I flew a kite last weekend at the Montrose beach. It was so much fun. The strong winds characteristic of Chicago’s Lake Michigan pulled me along a few times. The entire experience which lasted for perhaps a little over an hour reminded me of my experiences with Kites many many years back.
I flew my first kite when I was 4. It was a windy, cloudy sunday afternoon and my uncle who now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts had paid us a visit. Being a sunday afternoon, we were eating our usual fufu and pea nut soup. Uncle had promised us many times that he was going to make us some pretty cool kites. And he did exactly that. I tore a piece of paper from my writing book and took two broom sticks from the broom used to sweep the living room. For the tail of the kite, I got a hold of the most recent addition to our rag collection - a piece of cloth that had fallen from grace from Mom’s wardrobe. I cut the rag into 1 inch thin strands and tied them together to make a kite tail about 10 feet long. One last thign we neded was glue - to keep the broom sticks which were the frames of the kite attached to the paper. Our starchy fufu made a perfect substitute for glue.
After about an hour of creativity on the main verandah - our workshop, our kite was ready to be launched. I held the nylon thread which was a little less than 10 feet and run as fast as a 4 year old could. Within minutes the paper kite was in the air. It didn’t stay for long since with all the fufu I had eaten earlier, I didn’t have the energy to keep running.