March winds always back memories of when I was a young boy and my love of flying a kite. Times where tough in our household with 3 siblings. Kites cost a dime at the local 5 & 10 store. Guess you haven't seen one of those stores in a long time? I was too poor to buy a store bought kite so I made my own.First you needed a big brown paper sack, two sticks, some string, glue and a piece of cloth to make a tail. The big brown sack was cut so it would lie in one large flat piece. I would find some round weed stalks that grew down by the creek. They were about a half inch in diameter and very strong. The sticks were arranged in a cross pattern with the vertical one longer that the other one. They were tied together with some string forming the cross. Around the outside of the cross you attached a string in each stalk by silting it with a knife. Once you had the outline of your kite you placed the cross onto your brown sack and traced a line about an inch bigger than your cross. You would turn the sack's extra inch over the string and glue the paper around the cross. I would mix some flour and water to make my glue. Yeah, we were poor!! once the glue dried you need a long piece of cloth to make a tail for your kite. The stronger the wind the longer a tail should be. Mom always had a big stool of strong thread that was used to attach to the center of the cross. My kite is ready for a flight.
Only one place in the neighborhood to fly my kite. The Ward's vacant field by their home that had no trees or electric wires. Test to see which way the wind was blowing and run with the kite and give it more line until it was airborne. What a thrill it was to see my kite soar into the sky. If every thing was right with your creation it flew effortless in the strong wind.
Several times it flew out of sight and when reeled back to earth it would have ice on the kite. Once I built a kite out of aluminum foil and when it was almost out of sight I cut the string. A radio station was about a half a mile away and people began calling the station reporting a flying saucer. Those were the good old days. I might go to town this afternoon and buy me a real kite?? I'm just about over being poor????
I remember painting newspaper with the flour and water paste and allowing it to dry to make a kite with... I guess the paste made the newspaper stronger... Or I used paint if there was any left over that I could use...either one seemed to work... I don't remember ever having a store bought kite either... I don't guess I even knew the store had them... What fun..!!
ReplyDeleteI made several kits as a kid as well Nick. None of mine ever flew too well because I never knew the ratio of width vs the length of the sticks! I was lucky and had a Sealtest milkman that liked me and he gave me one of their paper advertising kites each spring. I would bum those really kool plastic kites from our Sinclair gas station too. I remember a Mobile kite from our gas station after the Sinclair went belly up that looked great in the sky with the winged horse on it. Thanks for jarring the memory banks today.
ReplyDeleteMy kites were all pretty amateur and made from scraps of paper, string, rags and junk laying around our house and my room. I don't thing I ever made a kite that actually flew. :>}
ReplyDeleteLOL Nick, I always love your stories..
ReplyDeleteHugs
I remember once, my sister and I decided to see how high we could get our kite. It was one of those perfect days for kite flying. We started out with about 1000 feet of string, that soon ran out, so while one held the kite the other one ran to the drug store for some more string, we did this about 3 times, we had over 3600 feet of string, hooked on that kite. It took about 2 hours to bring that kite back down. We were amazed that the string didn't break, and that we were able to get it safely back to earth. This will never happen again in my lifetime, but I will always remember that day.
ReplyDeleteSounds like fun. We used to get our kites from the hobby store. They were plastic, and had two wings and a center. More like the shape of a fighter jet. That brings back a lot of memories. Thanks.
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