May 25, 2016 (Tuesday)
When I was 5 or 6 years old, my father made me a kite. He used a few twigs gathered from the yard, a newspaper, some home-made glue, rags for a tail, and a ball of twine. I have only faint memories of his work, but it must have looked something like this:
No doubt this was something he had learned to do as a child. Perhaps his father taught him how to do it, and now he was showing me how to do it too. It worked. We found a place free from high lines and trees, and flew the kite. It was fun.
In the movie, “Mary Poppins,” there was a scene about flying kites. It was backed up by a song. The song included a chorus:
Oh, oh, oh!
Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!
It’s a happy scene in which a man burdened down with the cares of adult responsibilities and the worries of life becomes a child again, flying a kite.
The memories of that kite made with twigs, newspaper, rags and flour glue around 1936 or 1937, warm my heart as I think about my father handing me the kite string to let the “super flyer” tug on my clenched hand from its perch in the sky. The memory of that day tugs at my heart as I recall that my father was a good-natured, kind, quiet, hard-working man who showed his love by taking time to be with his son.