Full Circle

It would seem that Australia is a hip place to be right now. Between Nicole Kidman's latest epic saga and Geoff and Liz's blog, I have had Australia on my mind. Nothing is more quintessentially Australian than the boomerang. I just recently found my only remaining boomerang, which was made by one of the Pacific Northwest's most famous, boomerang designers. My friend Randy introduced me to the art of boomerangs back in the mid 90's. At the time, one of the most remarkable boomerang makers in the world of boomeranging lived in Eugene. His name was TW Smith. One spring day we decided to take Randy's young daughters down to the Amazon fields and toss booms. While we were tossing, we noticed another fellow throwing in the distance. By the accuracy and pace of the fellows throws we knew immediately that it had to be TW. We decided to go and have a visit with the legend. TW had been known around the U of O campus more for his tenacity at ping pong than as a boomerang maker. He was also notorious for having wickedly sweaty, frothing arm pits that, along with his tie dyed tank tops, were his trademark at the tables. That day at Amazon was no different. TW was working up a sweat throwing a handful of different boomerangs out and back again. It was incredible to watch. He had boomerangs of all shapes and sizes each unique designed to produce various trajectories. He could make them fly out in long swooping arches or quickly back to himself with a lightning toss. He had some that he had shaped like stick men that were designed to corkscrew down from a lofty height. All the while he was chatting away about boomerangs being a metaphor for life or getting carried on in finite detail about the aerodynamic design. Then, without breaking eye contact he would slap his hands together above his head catching the descending boom with ease. A conversation with TW was a bit mad scientist, a bit throw back hippie, and a bit crazed. The man was a genius when it came to designing boomerangs. Two weeks later Randy's wife was in the grocery line down at a store called Oasis when the woman behind her said, "This might sound strange, but I just noticed from looking at your checkbook that your last name is Free." Gwen was a bit unnerved; this woman had just looked over her shoulder and read her checkbook. It turned out that the woman had the same last name. Then the woman said, "you know I got an odd call the other night from a man, I think, was trying to locate your husband. The reason it was so unusual was that he was a bit flustered and went on about needing Randy to do a job for him selling boomerangs." Randy and Gwen had an unlisted number, so TW was unable to track them down until Gwen coincidently ran into the only other "Free" in our city of over 100,000 residents. As it turned out, in a fit of panic, TW had looked through the phonebook to find Randy because he wanted hire us to work for him out at the Country Fair selling boomerangs. I already had a pass for the fair and Randy wasn't going to make it either, but we both regreted not getting the chance to work with TW. That was to be his last fair as a boomerang maker. A couple weeks after the fair someone stole all of the frames for his different boomerang models and it kind of sent him over the edge. In fact it wasn't long after that I ran into TW and he informed me that he was done making boomerangs. I will try and find TW. Seeing that his family has tried to contact him on the comments.