrow was in Boy Scouts decades earlier. Dawn Incorvaia, 36, said she, too, had dabbled in archery one year at summer camp.
The couple, whose first date was at Zephyr Pub in Kent, have been married about 2½ years and never imagined celebrating Valentine’s Day with archery.
“But this is fun,” Dawn Incorvaia said as their friends — Harvey and Lenke — stepped up for their turn behind a bow.
During the first round of shooting arrows, the couples aimed at blank black targets, trying to hit anything.
They stepped it up during the second round to yellow, blue and pink concentric circles.
Finally, during the third round, they aimed at Valentine’s Day targets, a center heart, surrounded by smaller hearts and cupids.
“Did you hear that?” Lenke asked Harvey as they took their place for the final round. “Don’t make it too hard for your partner.”
Lenke shot first, hitting nothing but the backstop.
Harvey’s first arrow sliced into a tiny heart.
Lenke’s second shot stabbed a Cupid.
And then Harvey, with perfect aim, drilled the center heart, piercing the bull’s-eye of love.
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.