Life Style : 79-Year-Old Scores a Bull’s-Eye as an Instructor

Three years ago Cinnamon Hoeschler and her mother stopped by Rancho Park in Cheviot Hills to watch Francis Peeler teach archery. Today 14-year-old Cinnamon is a champ with the bow and arrow.

Four months ago Christopher Hall, 8, was on a Sunday run with his mother and, out of curiosity, they detoured to the Rancho Park archery range. Today, Christopher has a friend and a role model named Francis Peeler.

Wandered Over

Nine weeks ago Bridgette Kelley, 36-year-old project coordinator for a record company, spread an old blanket on the lawn at Rancho Park and settled down to read a Danielle Steel novel called “Remembrance.” At a slow spot in the book she glanced up, noticed the archery range, wandered over and started a habit: five days a week of shooting arrows under the direction of Francis Peeler.

Francis Peeler: musician, bicyclist, leather worker, hunter, animal lover, philosopher, friend, archer and archery teacher par excellence who gives free lessons with bows and arrows provided by a nonprofit foundation.

He is 79 years old, quick-witted, funny when he wants to be; he has a way with kids that would make any parent jealous and is so dedicated to teaching archery that he volunteers at Rancho Park from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 362 days a year including Christmas, New Year’s and Thanksgiving days. He’d work every day, but city regulations force him to lock up on Labor Day, Memorial Day and July 4.

“I have no chicks, no kids, no cat and no canary, no dogs, no fish and no reason to go home,” Peeler said with a laugh. He’s a man who shoots arrows so straight he hits bull’s-eyes while blindfolded--but he loves to talk obliquely.

Not that Peeler won’t talk straight when the need arises. For example, a bunch of rowdy 5th-graders tossing rocks at his tamed squirrels just beyond the archery range fence at once revealed the old man’s direct approach and his way with children.

If anything were to trigger Peeler’s temper, it would be kids pegging rocks at his squirrels, creatures he addresses fondly by name as they climb out of pine and fig trees to skitter into his lap for peanuts. But nothing seems to make Peeler angry.

“You are welcome to be here,” Peeler told the 5th-graders more firmly than genially. Immediately the stern tone juxtaposed with the hospitable message stilled the jabbering, which died to a few whispers. “You are welcome to watch us shoot,” Peeler continued, as the 10 or 12 youngsters warily gave him full attention. “You are welcome to come onto the archery range. You are even welcome to come back on Saturday and I’ll teach you to shoot.” Appreciation and respect crossed the young faces. “But you are not welcome to throw stones at the squirrels,” the septuagenarian concluded emphatically.

Raised by Aunt

Some of the kids came through the archery range gate to investigate, a couple hung around to talk, none returned Saturday . . . and not another rock got hurled at Tiny, Roughneck, Mama, Pee Wee or any of the other squirrels to whom Peeler doles out peanuts from a 25-pound sack he keeps in a cabinet at the archery range.

Because his parents had seven children, and his aunt Florence Work had none, Francis Monroe Peeler was raised by his Aunt Flo in Tuskegee, Ala., across Franklin Road from Tuskegee Institute, academic home of two black American heroes: George Washington Carver, who lectured and studied there, and Booker T. Washington, the institute’s first head.

“When I was 5 or 6 I used to ride on the back of Booker T. Washington’s horse,” Peeler recalled. “His daughter-in-law was my third-grade teacher.

“In the sixth grade I carried George Washington Carver’s lunches to him. He’d stand at his window and talk to God just like I talk to you.”

Peeler stood up. He became George Washington Carver as the pioneer scientist stood more than seven decades ago staring out the window of his Tuskegee laboratory, holding a branch from a diseased tree: “Now God, you made this tree, you made this branch,” intoned Peeler cum Carver. “Now--if you will--show me a way to cure it.”

The branch was from a peach tree, and Carver found a way to cure the disease, Peeler recalled.

When Peeler was 9, his grandmother taught him to make bows and arrows.

“I cut the willows from the forest and treated them with fire to make bows. The arrows came from reeds I cut in the swamp, and the arrowheads were old Indian arrowheads I found near Euphaupee Creek.”

Ordinary twine rubbed with beeswax became bow strings.

Peeler shot his first rabbit when he was 11. His eyes still sparkle when he describes the event as one of the big thrills of his life. He loves to hunt, treasures the challenge of stalking a buck until he is just 75 feet away, holds close the pleasure of time spent in the woods.

He has a couple of firm rules: “I never shoot from a blind. That’s stealing. And I never kill any animal I can’t use.”

A high school football injury to his left knee--and 79 years--have combined to limit Peeler’s hunting trips for deer, moose, quail, dove and pheasant. He concentrates now on target archery.

Retired Carpenter

But he is also an accomplished alto saxophone player, is learning the clarinet, makes leather archery accessories for sale in his one-bedroom South-Central Los Angeles apartment, and rides a 19-pound bicycle that until two years ago he took on 100-mile “centuries.”

Peeler retired in 1971, after 21 years as a carpenter with the Department of Water and Power. Before that he worked at numerous carpentry jobs, as a hospital orderly, a personnel clerk in the Army cavalry, a mail sorter on a train between New Mexico and Arizona, and a turret lathe operator in a defense plant during World War II.

Clearly, Peeler is a man who likes to keep busy. He even keeps busy during his leisure time, much of which has been spent training wild animals at Rancho Park.

Sitting in the sun--he never sits in the shade if he can help it--Peeler spotted a blue jay as it lit on top of the archery range fence.

“Hey, Geek, come on,” he commanded the jay, and whistled. Then he stuck a peanut in his mouth and Geek flew over, plucked it from Peeler’s lips, and flew off.

“He’s taking it to Molly and their young ones,” the archer observed. Geek’s mate Molly nests in a nearby tree.

‘A Really Great Man’

Peeler’s way with animals, his way with kids, his ability to spin yarns, and his expertise with bows and arrows make his archery range a gathering place for all kinds of people, from Christopher Hall, who has never taken an archery lesson, to Cinnamon Hoeschler, who this year placed No. 1 in her age group in a city archery tournament, No. 2 in a state tournament and No. 3 in a Western regional competition.

“I think he’s a really great man,” said the blond eighth-grader from Santa Monica. “I think of him as my grandfather. He is so kind to everybody and he has so much knowledge about everything. And he’s really a good coach. He gives of himself. He helps everyone.”

Jim Easton agrees with Hoeschler. Easton, who was archery commissioner for the 1984 Olympics, is president of Easton Aluminum Co. in Van Nuys, a company which, with its subsidiaries, manufacturers archery equipment.

“Francis Peeler is a truly amazing person. He just continues to give,” said Easton, whose Easton Sports Development Foundation, “with help from the entire archery manufacturing community,” provides the free bows, arrows and accessories at Rancho Park.

“I think he is a very good coach,” Easton continued. He is able to get kids started and get them well on the way to be world-class archers. He has never had the opportunity to take an archer to a world-class level, but he’s got the potential, and some day it will happen.”

Kept Complaining

Whether or not the people who come to his range are potential world-class archers is not the most important thing in Peeler’s life. Besides, it’s impossible to tell at first. In any event, if a student cares enough to try, Peeler cares enough to teach.

Three years ago a youngster came to Rancho Park to learn archery. Her form was abysmal, her arrows fishtailed through the air, she couldn’t hit the target, and she kept complaining, over and over, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

“I gave her pencil and paper and told her to write ‘can’t’ and then unwrite it,” Peeler said. She did that, writing the word and erasing the apostrophe and the t.

Peeler told the girl that “can’t” is pretty close to “can,” and that she could be a good archer. The two of them went back to work, Peeler holding her left arm to keep it straight, her right elbow to correct her form, telling her to pull the bowstring to her chin and then lean forward and touch it with her nose.

A week or so ago, asked how she was doing in archery, that same girl responded matter of factly, “I’m hoping to go to the ’92 Olympics. I think I have a pretty good chance.”

“She can do it,” Peeler said.

The girl’s name: Cinnamon Hoeschler.

Christopher Hall, a bright third-grader who lives near Rancho Park, observed that, “Francis and I are sort of friends. I go there and we talk.” Although Christopher plans to learn to shoot a bow and arrow, right now having a friend 71 years his senior is all he wants from Peeler.

‘Highest Paycheck’

Kids are the biggest part of Peeler’s life. “Kids are home sweet home to me,” he said. “They are part of the reason the Good Lord put me here. They keep me active, they keep me young, and maybe I keep one or two of them straight.

“People say I’m crazy to work here at no pay. I tell them I get paid. Just last week I got one of the highest paychecks I ever earned.

“There was this boy with cerebral palsy. He kept saying he couldn’t shoot. I said, ‘Jimmy, you are no longer Jimmy Can’t Do It. Now you’re Jimmy CAN Do It.’ Then I spent 15 minutes putting a bow in his hand, helping him draw and release.

“We shot nine arrows, eight in the target. Then all by himself he shot three more. Two hit the target, one in the bull’s-eye.

“He finished, and said, his voice kind of shaking, ‘We did it!’

“I said, ‘What did you say?’

“He said it again: ‘We did it!’ “I said, ‘No, Jimmy, the last three arrows you did it.’

“He thought a minute, and gave me a big smile, and he said, ‘I did it! I did it!!’

“That’s enough pay for me.”