I started going to Erno's Archery shop with my dad in the early 70's when it was ran from his house, out of a converted garage turned sales floor. The shooting lanes were in the backyard. One thing that has always stuck in my mind was the pop machine near the sales front door. It had several varieties of pop that was in the old glass bottles, you knew which one to pull by the cap, and there were three rows on the bottom with the caps covered. These were for the special pop the men drank, i.e. beer. My dad bought my first bow there, a Bear Kodiak recurve I believe.
The business got too big sometime in the middle 7's and they built a shop near Freeland, MI. By the early 80's the kids starting getting involved and putting their mark on the business. The line expanded out to darts and knives. This was at a time I started throwing darts and bought my first good set there. Erno's then started a traveling dart league, building portable throwing lanes and traveling with them to various venues. I was working at a restaurant in Midland called Sullivan's, and we hosted the league once a week during the winter for two years.
I have since moved to the west side of the state and have not had reason to be back to the Freeland area since the late 80's. It saddens me that one of the icons of my youth is no longer in existence.
Jack Retherford
