K--is for Kites

Today is much too windy for flying kites, but thought I might share some kite memories...

It was always fun when Dad would bring home a kite and a roll (spool) of kite string, probably from Shafers' variety store. It arrived as two lightweight joined sticks rolled up with the kite paper, which in my memory was always red. We would carefully unroll the paper, rotate the sticks to form a T, then hook the points of the diamond-shaped paper to the slots in the ends of the sticks. Next we tied a length of kite string to the ends of the shorter cross stick, bowing it up to just the right curve. Another length of string (maybe two feet long?) was tied to the longer stick through a couple of holes poked through the paper a few inches from the top and several inches from the bottom. The roll of kite string was securely tied toward the top of this string. A tail of old nylon stockings attached to the bottom was the finishing touch.

Then, it was time to go to a pasture at the edge of our small town and go fly a kite! If the launch was successful, the kite would soar up and up as the string unrolled in your hand! One had to watch as the string came closer to being completely unrolled, to be sure it was attached to the core of the roll. Otherwise the kite could take off on its own for parts unknown! When it was time to head home, the string was wound back up on the spool. This took considerably more time than letting it out! More than once I may or may not have been late getting home before the six o'clock whistle blew!

At some point we bought kite string winders, but even that took awhile, especially if we had combined more than one spool of string for reaching even higher heights with our simple paper kites.

Now, the kites we take out are most likely to be the two- or even four-lined stunt kites that I previously wrote about on this page. But the fun of those first kites, and the family and friends with whom I made and flew them, remains!